*You did, did you? Na, don't think so. Perhaps in your delluted [sic] dreams, but hardly in real life*
Well then, genius, try and debate the concepts I proposed in my last posting, instead of writing garbage and then moving on. You didn't even try and support your polar bear example; you merely cut-and-pasted it from some denialist web site as if that was enough proof. Have you read the Tilman & May article (1994) in Nature that defined and described the concept of the extinction debt? Or any articles from Martin Scheffer and colleagues in which the concept of 'ecological tipping points' is addressed? Do you think you win kudos merely by stating something you read from some right wing blog and rehashing it here?
Truth is, Pentaxz, you can hardly write proper grammar or spell correctly, let alone formulate a cohesive scientific argument. You seem to think that stating something as fact in your own deluded worldview makes it the truth.
SteveR, I would normally agree with your comment. The reason that I expend energy writing to blogs in my capacity as a scientist is that I hope to counter arguments with respect to various aspects of global change where commentators downplay the human fingerprint, and second, to help those who are sitting on the fence realize that the scientific evidence for various anthropogenic threats is immense in the empirical literature. If I can change a few minds by arguing from my area of expertise (population ecology) than I feel like I have made a contribution. But there are those who write into blogs - Olaus being one of them - who exhibit wilful ignorance that is embedded on the basis of their own political and ideological agendas. Not once has Olaus hinted that he read the scientific literature in peer-reviewed journals or that he understands it. He instead relies for his information - like PentaxZ - on the musings of right wing bloggers and web sites like WUWT, where the material is clearly driven by a political ideology IMO.
Although pentaX is usually just a boring nuisance, I gotta say I liked the link to Tallbloke. It gave me a nice quote from Hans Jelbring calling his former supervisor a dishonest scientist.
Of course, there are a lot of people who consider Hans Jelbring a dishonest scientist, so maybe he's just trying to put the blame for that on someone else...
Trooseptic, why would we ignore a local study of sea level rise (check the IPCC reports, it points out that sea level rise is not expected to be uniform), a study that discusses stratospheric cooling and its effect on ozone (hmmmm, stratospheric cooling is a fingerprint of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increasing amounts of GHG, are you sure you wanted to point that study out?), and a third study that discusses the effect of AMO on local SST on a millenium time-scale?
"Trooseptic" is Pentaxz. He gives himself away with bad punctuation, grammar and spelling and posting links that actually go against his point of view because he doesn't understand the contents of what he is posting.
Marco, I thought that the stratospheric cooling was supposed to appear over the tropics, it hasn't yet.
From wg1
There has been robust detection and attribution of anthropogenic influence on tropospheric warming, which does not depend on including stratospheric cooling in the fingerprint pattern of response. There are observational uncertainties in radiosonde and satellite records. Models generally predict a relative warming of the free troposphere compared to the surface in the tropics since 1979, which is not seen in the radiosonde record (possibly due to uncertainties in the radiosonde record) but is seen in one version of the satellite record, although not others (Section 9.4.4).
and
Simultaneous warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere due to natural factors is less likely than warming of the troposphere or cooling of the stratosphere alone. Cooling of the stratosphere is in part related to decreases in stratospheric ozone. Modelled and observational uncertainties as discussed under entries for tropospheric warming with additional uncertainties due to stratospheric observing systems and the relatively poor representations of stratospheric processes and variability in climate models
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. "
That applies to anyone trying to get the trolls to answer your questions or admit any error or in any other way expecting them to act like rational human beings rather than shit stains. Give it up, guys.
What is interesting is the tendency of the posters here to be so sure of their position as throw out insults vs. actually discussing the relevant issues in play.
Another shit-stain-on-humanity denialist, telling blatant lies and demonstrating rank hypocrisy. As with that other shit stain, Alex Harvey, the efforts of folks here to engage his arguments will be conveniently dismissed, and he will wield my telling the truth about what sort of person he is as a convenient tool of evasion.
Supply and demand is a system that works.
Most libertarians understand virtually nothing about economics, but this cretin seems to be below even those low standards.
I'm with David Duff. It's been freezing here... and more to come if cycle 25 is as predicted.
Well my warmy friends - who's looking through 'the round window' now ?
Anyone know about a study i heard (from Cornell I think) about aerosols maybe a month ago. It was a woman on NPR talking about their research that shows aerosols not only block some radiation, but that they can also have a decade effect mitigating CO2 by biological processes as a precipitate after coming out of the atmosphere.
This is the type of thing I have always thought if there were mitigating factors that biological ones might be more likely. But I have read nothing about it since
First of all Happy New Year to you all and I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves - I can't stand yet another dim, drear, wet, chilly Summer.
However, I have another reason to enter these august columns today because I wish to bring to your attention some very wise words of warning from Friedrich Hayek, delivered during his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Economics. Referring to the over-use and over-reliance on 'mathematical models', he said this, and I would simply urge you all to substitute the word 'economists' with 'global climate technologists':
âIt seems to me that this failure of the economists [global climate technologists] to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences â an attempt which in our field may lead to outright error. It is an approach which has come to be described as the âscientisticâ attitude â an attitude which, as I defined it some thirty years ago, âis decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed.ââ
The comments thread to the post is worth reading, too:
*I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves - I can't stand yet another dim, drear, wet, chilly Summer*
The U.K. experienced its second warmest year on record in 2011; same over here in the Netherlands. Spring was the warmest and driest yet recorded in both countries; autumn was also near the warmest and the driest as well. For the first time ever water restrictions almost had to be applied here in late November. The winter has so far seen record warmth: no frosts at all in December, and to my utter shock spring and summer annual plants - crucifers, umbellifers etc - are not only growing well but many are flowering in warm microclimates along south facing ditches and slopes. I spent the Christmas period on the island of Terscehlling and the level of plant growth along roadsides and medaows was something I have never seen at this time of year. Unprecedented. If this goes on it will cause havoc amongst a wide array of late winter-early spring ecological interactions, and further exacebrate phenological asynchronies.
Eastern North bAmerica has also had an exceptionally warm winter period: no snow at all in Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota, and a colleague at the University of Toronto told me that lakes in central Ontario that normally freeze in late Novemeber were still open just before Christmas.
Eastern North bAmerica has also had an exceptionally warm winter period:
Not just eastern North America. The Canadian prairies have been well above average, with my part of Manitoba being forecast to be 18C above normal today.
The words below are truly wise words, but of course they'll simply fly over David Duff's head:
> Fairness means "everyone wins" to you? That's your problem then, that's not what fairness means at all. Fairness is when the rules are applied equally to all no matter what someone might think of them.
If this goes on it will cause havoc amongst a wide array of late winter-early spring ecological interactions, and further exacebrate phenological asynchronies.
Absolutely, I have heard much about such disruption of late but I doubt Duffer can even parse those last three words without reference. Quite beyond his experience.
Of course, Duff's whinging about "it's just weather" has to do with the repeated attempts by denialists to claim that some "anomalously" cold or snowy weather over a very short time scale over a very small land area disproves the reality of climate change (aka "weather affects climate").
Whereas what we know of physics, of the atmospheric and oceanic circulatory systems, and weather variability, we would expect to find that the rapid human-induced global warming would result in a 'loading of the dice', so to speak, favouring increased quantity and severity of extreme hot weather events and fewer (though not, indeed never "no") extreme cold weather events (aka "climate affects weather").
Sure thing Duffo, but isn't it interesting that when the deniers conflate climate and weather its OK, but when their opponents do it the deniers scream foul play! Foul play!
Sunspot has honed the technique. He cuts-and-pastes obscure articles about cold weather events some place or other, than when others do the same with many more examples showing record high temperatures, extended heat waves etc., he goes off on a tangent about the evils of 'warmers' and how they just don't understand the importance of scale.
Tells me all I need to know about deniers: hypocrites one and all.
I would simply urge you all to substitute the word 'economists' with 'global climate technologists'
No-one here gives a flying one for your grubby urgings. Please take them, along with whatever thoughts wander into your head looking for something to connect with, elsewhere. I'd like to think we can have one Open Thread that doesn't devolve into 2500 vacuous, drivelling posts by Duff, but going on previous history...
IMHO, orthodox economists tend to try and fit reality into their models and theories, disregarding reality when it doesn't do what it should do.
Climate scientists tend to try to understand why reality is doing what it is doing, and use models as a tool for understanding. The models get dropped or their structure and interactions refined if they don't correspond to reality.
Hey Duff, did actually read that Freidrich Heydeck quote? He said that the problem with the economists is that they have (unsuccessfully) tried to "imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences".
Climate science is one of those "brilliantly successful physical sciences". Well done on the home goal!
If economists had even a fraction of the success of climate scientists with their predictions, the economies of World would not be in such a mess.
Climate models make an important contribution to our understanding of the effects of AGW but I too am concerned that they often exclude data related to Arctic slow feedbacks, particularly retreat of ice sheets, loss of albedo and increase in methane emissions.
How can one possibly predict likely movement in sea level rise and average global temperature without taking these matters into consideration?
I can't stand yet another dim, drear, wet, chilly Summer.
So you either live on the east coast of Australia which has been affected by a La Nina this summer (c'mon Dave, what does a La Nina do to the east coast of Australia?), or you are living on another planet somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.
And not 5 milliseconds after making this ludicrous and obvious comment related to local weather and local climate effects, you lambast others for countering with the same.
Heck Dave, why don't you just issue a signed declaration that everything to do with global warming is crap, and leave it at that? Then at least we'd save some time and effort here.
The problem is since Duff regularly transposes "weather" and "climate" at will and as it suits his purposes at the time, he will sooner or later quote BoM stats for Sydney in December 2011, which was the coolest since 1960 and the least sunny since 2003, and thus will predictably shriek "climate change is bunk". Like others of his ilk he conveniently dismisses what's going on across the rest of the globe, not to say long term trends.
So, there is your new Year's resolution - avoid 'scientistic attitudes'!
That's excellent advice. If the deniers take it to heart, we should have less noice and more signal in discussions on questions of climate. They are forever copying and pasting stuff they don't understand or can't be bothered reading merely so they can sound as if what they propose is scientifically rigorous when their misuse of the content and copy and paste tropes amount to scientistic gaffleflab. Plimer's "questions" to Monbiot (use the flitches, Luke) some years back were an excellent example of this. So too is anything from Monckton.
It's official - 2011 was Perth's hottest year on record, with the city recording an average temperature of 25.7 degrees. Heatwaves at the start and end of the year and above average temperatures for every month but November pushed the average above last year's 25.3 degrees - which was also a record. The city has now sweltered through three out of its four hottest ever years in the past three years alone, and broken the record in successive years.
Well, I'm delighted to tell you that compared to the last two or three winters this one has so far been as mild as May - well, not quite, but you know what I mean. Mind you bitter British experience tells me that we will pay for it in Jan/Feb.
However, I have returned to chide you all - you must do better:
"UAH Global Temperature Update for Dec. 2011: +0.13 deg. C"
The same as November! Come on, chaps, burn a bit more coal!
Why must we forever have to put up with the distraction that is short term data? It's like some flat earther claiming that mountain ranges are responsible for all the deviations from horizontal in the planet's surface, not some so-called 'curvature'. Global warming has always been about multidecadal trends and it saddens me that some people parade short periods of year on year data as if they want to advertise their statistical incompetence. The GWPF even made it their logo!
However, I have returned to chide you all - you must do better:
"UAH Global Temperature Update for Dec. 2011: +0.13 deg. C"
The same as November! Come on, chaps, burn a bit more coal!
You are nothing more than a pitiable wind-up merchant who is best ignored. I have come across many such as you over time, those in the navy often had poor survival prospects on long voyages for they eventually were turned ashore for treatment at Stonehouse and Netley after they grew mum-chance by being ignored.
I would simply urge you all to substitute the word 'economists' with 'global climate technologists'
Which further demonstrates that you are dumber than a sack of hammers, as this may be the worst analogy ever. Hayek's statement is about the inapplicability of the models of the physical sciences to the social sciences, the problem being that people and human social institutions aren't like molecules. But perhaps, being such a "classical" fellow, you believe in wind nymphs.
Anthony Watts has [a post about shark hybridisation](backupurl.com/lg21up ), where the media confabulated the scientists' claims with signatures of global warming.
See if you can count how many cherries he picked for this one.
And he has the hide to winge about the media's twisting of the facts...
Also of note at Anthony Watts's blog is this "Unified Theory of Climate" by Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate ). This "theory" is taking in not just the usual suspects who believe the greenhouse effect is fictitious but even some "AGW skeptics" who were previously smart enough to reject that nonsense in favor of their lesser nonsense (such as David M Hoffer, tallbloke, ...)
It is really a train wreck of historic proportions over there, with the usual bluster about new paradigms and Copernicus (apparently the paradigm of Conservation of Energy having outlived its usefulness)...Read it and weep!
I'd like to echo the call to be done with David Duff. I see little point to his posting here or to others responding. I stop by fairly regularly to get information on what's happening in climate circles, but I find the posts between Mr. Duff and others largely noise.
From Nikolov and Zeller:
> Pressure by itself is not a source of energy! Instead, it enhances (amplifies) the energy supplied by an external source such as the Sun through density-dependent rates of molecular collision. This relative enhancement only manifests as an actual energy in the presence of external heating.
>[...]
>Hence, the atmosphere does not act as a âblanketâ reducing the surface infrared cooling to space as maintained by the current GH theory, but is in and of itself a source of extra energy through pressure. This makes the GH effect a thermodynamic phenomenon, not a radiative one as presently assumed!
Bernhard my friend, I agree. Watts put it all down in a nutshell. When asked directly the CAGW-manhandled researcher says the following (on the link between climate change and shark hybridization):
"I have now stated numerous times that it is extremely unlikely that climate change caused the hybridization event"
And this is the future fellas. When sociologists, anthropologists, theologist, historians, etc, start scrutinizing the "robust proofs" of CAGW, they will conclude that most of it was a hypothesis kidnapped from the "lab" ending up as insubstantial buzz-wordings often reinforced by media and blogs like Deltoid.
Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller also feel they can make up new values for established figures like the mean surface temperature of the Moon, which they put at 154K, not the standard 250K. This enables them to claim their calculations show perfect agreement with observation. The Dunning-Kruger Effect at its best.
As a funny aside, a denier at a different forum had made a claim a few weeks ago that the IPCC doesn't consider water vapor a GHG, so I showed a direct quote from the last report saying it was the most important GHG responsible for a majority of the GHE. He ignored my post and made the same claim to someone else a day later. Now, he's pushing this Unified Climate Theory crap, which actually *does* relegate water vapor to insignificance for the GHE. Like most deniers, he never even noticed the inconsistency. Anything But CO2!
Seen elsewhere: Back in 1990 Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote "Good Omens The nice and accurate prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch"
A few quotes from a scene:
"Been letting ourselves go a bit with the old hydrocarbons, perhaps?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Could you tell me your planet's albedo, sir?"...
"Er. no."
"Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you sir, that your polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category."
...
"CO2 level up point five percent"..."You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominent species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?"
>Whatâs the chance that if we continue with business-as-usual, man-made global warming will lead to disastrous climate change? It isnât zero. It isnât one. What is epsilon?
I'd encourage readers here to visit if they've not already done so. There are a few issues with definitions, which is why I disagree with Tamino's comment that "[i]t isn't one", but nevertheless the thread is really quite interesting.
It's actually something that I'd like to see more formally conducted, just to get an idea of what folk different fields and degrees of expertise think...
Hey Tim,
Thought you might be interested in a post over at Skepticblog. Shermer posted a review of a presentation by John Lott (more guns = less crime hypothesis). I linked to an old post of yours which I thought was a good critique. Lott shows up in the comments at #29. He doesn't seem to care for you much. If you have time you may want to join the discussion. http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/03/more-god-less-crime-or-more-guns-…
This one will make your head explode (more Nikolav/Einstein):
"Large climatic shifts evident in the paleo-record such as the 16C directional cooling of the Globe during the past 51 million years (Hansen et al. 2008; Fig. 8) can now be explained via changes in atmospheric mass and surface pressure caused by geologic variations in Earthâs tectonic activity. Thus, we hypothesize that the observed mega-cooling of Earth since the early Eocene was due to a 53% net loss of atmosphere to Space brought about by a reduction in mantle degasing as a result of a slowdown in continental drifts and ocean floor spreading."
The Earth lost 53% of it's atmosphere in the last 50 million years. Yep.
>ome very wise words of warning from Friedrich Hayek, delivered during his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Economics
The problem is that there isn't a Nobel prize for economics and there never has been. What you are referring to is, I think, called, 'The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize' but it has nothing to do with the Nobel Institute, instead it is given by a bunch of bankers. I could be wrong but I believe they also pony up a considerable sum of money each year so the guy or gal who is decided upon by the bunch of bankers gets to sit at the same dinner table as people who win a Nobel prize.
The funny thing is have you ever heard an economist correcting ignorant journalists who insist on calling it a Noble prize.
So Davy boy why don't you go and ask the Australian receipient of a real Noble prize for their assessment of the science done to understand AGW.
Sorry if this is a bit off-topic -- nothing to do with Climate Change -- but as this is in Bernard's broad area, perhaps he (or others who know) could respond.
I heard an item on ABC this morning about duck hunting. As someone who has, in concert with wildlife protection organisations, participated in wildlife rescue over the years, and most especially during "duck hunting" seasons, I need to declare my own predisposition on the matter. That said ...
It was claimed by a farmer-type that duck numbers are in plague proportions. Is this true?
Fran @54
The claim you refer to is one commonly expressed for a number of different creatures by those with a perceived interest in their removal (such as, in my experience ducks,swans,seals.)
With respect to ducks, they are, indeed opportunistic breeders, and the numbers breeding successfully will vary in response to the availability of suitable breeding and feeding sites.
Thus, after a prolonged wet period, waterbird populations will rapidly increase.
I regard the term "plague proportions" with more than a little scepticism myself,particularly when it is applied to native species. However, the term seems quite appropriate when applied to such creatures as goats, rabbits and mice.
While the Murdoch press predictably occupy the top 6 spots for negative campaigning against the carbon tax, the SMH and West Australian are not far behind.
What is striking about the analysis (from Australian Center for Independent Journalism) is how the fossil fuel industry lobbyists have shaped the reporting.
@5 and on the general topic of unseasonable weather, particularly relating to unusually cold weather in Europe and-or North America, NOAA ClimateWatch Magazine has a piece on the effect of the Arctic Oscillation - variation in a jet stream which can cause average winter temperatures in parts of the northern hemisphere to vary as much as plus or minus 7 degrees from long term averages, http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/image/2011/so-far-arctic-oscillation-f…
"LAST winter, Florida got so cold that torpid iguanas fell from trees, pythons froze to death, crops were damaged and corals in the seas around the Florida Keys died in greater numbers than ever recorded before. Further north, heavy snowstorms caused chaos across much of the US.
"Across the pond in the UK, it got pretty nippy too - and it stayed cold for much longer than usual. The average temperature of the country in December 2010 was -1 °C, well below the long-term December average of 4.2 °C. It was the second coldest December in central England since records began back in 1659. Here too, heavy snowfalls brought cars, trains and planes to a standstill..."
It goes on to note though that the northern hemisphere as a whole was actually warmer than the long term average - and in arctic regiions, very much warmer. The article concludes that "the jury is still out" as to whether changes due to global warming are implicated in such extreme winter weather events, but says this is suggested by "a growing number of studies".
We are reminded yet again that the connection between climate and weather is far more complex that "if the climate is warming the weather should be warmer".
Like the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry and Physics, Laureates in Economics are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a Prize Committee similar to the Nobel Committees is used.[11][12]
(From Wikipedia)
So, it's not a "Nobel Prize" per se, but is as good as. Would you equally disparage the actual Nobel Prizes because of their origin?
Of course, there is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics or Biology either. Did this reflect expert opinion at the time, or Nobel's own views on what could confer the "greatest benefit on mankind"?
Certainly, if one is going to point a gun at ducks, the current season would be the time when doing so has the least effect on overall numbers.
Having said that, whether ducks are "in plague proportions" is another matter. Again, as pterosaur notes, native species rarely demonstrate ecological impacts, as we usually perceive them, that are attributable to "plague species" such as mice. Sometimes we might be inclined to use the term when we plant an agricultural crop on the old habitats or near the extant habitats of natives (think cockatoos), or do something else similarly stupid in terms of inevitable consequence, but this is usually an economic value judgement rather than an ecological one.
And this leads me to expand on [Jeremy C's](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) point about the absolute numbers. What vested interests might term as "plague proportions" is often a fraction of what is an equilibrium size of the population in a non human-impacted context.
Take minke whales for example. Japan justifies their hunting in part by claiming that they are in "plague proportions". Erm, hardly.
Or, to hark back to the waterfowl subject of your question, I once spoke with an old fisherman who worked the Kooragang wetlands and the lower the Hunter River back in the early 20th century. He, and his father before him, used to shoot ducks in flocks that he said darkened the sky from one horizon to the other. He could bring down three or four birds with one shot, and other old-timers I spoke to told of similar bird numbers. From the details they gave, I estimate that at least three or four bird species that used to use the Hunter estuary did so in numbers in the order of millions of individuals of each species. Compare that to today, where one would be fortunate indeed to see a flock of any species that actually reaches into the tens of thousands, let alone more.
Interestingly the fisherman said that their gizzards were sometimes full of rice, apparently from a direct flight from Indonesia: Australia was not growing rice at that time. If this is the case then the numbers and patterns of waterbird migration along the east coast of Australia have been greatly altered indeed over the last century or so.
The bottom line - context is all. One man's "plague proportions" are another man's recovering tattered remnants.
Just recovering from the shock that the shark hybridization wasn't a sign of AGW I got blown away by some more possible good news. Could this be true fellas?
You know, its a sad thing that Olaus and PentaxZ are now contaminating this thread with their brand of wilful ignorance gleaned from right wing blogs and never - repeat that never - from the primary literature. Where are the peer-reviewed studies, boys?
Note how PentaxZ then reverts to completely unscientific ramblings - that AGW Ãs a big fat lie'(no supporting references), that 'facts are facts' (no supporting references) and then complaining that the majority of us who hold opposing views want to 'silence the infidell [sic]', meaning him.
No, you clown, we would like you to support your vacuous rants with a discussion of views from the empirical literature. WUWT and Joanne Nova do not make the cut. They are heavily biased Ãnterpreters of interpretations' and neither has published anything relevant in the scientific literature. As for the present day warming being a 'normal event', of course this is patently absurd, given the rate of warming in higher latitudes against the background of a largerly deterministic system that operates over decacadel and even longer temporal scales (as JamesA correctly pointed out earlier). The problem is that deniers like PentaxZ and Olaus don't have a clue about the importance of scale in the scheme of climate maintenance or the regulation of functioning in communities and ecosystems. Their brand of unscientific posturing would be shot down in any academic arena, so they instead insist on contiminating the blogosphere.
With respect to 'ducks being in plague proportions', I agree with Bernard. This is certainly nonsense if we use North America and Europe as proxies. It must be rememberered that very large numbers of wetlands have been drained and filled in over the past century, and that dabbling duck populations at least have suffered as a result. Waders and sandpipers have fared even worse, as many of these species are transcontinetal migrants and require strings of intact wetalnds on their migratory routes in order to 'refuel' en route.
We now know that some migratory waterfowl are also adjusting their seasonal migration patterns in response to shifts in the rapid upper latitiudinal warming, and that some species are either arriving on their wintering grounds up to a month later than normal or else they are altering their wintering distributions. Certainly their are innumerable biotic indicators of a rapidly changing climate, but, as in just about everything, there will be spome winners (e.g. habitat generalists) and a much greater number of losers (e.g. habitat specialists or species with narrowly define ranges).
Thanks for that background info on Kooragang, Bernard. I may have talked to the same gent at one stage. While the numbers of waterbirds around the Kooragang area aren't what they were, the number of species commonly sighted is on the improve* and with the openning of the floodgates at Hexham a couple of years ago numbers hopefully should improve further (and isn't it the aim of all threatened species programs that they are so successful the target animal becomes a pest itself?).
*Saw a Jabiru on the saltmarsh there about 6 years ago and apparently they're regularly spotted these days.
Dear Jeffie, regarding the shark issue I quoted the researcher herself which, in my book, is the way to go. More "primary" is hard to come by (if my citation is correct). Do you have any objections or do you find the media angle on par with her research?
Regarding tornados and WUWT, I posted a Q. I was hoping a deltoid could narrow it down to me, but I see that you, instead, prefer to hide in the comfort zone yours â the cursing and name-calling fetal position.
Way to go Jeff. Keep fantasizing about the right wing illuminati.
Sometimes people ask me why I bother to visit here so often. The answer is simple - the commenters here are so witty. Take this for example:
Climate science is one of those "brilliantly successful physical sciences".
Honestly, what a side-splitter - it's the way you tell 'em!
And, Charles @33, the best thing I can suggest is that as you read this open thread stick your fingers in your ears and keep shouting 'la-la-la-la-la'!
Thanks for sending Pentax where he belongs. I think that you should do the same thing with Olaus.
Re: Olaus, you are clutching at straws. Essentially, all that you do is surf a few anti-environmental climate change denial blogs and rehash their nonsense elsewhere. How much of the primary literature do you read? That's a fairly easy question, because I have not yet seen you discuss the findings of a single peer-reviewed study. Instead, you simply cut-and-past gibberish from WUWT and then expect people here to engage in rational discourse with you.
As many have said, the issue of climate change-related effects covers an immense amount of literature showing biotic and abiotic effects. What does Watt's think he will get out of data showing that the number of F3-F5 tornadoes has not icnreased significantly since the 1970s? That there is no warming? Even the most die-hard denialists generally acknowlege that the biosphere is warming at present, and there are thousands of biotic indicators to prove it. I can be certain that, since you apparently cannot tell a mole cricket from a giraffe, your understanding of range shifts, pehnological changes, altitudinal shifts, and changes in life-history patterns along with a suite of other biotic responses to warming will be poor or non-existant. That's why my advice for you is to keep your head firmly ticked up your a@#* and stick with the semi-literate brigades over at the denial sites who tell you what you want to hear.
Finally, its no use throwing staw man arguments such as fantasies about the 'rigth wing illuminati' at me. Its pretty well established by now that those most bitterly opposed to the science of climate change and any means of dealing with warming come from the wacky end of the political right. That you deny this tells me more about you than just about anything else. Since you clearly have a very poor grasp of environmental science, along with the Joe Barton's and James Inhofe's of this world, what else is there to conclude? That you motives and opinions are driven by a deep-rooted heart-wrenching search for the truth? Get real.
>Sometimes people ask me why I bother to visit here so often. The answer is simple - the commenters here are so witty.
I agree. What this website needs is more hilariously original cracks about Obama using teleprompters and black lesbian mother-in-laws. Har har har har!
Nice to see you crawling back in here Duff. How many times have you posted since you said you'd never post again?
And any closer to telling me just how you can believe Morner's predictions when his observations are so wrong? Or what alleged projections Prof. Mann has made?
Or are you just going to keep making tepid ad hom attacks to hide the fact your scientific method is opinion first, evidence second?
Sometimes people ask me why I bother to visit here so often.
To complain that you're missing out on global warming-induced disasters, e.g.:
I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves
Please Dave, don't let your envy get the better of you. You'll get your disasters soon enough. But if you're so impatient, why don't you buy some property within 1 metre of high tide level? Or buy some property within a flood zone like Bangkok's. Better still, buy some property in Bangla Desh that is both within 2 meters of high tide and within a flood zone. I'm sure you'd get lots of fun for the rest of your life. Or if you don't like the thought of living in Asia, you might be able to tolerate putting up with the colonials in Australia where there's plenty of not yet very but soon to be low-lying and/or flood-prone property in lots of desirable locations. There's more than enough opportunity for people with a psychopathic sense of fun like yours. Don't deprive yourself. Life is too short.
I don't usually read WUWT but I was looking around and read "Mercury fingered in Permian-Triassic extinction". It seems that Watts has quoted some newspaper interview or, possibly, a Univ of Calgary press release though the only one I could find was not the same as WUWT's.
I must say that I was fascinated by the comments. A more stunning example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, probably, could not be found! Apparently no one has even tried to read the original article. (I tried but could not find it on Nature Geology where it supposedly should be in the current issue.)
The opinions and the level of lack of knowledge among most, though certainly not all, commentators was amazing. It was highly amusing in a somewhat sad way.
Or are you [David Duff] just going to keep making tepid ad hom attacks to hide the fact your scientific method is opinion first, evidence second never?
Dear Jeffie, I can't help you when you are in tourette mode 24/7. That said, I read the shark article and there was nothing deltoidish in it, hence the quota from her was indeed even more primary than the article itself (since it didn't address AGW vs hybridization).
If the wattsian claim are true regarding the tornados its just another version of the same deltoid virus that Jess' research was caught with (Or the Himalayan glaciers etc...). Some sectarian unscientific scare mongers make a fire and brimstone conclusion distorting the facts.
And, as I said above (and many times before), in retrospect (C)AGW will be looked upon as yet another scientific hypothesis that was abducted from its proper milieu â the lab. And who's guilty? White heterosexual middle aged men in hunt for status an prestige. ;-)
Point taken that the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not chosen by a bunch of bankers but only funded by them.
However, mathematics has its own prize, the Fields Medal and economics was around when the Nobel Prizes were established. I'm not sure what prizes are around for biology.
Dear frank, "if" is vise to add when not all cards are on the table. Any problems with that?
I also said "retrospect" which means in a near future, not hundred years from now. But what the heck, we have already reached beyond the point of return, according to you climate scare cultists. :-)
I see that the biggest CO2 emitter in the world, China, has decided to implement a [carbon tax](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/05/china-carbon-idUSL3E8C5D12201…). Makes for uncomfortable talk around the denier dinner table.
"Oh noes, theys are all against us. Imagine if they end up creating a better world & its all for nothing!".
Whether she (still) is or not, she isn't doing climate science in that article. And Pekka Pirilä gets it right:
Just from logical point of view an error cascade of climate change skepticism makes as much sense than an error cascade of climate science. To me itâs actually obvious that very many specific claims of climate change skeptics are pure error cascade.
Blogs like this raise also the question: Are they originating from some deeper understanding and found relevant for the AGW issue, or are they the result of searching for new ways to support own views of AGW.
Also in that den of ignorant and illogical deniers (none of whom Curry ever corrects, regardless of how blatantly wrong they are), one can find posts by a handful of sensible people, like Joshua. His comments are indeed food for thought -- by people able and willing to think, unlike cherry pickers like Olaus for whom the only "real" climate scientists are those who say (or can be misinterpreted to say) what he wants to hear.
I see that the biggest CO2 emitter in the world, China, has decided to implement a carbon tax.
Well, we all know those commies are a bunch of libs.
(Seriously, it's not just with right wingers that it is difficult to have a nuanced discussion about China's political system and its ramifications ... most people avoid the subject lest their heads explode, preferring the convenient fantasy that Communism died with the fall of the USSR.)
TrueSkeptic @ 91: Old Uncle Fred claims that:
> But I do claim that the commonly reported and accepted warming between 1978 and 2000 is based only on thermometers from land surface stations and is not supported by any other evidence that I could find. Specifically, [ocean data](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1978/to:2000…) (from 71% of the earth's surface) and global atmospheric data (as recorded by [satellites](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/to:2000/trend/plot/uah/plot/u…) and independent balloon-borne radiosondes) do not show such a warming at all.
Curry, whatever she is doing now, at least has the training and credentials of a climate scientist, whereas Olaus is just a gullible ignoramus who will swallow anything that plays to his preconceptions -- like that piece that Curry lifted from a raving denier blog (the articles before and after that one are "Naming and shaming the AGW fraudsters", which quotes approvingly from James Delingpole, and "The Great Blizzard of 2010", the title of which speaks for itself).
A typical comment at Singer's (registration required) blog:
If Muller of BEST footnotes that the data is basically garbage, why did he publish it? Is it science to say "I performed a crappy experiment, but I'll let you decide what it proves"? Neither is it science for Singer to use the term "greenhouse gas" as if there is no dispute at all to the existence of this effect, a dispute based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics no less.
Their formula is simple. Any impact at all, as proven by the mere accusation of some scientist, sanctifies complete government control. They've gone too far with global warming - the effect does not exist at all. We should cut off this retreat of the warmists to the lukewarmist camp, and put an end to this political adventurism.
Missed all but the end of it myself on ABC News24 until online search for it just now.
There was also a good interview with Naomi Oreskes & somebody else - a Tasmanian environmentalist on rainforests (if vague memory serves here?) on another ABC news24 programme seen whilst staying up to see comet Lovejoy a few weeks ago.
Thanks for the support guys. I appreciate it. Curry is a real climate scientist because she tries to emancipate herself from religious unscientific dogma. Good, me thinks.
Normally I don't like questioning the beliefs of religious groups. People is of course entitled to worship anything they like. But you guys thinks that your faith is science and that makes you free game. On top of it you also engage in missionary work including pointing out sinners, rambling about fire and brimstone and armageddon.
And naturally you ascribe conspiracies and evil agendas onto anyone daring to come up with question mark based on reality and pure science.
Get used to it being ridiculed. The future is soon here. Repent! ;-)
First of all Happy New Year to you all and I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves - I can't stand yet another dim, drear, wet, chilly Summer.
Well, as the old adage goes, be careful what you wish for - you may get it! ;-)
Personally, I'd like another cool summer - much more pleasant when you're working outside than heatwave conditions.
Anecdotal natch but last summer here in Adelaide was exceptionally cool but the summer before that we had our hottest ever heatwave on record and the one before that we sweltered through our longest heatwave on record. (Or was it the longest heatwave in 2009-10 and the hottest in 2008-09? Anyhow.) This summer we've just had the hottest start to a new year in about a century.
Of course what's happening in Adelaide is not necessarily conclusive for what's happening all around our planet but the trend does seem somewhat suggestive. Records being broken for ever higher temps ever longer in most of the last five years. Hmm.. could that possibly have something to do with Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating (HIRGO) as I prefer to call it?
Referring to the over-use and over-reliance on 'mathematical models', he [Friedrich Hayek] said this, and I would simply urge you all to substitute the word 'economists' with 'global climate technologists':
âIt seems to me that this failure of the economists [global climate technologists] to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences â an attempt which in our field may lead to outright error. It is an approach which has come to be described as the âscientisticâ attitude â an attitude which, as I defined it some thirty years ago, âis decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed.ââ
Um, okay. But how is this relevant exactly? Where is Hayeks's supporting evidence here?
Also you know HIRGO predictions and understanding is based on an awful lot more than just climate modelling don't you?
So, there is your new Year's resolution - avoid 'scientistic attitudes'!
Thanks but I've already made my New Years Resolutions and that one misses the cut.
There was also a good interview with Naomi Oreskes & somebody else - a Tasmanian environmentalist on another ABC news24 programme seen whilst staying up to see comet Lovejoy a few weeks ago.
Olaus writes, *Yes, I believe so frankie. Take a deep breath and exhale all the hot air that is reckoned as science at Deltoid. :-)*
A bit rich coming from someone who has never read a published scientific article in his life and who, like his ignoramus sidekick, PentazZ, relies for his world view on the garbage spewed from a few web logs like WUWT and Joanne Nova.
As I said before, Olaus and Pentax are completely incapable of reading published studies in the empirical literature and of understanding the science in them. So they instead endlessly surf the internet in search of web sites that spew out the kind of interpretations they like to read. I demolished PentaxZ's claim earlier regarding the effects of warming on polar bear population demographics, and what does the schmuck do here? Rehash the same demolished argument. He was unable to debate the concept of temporal lags, the extinction debt, optimum habitats, critical thresholds, tipping points etc. etc., so he said nothing when I rebutted his comic argument on another infamous thread. No response. Nada. Then he re-pastes the same polar bears are doing fine argument up here that he cut and pasted from another denilalist web site run by a blogger who has no relevant expertise in any field of science.
Olaus, Pentaxz, given that both of you nincompoops clearly have never set foot within 100 miles of a science lab, why do you continue to pollute this blog? I will certainly debate you on the concepts above as well as on other ecological concepts and processes related to the current warming, but since your understanding of this is at the level of a child in kindergarten level, do you really think its worth your time to try?
Why does anyone bother to engage with this pompous buffoon?
a) Why not? Isn't it better than letting him go unanswered?
b) Our own entertainment and debating practice &
c) The faint hope of getting through to him and the bigger hope that at least some lurkers or more open minded people reading will be convinced or enlightened by it.
@Olaus Petri | January 6, 2012 1:12 PM :
Curry is a real climate scientist, by the way.
No, Curry is a genre (is that the right word?) of spicy food associated mainly with Indian and South Asian cuisine.
Judith Curry OTOH is [this person who has some climatological expertise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry) but would seem to be part of the 2% against accepting the scientific consensus on HIRGO vs the 98% of climate scientists who accept the reality of HIRGO.
@72.Chris | January 6, 2012 7:58 AM :
Please Dave, don't let your envy get the better of you. You'll get your disasters soon enough. But if you're so impatient, why don't you buy some property within 1 metre of high tide level? Or buy some property within a flood zone like Bangkok's. Better still, buy some property in Bangla Desh that is both within 2 meters of high tide and within a flood zone. I'm sure you'd get lots of fun for the rest of your life.
Emphasis added.
Just curious but is Bangla Desh just a typo for Bangladesh or is it a legitimate variant spelling of the placename or something else?
Even the most die-hard denialists generally acknowlege that the biosphere is warming at present, and there are thousands of biotic indicators to prove it. I can be certain that, since you apparently cannot tell a mole cricket from a giraffe, your understanding of range shifts, pehnological changes, altitudinal shifts, and changes in life-history patterns along with a suite of other biotic responses to warming will be poor or non-existant. That's why my advice for you is to keep your head firmly ticked up your a@#* and stick with the semi-literate brigades over at the denial sites who tell you what you want to hear.
I would strongly disagree with that advice.
Olaus is to be welcome here in my view because he (& those like him) may, just may, eventaully learn something and be exposed to ideas and facts that the denial sites try to keep folks like him unaware of.
Its the denier sites that want to keep people misinformed and I think we should be fighting such misinformation and trying to expose as many as possible to the real situation and real science instead of condemning them to ignorance through not wanting to engage them.
Of course I'd rather Olaus and folks like him didn't just troll and post garbage constantly but it gets such rot out there where it can be debunked and countered so even that's not the worst thing possible. It'd be nice if the contrarians just lurked and learned here but at least they are *here* where they might potentially learn something and one day understand how wrong they are.
It is tedious and annoying often I'll grant you that much.
But climate contrarians can be convinced otherwise. How do I know? Well, to my shame I was one myself for some years -taken in by Plimer - before arguing & researching online gradually convinced me otherwise.
SteveoR, you mistakenly believe people like Olaus can be swayed by things like "facts" and "evidence". This is nonsense. Olaus is a political denier. Olaus, like all deniers, has his own, entirely contradictory set of evidence which changes as often as the seasons do.
As with creationists, there is no point arguing from facts or logic because they are not basing their scientific opinions on the science. They are basing their scientific opinions on their politics. No matter what you say you will always be wrong because God created the world global warming is a scientific scam.
Judith Curry is a real climate scientist, not because she set herself a conclusion and is working back from it to the most supportive facts, but because she has gained the necessary qualifications and has published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.^fn1
That doesn't make her right, however. Furthermore, what she chooses to say on her blog is not the same as gathering the evidence and publishing it in peer reviewed scientific literature. Curry's current foray into a febrile psychological (self?) examination as to the motives behind what other climate scientists publish, well, it speaks volumes to the examiner, but not in a manner likely to be to her pleasing.
Climate science (with regards to AGW, ie anthropogenic global warming) is fast becoming the most re-examined science on the planet, and yet, it consistently passes the testing and re-testing of the evidence. Judith Curry is out on a thin limb, on this one...
fn1: Yes, I lapsed into some sarcasm, irony, call it what you will.
First of all Happy New Year to you all and I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves.
So I guess you haven't seen [this video illustrating the decline in arctic sea ice](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRc_9nNTZg0) - note especially at the 2 minute 30 seconds to 2 min. 50 secs mark where the graph shows that observed ice levels are far less than any of the 15 climate models.
The melting of the Arctic sea ice - changing our planet's albedo and potentially causing all sorts of escalating feedbacks - is *very* manifestly real.
Human Induced rapid Global Overheating is *ahead* of schedule - not behind it. That is something that should concern us because the implications are .. well think and read about them yourself. Not good is an understatement.
Can I interest anyone in a second-hand Chevy Volt? Awfully green, you know, and will win you lots of kudos with concerned and caring people in the global warming movement.
Nice to see my ramblings are regarded as "lesser nonsense" by one of the purveyors of the "greater nonsense". ;-)
I notice you repeat here your nonsense claim that Nikolov and Zeller disregard energy conservation, despite my putting you right on this elsewhere. While it's true they could have better phrased the paragraph which led you to your misapprehension, you have no excuse for continuing to spread your disinformation, so please desist.
Nikolov and Zeller raise agin the old controversy (still unresolved) between Boltzmann, Maxwell and Maxwell's old tutor Loschmidt. We are having an interesting discussion on the topic at the moment. The algebra is pretty fiendish, so it could well be that someone cocked up somewhere. Not Maxwell though, he just dismissed Loschmidt by appealing to his second law of thermodynamics, which disregards the gravitational field which impinges through his otherwise isentropic thought experiment.
And by the way, is Spartacus still planning to punish the policemen guilty of "malfeasance" resulting in an "inappropriate" search warrant? Or is Spartacus just preparing to launch phantom lawsuits against the Internet?
I strongly suspect that old (and they're always old) 'Spartacus' Tattersall is merely another in the long, long think-tank production line of anything-but-the-IPCC dupes with delusions of grandeur who should've stuck to making T-shirts for deluded old cows.
Nice to see my ramblings are regarded as "lesser nonsense"
Joel has misidentified/mischaracterized you, since there seems to be very little nonsense (the grossly incompetent G&T, "[It's a] ridiculous notion [that CO2 is a pollutant because] [i]t is a naturally occurring gas") that you don't purvey. Your comment on the latest drivel from G&T is priceless:
This is a technical paper and I donât understand all the squiggles, but Iâm sure the recent addition to the Talkshop of some real atmospheric thermodynamic expertise will make this an interesting thread.
I strongly suspect that old (and they're always old) 'Spartacus' Tattersall is merely another in the long, long think-tank production line of anything-but-the-IPCC dupes with delusions of grandeur who should've stuck to making T-shirts for deluded old cows.
Of course a few million residents of Pakistan might argue with this, but hey nobody in the US was killed or inconvenienced by the event in Pakistan last year...
Being a bit harsh on the brilliant thinking exemplified by this quote:
Argh, that last one got pretty well screwed up... Try again:
Isn't his:
I strongly suspect that old (and they're always old) 'Spartacus' Tattersall is merely another in the long, long think-tank production line of anything-but-the-IPCC dupes with delusions of grandeur who should've stuck to making T-shirts for deluded old cows.
A bit harsh on the author of this brilliant piece of thinking:
Of course a few million residents of Pakistan might argue with this, but hey nobody in the US was killed or inconvenienced by the event in Pakistan last year...
>>Olaus is a political denier. Olaus, like all deniers, has his own, entirely contradictory set of evidence which changes as often as the seasons do.
People like Penatax, Duff & Olaus are evidence immune. They are not here to attempt to understand or advance AGW science in any way. They have made up their minds in advance & no amount of evidence will change that.
âCanadaâs message: The world and its climate be damnedâ. That headline on Jeffrey Simpsonâs scathing commentary on Canadaâs pending formal withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol said it all. ...
But I want to turn today to an analysis of the Conservative governmentâs putative alternative to Kyoto, namely the 2009 Copenhagen agreement, as well as the GHG reduction plans put forth in 2008 by Canada and the province Alberta (home to the oil sands and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper). That analysis confirms the contention of Jeffrey Simpson and others that the government of Canada is âmockingâ the 2020 target agreed to only two years ago; the promised 17% reduction in annual GHG emissions (relative to 2005) is already out of reach. A big reason for this is an Alberta target (itself very unlikely to be met) that calls for a rise in GHG emissions until 2020. Not only that, but Albertaâs 2050 target, predicated on massive expansion of oil sands operations, is only 14% below 2005 levels, and sets Canada on a path that can not possibly be reconciled with the Harper governmentâs own stated long-term target, let alone any reasonable goal compatible with Canadaâs responsibilities.
Indeed. Not only does he make obviously false claims, but, like most pseudosceptics he contradicts himself. In 2006 he co-authored a book, 'Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years', in which current global warming is claimed to be entirely natural.
> And by the way, is Spartacus still planning to punish the policemen guilty of "malfeasance" resulting in an "inappropriate" search warrant? Or is Spartacus just preparing to launch phantom lawsuits against the Internet?
The answer from our Spartacus wannabe:
> Sorry gents, I mistook this for a science blog. As you were.
Shorter Spartacus wannabe:
> This questions embarrases me, so here's a lame excuse.
Ah, I see your mistake now. You're confusing a 'science blog' for example like Deltoid here or Deep Climate or Tamino's, with 'crank blog' like your own, or Climate etc.. or WTFUWT.
Not an easy mistake to make, to be sure. Unless perhaps you're suffering from Spartacled delusions.
By the way, I thought you guys might be interested in seeing an example of how one of the owners of a "skeptic" blog, tallbloke, censor you if you write correct science that he happens to disagree with, I posted this comment in this thread there http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/g-t-weigh-in-on-adiabatic-atm…
Maurizio Morobito says: âBryan â yes, thereâs no effect of radiative properties in the troposphere. Because whatever effect there might be, it is going to be counteracted by convection (and conduction).â
Actually, this is not at all correct. The radiative greenhouse effect would only be counteracted completely by convection if convection could relax the profile of the troposphere all the way to an isothermal profile. It canât because it only goes as far as relaxing it to an adiabatic lapse rate profile.
What is important for the greenhouse effect is that the temperature at which emission escapes to space is colder than the temperature at the surface. (Ray Pierrehumbertâs book is very clear on this point, in fact.) If there were no convection, then the lapse rate in the troposphere would be higher and the radiative greenhouse effect would be greater. Convection reduces the radiative greenhouse effect but it canât completely counteract it because the lapse rate only relaxes to the adiabatic one.
This is why Nikolov and Zeller had to put in convection in such a way that, by their own emission, it drives the temperatures T_a and T_s to be the same (in obvious contradiction to what convection does in the real atmosphere). By adopting an incorrect assumption about how convection operates, they were able to essentially eliminate the radiative greenhouse effect in that simple model. Unfortunately, that is not the way the real world operates.
The response I got from the moderator (I presume tallbloke) was:
[Reply]Hi Joel, Iâm all for informed debate from people on both sides, but youâre not posting here unless and until you apologise to Nikolov and Zeller for spreading misinformation about conservation of energy in their theory all over the blogosphere and failing to correct it. Rog
So, apparently I am censored from the site for stating something so obvious that even skeptics like Willis Eschenbach and Roy Spencer agree.
Maybe he will yet have a change of heart and decide that censorship isn't the way to go...but it will be interesting to see.
here's the reply I left for Joel on his second unpublished comment, which he can see and save to his hearts content.
[Reply]Hi Joel. Show us the maths proving Nikolov and Zellerâs theory breaks energy conservation and you can have a guest post. Appeals to authority donât cut it with me.
Hi, tallbloke. It is nice to see that blogs like this truly allow the free exchange of ideas, as opposed to your blog which just gives lip service to the idea! Here is what I posted back to you on your blog:
tallbloke: The evidence that they have violated conservation of energy is clear from all of the amusing contortions that people are going through to try to explain to Willis and I how it could possibly not violate conservation of energy. Stephen Wilde has gone so far as to try to get around it by appealing to the gravitational redshift. Unfortunately, it turns out that said effect is 9 orders of magnitude too small, besides which, we already know the solution to the conundrum that the Earthâs surface is emitting ~390 W/m^2 whereas there is only 240 W/m^2 absorbed by the Earth and atmosphere from the sun: It is that as seen from space, the Earth is only emitting 240 W/m^2â¦The rest of the emissions from the Earth surface are absorbed by the atmosphere. We call this the atmospheric greenhouse effectâ¦and it is what allows the surface to emit more energy than the Earth and its atmosphere receive from the sun.
P.S. â So, is Willis banned from posting here too?
Hi Joel. I gave up on you at WUWT because you seem unable to comprehend or address the mathematically, and empirically supported result which resolves the issue you have with Nikolov and Zeller. If I do choose to re-engage with you it will be at WUWT where there is a team of moderators on hand to handle your tendency to noisy ears closed dispute and I won't have to wear two hats at once.
Since you have chosen to post parts of our behind the scenes chat here, I'll post our entire exchange for the record and leave comments closed.
> Unfortunately, it turns out that said effect is 9 orders of magnitude too small, besides which, we already know the solution to the conundrum that the Earth's surface is emitting ~390 W/m^2 whereas there is only 240 W/m^2 absorbed by the Earth and atmosphere from the sun: [...] The rest of the emissions from the Earth surface are absorbed by the atmosphere. We call this the atmospheric greenhouse effect...
Roger "Spartacus" Tattersall:
> you seem unable to comprehend
Ooh, Spartacus wannabe is looking vewwy vewwy oppwessed at the moment, is he not? But maybe we are just "unable to comprehend" the supreme Spartacus-ness of the great Spartacus wannabe who's feeling so oppressed right now, even as he refuses to answer questions on the phantom lawsuit against policemen guilty of "malfeasance".
You'd get the idea from this that WUWT is actually important in the context of scientific debate on climate... what with a 'team of moderators' and all. Truth is, it ain't. There's not a real climate scientist amongst them.
Am I understanding this correctly: WUWT and its fans are in fact denying the existence of the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect?
I'm getting very confused about the denialist position: one minute they're all saying "Oh, nobody denies *that*, we're just saying models exxagerated adaptation".
So, when the latest review of US temperature stations came out showing there was nothing wrong with them, they started saying "We never denied temperatures are going up, we're just saying the anthropogenic factor is overstated".
And yet, now, they're right back to saying there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect on the back of a crank paper by two people whose expertise in climate science is not very well established.
Which ones of them are stupid, and which ones are part of the Oreskes-documented campaign of dishonesty?
You don't often see such a perfect example of incompetence combined with arrogance as we see in Rog Tallbloke: classic Dunning-Kruger in fact. He's obviously a deluded f@@kwit but thinks he is capable of evaluating the validity of science that's far beyond his abilities.
IOW anyone who tries to correct his dogmatic ignorance is wasting their time, although it might benefit others (on sites that allow those corrections to be shown!).
Apart from a roll-call of the usual suspects (including the hilarious 'Galileo Movement') I note Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot and Oliver Cromwell(!) on that list!...
Okay guys, I'm a libertarian. But I don't let ideology get in the way of evidence. Trust me, I get beat up enough within that realm because I follow evidence first. I think that government shouldn't intrude in people's lives as much as possible, but government needs to protect the people's rights. So in my "ideological" view, when people are dumping crap into the water, or air it is the government's responsibility to take action where I as an individual cannot. Maybe I'm rationalizing to support the real world and evidence in the case of AGW. Anyway, some of us libertarians aren't nutcases...sadly most are when it comes to this issue in particular...though I think many just say they are libertarian when convenient as they oppose things like gay marriage, no corporate welfare, and military adventurism. They are just neo-cons pretending to be libertarian. Sorry for the rant.
Sorry...in my last post I wrote the pseudo-libertarian opposed military adventurism. That was the opposite of what I meant. They are in favor of such when the majority of libertarians are against it. Anyway, again I apologize for the rant.
The gents here are scientists or educated in science, whereas you are an ignorant crank who doesn't understand the "squiggles" of technical papers, someone so mindbogglingly stupid as to proclaim that it's ridiculous to think that CO2 is a pollutant because it's a naturally occurring gas (so is sulpher dioxide, moron), and so inept and lacking in scientific understanding as to proclaim the unscientific dunces Gerlich and Tscheuschner -- who reject basic physics -- to have "real atmospheric thermodynamic expertise" (so much for appeals to authority not cutting it with you). You're a cherry-picking sack of shit, an idiot and a liar, an asshole and a jackass, a shit stain on humanity. Since this isn't the sort of blog you were looking for, you should get lost.
Which ones of them are stupid, and which ones are part of the Oreskes-documented campaign of dishonesty?
This is perhaps the only interesting question remaining about deniers. People like Christopher Monckton, Ian Plimer, Jo Nova and Stewart Franks are clearly in it for the money, but their acolytes and minions seem more driven by neural deficiency than lucre.
Still, it's hard to tell how many of the persistent and anonymous skeptidiots are professionals on a payroll. There are agencies that hire out people to shape opinions on the 'net by trawling blogs and social networking sites.
For someone who claims to reject appeals to authority, ya gotta love his comment,
I have been waiting for someone to properly critique Ferenc Miskolcziâs papers on the greenhouse effect. Who better than Dr Roy Spencer?
But when Spencer explained what a crock Miscolcziâs theory is (for more trashing see http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=232818 ... gotta love the denier idiots there who argue that the fact this garbage paper isn't cited proves that there's something to it and it's "being carefully ignored"), Tattersall didn't understand a word of it, except that it wasn't what he wanted to hear, and so he hopes that Miscolczi will respond so his confirmation bias can latch onto that.
Since he is incapable of grasping it from what Spencer wrote about Miscolczi, Tattersall ought to ask him what he thinks of G&T, heh heh.
Sometimes ianam's short fuse and colourful language make me wince, but I had to laugh at:
>You're a cherry-picking sack of shit, an idiot and a liar, an asshole and a jackass, a shit stain on humanity. Since this isn't the sort of blog you were looking for, you should get lost.
I'm not saying that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with it, but one has to concede that he does put his point across...
Personally I'd like you to hang around for at least a while longer. I suspect that there are a few of us who haven't finished dissecting your approach to discussing physics...
Good grief, Roger is even dumber than I could have imagined:
Roger the imbecile: I believe the current thinking is that most of the emission to space is from about 5km, lower than the tropopause.
Maurizio: No, the 5km is an âeffective heightâ, not a physical layer.
Roger the cretin: : Ok so the âeffective heightâ is so called because â what?
It is at the temperature the bulk of the outgoing long wave radiation must go from?
Maurizio: The effective height is a mathematical concept. Itâs the equivalent of computing orbits by assuming the whole mass of every planet is concentrated in a central point. Useful if everybody understands thatâs not where the mass actually is.
Roger the retard: [still didn't understand a word of it but at least knew better than to keep making a fool of himself on that subject]
Some clarification.
#133 Frank the 'swifthack' decoder
Frank removes context in order to create the impression we are claiming that the relevant effect we are discussing is the 'gravitational redahift' which is 9 orders of magnitude too small to do anything exciting. This is incorrect, but indicative of his debating methods.
#134 Yet Joel appeals to Willis Eschenbach's authority on the subject.
#135 Paraphrase as much as you please. We are selective about who joins the conversation at the Talkshop because we want to be able to discuss science in a pleasant easygoing atmosphere where the focus can be on the subject matter, rather than devolving into a noisy ruckus of misrepresentation, innuendo, insult and off the cuff negative assessments of peoples mental states from armchair psychologists.
#136 See above.
#137 There is no single 'denialist position'. This is a figment of the imaginations of people who also believe there is a 'concerted campaign of dishonesty'. At the moment, the Talkshop is concentrating on assessing the.claims in the Nikolov and Zeller extended conference poster. At the end of the process (which will take some time yet, because properly assessing theories which cover a lot of ground and offer major paradigm shifts can't be judged overnight), we will arrive at our conclusion. let the chips fall where they may.
#138 I have a background in mechanical science and engineering, and a degree in the history and philosophy of science. I'm more competent than some, less competent than others to assess specific scientific claims. In such cases where specialists turn up to offer assessments I mostly act as librarian, looking up and providing relevant material for others to assess and comment on. I also provide the environment in which the discussion can take place in relative calm, without "f@@kwits" like you messing it up for everyone.
#139 No problem, laughter is good for the soul, whatever its source, it makes me glad for you.
#140 See the reply to 135 above.
#141 Who?
#146 I don't have an expert opinion on that, which is why I posted the article so others could offer their opinions.
#147 You will be delighted to hear that this is the last contribution I'll be making to this particular thread. At the moment, my time is better spent trying to help untangle the old disagreement about the gravito-thermal-effect between Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Maxwell's former tutor Loschmidt. I'll leave you scientists to your deliberations.
#148 We'll see, eventually.
Thanks for your thoughts, even the nasty ones. I got a laugh too. - thread saved.
Tallbloke is an industrial strength crank magnet who believes that there was a conspiracy to hide evidence that proved the existence of an ether. According to Tallbloke the evidence was "buried by mainstream astrophysics in favour of Einsteinâs theory of General Relativity."
True MikeH - as soon as you hear Maxwell (and/or his equations) being lauded by people who couldn't add together two six-packs without removing a shoe, you just know that the Einstein and the aether conspiracy is to follow.
> Frank removes context in order to create the impression we are claiming that the relevant effect we are discussing is the 'gravitational redahift' which is 9 orders of magnitude too small to do anything exciting.
You mean the context in which you scream "I am Spartacus!" while threatening to launch phantom lawsuits against policemen and the Internet? Ah yes, I may have omitted that, Spartacus wannabe.
> There is no single 'denialist position'.
Yes there is, and it's called 'Not The IPCC'.
The 'position' where anything and everything that disagrees with the IPCC is right and good, even if they flat out contradict one another.
> At the moment, the Talkshop is concentrating on assessing the.claims in the Nikolov and Zeller extended conference poster. At the end of the process (which will take some time yet, because properly assessing theories which cover a lot of ground and offer major paradigm shifts can't be judged overnight), we will arrive at our conclusion. let the chips fall where they may.
OK, so not only is Tattersall Spartacus, he's also
> I also provide the environment in which the discussion can take place in relative calm
I didn't know Spartacus was about civilized debate. I thought that was the province of Cicero. Or was it Galileo? Dang, mixed metaphors are so confusing.
> Maurizio: No, the 5km is an âeffective heightâ, not a physical layer.
I'd never thought I would be commending Omnologos... but here he is precisely right.
The "effective radiation level" is like the "expected throw" of a fair die, 3.5. No real die, fair or loaded, can ever throw a 3.5. Similarly very little radiation comes from this level; most comes from far above it (in the CO2 15 micron band) or from far below it, from water vapour or the solid Earth surface.
This is a quote of one of the authors (Nikolov) that Tallbloke goes gaga over at his blog:
The CO2 increase over the past 50-60 years is most likely due to degassing of the oceans as a result of a warming driven by reduction in cloud cover. Contrary to popular beliefs, man-made CO2 emissions are quite tiny (3-5%) compared to the CO2 fluxes between oceans and the atmosphere. The claim that human industrial activity is driving recent CO2 increase is a myth
This Nikolov character is capable of a wide range of science denial. I don't know sort of blog Tallbloke is running but it has very little to do with science.
People might rummage around, see if they know anyone there and ask if Tattersall shows up for seminars, interacts with faculty, etc and thus perhaps get a local perspective on his level of expertise. One of the benefits of being attached to or at least conveniently-near a decent university is the opportunity of such interactions with real researchers.
Degassing due to surface warming does not explain the observed decrease in pH in those surface waters over the same period of time. It does not explain the observed stable isotope signature. Deniers who throw these simple responses up ignore the fact that the earth is an interconnected, system, subject to conservation of mass and energy.
Not only that Phil, but the phrase 'background in' is itself super vague.
As Jeff Harvey once memorably observed to some unlikely candidate claiming 'a background in high-energy physics' that could just as easily mean working in the security hut in front of the CERN building as much as the attempted intended implication.
Given just the commentary on this thread, I'd be forced suggest that perhaps you consider asking for a refund of the money you spent on your formal education.
If the evidence here is any indication, something - a lot of something - didn't stick.
Yes, even a dogmatic denier crank like Morabito is not so devoid of comprehension of even the simplest matters as Tattersall. I'm not clear on why Joel identified tallbloke as someone who was "previously smart enough to reject" denial of the greenhouse effect, when he seems to be and have been a leader of that imbecilic pack.
@Anthony #163:
Don't forget that there's another problematic issue when invoking the oceans as the source of the CO2 increase: with a simple calculation, assuming that more than 80% of the CO2 increase is due to ocean outgassing, you'd have to find a sink that takes up well over a hundred gigatons *each year*.
After all, humans release about 30 Gt CO2/y mainly through fossil fuel burning, and if that's only 20%, this means oceans would release (net!) 120 Gt CO2/y. Since the increase in CO2 is about 15 Gt CO2/y (let's keep it simple), that means there's a sink that currently takes up 135 Gt CO2/y.
That's more than 1000 Gt in a decade, and allowing for the somewhat exponential increase, probably around 3000 Gt over the last 50-60 years.
If the ocean is a net emitter, the biosphere must be the net sink. Estimated total carbon in the biosphere is around 2000 Gt C, which is ca. 75000 Gt CO2. You'd think we would notice if the biosphere increases by 30%, no?
> Yes, even a dogmatic denier crank like Morabito is not so
> devoid of comprehension of even the simplest matters as
> Tattersall.
What fascinates me is this not even getting their act together on the basics. Sure, scientists may also disagree on esoteric details, but among them they have the basics sorted out. In contrast every denialist seems to have his own very personal mix of basic things that he actually 'gets', and just as basic things that he is delusional about.
I wonder if the faculty and students of the two departments you mention are aware of how Rog T amuses himself in his spare time?
If I were at that college, I'd be sure to spend a few hours networking with staff and students of the faculty concerned to make sure they were all aware that their web jockey plays a climatologist-wannabe online and promotes reactionary tosh. That's just the sort of retaliation we need to mount against these subversive Luddites.
Martin, remember that there also are plenty of scientists who are at least as deluded. See Gerlach and Tscheuschner, see Zeller (he has a PhD in Fluid Mechanics and Wind Engineering), see Nikolov (PhD in Forest Ecology. Regarding Nikolov: the Forest Service should be concerned having someone with such basic failures of understanding the carbon cycle being so deeply involved in their studies on the same...
Roger Andrews points him to the basic problem with his claim, but I suspect he will ultimately ignore that...
Re:174
Without further data, I would be really careful.
There is a large group of people doing fine environmental research, as evidenced by Science and Nature publications. The school may get funding from oil companions as well, and the effects could range from bad to just fine, depending on circumstances.
That is often true of industry funding of university research: you really have to evaluate them case by case.
For instance, there are plenty of reasonable people at George Mason University, but a few parts ate like branches of the Kochs and Scaife, etc.
ianam says: "I'm not clear on why Joel identified tallbloke as someone who was 'previously smart enough to reject' denial of the greenhouse effect, when he seems to be and have been a leader of that imbecilic pack."
Well...You are probably right that I did not realize how imbecilic he was from the start.
Marco says: "Martin, remember that there also are plenty of scientists who are at least as deluded. See Gerlach and Tscheuschner"
Actually, that is only one possible interpretation. Another possible interpretation is that G&T are engaged in intentional deception of others. I tend to imagine that G&T might think of themselves as defense lawyers for CO2. So, for example, they jump on picayune details that the eyewitnesses disagree on or get wrong in order to distract the jury from the fact that this still doesn't show that the defendant is guilty as sin. (This is particularly apparent in the section where they critique various statements of the greenhouse effect.)
I said "...in order to distract the jury from the fact that this still doesn't show that the defendant is guilty as sin."
I think there is a missing NOT in that sentence. I am reminded of this exchange from "Kentucky Fried Movie":
"Hornung: Mr. Grunwald, in addition to your occupation as a spoon, is it not true that you are a driving instructor?
Grunwald: No.
Hornung: Then it is true.
Grunwald: Yes.
Hornung: That you're not a driving instructor?
Grunwald: No.
Hornung: Your Honor, I object to this line of questioning.
Judge: Overruled."
Joel, fair enough to put it here also. I am not an expert in climate science, but even I can see the strawmen arguments in that paper. I just loved their "does not make physical science". There, now it has been proven it does not make physical sense, because we said so. Or the "as we have argued", and then suddenly that argument (with the argumentation perhaps(?) embedded in a lot of math) is proof. After all, they have argued, and therefore it is so.
But I really can't understand what reviewer (or Editor) would allow the personal attacks they put in their introduction. That by itself tells you enough about "Natural Science" as a journal.
Yeah...It makes you wonder if there was any review whatsoever! It does seem to have undergone one revision which makes me wonder what it could have possibly been like before that revision?!?
I just saved that paper to my computer with an appropriate name: Kramm_crap_2000.pdf
The journal Natural Science does not appear to have an impact factor or to appear on the Web of Science. Like most of the other contrarian crap, its a small wonder that dross ends up in there.
Chris O'Neill says: "Don't forget to mention Roy Spencer and his delusional 'natural' CO2 hypothesis. So many qualified crackpots, so much denial."
Yeah...That was a low point for Roy Spencer, and to my knowledge he has never even admitted his incredible error there. To his credit, Roy has been trying to explain why the Unified Climate Theory is nonsense. Unfortunately, his worshipful fans like tallbloke seem to have no problem ignoring what Roy says when he actually says something intelligent.
I guess tallbloke is a perfect garbage filter: No matter what goes in, only the complete garbage gets out.
That was a low point for Roy Spencer, and to my knowledge he has never even admitted his incredible error there.
A low plateau, as he continues to feature it (#2 on the menu, after the home link but before "about" Dr. Roy Spencer) on his web site. A good rebuttal is at http://www.skepticalscience.com/how-we-know-recent-warming-is-not-natur… .. in typical intellectually dishonest denier fashion, Spencer makes no mention of this or any other criticism of his argument.
The Galileo Movement is promoting the book to schoolteachers and school librarians, with an offer of a free copy. Full details of the offer are available at Connor Court.
Time to apply for your free copy of Plimer's latest offering. This is a new paradigm in book publishing: publish and give away. Where's the profit, you may ask? It's in the smokestacks of the polluting industries funding this trash pamphlet.
@68 on Warwick Hughes.
Posted similar to this on his web site but was quickly snipped. It appears that poor olâ Warwick canât handle substantive criticism.
The displayed graph and accompanying text clearly indicates:The chance that the average October to December maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature
and poor ol' WH forgot to note that these were temperature anomalies:
All temperature anomalies are calculated with respect to the average over the 1961 to 1990 reference period.
So the two are not directly comparable, differing measures and differing baselines.
Well spotted sillyfilly. I posted this at his site. We will see if it survives.
----
The first graph is the chance of exceeding the median Max Temp which is based on 56 years of data 1950 to 2005.
The second graph is labelled at BOM with "All temperature anomalies are calculated with respect to the average over the 1961 to 1990 reference period."
Joel (and others): Steve Carson (at Science of Doom) has already taken on the Kramm & Dugli article, nicely pointing out that its conclusion does not follow from the article itself, as well as its odd way of dismissing a theory in part because there's an error in a textbook and an (semantic) error in a description of the greenhouse effect.
Quite telling: Kramm has responded, but not to Steve Carson's questions and comments...
Chris: the Roy Spencer argument has been accepted by Ned Nikolov, he points to Spencer's analysis in a comment at Tallbloke. I would like to remind everyone that Nikolov's job at Forest Service is to look at exchange of various gases between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Quite worrysome that someone who is so deep into that part of the carbon cycle makes such uninformed comments about other parts of the carbon cycle.
Ned, if you are reading this: has the biosphere increased in mass with 1000 Gigatons of C in the last 50 years?
Re 190,192, Hughes really doesn't understand how the BoM probability forecasts are derived,doesn't understand how to judge their success,and insists they "cost millions",which is an absurd claim that he has never substantiated. He seems to think they are sophisticated models,and when they are 'wrong' by his estimation they have no value. They are actually inexpensive spinoffs from standard data collection: once you have long records across land and ocean,it's simple combination and comparison to generate likelihoods. Hughes needs to read-and understand-the background information presented with each forecast.
Hi everyone, I know this is a bit of a deviation from the thread, but I wanted to let everyone know that in just over a week I will commence a winter camping/hiking trek across one of Canada's most famous parks in Ontario. One of the themes (see below) of the trek is to bring attention to the effects of climate change on local biomes and their biodiveristy. We have a facebook page:
Beginning on Saturday, January 21st a long-time friend of mine in Canada, Mark Williamson (he is also a professional biologist) and I will commence a winter hiking/camping trek across Algonquin Park, which is located in central Ontario, Canada. The park consists of a huge expanse of unbroken wilderness consisting mainly of boreal forests (some northern hardwoods) and hundreds of lakes, and there is only one road going through the extreme southern part of the park. The trek will cover some 180-200 km, in winter conditions, where the average daily temperatures are -6 -10 C and the night temperatures a 'balmy' -15 -30 C(!!!). Its been a lot warmer than that over the poast two monthsm though, and researchers at the University of Toronto have already noted shifts in vegetation patterns in the province over the past 20-30 years. I will present a lecture at the University on the mechanisms underlying plant invasions in late February.
We anticipate that the entire trip will take us some 20-25 days to complete. A successful winter traverse of the park from west to east has never been done before, so its nice to be doing something for the first time! We have acquired excellent gear for the trip, including some sponsorship for various materials, and expect to have some of our adventures published in one or two Canadian outdoor publications. The aim of the trip is twofold: first, to bring attention to the effects of climate change, which is certainly impacting local biomes in the region, and to collect samples of snow and ice and to test them for the presence of trace organic contanimants. We also hope to see some of the native fauna whilst hiking across the park: grey wolves (there are at least 15 pack territories in the park), lynx, fisher, American Marten, Moose, White-Tailed Deer, Great-Horned, Barred and Great Grey Owls, two species of crossbills, Pine Grosbeak, Boreal Chickadee, Common Raven, Grey Jay etc. We have set up a facebook page for anyone who might be interested (see above). This will be updated regularly.
Providing I make it out of the park in one piece, I should be back in Holland on February 27th.
Jeff
I did the 'snow-sampling' thing whilst trekking across Vatnajokull a few years ago. Looks to me as though you're going to see a whole lot more than just the inside of a ping-pong ball on your trip.
Good luck and have fun
H
I am seeing Denialist trumpet a new paper by Scaffeta. It looks like to me it is the same old, same old. How did it get published? And what do you people think is the best rebuttal?
You can fit any data with a sufficient number of oscillations. Especially if you add something with a 60 year phase and the whole calibration period being about 2 such oscillations.
That is a different paper than the one I linked too. From my amateurs and none to competent look it appears to be saying the same thing. Yet, I am seeing it published in pretty respectable Journal
Don't overestimate the respectability of the journal - its impact factor (IF) is 1.579, which puts in strongly in the lowest quarter of journals in the same field. If the Scafetta paper was published in a journal with an IF over 3, then I would think there was a lot more to it. But is remarkable how much contrarian science ends up in relative 'bottom feeding' journals. This begs the question: do the authors of said articles realize their stuff was weak in the first place and decide to go low, or was it rejected several times from more rigid journals before settling near the bottom? This is a question I would like to see addressed, because low IF journals have lower thresholds for peer review than stronger journals. I had 10 papers published in my field (ecology) last year: 3 went into journals with an IF over 3, another 4 went into journals with an IF of 2-3, and the last three went into journals with an IF of 1-2. I would certainly never expect any of my research in journals with IF < 3 to get a lot of attention outside of my general circle of researchers, but its amazing how the climate change denial echo chamber hypes up relatively weak studies.
Thanks for the info, Jeff. I have already pointed out that the paper fails to explain such phenomena as a cooling stratosphere, etc, etc. I got into a "debate" with some clown over at Scientific American on an article about Michael Mann. He is claiming expertise in computer modelling and waving this latest paper from Scaffeta around like a holy relic. If you or any one else would like to join in I would appreciate it.
What is the likelihood of this paper ever being addressed by the scientific community?
Point of information: to beg the question is to make a circular argument -- "beg" being in the sense of "evade", not "implore". What you want here is "raises the question".
Oz: this is one of yours.
I've taken on a task that requires serious head-vise, that of reviewing numerous issues of Heartland's Environment and Climate Newsletter. See IPCC Author Selection Process
Plagued by Bias, Cronyism: Study, based on a study for SPPI (Science and Public Policy Institute, by John McLean.
This was 2008. Has anything much been heard from him of late?
[SPPI is a 1-man effort by Robert Ferguson, actually a PO box in a suburban UPS store about 10 minutes' walk from Ferguson's house.
JM - he's still rattling around. Fulminating on the newspaper letters page every now and then. You made me download the report and read it. I didn't realize what a funny writer and master satirist he is. It's HILARIOUS!!
>attempt... to derive knowledge/information [about the papers he read in order to accuse the IPCC of making up its confidence level numbers is fraught due to] ...the absence of such.
McLean's hilarious prediction got a run over at Hot Topic, too, the NZ Climate Science Coalition (*cough*) having decided it was worth running with.
This, and subsequent even more outlandish predictions and warnings of an impending little Ice Age, was all so entertainingly and monumentally Stoopid that the Friends of G&T decided it needed international recognition.
Watts has changed the banner on WWWT so that there is now a graph of global temperature in the background... superimposed with Spencer's favourite 3rd order polynomial as a 'trend' line...
The thing is, a third order polynomial is the only order polynomial (less than 7, at least) that gives a clear (or indeed - any) negative slope at the end of the current mean annual global temperature data, implying cooling. Running averages of various lengths also describe consistently increasing trends beyond the noise.
What Watts and Spencer have done is select (from dozens of options) the only simple curve that can be fitted so that it is monotonically decreasing at the end of the temperature series. On top of that there is no mathematical justification for fitting the single "valley and hill" shape of that category of cubic polynomial to the temperature series (I'd actually spent some time explaining why this is so, but decided that I'd just make people's eyes roll back in their heads).
Watts and Spencer should be embarrassed and ashamed.
> Mclean has become infamous for predicting "it is likely that 2011 will be the coolest year since 1956 or even earlier"
I was thinking that now the data for 2011 should (just about) be in, it would be a good time to revisit the prediction, preferably in as many places where it was prominently touted as possible.
> ...superimposed with Spencer's favourite 3rd order polynomial as a 'trend' line...
Where's Tim Curtin when you need him? ;-)
Guess they'll either remove the 3rd order polynomial quick smart when new data comes in that changes the fit to one with a solid upwards thrust at the end - or avoid updating the underlying data altogether. And not one of their fans will protest - or even notice.
Tonite is fine time for graphical follies of one sort or another, so I offer one more example from Heartland E&CN, before I got back to grinding through these things.
E&CN May 2008 offers fun items.
p.1.1 has a group picture from the Heartland Climate Conference. Oz folks may recognize some I don't.
p.5 has the first of a series of half-page ads, "A Picture is worth a thousand words", advertising a booklet by Ronald Rychlak.
Heartland says:
"This new Heartland Policy Study, by law professor Ronald Rychlak, explains how advocates of the alarmist perspective on global warming have manipulated the evidence with charts, graphs, and other visual exhibits designed to âmisrepresent data, misleading the public and describing a ârealityâ unsupported by science.â
Fortunately, this booklet is now freely available for your perusal.
Thanks for that link to the booklet John (sort of)
Don't you just love it when people criticise the presentation of data by others whilst apparently only being able to use the default settings on Excel themselves?
As for the objections raised about 'Fig 21'. Is it really that difficult to see that the foreground in the 1928 image is predominantly taken up by *glacier* and not seasonal snowcover as the author appears to suggest?
That was enough for me. What a bunch of w...jokers they are!
Yes, the discussion about Fig 21 is hilarious. The image shows a **glacier** in 1928 and a **lake** at the same place in 2004.
The text:
> The comparison certainly suggests that much snow was lost between 1928 and 2004 at the Upsala Glacier, part of the South American Andes in Argentina. Of course, there is no indication of the month in which each photograph was taken. One might have been taken in the summer and the other in the winter. ...
SteveC it never gets to that many posts if people ignore the person who'd grab attention for hundreds of posts. It's the byplay. If you're caring about the lurkers, gather the technical points and make them all at once in a post without using a troll's name, is my advice.
Shermer's a radical market fundamentalist. Yet another person whose definition of skeptic should be followed by "for other people's religions and fixed ideas, but never mine."
Fran Barlow, if you're to be allowed to continue to comment in the presence of your betters, we'll have to have (shuffles papers) at least 27 My time flitches from you. See that they're well-scooped or we'll insist you evaluate them for 6 Sigma Gauge Reproduction and Reliability, as well. If your geological results don't indicate an iron sun, you're doing something wrong. All of this comes straight from Ian, so I want no backtalk.
re: #214, etc.
Regarding the booklet, I really do suggest checking Rychlak's background to assess his expertise and viewpoints. This may help explain some of this ...
Last night when I went to sleep my back yard was ice free but this morning there was a glacier there. Record summer cold snap in southern Australia. Damn those glaciers - up and down like a bride's nightie.
re: 299
As Wikipedia tells us:
"Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is the Associate Dean For Academic Affairs and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, and is known for his published works, career as an attorney, and writings on the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II."
Mississippi is not known for its glacier experience.
BTW: it turns out there are many more strange connections between Heartland and Australia than one might imagine, involving odd money flows findable in the depths of IRS Form 990s.
I got this guy over at Scientific American in a thread who claims he wants to wager 100,000 usd on climate. I thought I recalled someone here who wanted wager 10,000 Euros? Anyway I invited this guy over here to see if anyone wanted to play with him.
Congratulating themselves on what a paragon of reasoned discussion they are presenting to the world is quite the theme at WUWT, in my experience. I'm sure Messrs. Dunning and Kruger would colour themselves unsurprised.
That was me trying to wager with Jonas N and his Scandinavian trolleagues about the eventuality of significant/catastrophic climate change.
As a marker of 'catastrophic' warming, I selected Arctic sea ice volume, because it conspicuously and undenialbly reflects polar atmospheric/ocean temperature, and because it serves as important habitat for at least two iconic species - the walrus and the polar bear. Loss of summer Arctic sea ice would be unprecedented - at least, for approximately [the last 700 thousand years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Arctic#Modelling.2C_…) - and it would be ecologically 'catastrophic'.
The logic of my wager is simple... Denialists say that there is no global warming; I say in response that if the planet is not warming, they should be prepared to put money on it, and to put more money on it, the warmer the planet (potentially) becomes as indicated by decreasing summer Arctic sea ice volume.
The conditions are on the Jonas thread. My only concerns now are that:
1) neither of the landmark time periods - 2025 and 2050 - might be reached with escrow accounts intact: the global economic system is decidedly wobbly, and is likely to be more so in the future, especially over longer-term spans. Even so, if I can find a denialist who's prepared to put even 10K euros down for my 10k, then I'd be interested.
2) the euro seems to be a currency whose value is not guaranteed in the future. Perhaps the answer to this would be to convert the current wager values into gold gram equivalents.
Strangely, once confronted with odds reflecting their stances, no denier seems to retain the desire to stand behind their positions...
A few days ago another teacher waxed lyrical about how WWWT had opened her eyes to the IPCC fraud, and how she relies on WWWT for teaching her students. And she's not the first I've seen making that sort of statement; and even more sadly, I've seen the same declarations come from Australian teachers.
Frankly, there's a serious problem there, and one that really begs for some appropriate intervention.
Thanks for the response Bernard. Do you have a link to the bet? I do not think this guy is serious or honest but I think being able to counter him by being able to direct them to that wager will shut him up.
I also want to just put in a word for you gang showing up at Scientific American occasionally.
>âMonckton says Greenland is not melting. It is.â Well, it is now
I actually spat tea everywhere at that. What a comedic genius.
>âMonckton says thereâs no systematic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. There is.â No, I said that the 30-year record low ice extent of 2007 had been largely reversed in 2008 and 2009.
I could go on. He pulls so many Monckton Maneuvers throughout the rebuttal it will take Potholer54 weeks to disect them all which, I suspect, was the point.
Oh God, Peter's going to have a field day with this, and I haven't even mentioned the slimey tactic Monckton uses to get around quoting Hadfield accurately:
>I noted them down rather hastily, since I am disinclined to waste much time on him, so the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.
This is from a man who considers himself a scientist, mathematician and academic.
I have been asked to post an offer of a wager at this site regarding the reliability of the current set of GCMâs.
I am will to wager $100K usd that your GCM of choice will not be able to reasonably accurately predict the annual rainfall amounts 36 months from now at 30 different locations around the world. I have used this to demonstrate that GCMs are not accurate enough to give us reliable predictions of future rainfall at any specific location around the globe. For the wager we will call reasonably accurate as being =/- 5%.
I can do better than that. I'm willing to wager $1m USD that, using currently available information, your favourite method of analyzing climate data will not be able to predict the exact name of the Japanese Prime Minister at 1 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC.
pokerplayer, whoever thinks that they want a GCM to predict the weather "36 months from now at 30 different locations around the world" doesn't understand what GCMs do, or what climate is.
Trent, let him crow. He's just portraying his ignorance of GCMs and climate.
Worse, he does not even realise the implicit problem of the uncertainty of 'predicting' rainfall. We *know* that the regional projections are not only dependent on the emission scenarios and potential natural variations we cannot control (if another Pinatubo goes off, our current 'prediction' will get even more likely to be wrong), we also know the regional projections are still not accurate enough to make any solid projections.
However, unlike what pokerplyer likely implies, this does not mean we should not worry about climate change. In fact, quite the opposite: it means this uncertainty should make us worry even more. Due to the uncertainty, we have no idea what we have to adapt to. In other words, the uncertainty makes mitigation by far the only acceptable path to take!
The whole issue of GCMs is one of the most critical to the issue and one where many readers are highly misinformed. I am an aerospace engineer and am very familiar with complex model development and use. I do not claim to be an expert on the development of GCM's because I do not know what variables or the weights or timing of those variables that are or should be programmed into the models.
I do know how complex models should generally be developed and documented because virtually everyone follows a set of engineering guidelines for model development. This process involves defining the key criteria that you wish the model to be able to predict, within what margins of error, over what timeframes or conditions. This practice has NOT been followed for GCMs.
Ask Mann why it makes sense to average the results of many models vs. determining what model produces reliable, repeatable results and only using that model until a better one is developed. Ask Mann why he can trust the output of GCMs that produce significantly different results when they are runs multiple times using the same data.
As a engineer, I am telling you that the current GCMs are HIGHLY unreliable, and were never designed for use in governmental policy development. These models are a waste of the US taxpayer s money. The same funds could be spent much better one the development of two sets of much more practical models. The 1st west would be regional models that could reasonably accurately forecast condition 20 to 30 years in the future. The 2nd set would be local and regional models that would be highly reliable 12 months into the future. These two types of models would allow people to completely adapt to potential changes in the weather or climate. Mann is spreading baloney.
> I am an aerospace engineer and am very familiar with complex model development and use.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Really, before you try to fit that sock onto your hand for the third time, you should look up the words "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" in an undergraduate level textbook. If you don't have the appropriate undergraduate level textbook, consider getting one.
Marco
I have not written that we should not be concerned about future weather, but I have written that we have limited resources and should address the issue smartly and efficiently.
Virtually every concern that could come about as a result of the world being somewhat warmer can easily be adapted to by the construction of proper infrastructure. Humans need to build or re-built infrastructure every 25 to 30 years as a matter of course, so this is a very cost effective approach and can be done in the US quite easily.
Many countries around the world do not build proper infrastructure to protect their citizens and societies. They do not do this for a variety of reasons, including cultural and corruption related factors. That is not a problem for the US or the EU to resolve. I see no reason why the US owes funding to any other country or the UN in general over the issue of CO2 emissions. Independent countries can adapt to the future climate if they build what is needed, but if they fail to do so, it is not a problem for the US tax payer to be a part of fixing.
If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers are using GCMs to claim that a particular region of the world will be harmed by a warmer climate because that region will receive 10% less rainfall it means that the IPCC or the writer of the paper is using the GCM to forecast future weather. I am writing the models are not sufficiently accurate for that purpose.
Still claiming "I am an aerospace engineer", when you exhibit the opposite of knowledge regarding the concepts of "turbulence" and "chaos" and "stochasticity"? Hello?
The more you blather on, the more you expose yourself to be a blathering idiot, and a fraud.
Whether you believe it or not I don't really care, but it happens to be a fact. Mechanical engineering undergrad with a masters in economics and finance.
Whether you believe it or not I don't really care, but it happens to be a fact. Mechanical engineering undergrad with a masters in economics and finance.
So you previously claim to be an "aerospace engineer", and suddenly now you just have an undergraduate in "mechanical engineering" and a "masters in economics and finance"?
And you claim all these things even though you can't grasp the undergraduate level concepts of "turbulence" and "chaos"?
> Whether you believe it or not I don't really care,
Oh, I think you do care. Because without all that pretentious degree dropping, your 'arguments' are nothing more than the blatherings of a blatherer.
Whether you believe it or not I don't really care, but it happens to be a fact. Mechanical engineering undergrad with a masters in economics and finance.
If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers are using GCMs to claim that a particular region of the world will be harmed by a warmer climate because that region will receive 10% less rainfall it means that the IPCC or the writer of the paper is using the GCM to forecast future weather.
When an engineer has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years they are generally called aerospace engineers. Care to make a wager on my resume idiot?
When an engineer has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years they are generally called aerospace engineers. Care to make a wager on my resume idiot?
I've known plenty of aerospace/defense engineers with over 25 years of experience, and for the most part, they didn't know *squat* about climate science.
Typical case:
Engineer with 25 years of experience: "Michael Mann's method generates hockey sticks from random noise."
Me: "How do the random noise eigenvalues compare with Michael Mann's tree-ring eigenvalues?"
If you understood the terms "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochasticity", you'll immediately realize what a blathering pile of blather your comment 250 was. The proof of this is, as they say, left as an exercise for the reader.
> Really, before you try to fit that ["I am an aerospace engineer"] sock onto your hand for the third time, you should look up the words "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" in an undergraduate level textbook. If you don't have the appropriate undergraduate level textbook, consider getting one.
Frank I do not know what your background is, but your comment is so silly as to be nonsense. Your having asked me to look up "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" only demonstrates that you do not desire a meaningful exchange.
Are you inferring that because GCMs are complex models that the developers should not define the characteristics that the models are expected to be able to accurately forecast, within what margins of error, over what timeframes? Idiot, exchanges with you seem to be a waste of time.
Independent countries can adapt to the future climate if they build what is needed, but if they fail to do so, it is not a problem for the US tax payer to be a part of fixing.
Why should they have to pay to improve their infrastructure when it is others, mostly Western countries, who have caused the problems they wil be facing?
You are a typical arrogant, ignorant and selfish denier. Your motto is:
I can do what ever I want and too bad for anyone who has the misfortune to be affected by my arrogance, ignorance and selfishness
your comment is so silly as to be nonsense. Your having asked me to look up "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" only demonstrates that you do not desire a meaningful exchange.
Why don't you tell us in your own words your understanding of the scientific meanings of "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochasticity"? I thought this is stuff that "I am an aerospace engineer" would know like the back of your hand? Stuff that you'd factor into your own calculations?
Or are you trying to hide your lack of knowledge, and your ridiculous degree dropping, by dodging these concepts?
Pokerplayer, I'd certainly wager on your complete inability to understand the significance of short term versus long term events as well as temporal trends. Your wager infers that you think that weather and climate are interchangeable concepts. In other words, in inferring a short term linear relationship, this does not allow for stochastic events to occur along a significant statistical gradient.
I am a scientist with a PhD in population ecology, and if I analyzed regression data sets I generate in my experiments the way that you are suggesting, then I would have to consider no result as being statistically significant if there were only one outlying data point somewhere along the x axis. This is clearly what you are suggesting - that every data point along the axis must, by your inane definition, be higher than the previous one closer to the point of origin. Your wager is that the odds are that some of the points along the regression will be (in terms of some short term meteorological event) lower on the y-axis that a point that follows it along the x-axis, without taking into consideration the many data points along a long x-axis (representing years).
You may be an aerospace engineer, but this is hardly rocket science. Clearly you have not got a clue about even basic statistics. Statistics is not my strong suit, but your grasp of it is abominable.
Then you write this patent nonsense:
*Virtually every concern that could come about as a result of the world being somewhat warmer can easily be adapted to by the construction of proper infrastructure*
How many times must one put this kind of anthropocentric clap-trap to bed? The problem is not human adaptation to a rapidly changing climate, but the ability of complex adaptive natural systems to adapt. Warming threatens to disrupt the flow of a wide range of supporting ecological services that sustain humanity but which have few or no technological substitutes. Pokerplayer writes as if humans are exempt from the laws of nature, and that we can forever continue hammering away at the planet's natural systems to death and that, thanks to some miracle of human ingenuity that we can forever increase the human carrying capacity. But the planet's natural systems already have a reduced capacity to support man. Its time we factored in the costs to natural systems of human overconsumption and simplification, because at present these are excluded from economic pricing. Costanza et al's seminar 1997 Nature article estimated the value of supporting ecological services to the material economy alone and concluded that they were worth a staggering 33 trillion dollars, or more than twice the combined GDP of all nations on Earth at the time. As Costanza explained, the reason he wrote the paper is that he was fed up with neoclassical economists estimating the value of nature to be about 2% of global GDP - a complete inverse of reality. More and more economists are now realizing that the value of nature in sustaining human civilization goes well beyond consumptive value - something pokerplayer clearly does not understand.
If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers...
aaah, 'IPCC' & 'alarmist' in the same sentence shows your pre-judgement. Furthermore, obviously you have DK syndrome
and re: enhancing ones qualifications, didn't a certain David Evans (electrican /electrical engineer) claim to be a Rocket Scientist after a short spell at NASA?
Jeff
You misunderstand my perspective. I am not claiming that additional atmospheric CO2 will not warm the planet, or that the significant increase in the human population is not impacting the habitats of other creatures. I do claim that we do not really understand what the rate of warming will be from additional CO2 and that there is no reliable evidence that a warmer world is worse for the world human population overall, or for the US in particular over the long term.
You wrote- âThe problem is not human adaptation to a rapidly changing climate, but the ability of complex adaptive natural systems to adapt.â I suggest that your position is clearly different than the one of the IPCC, and that yours would be stronger to argue for population control or reduction than it is for CO2 control.
You wrote- âWarming threatens to disrupt the flow of a wide range of supporting ecological services that sustain humanity but which have few or no technological substitutes.â What specific supporting ecological services do you believe are threatened by potential warming? Again, what you have written seems less about warming than it is about the human population disturbing the environment overall and the natural evolution of that human population to desire to have the highest lifestyle that it can obtain in spite of the impact on the environment.
By no means do I believe that humans are exempt from the laws of nature. I am simply a realist who understands that the planet is governed by 200 independent nation states with frequently conflicting goals. I do not see any reason why taxpayers in the US should be obligated to work harder or to pay more taxes because people in India of Pakistan (as examples) have not built proper infrastructure and have had unsupportable population growth.
Why do skeptics keep buying into the straw man arguments about whether it is warming or not. I know of no serious student of climate science who does not admit that the planet has been warming since the Little Ice Age. Given that the argument that Constantanople had the warmest April ever is trivial. Of course if the planet is warming than lots of places will set records. They mean nothing. The question is is that warming do to "Natural Variation" - meaning we are not sure exactly why it is warming. Or is it do to Anthropological increases in atmospheric Co2 which is of course the question under consideration. Generally it is considered that CO2 was not a major factor before 1950 and that 30 years is needed to have a reliable trend. Examine this graph for the 30 year periods 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2000 http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/pl… or to make it simpler just the trend lines. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/pl… Now you will note there is an increase of temperature. Given that it is accepted that that has been happening because of the LIA rebound the question is are the trend lines different. If they are you have an argument for AGW if not you will have to make an argument that somehow the natural warming in the second half of the 20th century is somehow different. A much more difficult argument than its warmer today in this place than it was last year.
For the Little Ice Age you might look to [Article in Science](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/274/5292/1503.abstract) Though this is behind a paywall. You could look at "Mechanisms of global climate change at millennial time scales
By Peter U. Clark, Robert S. Webb, Lloyd D. Keigwin"
Looks like we've found ourselves another Dunning Kruger posterboy! Yet another surly buffoon with multiple degrees in Advanced Geniusness who cannot distinguish between weather and climate.
Some technical people use computers for some kinds of modeling and therefore think they automagically know about other kinds of modeling. Generally, they don't, as their modeling experience is usually far too narrow (by my standards, which I admit are atypical).
Some people with M.E. backgrounds, for example like John Abraham understand climate modeling, as do some of the fine aerospace researchers at NASA Ames.
But is there any reason to suspect that typical corporate aerospace engineers understand the differences between their modeling and thsoe of climate modelers?
NO, and I don't have a survey, but I certainly have anecdotal experience that the answer is generally NO. Background in CFD or other finite-element models is useful, but people have to spend time understanding the differences, and there is no reason for most to do so.
The problem comes when someone aggressively over-generalizes.
I used to be Chief Scientist @ Silicon Graphics in the 1990s. When I wasn't doing design work on {software, microprocessors and supercomputers, I spent 50-60% of my time talking to customers and partners, including many who did M.E. tasks like Computational Fluid Dynamics or structural mechanics, as well as people who did climate models (NCAR, GFDL, NASA), petroleum geophysicists, molecular modelers, high-energy physicists, operations research folks, etc, etc.
I spent lots of time with 3rd-pary software developers, so for instance, spent a day with the developers at MSC and then did a keynote talk at a conference of theirs. The first part was to geared to discussing algorithms and any impediments they were finding so I could bring them back to our software people and for longer-term issues, think about memory system designs.
I used to visit Boeing to give half-day technology briefings to senior staff. I used to talk regularly with other aerospace companies as well, and of course, many of the car companies, who sometimes used related software, although they probably did a lot more simulated crash testing, those being more common for cars. Of course, they use CFD codes, too.
NASA AMES was often our lead customer for our biggest machines, always wanting something that wasn't on our price list. Their senior guys would come over to visit often, since we were a few miles away.
Them: Why can't we buy a Terabyte or memory, only .5TB? Our big CFD codes need it.
[They liked to run one big CFD code using an entire machine.] This was back when a TB was big.
(Me) A: Don't worry, the hardware is designed for it, when the prices on the next 4X DRAM become sensible, about 6-9 months. But do you have the budget?
(Them): Sure.
(Me, asking a question whose answer I knew):
Will a Terabyte be enough?
(Them): (Outrage) No, no, our grid elements are still way too big for us to simulate whole vehicles ... etc, etc ... a tale I'd heard before, having worked with guys like Paul Woodward when he was doing stellar modeling that needed big memories.
(Me, asking another question whose answer I knew):
Well, how much *would* be enough?
(Them): There's never enough.
(Got to love that kind of customer. They always wanted something 4X bigger, and the only way to get that was for us to assemble the first such configuration at their site, and then finish the debugging.)
But some parts of NASA do climate modeling and some of their people perfectly well understand the differences between that and aerospace M.E.
GCM's aren't built to predict rainfall in any particular place a few years off. Expecting that is even sillier than:
- expecting a NASTRAN or LS-DYNA or ANSYS run to predict whether or not a specific plane will be in for repairs some specific day a few years off or
- expecting PAM-CRASH to tell you whether or not a specific car would be in a crash some specific week.
I don't do silly strawman excursions such as your GCM nonsense is, and I've come to realise that most denialists are scared of the wager to which I refer above (I'm sure that you can find the details), probably because there are to many options, so I'll cut to the chase.
I'll bet you $100k against your $100K that the summer Arctic PIOMAS sea ice volume will, by 2020, drop below the current summer record.
In the interest of informed decision-making I refer you to:
I do claim that we do not really understand what the rate of warming will be from additional CO2 and that there is no reliable evidence that a warmer world is worse for the world human population overall,
How accurately do you need to know the future rate of warming and what level of confidence that a warmer world will be worse do you need before you accept that action needs to be taken?
I do not see any reason why taxpayers in the US should be obligated to work harder or to pay more taxes because people in India of Pakistan (as examples) have not built proper infrastructure
Perhaps because the US is a major contributor to global warming? Why should they be required to pay for damage you have caused?
I am curious as to how you think improved infrastructure can prevent or circumvent drought in Texas or acidification of the oceans. It seems to me that you are a prime example of the adage that 'to a hammer, everything looks like a nail'. Also, as others have pointed out, you need to learn the difference between weather and climate.
> ...I do claim that we do not really understand what the rate of warming will be from additional CO2...
Nor do you apparently understand scientific uncertainty bounds, nor why predicted warming of *climate* is much better bounded than weather predictions, nor the science of decision making under regimes of incomplete information - in particular, risk mitigation.
The latter is interesting for someone who claims postgrad economics and finance qualifications, which is normally considered quite heavy on working with incomplete information. (You might want to apply for a refund on your tuition fees.)
So I take it you don't buy house insurance until the forest fire is licking at your eaves because prior to that data coming in there's "no reliable information" that this particular fire will harm your property?
No? You **do** have insurance? Hmmmm, interesting.
But you want the ecosystem and human population - especially everyone other than the US - to take the risk with CO2 rather than "buying insurance", right? And you are confident you have good reasons for that, right?
So you must have a risk-option-cost model that you used to come to this decision, right? What are the bounds on the impacts imposed by CO2-based warming, and the bounds on the costs of dealing with the impacts for the various options on the table in your model, and how were they derived? Oh, wait, you say you *don't really know* how much it will warm so therefore you *can't even have bounded* the impacts, and:
> ... and that there is no reliable evidence that a warmer world is worse for the world human population overall...
...so you are arguing you don't have enough information to bound the *effects* of the impacts either.
If we can't reliably bound how fast it will warm nor reliably bound the impacts we care about let alone their costs, then risk mitigation says the **only** safe course of action is to completely avoid driving the system into those unknown states with potentially unbounded impacts. In other words, we have to keep CO2 at geologically recent levels - which we've already exceeded, so we'd better swing into action to get the levels down *pronto*. That's where your implied facts inexorably lead.
You, however, appear to have drawn the opposite conclusion. That suggests you are either deeply incompetent at risk mitigation, or you aren't even attempting to argue a position based on a realistic assessment of the known information.
Hey, look - turns out you're not a realist after all!
I do not claim to be an expert on the development of GCM's...
As a engineer, I am telling you that the current GCMs are HIGHLY unreliable ...
What is it with climate change deniers that they wear ignorance as a badge of honor?
Like the man with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail, our intrepid idiot (I am engineer - listen to me) who claims a passing knowledge of models in the aerospace industry believes that GCM models of a chaotic and non linear system must be the same even though he admits he has little knowledge of them.
His wager is simply additional illustration of his ignorance.
I am will to wager $100K usd that your GCM of choice will not be able to reasonably accurately predict the annual rainfall amounts 36 months from now at 30 different locations around the world.
If he bothered to actually educate himself before making his blowhard comments, he could have read the following FAQ on climate models at Real Climate.
A. "No. There are often large variation in the temperature and precipitation statistics over short distances because the local climatic characteristics are affected by the local geography. The GCMs are designed to describe the most important large-scale features of the climate, such as the energy flow, the circulation, and the temperature in a grid-box volume (through physical laws of thermodynamics, the dynamics, and the ideal gas laws). A typical grid-box may have a horizontal area of ~100Ã100 km2..."
So tell us please Pokerplyer - who is claiming that GCMs can predict the annual rainfall at a specific location 36 months from now? Or did you just make it up?
Let me start with a compliment to this site as it has not done as Real Climate or Skeptical Science does and deleted posts that disagreed with the moderators position. I also want to thank those who disagree with my conclusions and actually respond with coherent rationale as to why they disagree. I will review responses to my points worth review.
Comment #261 by Chris I wrote- If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers are using GCMs to claim that a particular region of the world will be harmed by a warmer climate because that region will receive 10% less rainfall it means that the IPCC or the writer of the paper is using the GCM to forecast future weather.
Chrisâs reply- No it doesn't.
My question- what data was the IPCC or the writer of a paper using to determine that rainfall would change fit it was not from a GCM?
Comment #269- My comment- Independent countries can adapt to the future climate if they build what is needed, but if they fail to do so, it is not a problem for the US tax payer to be a part of fixing
Ianâs response- Why should they have to pay to improve their infrastructure when it is others, mostly Western countries, who have caused the problems they will be facing?
My response- They should have to pay for the infrastructure in their own country and not the US taxpayer. It seems as though you are unknowledgeable of actual world conditions. Much of the world does not build virtually any infrastructure and as a result when it rains heavily people are harmed. Travel in SW Asia and you will learn that infrastructure is not built largely due to vast corruption. It has nothing to do with anything the US or the EU has done or not done. If (hypnotically) that everything you believed was true regarding AGW, the difference in degree of harm to people from severe weather would be minimal as compared to the difference between a country that has prepared by building proper infrastructure and those like those in SW Asia that have not.
The US has not been responsible for the fact that many countries have not built proper infrastructure to protect their citizens from bad weather. The vast majority of people harmed by severe weather events would not have been harmed if proper infrastructure had been constructed.
John wrote a long comment about his experiences with aerospace engineers- (we may have met I was with Boeing for 20 years), but his key comment was:
âGCM's aren't built to predict rainfall in any particular place a few years off.â
John- I agree. It would has been much more useful if the models would have been built to actually accurately predict conditions important to government policy making. Since the GCMs cannot accurately forecast future rainfall, what tool was used to determine that parts of the world would be harmed by less rainfall as a result of higher temperatures?
Comment #281 by Bernard- âI'll bet you $100k against your $100K that the summer Arctic PIOMAS sea ice volume will, by 2020, drop below the current summer record.â
My response-I think you would win that bet, but do not think it is evidence of any overall harm.
Comment #282 by Richard - âHow accurately do you need to know the future rate of warming and what level of confidence that a warmer world will be worse do you need before you accept that action needs to be taken?â
My response-I would agree that actions are warranted as long as they are cost efficient based upon a cost benefit analysis. Taking actions that are expensive but do little to nothing to address the issue are pointless. It all depends upon the specifics.
Richards further question- âI am curious as to how you think improved infrastructure can prevent or circumvent drought in Texas or acidification of the oceans.â
My response- The drought in Texas is a weather event and not the result of AGW. The result of the drought would have been better adapted to by better, deeper reservoir construction which would have provided for more water having been saved to prepare for droughts. I actually have property in Texas btw.
I do not believe ocean acidification is a real concern that is related to AGW. Much of what has been written on the topic is nonsense.
Travel in SW Asia and you will learn that infrastructure is not built largely due to vast corruption
SW Asia is the Middle East, you geographically challenged clown. Much of the infrastructure in the ME is more modern and advanced than the aging infrastructure in the USA.
In one of the poorer nations, the slums of cities like Cairo are in part a result of years of US military support for dictators like Mubarak. The citizens of Egypt may be poor but they are smarter than you - they identified the problem and are dealing with it.
Egypt's carbon footprint is around 233 Mt of CO2e per year, the USA's is 7000 Mt of CO2e. Historically the contribution of the developed world to CO2e in the atmosphere dwarfs that of the poor nations.
Your argument is "I can tip all my garbage into my neighbour's back yard and if he cannot afford to clean it up too bad." You are grotesque.
If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers are using GCMs to claim that a particular region of the world will be harmed by a warmer climate because that region will receive 10% less rainfall it means that the IPCC or the writer of the paper is using the GCM to forecast future weather.
No it doesn't.
My question- what data was the IPCC or the writer of a paper using to determine that rainfall would change fit it was not from a GCM?
Looks like pokeplyer still doesn't get the point. I'll give you a clue. For a given climate, the annual rainfall usually varies by much more than 5% from year to year.
My response [to âHow accurately do you need to know the future rate of warming and what level of confidence that a warmer world will be worse do you need before you accept that action needs to be taken?â] -I would agree that actions are warranted as long as they are cost efficient based upon a cost benefit analysis. Taking actions that are expensive but do little to nothing to address the issue are pointless. It all depends upon the specifics.
You are waffling.
The drought in Texas is a weather event and not the result of AGW. The result of the drought would have been better adapted to by better, deeper reservoir construction which would have provided for more water having been saved to prepare for droughts.
But it is the type of weather event that is expected to become much more common with global warming. How can you save more water if the rainfall is decreasing (think Colorado)?
I do not believe ocean acidification is a real concern that is related to AGW. Much of what has been written on the topic is nonsense.
Oh, really? What do you think is the cause of ocean acidification? Care to give an example of this nonsense from the scientific press?
Let me start with a compliment to this site as it has not done does and deleted posts that disagreed with the moderators position.
Let me guess; in reality you serially disregarded their comments policy and insisted on making your non-complying or off-topic assertions on any post you chose?
I do not believe ocean acidification is a real concern that is related to AGW. Much of what has been written on the topic is nonsense.
Oh, mighty Genius, and it seems you know more than ocean chemists now, too!
chris o'neill- perhaps you didn't get or wish to respond to the point that the IPCC has referenced potential harms that are based on the premise of changes in rainfall can be predicted by GCM's. I state that is an incorrect assumption.
Mike H- Since i grew up in Saudi Arabia as a teenager I am very familar with the area and infrastructure is not a priority in the region. I am in the region and was referencing India and Pakistan as SW Asia
Pokerply @ 288 says in response to John Mashey's comment
"GCM's aren't built to predict rainfall in any particular place a few years off"
Since the GCMs cannot accurately forecast future rainfall, what tool was used to determine that parts of the world would be harmed by less rainfall as a result of higher temperatures?
It appears we are dealing with a simpleton who cannot comprehend the difference between a weather forecast for a particular location and time and long term climate trends.
Is he pretending to be thick or is he really thick? - hard to tell.
Tell me this Captain Clueless. Are the existence of climate zones in the US (which every school kid learns in geography) a record of past climate and a prediction about future climate?
Your comment that "Ocean chemists" believe that human relaesed CO2 is the primary cause of the ph level of the oceans changing, and that this is a harm is so far fetched as to be laughable from what I have read. I absolutely agree that humans are damaging the oceans. Do you seriously think that human release of CO2 is at or near the top of the list?
Try to keep up- What information did the IPCC use other than GCMs to predict that additional human released CO2 would change rainfall amounts and harm specific regions? LOL they claimed that they could predict that the future rainfall would be changed by certain amounts based upon GCMs and not looking at history
perhaps you didn't get or wish to respond to the point that the IPCC has referenced potential harms that are based on the premise of changes in rainfall can be predicted by GCM's.
Obviously you don't get or wish to respond to the point that even if you know the climate (which is all a GCM can give you), it is impossible to know the future rainfall in any particular year to an accuracy of 5%. Climate is the average over some number of years such as 30, not the rainfall in any one year.
You are now getting desperate throwing assertions about like confetti. How about the occasional reference to support your bluster. I can see why you got turfed off Real Climate - they expect hand waving to be supported by actual evidence.
@ 297
Your comment that "Ocean chemists" believe that human relaesed CO2 is the primary cause of the ph level of the oceans changing, and that this is a harm is so far fetched as to be laughable from what I have read
Here is a tip - tear yourself away from the climate denier web site that currently has you in its grip and read some real science.
Your bullshit may get you some plaudits at WUWT or the other moron infested blogs that you hang around in but people here for some weird reason are interested in science.
>Comment #281 by Bernard- âI'll bet you $100k against your $100K that the summer Arctic PIOMAS sea ice volume will, by 2020, drop below the current summer record.â
>My response-I think you would win that bet, but do not think it is evidence of any overall harm.
So you admit that the planet is warming, but you think that it doesn't matter...
Erm, excuse me if I appear to be sceptical, but exactly how much does the planet have to warm, in the opinion of an "aerospace engineer" who doesn't seem to play much poker, before there is "overall harm"? And what exactly constitutes "overall harm"?
>I do not believe ocean acidification is a real concern that is related to AGW. Much of what has been written on the topic is nonsense.
+
>Your comment that "Ocean chemists" believe that human relaesed [sic] CO2 is the primary cause of the ph [sic] level of the oceans changing, and that this is a harm is so far fetched [sic] as to be laughable from what I have read.
Why exactly is ocean acidification not "a real concern that is related to AGW"?
Exactly how much of what has been written on the topic is "nonsense"? What is it exactly that is "nonsense"?
What exactly have you "read" that permits you to discount the opinions of chemists and physiologists? I'm a biologist with a decade and a half experience in biomedical sciences before jumping horses to ecology (including, recently, marine ecology), and I have decades experience in maintaining (both professionally and as a hobbyist) freshwater and marine aquaria. And I have no doubt that the scientific consensus on the dangers of ocean acidification are as serious as they are described.
I'm very curious to hear why an "aerospace engineer" has so much insight into scientific disciplines completely detached from his own trade that he can discount the understanding of physicists, climatologists, chemists, and biologists.
It seems to me that your problem is that you are "plying" that poker a little too hard. Your proctologist would probably advise you to ease off a little from your pernicious habit.
It's a shame that you turned out to be just another Denialatus windbag. I was hoping that you might actually believe your own guff sufficiently that you would put that $100k on the table: it would have been by far the biggest single contribution to my house construction that I am likely to see.
It is interesting to interact with so many true alarmist concerned about the potential harms of CO2. Here is another summary of some of the points raised:
1. Ocean acidification-Rather than me writing Iâll provide a link that also references other studies- http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/4704-matt-ridley-taking-fear…
2. This question was posted- âbut exactly how much does the planet have to warm, before there is "overall harm"? And what exactly constitutes "overall harm"?
My response-It is the sum of the known harms. In relation to AGW the issue is whether the actions being proposed will be efficient when evaluated based on a cost benefit analysis to address the reported âharmsâ. Many suggested actions âharmâ people to a greater degree than the benefit justifies.
Chris #304: I would like to stress again that Nikolov actually is involved in analysis of parts of the carbon cycle in his job. This makes it even more mindboggling to see him make such a mistake.
And it should be a real concern to his employer...
Gee, I reference bona-fide ocean chemists, and you reference ...?
(And didn't he do a great job when he was the head of a bank?)
And oh, Mighty One, did you actually read that piece? I did, and then thought - funny, no actual citations. I found the Scripps article, though.
I suggest everyone reads it, then compares what it says to Ridley's interpretation. Cherrypicking, much? And then some unidentifiable cherrypick gives us 'marine and freshwater assemblages have always experienced variable pH conditions'. Gee, 'climate has always changed' Mk II! Oh, and freshwater lakes pH - well, that's cleared up the ocean acidification issue, then. Plus also 'freshwater mussels thrive in [acidic] Scottish rivers'. Whoop-de-doo!
And then we get that tiresome idiocy about the ocean not really being acid because the pH is still above 7.0.
And can you pair
If the average pH of the ocean drops to 7.8 from 8.1 by 2100 as predicted, it will still be well above seven, the neutral point where alkalinity becomes acidity.
with
studies have shown that at least some kinds of calcifiers [my emphasis] still thriveâat least as far down as pH 7.8.
...and tell me what happens to even these surviving calcifers beyond that point? And what we might expect generally if pH fluctuates around an average if that average is rapidly trending downward?
I'll leave you to find any remaining references to actual science, since Ridley's piece is intriguingly coy on these studies - it's almost like he wouldn't want us to look them up!
This substance-free link-spamming is doubtlessly why you got chucked out of the other sites you claim to have been victimised by.
> Many suggested actions âharmâ people to a greater degree than the benefit justifies.
A post-grad finance/economics grad should know that one can't evaluate that equation until you've got a handle on the potential "harm", which a person of ordinary intelligence here understands to be the risk due to climate change. Risk by definition involves a range of possible outcomes and some form of probability distribution. You've previously indicated you cannot quantify this risk to any reasonable level of certainty, although you can't admit it to yourself so you assert that it is low.
Which means you're pulling the claim to have evaluated this cost-benefit equation out of your arse.
Pokerplyer: I was going to suggest some scientific papers you could look at to see that ocean acidification is a concern, but in view of the link you gave it's obvious that they would be beyond you. Take a look at this outline at SkepticalScience.
BTW: You have still not answered these questions: exactly how much does the planet have to warm, in the opinion of an "aerospace engineer" who doesn't seem to play much poker, before there is "overall harm"? And what exactly constitutes "overall harm"?
I believe a post-grad finance/economics grad should know that one can't predict climate change until s/he got a handle on the mechanism behind climate change, which all person of ordinary intelligence understands.
Erm, excuse me if I appear to be sceptical, but exactly how much does the planet have to warm, in the opinion of an "aerospace engineer"
Actually, pokerplyer isn't really an "engineer" -- for his Master's degree, he took the path of least resistance and chose finance/business instead of hard science/engineering.
He's a PhB (Pointy-haired Boss) beancounting-type, not a hard-core technical person. And it shows in his posts.
Interesting to note how deranged people like Ned Nikolov and Roy Spencer must be to think that the oceans are outgassing...
What's really pathetic about that is the fact that demonstrating that natural processes must be net CO2 *absorbers* is a straightforward high-school math bookkeeping exercise.
Really -- converting MTons of CO2 emissions to PPM changes in the atmosphere is something that a high-school student should be able to do! It seems that hard-core denier-think negates not only college degrees, but high-school diplomas as well!
What is interesting is the tendency of the posters here to be so sure of their position as throw out insults vs. actually discussing the relevant issues in play.
I started out posting what I acknowledge is a silly bet that nobody familiar with what a GCM can do would have accepted. The purpose of that wager was to get people who fear cAGW to actually learn about the capabilities and limitations of general circulation models. These models were not designed to provide data for government policy making and are unsuitable for that purpose. Mann has pushed the approach but it is wrong due to the unreliability of those models. If you believe GCMs outputs are consistent and reliable you are mistaken.
Btw--please notice I have not really slammed those who have posted really stupid comments that are factually wrong. Read the one who told me to learn geography for considering Pakistan and India to be part of SW Asia? I guess you all think I was wrong about that also.
>Actually, pokerplyer isn't really an "engineer" -- for his Master's degree, he took the path of least resistance and chose finance/business instead of hard science/engineering.
Ahhh, so he's a porky-pie-er, not a poker player. That's why he folded as soon as his 100K bet was confronted.
It's interesting to note (especially for any of the Scientific American lurkers who might have wandered over to see how their Denialatus bruvver is decimating the scientific consensus) that Porkypie-er doesn't ever actually engage in testable scientific discussion, backed with testable references. A bit like the Scandinavian Trollege of Advanced Obfuscation and Confabulation...
Yes, too many Denialati emperors, and not a stich between them.
Showing the same ineptitude for science as he does for geography, he provides a link to the laughable climate denier outfit, the GWPF ([described](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/22/chris-huhne-lawson-th…) as 'misinformed', 'wrong' and 'perverse' by the energy secretary in the UK Conservative government). That in turn links to some reheated tripe in Murdoch's WSJ. The Murdoch press - the go to place for phone hacking, far-right opinion and Ocean Science. What's next pokerplyer - a link to Fox News.
WITH SHOCKING SPEED, THE INCREASING ACIDIFICATION OF THE WORLDâS OCEANS HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED FROM AN ABSTRACT
PROBLEM WITH AN INDEFINITE TIME SCALE TO A CONSEQUENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE THAT HAS TANGIBLE EFFECTS OBSERVABLE NOW. SCRIPPS
INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY AT UC SAN DIEGO IS PART OF A GLOBAL EFFORT TO BRING PUBLIC ATTENTION TO A SUBTLE BUT PROFOUND CRISIS
THAT NEEDS TO BE UNDERSTOOD AND ADDRESSED NOW
Researchers are trying to understand the difference in reactions to acidification among marine species. For example, why are some species sensitive to high CO2 concentrations while others are not?
Recent research has since found falling pH levels in a variety of ocean regions, with particularly vulnerable systems being detected in polar waters and off the west coast of North America. The decrease is enough to put many key marine organisms
at risk. The pace of acidification will likely not give many organisms sufficient time to adapt. Some estimates suggest, for example, that the growth rate of coral might be outpaced by its depletion rate by mid-century. One recent estimate indicates
that some vulnerable polar ecosystems could experience initial stages of corrosive surface waters within 20 or 30 years.
Some of the species most vulnerable to ocean acidification are vital to ocean food webs.Pteropods are small marine snails that are a large part of the diet of salmon and other commercially important fish species. Some pteropod species have shells so thin that they are transparent.
Researchers exposed a pteropod shell to carbonate ion-depleted seawater with acid levels set to the pH of Southern
Ocean water expected in 2100. The shell dissolved after 45 days.
The West Coast shellfish industry has reported losses in yield and stunted development of the larvae of farmed and wild-caught oysters, clams, and other species. Scrippsâ Andrew Dickson chairs the California Current Acidification Network (C-CAN), a new collaboration between industry and scientists to explore what is causing shellfish losses, what role ocean acidification might be playing in this problem ...
Poker Player is now claiming that he has been banned from this site. I know he is lying because I am cognizant of the how this site handles trolls. And Poker Player has been here nowhere here as long as David Duff and his fellow idiots.
His claim of banning is found here on comment #69. By the way, the article I linked too is an interesting interview with Michael Mann on computer models.
I want to thank everyone who took part in the destruction of Poker Player. A link back to this thread is going to serve as a nice big cudgel. His collapse in the face of Bernard J. is just something that is going to come in very handy.
And yes, he is geographically ignorant. I served in the Persian Gulf back in 1991 and one of the the medals I received was the Southwest Asia Service Medal .
re: #322 Trent1492
And you might refer to #278, as the expertise claimed as an "aerospace engineer" seemed to evaporate, perhaps because the people I usually briefed were likely were rather higher in the management chain at Boeing.
Pokerplyer may have written a comment that got caught in the moderation filter awaiting action by a human, and concluded that his comments are being *SUPPRESSED, I TELL YOU!!!!*
He wouldn't be the first. Some of them also aren't aware that when cleared by the moderator their comments appear in submission order.
You might want to ask him at SciAm **how** he knows he has been banned. Bet that proves somewhat interesting ;-)
The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. Also, the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulumâs swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulumâs neutral position.
In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
In the GMT data, a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade. Not 0.2 deg C per decade as claimed by the IPCC.
Hmm, one of AWOL PorkiePyer's comrades-in-arms has joined us; 'sam' is 'selti' at SciAm, and this is a just a copy of his post #72 over yonder. I cheerfully leave this masterpiece of almost Girmaesque WFT selective detrending to those with more patience than me, such as Trent 1492, who has already pointed out the obvious over there.
Thank you for the biggest laugh that I've had all week.
You are obviously statistically illiterate, but I simply have to repeat some of your gems just to reinforce how silly your 'analysis' is:
>The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. Also, the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulumâs swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulumâs neutral position.
>In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
A first-year university student in science would be failed if s/he handed in that sort of tripe even in the first week of first term. You show no indication of understanding:
how to best describe a trajectory
how to test for statistical significance
a priori statistical test selection
anything else remotely connected with statistics
much at all
Seriously...
>In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
You are so clueless that I'd have to write an introductory textbook here just to explain why. For those ignorant lurking colleagues of yours who might be lurking here, and who don't understand the source of my derision, ponder this analogy...
...a philosophy professor asks his freshmen at the end of first term to describe what defines inner beauty. Someone in the front row put his hand up and earnestly says "big tits".
Sam is a Poe, surely? It is just not possible to be that statistically-illiterate and still be able to turn on a computer.
Has anyone noticed how the quality of visiting denialists is deteriorating around here? I am starting to yearn for the days of Tim Curtin and Ben. They were at least semi-coherent.
Samn is from the Scientific American blog deniosphere.
The Stupid is so dense there that poe-ing would be a largely fruitless exercise: I suspect that this one is real.
It would be a frabjous day indeed if sam was in fact a poe. That would inch SciAm back just that little bit more from the brink. Speaking of which: Trent, you're doing excellent work there countering the flood of scientific illiteracy - keep it up.
Mind you, it sounds like a bit of hasty arse-covering revisionism which rarely works around here (acknowledgement that his original bet was silly, but no unsilly new bet offered), and re-assertion of various unjustified claims. The latter include "models are unsuitable for government policy making", which presumably still relies on his initial fallacy that models must predict long range local *weather* to be suitable for that purpose since he hasn't withdrawn that implication. (That was a bit like claiming that a model of future average traffic demands is useless for deciding when to build more freeway capacity because it can't tell you how many cars will be on a particular 5km stretch of freeway 17 years, 2 months and 13 days from now between 3:22pm and 3:34pm.)
And still no glimmer of acknowledgement that if models *aren't* sufficiently reliable for government policy making, then we have to make policy **under even more uncertainty**, which means we have to slam the brakes hard on GHG emissions right now.
Oh, and he links to Curry re: "what constitutes dangerous climate change".
Wow, as a marine biologist who used to specialize in chemical ecology on coral reefs (in SW Asia) and who now works on coastal development in South Florida, it almost seems like Pokerplayer is a gift from the heavens offered up to me.
First, for your claim that it's relatively cheap and easy to adapt to warming... Consider where I live in South Florida. There are 5.5 million people living within 20 miles of the coast on land that mostly falls within 3m of sealevel and is interwoven by hundreds of miles of bays, canals, and inlets. All of the fresh water comes from aquifers which are susceptible to (and already suffering from) saltwater intrusion. As sea levels continue to rise, how do we protect our water source from saltwater intrusion or find another source that is as cheap as using the naturally occurring aquifers? Also, how do you protect the billions of dollars in property that are already essentially at sea level? Parts of Miami Beach and Ft. Lauderdale already flood with seawater during extreme high tides. Are you going to relocate 5.5 million people and have them abandon their property- some of the most valuable in the country? Or maybe you would build several hundred miles of seawalls, gates, and massive pumps (and where are you going to build these structures in a coastal area that's already almost 100% developed?)? Lets not forget how that solution worked for New Orleans either. Is this something we really want to try in a more hurricane-prone city? How much do you figure that would all cost just to protect 1 coastal metropolitan area? How about for all the major coastal cities in the US? How does that cost compare to improving energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels?
Now, as for the GWPF link in 309- "bafflingly stupid" is about the best summary of it. A couple of hints to anyone who has any desire to understand ocean acidification-
1. Learn the difference between the terms "alkalinity" and pH as used in marine chemistry. In marine chemistry, alkalinity refers to the concentration of certain buffering ions- usually carbonate and bicarbonate(but not including H+), not to pH. While any solution with a pH above 7 could be described as alkaline, in the case of seawater, saying you've reduced the alkalinity is NOT equivalent to saying you've reduced the pH. Acidification is the term used because it describes the process of adding acid and it avoids the ambiguity of using alkalinity/alkaline in regards to seawater chemistry.
2. Look up "light-enhanced calcification." The diurnal variation in pH is not physiologically insignificant, as the GWPF author would like you to believe. Most corals and calcifying algae show reduced growth at night. The reason? Photosynthesis consumes CO2 from the water in the calcifying tissue layers during the day, which makes the local chemistry more favorable for CaCO3 deposition. At night, respiration produces CO2 which makes conditions unfavorable for calcification. Despite what the author implies, what we know about diurnal variations in CO2, pH, and alkalinity and the impacts they have on calcifiers is in no way comforting in the face of a long-term decrease in pH due to addition of CO2. In fact, it's a large reason why we're worried.
3. In looking for studies which examine the impacts of reduced pH on calcifiers it's important to distinguish between those studies which manipulate carbonate alkalinity vs. those that don't. As you add CO2 to seawater it shifts the carbonate/bicarbonate equilibrium towards bicarbonate. However, in order to isolate pH as a variable, lots of studies have artificially maintained constant carbonate concentrations (which isn't what happens in nature). Under these conditions, calcification often remains fairly close to normal even at reduced pH. However, if you reduce the pH without maintaining high carbonate concentrations (which is what happens in the oceans) calcification is reduced.
Over at that SciAm thread, "selti" a.k.a. drive-by "sam" continues his nonsense.
He implies that the concern about warming is merely due to a "continued warming projection" - but subsequently doesn't seem to realise he contradicts himself by arguing that "...GLOBAL WARMING has STOPPED..." (no prizes for guessing he's cherry-picked a 1998 start for his trend).
He also goes for "AGW is a fictitious theory not supported by the data", and asserts from his tortured graph (having not understood the earlier critiques) that "...true climate sensitivity is only 3x0.06/0.2 = 0.9 deg C".
Bernard, "selti" at SciAm would appear to have the right set of beliefs to consider a wager with you, although I don't know if he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is. He argues (re: the AMO):
> This thermohaline circulation has a warming and cooling phase of about 30 years. From about 1970s to 2000s, the thermohaline circulation was during its warming phase and that is the reason for the observed global warming. From about 2000s to 2030s, the thermohaline circulation will be in its cooling phase. As a result, in the 2000s, the GMT (as already observed) plateaus, and global cooling should follow until the 2030s.
> ...
> ...AGW will die its deserved death in the coming five years with the expected global cooling.
Although he does also go on to state (illogically, but that's how his other beliefs have been derived):
> On the other hand, if the 1998 record is exceeded in the next five years, I will join the AGW believer camp.
FYI, "selti" at SciAm says he is Girma, which should mean something to most long-time Deltoid denizens.
He says he is prepared to bet, but it's (a) over weather time-scales, and (b) not related to AGW trends which are not detected via records:
> I bet the 1998 record for hadcrut3gl.txt will not be exceeded in the next three years (2012, 2013 & 2014). This is a simple extension of the Annan & Whitehouse bet.
Engineer with 25 years of experience: "Michael Mann's method generates hockey sticks from random noise."
Me: How?
Engineer: you have to generate random noise, yeah, and then you get a hockey stick. I've done it!
Me: OK, I just get a wavey line that doesn't curve up at the end. How did you do it?
Engineer: You must be incompetent then, since I did it easily!
Me: OK, so how did you do it?
Engineer: You can get it from someone else on the internet, can't you use google?
Me: But you said YOU did it. Just pass over the program you had that generated the random data and I'll use that.
Engineer: I don't have time to do that, it's easy to get from the internet.
Me: You said YOU did it. Did you lie? After all, it should be fairly easy to show me YOU did it, by showing what you did. Go on.
Engineer runs away.
You see, the engineer hasn't actually done it. They just read someone used "Pink noise" and got a hockey stick.
What they seem to fail to realise is that
a) pink noise isn't totally random: it has a bias on it. A trend if you like.
b) you have to SELECT a curve that looks hockey-stick-like. Well, it's rather easy to get any curve you want from random numbers if you just select the run and period. But that's the selection process making a hockey stick, not random noise.
Let's see if this post goes through on a timely basis.
Mike G asks: âAs sea levels continue to rise, how do we protect our water source from saltwater intrusion or find another source that is as cheap as using the naturally occurring aquifers?â
My response- Do you believe that sea levels are rising solely due to AGW? The rate of sea level rise over the last 20 years is roughly 1 foot per century. This rate is not a problem. Over a long term basis, since sea levels are near their all time low levels they are likely to rise. Local communities need to prepare since nothing related to CO2 emissions will lessen the long term trend.
Mike G asks: âAlso, how do you protect the billions of dollars in property that are already essentially at sea level? Parts of Miami Beach and Ft. Lauderdale already flood with seawater during extreme high tides.â
My response- It is not my responsibility to protect property built in areas likely to be damaged by being built in areas highly susceptible to damage by natural disasters. They should probably build sea walls to protect the property built in an unsafe area or have very expensive insurance since the property is likely to be damaged by a storm.
Mike G asks: âAre you going to relocate 5.5 million people and have them abandon their property- some of the most valuable in the country?â
My response- No that is their problem to deal with. If the property is in an area likely to be damaged by storms it will have high insurance costs and the property values will fall as a result. People make choices where to live and deal with the consequences. Supply and demand is a system that works.
Mike G asks: âHow much do you figure that would all cost just to protect 1 coastal metropolitan area? How about for all the major coastal cities in the US? How does that cost compare to improving energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels?â
My response- Mike, all the areas you mention need to be protected from bad weather regardless of whether humans emitted CO2 or not. The issue is that sometimes people are shortsighted and do not build the infrastructure to protect their investments or build on property that looks pretty when all is well, but is highly susceptible to damage from storms. Should others have to pay for those peopleâs poor choices?
If this post goes through I will get back to discuss OA
All our human emissions are projected by models to change world's oceans by about 0.3 pH units over next 90 years, & that's referred to as "catastrophic", yet we now know that fish & some calcifying critters adapt naturally to changes far larger than that every year, sometimes in just a month, and in extreme cases, in just a day'
What makes Mike so sure that the .3 ph rise over 90 years would be a problem?
Pokerplyer, the difference in average annual temperature between Marseille (France) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands) is less than 5 degrees. Much less than the temperature swings these two places can experience on a daily basis (monthly high and low easily differ by 10 degrees or more during several months). The Netherlands is likely to see a 3-4 degree increase in temperature over the next 90 years on a business as usual scenario.
Compare the flora and fauna between these two places and then reconsider your comment in #348.
I do not think the comparison to temperatures and ocean ph levels is a good one in your example. The argument has been that the average ph change of .3 ph units over 90 years will be harmful. It turns out that the ph level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis. Therefore, it would not appear that the average amount of change over the long term would be harmful.
It turns out that the ph level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis. Therefore, it would not appear that the average amount of change over the long term would be harmful.
By golly I think he's cracked it. Based on pokerplyer's expose of the flaws in the science on the impacts of ocean acidification, it follows that since where I live the temperature fluctuates by more than 10deg C every day, and that since I and everyone else survives it easily, the 4degC rise in global mean temperatures predicted by all those climate "scientists" is nothing to worry about. And even if pokerplyer is wrong, well it's some some plankton and shit that'll die, and maybe some parts of the GBR won't be worth the trip, but the tourism industry will adapt, so who cares. And who the hell are The Puget Sound anyway?
> The argument has been that the average ph change of .3 ph units over 90 years will be harmful. It turns out that the ph level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis.
You really haven't thought this through, have you?
My speed when driving varies by 110 km/h. How can an average change of a mere 30 km/h be harmful? After all, the stopping distance and kinetic energy are ... er, proportional to the square of my speed, so ... er ... my
chances of avoiding - let alone surviving - an accident at 110 km/h ... er ... compared to 140 km/h ... er ... er ...
Or try this. The interest rates bond holders demand from (say) various European governments vary by a few percent on a quasi-regular basis, so what's an extra percent or so between friends? That must mean that once it hits about 7 percent ... er ... crap.
Or this. You have a margin account at a stockbroker, and you trade short. Your outstanding borrowings from the broker regularly range from 50 to 96% of your margin limit, so a small increase of 6% due to a market crash can't possibly ... oh, crap, margin call ...
Your argument that some marine life "...adapt[s] naturally to changes far larger than that every year..." is deeply misguided; the annual cycle is *not* **adapting** to changes in the **average**; they're adapted **to** a given **range**. When you move the entire range, *then* they have to adapt - and a bunch of them won't do well when they try (especially when combined with changing ocean temperatures). And if some key species don't do well, they can cause entire sections of the ecosystem that depend on them to collapse.
And it's worse in non-linear systems - which you *should* be very familiar with from *both* your engineering and finance perspectives. You don't seem to understand that ecosystems (and pH scales) are both highly non-linear.
On a meta level, perhaps it would be prudent to reassess your personal belief that your personal analyses based on very limited expertise in these fields and running contra to expert analysis is correct - especially if you're intending to bet on it?
Oh, and the latest response to Trent by pokerplyer at SciAm is classic. Posted in full apart from the address to Trent, so that it may be correctly savoured:
> You try to claim that sea level is rising at an alarming rate and ignore the 20 year trend of good measurements and reference data drawn based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. You must realize how inaccurate that information is don't you?
(What, the US Atlantic is "the globe" now? My denialist bingo card is starting to fill up.)
> Now I don't have any idea what youthink I am lying about, since I take being truthful as extermely important. I am guessing it was my comment about being "banned" from that other site, when I was really only temporarily prevented from posting comments there. It is really interesting about the tone of the comments there. A very high degree of ranting and very little substance. I rather assumed that you run the site.
Methinks pokerplyer has a little problem with *recognising substance*.
A difference of 0.11 pH units corresponds to a 29% increase in the concentration of H3O+. A difference of 0.4 pH units corresponds to a 150% increase in H3O+.
All our human emissions are projected by models to change world's oceans by about 0.3 pH units over next 90 years, & that's referred to as "catastrophic", yet we now know that fish & some calcifying critters adapt naturally to changes far larger than that every year, sometimes in just a month, and in extreme cases, in just a day'
They often 'adapt' by not growing. How's that going to work on a permanent basis?
>Let's see if this post goes through on a timely basis.
Right where you post there's this:
>Post a Comment
>(Email is required for authentication purposes only. On some blogs, comments are moderated for spam, so your comment may not appear immediately.)
Deltoid posts are held for moderation when excessive links and/or keywors are used. I have posts held often: I don't assume that I'm temporarily or permanently banned.
>Do you believe that sea levels are rising solely due to AGW?
Of course not. But unlike you, we have read the literature and have some understanding of attribution of causes of sea level rise. We accept that global warming is mostlly responsible for sea level rise.
What is your understanding of attribution of causes of SLR?
>The rate of sea level rise over the last 20 years is roughly 1 foot per century. This rate is not a problem.
No, it's simply a problem over longer time-scales.
And you completely avoid the fact that the rate of sea level rise will increase greatly in the future. Or are all 'aerospace engineer[ing]' processes in your world linear?
>Over a long term basis, since [sic] sea levels are near their all time low levels they are likely to rise.
What, like London and Sydney are near their "all time" [sic] proximities and are likely to drift closer?
>Local communities need to prepare since [sic] nothing related to CO2 emissions will lessen the long term trend.
Except that if we stopped emitting today we'd save metres of sea level rise for future generations.
Unless of course you subscribe to the notion that humans have already tipped the mean global temperature toward a future maximum possible value.
>My response- It is not my responsibility to protect property built in areas likely to be damaged by being built in areas highly susceptible to damage by natural disasters.
No, but it is your responsibility to ensure that you don't alter and/or increase in extent the "areas [that will become] highly susceptible to damage by natural disasters"
You are not responsible for the neighbour's tree that grows over your neighbour's house. You are responsible for ensuring that your tree does not grow over his house.
>They should probably build sea walls to protect the property built in an unsafe area or have very expensive insurance since the property is likely to be damaged by a storm.
And who's going to pay for the increase in requirements for sea walls and insurance? The victims of the storms or (where the two do not coincide) the people whose emissions caused the increase in storms?
>Mike G asks: âAre you going to relocate 5.5 million people and have them abandon their property- some of the most valuable in the country?â
>My response- No that is their problem to deal with.
Why, if it's not their fault?
>If the property is in an area likely to be damaged by storms it will have high insurance costs and the property values will fall as a result. People make choices where to live and deal with the consequences.
But what if the property is not presently in an area likely to be damaged by storms?
>Supply and demand is a system that works.
Then sell me a fillet of dodo, please.
>My response- Mike, all the areas you mention need to be protected from bad weather regardless of whether humans emitted CO2 or not. The issue is that sometimes people are shortsighted and do not build the infrastructure to protect their investments or build on property that looks pretty when all is well, but is highly susceptible to damage from storms. Should others have to pay for those peopleâs poor choices?
You're confabulating weather with climate again.
It would seem that the standard for entry into "aeropsace enginneering" is not an onerous one to fulfill.
>If this post goes through I will get back to discuss OA
You'd better do a lot of homework first. I highly recommend the Skeptical Science series.
>The argument has been that the average ph change of .3 [sic] ph [sic] units [sic] over 90 years will be harmful. It turns out that the ph [sic] level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis.
Not in all parts of the ocean.
And a 0.3 unit change in pH represents a doubling/halving of acidity. For many marine organisms that is a seriously huge ecophysiological challenge. And yet you say that "the ph [sic] level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis"?
This would be extraordinary news to marine ecologists: please, please reference this claim. Consider that a:
0.4 unit decrease in pH represents a 250% increase in acidity
0.5 unit decrease in pH represents a 320% increase in acidity
0.6 unit decrease in pH represents a 400% increase in acidity
As an "aerospace engineer" you make a lousy marine ecophysiological chemist. Reread Lotharsson's explanations of press versus pulse exposure is you don't yet have a clue.
Porkyplyer's outright untruth is all the more egregious for the fact that it's not just since the last glacial maximum that the current sea level is notable. If one considers [the link](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Sea_level_temp_140ky…) in [my earlier post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) it's clear to sea that sea level is presently almost as high as it has ever been over most of the last one million years, and that a business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions scenario will soon push sea level to the highest that it's been in at least that period.
That's a definition of "low" that I've not encountered before. Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to be an "aerospace engineeer"...
Humour aside, Porkyplyer is probably trying to use sea levels over geological time spanning the age of the Earth with which to make his claim.
This ludicrous cherry-picking raises two important points:
in considering the causes of higher sea level since the planet formed, one is forced to account for physcial processes that strongly support the science that says that humans are currently warming the planet
the context of the sea levels on the scale on hundreds of millions of years is irrelevant to humans, because the processes that operate on the larger cale are not causing sea level change now, and because human extancy is likely to cease before any of those geological processes kick in again.
All that humans can do in a practical sense is to consider (and act on) the causes of global warming/sea level rise that they do have influence over, and to that end there is only one significant candidate cause - CO2 emissions.
>AGW will die its deserved death in the coming five years with the expected global cooling.
and that:
>On the other hand, if the 1998 record is exceeded in the next five years, I will join the AGW believer camp.
I have a better suggestion. Whenever in the future the 1998 record is exceeded as defined by the GISS dataset, promise us that you will explicitly acknowledge that your PhD is undeserved and hand it back to UNSW.
You don't deserve to just "join the AGW believer camp", because your extensive pseudoscientific anti-physics, statistically-bogus propaganda campaign is being used to garner public support to delay urgent action to reduce carbon emissions. Your Randian cornucopia delusion is bringing great harm to the planet, and your starry-eyed egocentric self-indulgence is endangering the security of future generations and of the planet's biodiversity.
I truly believe that you don't deserve the degree that you wangled from UNSW, and that you in fact owe the whole planet more than just the return of your degree to the university.
For anyone not familiar with Girma Orssengo's Randian, delusional world, enter his name into the search field at the top of the page and be prepared to weep at the extent of his idiocy.
Category error. (And after you remedy that, you'll still need to define "works".)
"Supply and demand" are two *forces* that may act upon or within a system, but they do not *constitute* a system - for that you need at least *something* that responds to those forces in some way that contributes to the system "working".
It's like saying that "gravity and air pressure is a system that works (to fly)". Nope. But add an aerofoil with some control surfaces and perhaps a controlled propulsion system and a few other bits and pieces and you might have one that "works (to fly)" in a reasonably controlled fashion under a certain range of conditions.
But you still won't get dodo fillet, and that system still won't fly to the moon. Understanding the limits of effectiveness of any system (and the tradeoffs that apply even within that range of effectiveness) is a *key* engineering skill, and you should consider applying it to the matters at hand.
> Nice to see pokerplyer not getting my analogy at all...
It was pretty straightforward, with a very strong correspondence to the problem of ocean acidification. I'm sure most high school students would get it.
> I also guess pokerplyer throws all his trash on the neighbours lawn and then blames the neighbours. Shouldn't have lived right next to him...
Worse still: he throws his trash on the lawns of people all over the city over including those who aren't even aware of his existence...and then blames them for not building high enough walls to keep his trash out.
I think that my allusion may have been a little obscure...
When dodos were in supply and Dutch sailors were eyeing them off as a food source, there was no feedback to control the sailors' demand. They simply scoffed them (along with red rails and other species), permitted to be introduced to Mauritius the species that they carted around with them on their ships, and bugger the notion of sustainability.
Ivory becomes more valuable the more that humans reduce elephant numbers. Same with rhinos and their horns. Again, there is a disconnect with "supply and demand" as a sustaining mechanism.
As you say:
>"Supply and demand" are two forces that may act upon or within a system, but they do not constitute a system.
The world is replete with examples that demonstrate that "supply and demand" in and of themselves do not constitute a functioning and balanced system. Anyone who tosses that meme around to justify an exploitative enterprise is trying to sell a bridge, or is having a fiddle with themselves, or both.
Hmmm. When I saw comment 327 I did wonder ... could it be ... and sure enough ...
I made this bet with GO at Deltoid in Sep 2009.
If a global mean temperature anomaly yearly average of 0.526 °C is not exceeded before 1 Jan 2020 according to HADCRUT, I shall pay $100 (USD) into a charity of your choosing and I shall declare that mainstream climate science as it stood in 2009 was mistaken in grossly exaggerating the role of CO2.
If a global mean temperature anomaly yearly average of 0.526 °C is exceeded before 1 Jan 2020 according to HADCRUT, you will pay $100 (USD) into a charity of my choosing and you will declare that mainstream climate science as it stood in 2009 was broadly correct in assessing the role of CO2.
with a 2nd bet taking us to 2030.
I'm a bit concerned that HADCRUT3 might soon be replaced by HADCRUT4, but we agreed on "HADCRUT", didn't we? All the same, I won't take the easy option: will there be a means of estimating what HADCRUT3 would have been once HADCRUT4 takes over?
There is not a problem with increased CO2 in the water, leading to acidification There are 4 primary factors:
⢠First, laboratory work shows there is no basis to predict the demise of ocean shelled plants and animals. The animals above them in the food chain will still find food. The science actually indicates plants, crustaceans, and shelled algae plankton will be more successful. Since they are at or near the bottom of the food chain, this is good news.
⢠Second, the Earth has been this route before. The oceans have been far warmer and far colder and more acidic (2-20X) than is projected. The memory of these events is built into the genes of all species. Virtually all ecological niches have been filled at all times. If someone could demonstrate that there were no corals, clams, oysters, or shelled of CO2, we would be concerned. The opposite is true.
⢠Third, observational data in studies properly controlled for other variables (e.g., upwelling, rainfall, pollution, temperature, disease) show no harm. IPCC concluded (prior to the Iglesias-Rodriguez paper (positive impact)) that there is no observational evidence of oceanic changes due to acidification. There is also nothing conclusive in the recent research to indicate any reason for concern.
⢠Lastly, natural changes are greater and faster than those projected. Major warming, cooling, and pH changes in the oceans are a fact of life. Whether over a few years as in an El Niño, over decades as in the Pacific Oscillation, or over a few hours as a burst of upwelling appears or a storm brings acidic rainwater to an estuary. Despite severe and rapid changes that far exceed those in the scenarios, the biology adapts rapidly. The 0.1 change in ocean alkalinity since 1750 and the one degree F. rise since 1860 are but noise in this rapidly changing system. In the face of all these natural changes, whether over days or millennia, some species flourish while others diminish.
⢠Conclusion. The crustaceans responding favorably in research by Ries et al. (crabs, lobsters, and shrimp) are probably similar to those at the base of the ocean food chain such as krill and copepods. Since they eat algae, which also responds favorably to CO2 increases (and warmer temperatures), it is likely there will be increased food in the sea. With no laboratory or observational evidence of biological disruption, we see no economic disruption of commercial and recreational fisheries, nor harm to marine mammals, sea turtles or any other protected species. Open-minded research is needed to sort it out.
Is anyone here claiming that humanity has suffered a ânet harmâ by the emission of CO2 to date? Lotharsson- people around the world have clearly benefitted because humanity emitted CO2. It is only in your and a few others views that the US owes a debt to some other country because of it CO2 emissions.
Please- try to make a case for even one significant country where you think the US owes a debt. In virtually every instance, countries have not educated their population and built the proper infrastructure to protect their citizens and develop their societies. That was not due to the US, but due to their failure to prepare. Had they built infrastructure, far fewer people there would be getting harmed by severe weather events. This will continue to be true in the future. Even if you are correct, and cAGW occurs, these societies will be damaged because they didnât build infrastructure in the past, and they are unlikely to do so in the near future. Sorry, not my or the US problem to fix.
As for Australia- it is the laws passed to control emissions there are a joke. It may be a good way to raise revenue for the government, but it is doing nothing to impact the worldâs climate.
Wow--How have people benefitted from the emission of CO2 to date? Do you really need a few of these things pointed out to you?
Food production, distribution and preservation would not have been possible to support the worldâs population without CO2 having been emitted. All the benefits of electricity that society benefitted form would not have been possible without emissions. The list of net benefits is long and obvious.
WOWâI notice you have not made a case for any major country to be owed a debt by the US due to AGW. Do you believe that sea level would stay where it is, near its historic low levels over the last 500 M years if it was not for the human impact? That is sure a leap of faith unsupported by history and science.
1. Climate models are wrong and global warming is a scam!
2. Because I say I am an "aerospace engineer"!
3. I mean, I'm a "mechanical engineering undergrad" with a "master in economics and finance"!
4. And, even if climate models are right, global warming may not be catastrophic!
5. And even if global warming may be catastrophic, climate legislation will not help!
6. And even if climate legislation will help, I refuse to support it, because it's the poor nations' fault that they can't handle climate change!
7. I demand that you accept this bet on future weather conditions set by me!
8. However, I refuse to accept any bets on future weather conditions set by you!
9. Did I say I'm an "aerospace engineer"?
Nope, that was transport. And the famines we have are not because we can't grow the food but because we can't distribute it.
> and preservation
Nope, not CO2 either. You don't use dry ice to preserve food.
> All the benefits of electricity
Electricity isn't CO2.
I notice you seem to believe that CO2 is some sort of miracle pixie dust, the sole cause of all goodness. I'm afraid we don't USE CO2 production for these things. CO2 is a waste product of transport and 19th-century technology for energy production. But they're not the cause of them.
Wasn't there a banned denialidiot Tim something or other who proclaimed that he knew all about models because he was an aerospace engineer? And he was equally idiotic about things too.
But... but... but... pokerplyer is an AEROSPACE ENJINIR!!!!!!!111111
Since an aerospace engineer is a kind of scientist, and clearly all scientists are infallible gods, except when they aren't, therefore, well, therefore.
Interesting how some of the foolish posters here respond.
Frank wrote
1.Climate models are wrong and global warming is a scam!
My response- No, I wrote that general circulation models were not designed for government policy making and have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for being used for that purpose. I never wrote global warming is a scam. Why do you lie?
2.And, even if climate models are right, global warming may not be catastrophic!
My response- That is a correct statement. A warmer world will benefit humanity in many ways. There is no reliable evidence that it is actually harmful to humanity overall, or for the US specifically overall.
3.And even if global warming may be catastrophic, climate legislation will not help!
My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that. Do people at this site frequently lie about the comments of others?
4.And even if climate legislation will help, I refuse to support it, because it's the poor nations' fault that they can't handle climate change!
My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that. Do people at this site frequently lie about the comments of others or is it just Frank?
So WOW, are you so stupid as to not to be able to understand that without the emissions of CO2 that the things I wrote previously would not have been possible?
So transport will not work unless it emits CO2???? You can't preserve food unless it's with CO2!?! You can't grow food unless without producing extra CO2!!!
wow, would you care to explain how in "wow's world" farmers would have powered their tractors, fertilized their crops, distributed their products, etc. if CO2 had not been emitted over the last 50 years?
> No, I wrote that general circulation models were not designed for government policy making
This is true. Then again, there's almost nothing that's designed for government policy making. They can all be used for it, however, since we have humans making the decisions and they are adaptable at using information to reach conclusions, even if that information was produced for another reason.
> and have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for being used for that purpose.
Care to prove that? Because your blank assertion appears 100% wrong.
After your prior nonsense comments, you want me to give you links to articles about GCMs? Try looking up the outputs of the fourth version of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4). If you get to the point of exchanging something meaningful, I would try to educate you on GCM's
wow-why don't you start with explaining how humans would have generated power over the last 100 years if CO2 had not been released before you try more complex concepts.
pokerplyer is such a caricature of a dimwitted sociopathic libertarian that you almost have to wonder if he's real. In any case, you're wasting your time engaging him, especially on his intellectually bankrupt argument that there has been a "net benefit" over the initial period of processes that have their greatest costs past the initial period (like, say, spending all your capital, or living off of dodo fillets).
ianam- Are you of the opinion that humans releasing CO2 has been a net harm to our society up to this point in history? I am tryinng to understand your rant. It becomes difficult when you use descriptions such as dimwitted sociopathic libertarian.
I may be dimwitted, probably not sociopathic, but do generally perfer people to have power vs. government. Is that bad in your view, or do you believe a larger government is necessarily better?
pokerplyer: I think part of the point ianam was making is that you are like the man who, as he fell past the 34th floor of the Empire State Building, was heard to call out 'So far, so good.'
I'm telling you, Richard, you're wasting your time trying to explain anything to the sort of imbecile who would talk about the "net" benefit "to this point" of saving the money that might have been spent on fumigating a termite ridden building.
Please reread the comments from Richard Simons, dhogaza, ianam, Frank, and wow, and point out anything written that makes any sense about their concern over the release of CO2.
Nothing that they have written addressed any relevant issue or point.
I have correctly pointed out that sea level is not rising at an alarming rate and it is rising much slower than was predicted by those who claimed AGW would be a problem. There is no evidence that the rate is accelerating. Yes, it is possible that it could accelerate in the future, but there is no reliable data to point to that as probable.
I have also pointed out that CO2 released to date has had a beneficial impact on society. I did this to demonstrate that nations such as India are not owed anything from other countries because other countries have emitted CO2 historically. Not a single coherent comment refuted this simple point. Nobody provided a rationale argument as to why any significant nation would be owed something by the US due to AGW.
I have also pointed out that the key to preparation for the future climate is the prudent planning for, and construction of; proper infrastructure. It is the responsibility of individual nations to do this to protect their citizens. It is not the duty of US citizens to pay higher taxes to help build infrastructure in Pakistan. People are generally harmed by bad weather when infrastructure is not constructed of maintained. If India (as an example) does not build proper infrastructure, its citizens will be harmed by weather regardless of whether AGW is real or not. Once again no coherent response.
Good ol' KK - he won't be missed. Mainly due to the fact he was never known outside of some elements of the blogosphere for which there aren't enough zeros after the decimal point to accurately guage public impact.
Though you do have to admire the barefaced bravado of his underlying assumption that the 'public debate' on climate science just 'happened', rather than being fed, nurtured and distorted by hundreds of thousands of industrial think-tank man-hours poured into mis- and dis-information.
So where's your "coherent response" to bill, Lotharsson, marco, Richard Simmons, Bernard J and others who blow your "oceanic pH levels dropping by 0.3 units is trivial" argument out of the water? Time to stump up with your "evidence" or admit you are talking out of your ar$e.
I am very willing to have an exchange on the topic of âocean acidificationâ, I think only bernard posted a reasonable response. I did not respond, because I only noticed his comment later as is was missed due to reading all the other stupid comments that didnât address any factual points. Tomorrow, if someone is here who wishes a meaningful exchange on the issue we can do that.
BTW- I am not writing that humans are not damaging the oceans. I just do not think the greatest harm is atmospheric CO2.
Pontifical nonsense from the latest Dunning-Kruger poster boy who cannot distinguish weather from climate, and holds blinkered selfishness to be the supreme human virtue.
It is you who has not demonstrated that he has even managed to comprehend the most basic of arguments, you who cannot distinguish between a trend and noisy fluctuations, you who has over-inflated your credentials - such as they are - like some ridiculous bedraggled little peacock and then backed down the moment you realised someone might be in a position to call you on them, you who believes that your dreary hubris somehow trumps the facts painstakingly assembled by those who actually possess qualifications and expertise in these fields, and you who, in the face of all evidence to the contrary assembled by those who actually know what they're talking about, simply re-asserts his original position regardless.
In short, you are the apotheosis of everything that is wrong with the entire Denier camp.
Oh, and your conception of foreign policy is a species of nationalist sociopathy, but, sadly, that's now so common in the US that it's barely noteworthy.
I am very willing to have an exchange on the topic of âocean acidificationâ, I think only bernard posted a reasonable response.
I gave you a link to information about it. I take it you did not read the material there.
I have also pointed out that CO2 released to date has had a beneficial impact on society. I did this to demonstrate that nations such as India are not owed anything from other countries because other countries have emitted CO2 historically.
You still refuse to acknowledge that, of major countries, Australia, the US and Canada are by far the largest producers on a per capita basis. Why should Indians, who each produce 1/10 of what you produce, have to pay for the damage you cause?
Are you still of the rather bizarre opinion that all the problems of increased CO2 and higher temperatures can be fixed by engineering massive structures? Do you really believe that events such as severe heatwaves in the Moscow area and the southern US can be ameliorated by air conditioning? In your society, does no-one ever go outside or try to grow crops?
> I wrote that general circulation models ... have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for [government policy making].
And then people explained that you were wrong for various reasons, and yet you reassert your claim as if you think it is still correct. You don't seem to be at all interested in conforming your opinions to the evidence.
> There is no reliable evidence that [a warmer world] is actually harmful to humanity overall, or for the US specifically overall.
Similarly, this line of argument was also refuted, and yet you reassert it. Why, it's almost like you have a preconception that you wish to defend regardless of the evidence!
> Are you of the opinion that humans releasing CO2 has been a net harm to our society up to this point in history?
Are you of the opinion that **that's the right question**?
Are you *actually* utterly clueless, or would you rather look stupid and tell yourself no-one will notice, than change your opinions to be consistent with the evidence?
> I am very willing to have an exchange on the topic of âocean acidificationâ, ...
Evidence to date indicates otherwise. You've been willing to *make assertions* but not address refutations of the same.
> I am not writing that humans are not damaging the oceans. I just do not think the greatest harm is atmospheric CO2.
And that's supposed to justify your position?
I wouldn't think the greatest harm to my car is from driving over a bunch of inverted nails if someone puts sugar in the fuel tank and punctures the radiator at the same time.
But I'm sure as hell not going to drive over the inverted nails.
> I have correctly pointed out that sea level is not rising at an alarming rate...
And it has been pointed out to you that the *alarm* is about where it's heading, based on reasonable physical models (and significant uncertainty on the *upside*), so your claim *fails to address the basis for concern*.
It's like saying you're not concerned that your car has lost its brakes because it's only doing 30km/h...when you've just started down a very long and steep hill.
> ... and it is rising much slower than was predicted by those who claimed AGW would be a problem.
I don't recall seeing you demonstrating that, but last time I looked (a) sea levels were rising at something like rates around the top end of the previously predicted range, and (b) ice sheet melt dynamics were pointing to *much* faster melt rates under circumstances that are likely to occur more frequently in the future.
> I have also pointed out that the key to preparation for the future climate is the prudent planning for, and construction of; proper infrastructure. It is the responsibility of individual nations to do this to protect their citizens.
Yes, you "pointed this out" but specifically failed to point out the link between emissions and the *changes in future climate* that drive incremental costs in that "prudent planning". In fact, you did your level best to imply that such a link does not exist in this context.
And you completely and utterly ignored the massive costs or complete inability to "prudently plan for" some of the potential outcomes for which "proper infrastructure" is difficult to even imagine, let alone figure out how to pay for.
Your opinion that "she'll be right, mate" is based on asserting that a significant body of evidence simply does not exist, or is "too uncertain to count" - the latter being an incoherent illogical claim, no matter how often you assert otherwise.
> Nothing that they have written addressed any relevant issue or point.
Good grief! That takes the cake!
Dunning & Kruger are calling and they're asking for you.
I have also pointed out that CO2 released to date has had a beneficial impact on society. I did this to demonstrate that nations such as India are not owed anything from other countries because other countries have emitted CO2 historically.
This is not how anyone with a scrap of ethics would see the issue.
Thalidomide ... was found to act as an effective tranquilizer and painkiller, and was proclaimed a "wonder drug" for insomnia, coughs, colds and headaches. It was also found to be an effective antiemetic that has an inhibitory effect on morning sickness, so thousands of pregnant women took the drug to relieve their symptoms.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, more than 10,000 children in 46 countries were born with deformities, such as phocomelia, as a consequence of thalidomide use.
So pp - should those children be compensated? After all their mothers benefited from the treatment of their morning sickness.
We could also discuss asbestos, tobacco etc.
We could also discuss how many of the poorer nations were free to develop their infrastructure during the period of the industrial revolution. Almost all of them were colonies of the West up until very recently. They were exploited for cheap labor and resources .
India is a case in point. Under British rule its standard of living actually fell. India was displaced as the premier supplier of cotton goods by acts of the British Parliament which banned the import of Indian cotton goods.
Not much has changed - a fair chunk of CO2 emissions in the third world is for manufacture of goods for Western consumers.
I do not expect pp to know much more about history than he knows about anything else - which is not much.
In any event the argument is a side issue at best. pp only raises it because he believes that it will appeal to bigots in the denialati.
In a few years when the scale of the AGW problem smacks the population in the West between the eyes, the wealthy nations will be falling over themselves to fund the end of fossil fuel burning, deforestation etc. in the less developed world.
The other fallacy in pp's argument is the implication that infrastructure is only an issue for the third world.
With an almost biblical onslaught of twisters, floods, snow, drought, heat and wildfire, the U.S. in 2011 has seen more weather catastrophes that caused at least $1 billion in damage than it did in all of the 1980s, even after the dollar figures from back then are adjusted for inflation
PP,
You obviously either didn't look up "light enhanced calcification" as I suggested or you didn't understand what you found. You continue to suggest that the diurnal cycle of pH changes is physiologically insignificant for calcifiers when it's well demonstrated that it does have significant effects. As Richard Simons pointed out, corals "adapt" to these changes by growing a lot less at night when pH drops.
So what makes me so sure the projected acidification is a problem?... several lines of evidence.
1. Geologic history- The oceans have acidified before in times of high CO2. These generally were not good times for reef builders. Modern corals essentially disappeared for about 15 million years and nearly went extinct at one point.
2. Growth experiments- They show pretty consistently that the impacts of reducing pH are strongly negative for a broad range of calcifiers including corals. The organisms that aren't negatively affected tend to be those that calcify internally or are fertilized by bicarbonate. Shifting the species contribution in a community either by fertilizing one group or inhibiting the growth of another tends to have a destabilizing effect- both cases are usually bad.
3. Field measurements- Growth rates of massive corals in Australia, Bermuda, and Belize have all been documented to be declining in recent decades. There are lots of possible factors that could be influencing this change, but it is consistent with what's expected due to acidification.
4. Chemistry and Biochemistry- The current understanding of the biochemical mechanism of calcification in corals tells us that reducing the pH should make calcification less favorable.
5. 10 years of personal frustration trying to grow corals in an aquarium with a pH of 7.8- The CO2 concentration inside a modern house is enough to drive the pH of an aquarium down into the upper 7 range. For 10 years I've been unable to get a pH above 7.8 in mine. As long as I maintain high carbonate alkalinity, that's not a problem. However, as soon as I let the alkalinity drop, growth of my corals stops. Unfortunately the oceans don't have someone to maintain alkalinity for them like I do in my tanks.
> "We've now established it isn't simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption, as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons, but the actual dissolved carbon dioxide itself is damaging the fishes' central nervous systems,"...
Pokerplyer, if you live in a place with a lot of rain, I sincerely wish you will get a neighbour who installs a very efficient drainage system in, on and around his house, with all the drained water going directly onto your property. Surely he can't be blamed, by your own argumentation, for causing you extra expenses to get rid of that extra water. You should just have installed better infrastructure to start out with. Right?
> ... [sea level] is rising much slower than was predicted ...
Really? It seems to be rising [at the top end of the IPCC TAR predictions](http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm) from ten years ago; the rate is accelerating, and subsequent research points out good reasons to worry about potentially large uncertainty on the upside as time goes on.
John McLean has apparently turned up in comments at [The Reckoning](http://hot-topic.co.nz/mcleans-folly-2-the-reckoning) thread to complain how "churlish" he finds the article and indicate that "Shortly Iâll be posting an extended comment about what happened in 2011". Should be fascinating ;-)
Chris Oâneil writes- âNear "historic low" meaning a mere 400 feet above the actual low.â Chris- to be fair you might have been writing about some specific place where that occurred, but you would be completely wrong if writing about sea levels overall. Sea level does fluctuate more on a local basis that it does globally.
Since links get delayed here I wonât post one, but look up the Exxon âVail sea level curve. It will demonstrate that sea level globally was NOT 400 feet higher than today and that it is near the historic lows. The main and undisputable point I am making is that regardless of human actions the trend is for sea levels to rise. Yes it is possible that human caused warming will increase the rate of rise, but there is no reliable evidence that it is happening. The best data is the satilette records and they show a very modest 1 foot per century. The alarmist models that predicted a higher rate of rise have been demonstrated to be wrong
Richard Simons wrote- âYou still refuse to acknowledge that, of major countries, Australia, the US and Canada are by far the largest producers on a per capita basis. Why should Indians, who each produce 1/10 of what you produce, have to pay for the damage you cause?â
My response- Your argument is based on the idea that India is damaged due to more CO2 and we have nothing to tell us that is true at all much less what the so called damage might be. Also, per capita emissions standards are only one measure. Should India get some special aid due to having an unsupportable population growth? I donât think they should.
Richard the damage to both people and property due to the annual bad weather in India is overwhelmingly caused by the fact that they have never built the infrastructure necessary to prepare for and protect their citizens and property from bad weather. Have you ever been to India? I was there recently and the new airport got flooded when it rained. This was completely due to poor planning. If India built proper storm drainage systems and flood retention facilities there would not be the damage they currently see from their annual storms. The fact that they fail in this is not a problem for outside nations to pay to address. It really doesnât get fixed today largely due to the massive corruption in the culture. In summary, IF the climate changes in India due to AGW and becomes either somewhat drier or wetter the local population will continue to be harmed unless their government builds the proper infrastructure to prepare. The cost of infrastructure that prepares for AGW is very little different from infrastructure that doesnât prepare. Not building it or doing it badly leads to humans suffering harms.
Richard, proper planning absolutely does lessen the harms that come about due to bad weather and it generally is not massive structures. In Texas, (where I happen to have a home) it was a dry summer. The issue would have been much less severe if Texans had done a better job of making the water retention areas deeper to store more water. Every summer in Texas, people complain that the local manmade lakes get warm and algae grow due to the shallow depth. It was not considered a âproblemâ because the area averages 31 inches a year of rain. In a year when TX gets 2o inches it becomes an issue.
Moscow had a hot summer. It was not caused by AGW. Yes, the harms of a hot summer would have been much less if they had prepared for that potential.
> In summary, IF the climate changes in India due to AGW and becomes either somewhat drier or wetter the local population will continue to be harmed unless their government builds the proper infrastructure to prepare.
But I thought you said,
> > [pokerplyer's 'argues' that] even if climate legislation will help [to mitigate climate change], I refuse to support it, because it's the poor nations' fault that they can't handle climate change!
> My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that.
So why are you arguing precisely that? The liar is you, and your pants are on fire.
And porky "I am an aerospace engineer" plyer, what can you actually tell us about aerospace engineering other than the fact that you're an aerospace engineer?
You do know that you're telling porkies, don't you?
Chris Oâneil writes- âNear "historic low" meaning a mere 400 feet above the actual low.â Chris- to be fair you might have been writing about some specific place where that occurred, but you would be completely wrong if writing about sea levels overall.
Moscow had a hot summer. It was not caused by AGW.
Why are you so sure of this? If you check out what climatologists think, you will find that they generally believe AGW to be a contributory factor.
Yes, the harms of a hot summer would have been much less if they had prepared for that potential.
How? How do you prepare for it being so hot that your crops do not pollinate, in an area where it is not usually suitable for more heat-tolerant crops? How do you adapt if it is even too hot for the heat-tolerant crops (as has happened in SE Asia). In Texas, how do you fill the reservoirs (even very deep ones) if there is not enough rain or if the rivers are used by other people before they get to you (eg Colorado River and Mexico).
Pokerplyer, you are so wrong about sea level it isn't even funny. This chart from NASA shows the history of sea level since the LGM. Notice the legend on the left? 120 meters is 393 feet, dude.
Frank
You really are foolish in what you write. Try to stop being untruthful. Am I obligated or motivated to take some type of quiz from you? Btw I have used stochastic and turbulence modeling techniques, but I am unfamiliar with chaos modeling.
Regarding climate mitigation actions vs. adaptation actions, it all depends upon the merits of the specific action being considered. Most suggested mitigation actions fail this test of reasonableness. Does it make sense to implement an expensive action that will have a minimal impact? Maybe it does in Frankâs world, but it does not in mine.
Letâs review an example Frank
A recent NASA-GISS paper in Env. Sci. Tech., co-authored by James E. Hansen calls for the shutting down of all coal-fired power plants in the USA by 2030, in order to avoid the global warming caused by the emitted CO2.
What effect would this specific actionable step actually have on global warming?
The paper tells us that 1,994 billion kWh/year were generated from coal in 2009 and that the average CO2 emission is 1,000 tons CO2 per GWh generated.
So by 2030 Hansenâs plan would reduce CO2 emissions by roughly 2 GtCO2 per year.
Roughly half of this âstaysâ in the atmosphere (with the rest disappearing into the ocean, the biosphere or outer space) so the annual reduction after 2030 will be around 1 GtCO2/year and over the period from today to year 2100 the cumulative reduction would be 80.5 GtCO2.
The mass of the atmosphere is 5,140,000 Gt.
So the net reduction in atmospheric CO2 would be around 16 ppm(mass) or 10 ppmv.
If we assume (as IPCC does) that by year 2100 the atmospheric CO2 level (without Hansenâs plan) will be around 600 ppmv (âscenario B1â), this means that with Hansenâs plan it will be 590 ppmv.
Today we have 390 ppmv.
Using IPCCâs 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C we have:
Case 1 â no Hansen plan
600 ppmv CO2
ln(600/390) = 0.431
ln(2) = 0.693
dT (warming from today to 2100) = 3.2 * 0.431 / 0.693 = 1.99
Case 2 â Hansen plan implemented
590 ppmv CO2
ln(590/390) = 0.414
ln(2) = 0.693
dT (warming from today to 2100) = 3.2 * 0.414 / 0.693 = 1.91C
So Hansenâs plan will result in a total reduction of global temperature by year 2100 of 0.08C.
But what will this non-measurable reduction of global temperature cost?
The total, all-in capital cost investment to replace 1,994 billion kWh/year capacity with the least expensive alternate (current nuclear fission technology) is between $4,000 and $8,000 per installed kW (say $6,000 on average). [Note: If we replace it with wind or solar, it will cost several times this amount per generated kWh, due in part to the low on-line factor.]
1,994 billion kWh/year at a 90% on-line factor represents an installed capacity of:
1994 / 8760 * .9 = 0.251 billion kWh
This equals an investment cost of 0.251 * 6,000 = $1.5 trillion
Globally some 6,700 billion kWh/year are generated from coal (around 3.4 times as much as in the USA).
So shutting down all the worldâs coal-fired plants by 2030 would cost $5 trillion and result in 0.27C reduced warming by year 2100.
I think it is pretty obvious why Hansen and his co-authors do not run us through this cost/benefit analysis.
You raise a valid point. I am looking at the long term data from the Exxon sea level curve had not looked at what was posted by Nasa. I have to admit that I am skeptical of information posted at the Nasa site since Hansen is behind what they post and my prior comment shows how alarmist and propaganda spreading he is. I will look into the source data for the Nasa curve. Look up the curve I referenced.
> You really are foolish in what you write. Try to stop being untruthful.
Projection much?
> Btw I have used stochastic and turbulence modeling techniques, but I am unfamiliar with chaos modeling.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! You're hilarious. Even as you claim to be an "aerospace engineer", our 'understanding' of aerospace engineering is obviously limited to repeating fancy words which you have heard on this thread.
Because if you had actually understood what "turbulence", "stochasticity", and "chaos" are, you wouldn't have written pig-headed comments such as this:
> Ask Mann why he can trust the output of GCMs that produce significantly different results when they are runs multiple times using the same data.
How about telling us something about aerospace engineering that you actually know? Oh wait, is that too hard for you, porkie teller?
* * *
> I think it is pretty obvious why Hansen and his co-authors do not run us through this cost/benefit analysis.
But didn't you say you're not making this particular argument?
> > [pokerplyer 'argues',] And even if global warming may be catastrophic, climate legislation will not help!
> My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that. Do people at this site frequently lie about the comments of others?
Again, the liar is you. Why can't you even own up to your own arguments? Is it because you know full well that you're telling lies?
I'll give pokerplyer this: it's not like the US, by taking an aggressive lead in reducing emissions, could use its clout (and renewed standing on this issue) to push other countries to do the same or anything...
Frank- Since you have demonstrated that you lie and canât have a reasonable exchange there seems to be no point in trying. Grow up and try to address real issues and facts. How many times do you believe each GCM was run to account for the variability you describe? Do 1 to 5 runs account for such variability? Does taking the results form only the 5th run make sense? Does averaging the results of completely different models make sense?
composer99- the path that you suggest that the US takes seems similar to the one Australia has taken. Pass taxes that will do nothing to impact the climate, but does raise revenue for the government. Seems like a bad plan to me. How is it working for Australia?
If there was a real desire for worldwide action kyoto would have had real limits established for all nations and an agreed upon process for verification. Lack of such a treaty leads to a strong motivation for inaccurate reporting of emissions and results in nations that cheat gaining benefits to their economy.
bill wrote a comment with plenty of substance, that you ignored completely. I also actually read the information at the link you'd posted, which must stand as proxy for what you think. There's no evidence that you have had the courtesy to do the reverse.
Mike G also wrote a comment with plenty of substance; you argued the toss - absurdly - about sea level, and ignored the whole pH/ocean-chemistry thing; then announced that virtually no-one had raised substantive issues. And yet you're still right, apparently!
Oh, and James Hansen is probably causing NASA to lie about sea levels! Did he get them to fake the moon landing, too?
It's very, very hard to believe you're acting in good faith in all this.
And I think we're all entitled to know - what kind of bean-counter/administrative position did you really have as an 'aerospace engineer'? Telling the truth is good for you, you know.
Finally, you really, really don't understand the point Marco was making. Climate/weather trend/noise - what's up with that? That's the reason you wanted to make that ridiculous bet that introduced us to you in the first place.
I mentioned above that pokerplyer is a science free dullard who simply echoes what he reads on denier web sites.
His post at 423 is largely a word for word cut and paste from commenter Rob Starkey's post on this article by Willis Eschenbach at WUWT. This same comment has been also posted at Curry's blog.
The claim is that if the USA closed down its coal fired power stations by 2030 it would have marginal effect on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere - from 600ppm to 590ppm. I have not checked the calculations - but then no one at the denier blogs could be bothered either - for the obvious reason that if the US closes its coal fired powered stations by 2030 you can be absolutely certain that the rest of the world will too.
Pokerplyr cannot argue the science. So he combs denial web sites looking for "gotchas" which he thinks makes him look clever.
In reality he is a clueless cut and paster. How embarrassing.
pokerplyer writes, in the very first sentence of his reply,
> Frank- Since you have demonstrated that you lie
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! pokerplyer tries to divert attention away from his own porkies by claiming -- with zero evidence whatsoever -- that I somehow lie.
pokerplyer, the liar is you, and I think you know that full well. Go spread your "I am an aerospace engineer" lies somewhere else where people are more gullible.
* * *
And I must also point out this:
> No, I wrote that general circulation models were not designed for government policy making
So let's see. Pokerplyer is faced with the incontrovertible conclusion from climate models that we need to stop carbon emissions Real Soon Now.
What can he do to ignore this conclusion?
Why of course -- claim that the climate models don't fulfill some vague bullshit 'standard' that pokerplyer himself made up just a minute ago! Claim that climate models are inadequate "for government policy making", which can mean whatever pokerplyer wants it to mean.
Yet another hallmark of one who's well aware that he's a lying liar.
> Sea level does fluctuate more on a local basis that it does globally.
And this is relevant to your position...how? (How much local variation do you think there is? And it will save Florida...how, precisely? Do you even realise that local variation can *increase* local sea level rises compared to global averages?)
> ...look up the Exxon âVail sea level curve...
That would be a non-peer-reviewed reconstruction over the last 500 MILLION years, right?
So, you're:
> ...skeptical of information posted at the Nasa site since Hansen is behind what they post...
(hey, ad hominem fallacy!)
...but **not skeptical** of non-peer reviewed claims? That might explain a fair swathe of your misconceptions, eh?
And you're an idiot if you think a reconstruction over 500 MILLION years of history is relevant or has the temporal resolution required to inform decisions about human civilisation related to sea levels, given that civilisation only arose over the last several thousand years.
> The alarmist models that predicted a higher rate of rise have been demonstrated to be wrong
Evidence fail - never mind that I posted counter-evidence earlier.
Apparently reiterating unsupported claims and pretending that evidence to the contrary simply does not exist is the best argument you have.
That should give you a hint to re-examine your argument because it may not be as justified as you like to think. But since you're not basing your argument on assessing the totality of evidence, I bet it won't...
> Your argument is based on the idea that India is damaged due to more CO2 and we have nothing to tell us that is true...
Of course, it's easy to tell yourself (and others) that "we have nothing" when you flat-out *deny* that we have something.
You don't even show any knowledge of a bunch of large negative impacts of climate change when you talk about damage being down to poorly planned infrastructure, and you imply that those other negative impacts simply do not exist. Every time you re-assert this argument, especially after others have given you some pointers to investigate, you reveal your determined ignorance.
For example, this is spectacularly wrong:
> The cost of infrastructure that prepares for AGW is very little different from infrastructure that doesnât prepare.
As others have pointed out, how do you prepare infrastructure to handle crops that **won't pollinate**, or to store water that **simply doesn't precipitate** in the first place?
> Regarding climate mitigation actions vs. adaptation actions, it all depends upon the merits of the specific action being considered.
No, it does not *all* depend on that. You are as ignorant of risk mitigation as you are of whole swathes of climate science. For one thing, you have to assess the whole picture - especially when impacts are non-linear and actions have a cumulative effect; for another you can't assess the merits if you deny the impacts in the first place, and for a third you have to account for uncertainty ranges in your assessment - and uncertainty is most definitely *not* friendly to your argument, even though you imply it is.
> Does it make sense to implement an expensive action that will have a minimal impact?
Well, even if you consider that a suitable decision making framework (and your framework implies complete information and zero uncertainty - which you're not going to get for just about *anything* in the real world), you have to accurately assess the impact in order to determine that it's "minimal".
You have demonstrated repeatedly that you are *badly* underestimating the impacts. Your (presumably cut & pasted) assessment of the US shifting away from coal-fired electricity generation is a classic example of this. It does not - for example - even **try** to assess the cost of the impacts avoided; merely tries to paint the avoided impacts as "minimal" by calculating temperature reductions. As the holder of a Finance Masters degree, have you *ever* wondered why the people supplying your "logic" left out this crucial bit? Ever wondered why you position it as a cost-benefit analysis when the **benefit** is not measured? (And that's before we point out the non-linearity of negative impacts and note that the benefit is therefore non-linear too.)
No?
Then perhaps you should consider that despite your Masters degree you don't have - or refuse to apply - the skills to determine when you are being led up the garden path in this particular field.
Hope this isn't too far off-topic, How does one go about checking the impact factor of a journal?
I got an email from a relative about there being no good evidence for flu vaccines (and pushing vitamin D). It mentions peer-reviewed studies in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. What little research I've been able to do leaves me with the feeling that this is the medical version of using E&E for climate research.
Frank-since YOU have been proven that YOU lied regarding statements I have written YOU are a demonstrated liar. That is a simple fact that even you should be able to understand. The fact that I am a degreed engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years is also a fact, whether you like it or not.
You have either wrongly analyzed the outputs of GCMs or have read someone elseâs analysis to makes the foolish conclusion that you wrote: âthe incontrovertible conclusion from climate models that we need to stop carbon emissions Real Soon Nowâ
Frank draws conclusions from models that canât reliably determine what nations world will get more or less rainfall much less what the difference might be. A model that was appropriate for government policy making would be able to reliably predict whether a nation would benefit or potentially be harmed by the predicted climate change.
Frank advocates the use of a modeling where the outputs of multiple models (all of unknown accuracy, but they canât all be right, and possibly none are close to right) are averaged and government policy decisions are supposed to be based on this.
I'm a bit concerned that HADCRUT3 might soon be replaced by HADCRUT4, but we agreed on "HADCRUT", didn't we? All the same, I won't take the easy option: will there be a means of estimating what HADCRUT3 would have been once HADCRUT4 takes over?
How about using the following equation:
Equivalent HADCRUT3 annual GMT = (1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT3/1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT4) * HADCRUT4 annual GMT
Where 1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT3 = 0.06 deg C per decade.
> You have either wrongly analyzed the outputs of GCMs or have read someone elseâs analysis to makes the foolish conclusion that you wrote: âthe incontrovertible conclusion from climate models that we need to stop carbon emissions Real Soon Nowâ
Unsupported assertion (again).
And as I've already pointed out more than once, the conclusion that one must draw from applying risk mitigation principles in the presence of uncertainty is the **very opposite** of the one you draw. And if we take your unsupported assertion at face value and throw out the models entirely, that increases the uncertainty and makes the conclusion that we must massively slow emissions now **even stronger**.
You wrote-âFor example, this is spectacularly wrong: The cost of infrastructure that prepares for AGW is very little different from infrastructure that doesnât prepare.â
My response- Please point out examples of infrastructure that you believe becomes significantly more expensive to construct in order to prepare for climate change that could occur over a 25 to 30 years.
You wrote about crops that will not pollinate due to a temperature rise, but that is just silly. The temperature change would be gradual and farmers would adjust what they are growing, as they always have; as conditions change. Some areas would become more productive for certain crops while others become less productive. On balance a warmer climate results in greater plant growth.
Regarding evaluating mitigation actions individually based on the merit of the proposed action, you write about the cost of the harms avoided. I agree with your process. In the specific example I showed about Hansenâs shutting down all US coal fired power plants, the proposed action would have cost a huge sum and would have had virtually no impact on the climate, so no harm was avoided. I agree, letâs evaluate a potential harms that can be avoided and implement only those mitigation actions that seem to make sense.
At least a sizable chunk was lifted from the comments of Diplomacy's Meltdown: Developing Countries Are Not Holding Back Climate Agreements.
Pokerplyer: In academic circles, copying other people's work without attribution, and especially presenting it as though it was your own, is considered to be theft. People have lost their jobs over it. Do not do it again, but either use your own words or clearly show its source.
You wrote about crops that will not pollinate due to a temperature rise, but that is just silly. The temperature change would be gradual and farmers would adjust what they are growing, as they always have; as conditions change.
Rice yields in SE Asia have already suffered because of too high temperatures at pollination. There are no crops that come close for yield and usefulness and also tolerate higher temperatures.
The entire case of AGW is built on the outputs of the models.
There is a free on-line course in understanding global warming. You urgently need to take it to avoid making further ignorant statements.
âRice yields in SE Asia have already suffered because of too high temperatures at pollination.â
I tried to look it up but the only reference I could find was Wikipedia and could not read it. I doubt that the real issue was the temperature change to date caused by AGW. It is possible that a hot year reduced yields. Farmers are very practiced in adapting by adjusting when and what they plant.
Richard- The entire case foundation of AGW IS built on the outputs of the models. It is the models that have described the âfearedâ potential future conditions.
His post at 423 is largely a word for word cut and paste from commenter Rob Starkey's post on this article by Willis Eschenbach at WUWT. This same comment has been also posted at Curry's blog.
HA! I thought that looked familiar. On Scientific American I called out Poker Player on this last year, comment #50. Also, there was another "person" who once to went by the name of Sisko on Scientific American who would copy and paste the same exact thing. So I have to wonder if Rob Starkey is Sisko, who also is Poker Player and who may also be a character named Postman. Postman once made tried to make that idiot bet with me too.
Here we report that annual mean maximum and minimum temperatures have increased by 0.35°C and 1.13°C, respectively, for the period 1979â2003 and a close linkage between rice grain yield and mean minimum temperature during the dry cropping season (January to April). Grain yield declined by 10% for each 1°C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season, whereas the effect of maximum temperature on crop yield was insignificant. This report provides a direct evidence of decreased rice yields from increased nighttime temperature associated with global warming.
and I saw other likely papers that I did not bother to check.
entire case foundation of AGW IS built on the outputs of the models.
Is 'models' a dirty word, then? Data on temperatures from ground-based weather stations, satellite data showing changes in temperature and a disparity between incoming and outgoing radiation, data on ice sheets, glaciers, the polewards spread of over 250 organisms, dates of river and lake freeze-up and thawing, flowering dates, sea level change and borehole data all indicate that Earth is warming. There are also several different lines of evidence that clearly show that the increase in atmospheric CO2 comes from human activity, and the link between CO2 and the greenhouse effect has been established for over 100 years. To summarily dismiss all of this shows massive ignorance. Sign up for the course.
Trent--Yes at Judith's site I post using my name. Feel free to comment on what I wrote. No I am not Willis. No I did not copy something of his. I would guess I 1st posted the cost benefit analysis sometime in 2010. Who knows, maybe he read it.
So what is your point? You have posted dumb, inaccurate things at SA and I have pointed that out. I generally perfer Judith Curry's site since the people there discuss the topic more fully and you can learn if you are willing.
> Please point out examples of infrastructure that you believe becomes significantly more expensive to construct in order to prepare for climate change that could occur over a 25 to 30 years.
So, you appear to be making an argument from personal ignorance.
I already gave you some pointers - some of which it is difficult to *imagine* infrastructure for. AYou seem ignorant of the range of services that humans rely on the ecosystem to provide (ask Jeff Harvey, for example - or Google him on Deltoid as he's explained this many times in the past). And if not merely ignorant of those services, then you assume they will not be significantly impacted and/or will be easy and cheap to replace.
And it's not just "25 to 30 years" we need to worry about. Artificially limiting it to that period is an attempt to bias the equation.
And on the topic of the kinds of infrastructure you *can* imagine, feel free to figure out what it would cost to provide additional supplemental fresh water supplies to (say) Texas - you think large scale desalination and long pipelines are going to be cheap - and provide multi-meter high sea walls to (say) Florida and the entire coastline of Bangladesh?
> You wrote about crops that will not pollinate due to a temperature rise, but that is just silly.
It is only silly when you are pig ignorant about the science, which you apparently are.
There are crops - including some widely use in the subcontinent - which fail to pollinate if the night time temperature doesn't drop sufficiently low during the critical period (which is only a few days long). These types of failures will - which you could ascertain for yourself, if you would bother to apply basic engineering analysis skills - occur more frequently if the climate warms because weather is (to a first order approximation, which engineers can certainly understand) stochastic noise on top of a climate signal. Instead of asserting that this is "silly", go do some research and see if you can find out whether this has already happened or not.
And if you get that far, instead of arguing from personal ignorance, sketch out how the "gradual shift in crops" you hypothesise will work out. Your working should show and what impact the loss of knowledge about how to get the best yields out of known crops under known local conditions will have when you change both of those variables - plus the cost of developing and/or buying new crops, plus the opportunity cost if no suitable direct replacement is available. Since you're so sure these concerns are "silly", I take it you **have costed these impacts** and are prepared to share the figures? Right?
Then there are potential collapses of various links in the ecosystem due to climate change, and we cannot rule out that these do not massively reduce pollinating species for various important crops.
And we haven't even got to cost of dealing with the pests that do *really* well in warmer climates. Pine beetles in the North American continent, perhaps? You **have** costed their rising impact due to climate change, and projected it forward due to further climate change, right?
Or to climatic zones shifting polewards ... which you cannot guarantee will end up in places suitable for agriculture as the original geographical location. If a significant part of the wheat belt moves to locations that aren't suitable for wheat production, what do you want to do about it? You have costed mitigation strategies for this too, right?
I mean...you assert the cost of mitigation isn't worth it, so you **MUST** have totted up ALL of the impacts including many I haven't listed here, right? Right?
> On balance a warmer climate results in greater plant growth.
(A) Not necessarily, for the crops we care about when both the planet warms AND CO2 increases.
(B) Many crops we care about change their composition, reducing average nutritional value and increasing their proportion of compounds that humans find difficult to digest. They may also require a lot more water, which isn't necessarily going to be in overabundance in many regions of the world.
(C) It can also promote weed growth, and the costs of dealing with them.
Anyone telling you more CO2 and warmth brings unmitigated agricultural good is uninformed or misleading and is *avoiding the kind of cost-benefit analysis you are avoiding*.
> In the specific example I showed about Hansenâs shutting down all US coal fired power plants, the proposed action would have cost a huge sum and would have had virtually no impact on the climate, so no harm was avoided.
EPIC FAIL!
A quarter of a degree is far from "virtually no impact on climate". And that goes double if it's the **marginal** quarter of a degree (I'm sure you understand the concept of "marginal" tax or "marginal" earnings from your Masters degree), in part due to the non-linearity of the negative impacts.
And I note and reiterate that you **refuse** to do a cost-benefit analysis by refusing to **cost** the impacts. Shouldn't you be embarrassed to claim a Masters in Finance/Economics with this kind of faulty economic "reasoning"? What part of "you have to cost the benefit to do cost-benefit analysis" do you not understand? Did you even notice that you have refused to cost the impact of a marginal quarter of a degree rise, but are *still* asserting that the cost of mitigation isn't worth it?
Or how about we use that "logic" in an aerospace analogy?
Ground control: "How much fuel do you need to cross the ocean?"
Pilot: "What are the wind forecasts for the flight path?"
Ground control: "We don't have a good forecast today due to data collection failure, but most likely between 95 and 205% of the typical headwinds, and we cannot rule out 280%."
Pilot: "That's too uncertain for decision making and putting in even an extra 20% fuel will cost too much. Screw it, just give me the amount we use for typical headwinds."
> I agree with your process.
Bullshit. You are so completely unwilling to analyse your own argument that you don't realise that the rest of that paragraph **completely goes against "my process"**.
The pilot's "logic" is essentially what you are arguing for here. "Screw it - don't worry about either the cost of impacts or any sort of risk analysis, just assert that the cost of mitigation is too high." Any engineering degree holder can understand how deeply stupid that is.
> The entire case foundation of AGW IS built on the outputs of the models.
Pig ignorant bullshit!
It's amazing how much you rely on it - and how little intellectual integrity you show, and how little you care about your lack of it.
I just want to say that Scientific American has for the past couple of years been putting out at least one daily story on climate change and sometimes it will publish three or four on the same day. The reporting does not for the vast majority of the stories indulge in the false balance narrative. This has been increasingly enraging the deniers.
Most of those stories do not make the front page or stay for only a day or so. By my reckoning Scientific American still has some prestige among layman. The deniers definitely know this and always appear with a stupidity or two in the comments section. If anyone is interested in the stories and countering the morons I suggest getting the RSS for the site.
The fact that I am a degreed engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years is also a fact,
but he could have fooled me.
He then goes on to continue to assert of frank:
You have either wrongly analyzed the outputs of GCMs or have read someone elseâs analysis to makes the foolish conclusion that you wrote - without ever having demonstrated any expertise at using or interpreting GCMs apart from his abysmal and unsupported claims on this thread.
Speaking of certain studies that certain parties like to tout:
> The analyses evaluate the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but do not measure the resulting payoff â the benefits of averting dangerous climate change. Nor do they consider the ancillary benefits, such as the improved local air quality and reduced ocean acidification.
Sound familiar? (They also tend to assume that climate won't impact economy, which is foolish.)
Then keep reading until you get to the "Cost-Benefit Analysis" section which looks at a study that *actually* attempts to assess the benefit side of the equation. Yes, there's a fair bit of uncertainty on the benefit side - but given the cumulative benefits over time it's very difficult to argue that the uncertainty is large enough so that it's plausible that the benefits won't heavily outweigh the costs in the long run.
Then continue on in that section to see other studies that attempt to actually assess both costs and benefits. Guess what they show?
If you don't have a cost-benefit study of your own that assesses *both* cost and benefit, you can't claim that the benefit isn't worth the cost. And if you do one that shows that, you need to argue why it's more representative of reality than the ones that have already been done.
Especially given that the article cites claims that certain US States that have imposed carbon costs have *already* reaped more benefits than the costs imposed.
The awful ethical position that pp takes about the risks of global warming are taken up in the following worthwhile read:
Ethical Analysis of the Climate Change Disinformation Campaign: Introduction to A Series.
By DONALD A BROWN http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/
To quote:
Climate change must be understood to be at its core an ethical problem because : (a) it is a problem caused by some people in one part of the world who are threatening poor people who are often far away in time and space, (b) the harms to these victims are potentially catastrophic, and (c) the victims can't protect themselves by petitioning their governments who have no jurisdiction over those causing the problem. The victims must hope that those causing the problem will see that their ethical duties to the vulnerable require them to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
Because climate change is an ethical problem, those causing the problem may not use self-interest alone as justification for policy responses; they must fulfill responsibilities, obligations and duties to others. Because climate change is a moral problem, those who are putting others at risk through no fault of their own have a special duty to be precautious about scientific uncertainty. If anything, the need for care in considering harms from powerful technology recognized by Jonas is even more salient in the case of a problem like climate change because it is a problem that is caused by some that are putting others at great risk.that have not consented to be threatened.
>Please point out examples of infrastructure that you believe becomes significantly more expensive to construct in order to prepare for climate change ...
Perhaps if pokerplyer had studied civil engineering he wouldn't have to ask such a facile question. Let's just consider three aspects of floods. Below I refer to 1-in-x years events, which is the familiar terminology, but just to be clear a 1-in-100 year event is actually an event with an annual probability of 1%, a 1-in-20 year event is one with an annual probability of 5% etc.
Good infrastructure - the kind that gets built in relatively corruption-free, rich, first world countries - is not built to deal with every possible contingency as it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. Rather, drainage systems are constructed to deal with reasonable contingencies, typically 1-in-50 year events, but sometimes 1-in-100 (or more).
Climate change is making such events more common - we have observations that show that, not just models. Assuming the observed increase in frequency continues, even if only for pokerplyers tendentious timeframe, there are going to be areas where what was a 1-in-100 year rainfall event a century ago becomes a 1-in-20 year event.
So, three aspects I said:
1. Rainfall intensity for a 1-in-100 year event is roughly 30% to 50% that of a 1-in-20 year event for any given time / location (of course it varies, but its a reasonable guide). That means every new stormwater drain that is laid has to have 30-50% greater cross sectional area to deal (actually its more than that because the pipe itself acts as a buffer at peak intensity). Outflow drainage / holding will need greater capacity. Flood mitigation dams etc will need greater capacity.
Result: ALL new infrastructure will be more expensive.
2. We already have a massive amount of infrastructure built to tolerances that are no longer realistic. That means we either wear the cost of upgrading every foot of drainpipe in the world, or we wear the cost of upgrading the infrastructure that is now vulnerable, or we wear the cost of having infrastructure made unavailable, damaged or destroyed by more frequent floods. On top of the examples in 1, flood diversion schemes will need greater capacity - typically, that means more deliberate flooding of farmland, with attendant costs.
Result: MOST existing infrastructure will require expensive upgrade or event-by-event repair. Economic losses per year from flooding events will increase, even with all other factors held constant
3. Finally, as I mentioned above, 1-in-100 year events are considered for flood planning necessarily, but 1-in-20 year events are. That means that there is a lot of infrastructure (even in countries where "massive corruption" isn't "the culture") has no meaningful protection from events that are moving from 1-in-100 year events to 1-in-20 year frequency.
Result: On top of upgrades referred to in 2, a lot of infrasastucture will require protection from events that have not previously been catered for because they were not in the design life of the item.
That's a few aspects of floods, and not all by any means. What about drought? Heat events? Secondary effects (eg reduced or failed harvests)?
Pokerplyer seems to have a very limited imagination, if his manifold arguments from personal incredulity are anything to go by. :-(
And just to add to Frank's exposition, consider that the Cumbria (UK) flooding in November 2009 has been assessed as having been caused by a 1:1,800yr rainfall event (i.e. a 0.0556% chance per year). Whilst such an extreme will always need to be understood in terms of natural variability and residual risk, if the probability of extremes such as these is shifting against us ... I'll leave that as a thought experiment.
> > The fact that I am a degreed engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years is also a fact,
> but he could have fooled me.
Hahah. :) Indeed, if "pokerplyer" didn't explicitly state "I am an aerospace engineer", then given the 'wisdom' he's shown to us, we could've easily mistaken him for a generic blathering idiot... :-B
How did John McLean's prediction of "coldest year since 1956" fare if we take Jan-Dec averages rather than Dec-Nov? The Jan-Dec anomaly was +0.52 degrees C, compared to -0.19 degrees C in 1956 - and despite 2011 being a La Nina year, the ONLY year prior to 2001 that exceeded it was the huge El Nino year of 1998.
Well, the 2011 Jan-Dec average was +0.72 degrees C - only exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2007 and 2010, and a looooong way off -0.22 degrees C in 1956. And the 2011 Dec-Nov average was +0.71 degrees C compared to -0.22 degrees C in 1956, and only exceeded by those same years plus 2002.)
Hmmmm...John McLean's forthcoming post on 2011 temperatures should prove fascinating!
Nah, there's little point wondering. Especially when the same blog that hosted McLean's prediction posted yesterday an article proclaiming ["Global temps in a crash..."](http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8994):
> When the PDO turned cold, most of the meteorological and climate community understood that the pattern was turning very similar the last time of the PDO reversal, the 1950s, and it was a matter of time before the global temperatures, which have leveled off, would start falling in the same herby jerky fashion they had risen when the PDO turned warm at the end of the 1970s. I am not going to rehash the sordid details of how the AGW crowd simply ignores the major drivers of a cyclical nature. We all know that. Nor am I going to question them as to why they believe a trace gas like CO2 (needed for life on the planet) with a specific gravity of 1.5 as compared to the atmospheres 1.0, was going to mix with air in a way to affect the earthâs temperatures.
Hahaha...of course, in Climate Scientology any Inconvenient Data must be terminated. Hillarious. :-)
"The hottest year on record bla bla bla". Yeah right.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/Gisp-ice-10000-r..png
What's the purpose with all your ad hominems?
"I understand that it must be hard for you Climate Scientologists to realise[sic] that the A in AGW is a big fat lie."
"What's the purpose with all your ad homonems[sic]?"
Poe?
Robert Murphy @ 68:
> Poe?
I have also suspected that.
Those who want to feed the ravenous trolls can preferably do that on the Jonas Thread.
"What's the purpose with all your ad homonems[sic]?"
Poe?
Or possibly a Freudian slip?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in a large group. Deltoids in a nutshell.
Sure we've got power. If you say so, Z head.
Climate Scientology Church.
New Yearâs Resolutions For Climate Scientist
1. I will admit that warming has been much slower than we expected
2. I will admit that recent sea level rise is nothing unusual or threatening
3. I will admit that our forecasts of declining snow cover were wrong
4. I will admit that Arctic temperatures are cyclical, and that we have no idea what will happen to Arctic ice over the next 50 years
5. I will admit that our forecasts of Antarctic warming have been a total failure.
6. I will admit that Polar Bear populations are not threatened
7. I will admit that climate models have demonstrated no skill, and are nothing more than research projects
8. I will admit there was a Medieval Warm Period
9. I will admit that that there was a Little Ice Age
10. I will stop pretending that we donât have climate records prior to 1970
11. I will admit that the surface temperature record has been manipulated and is contaminated by UHI
12. I will stop making up data where none exists
13. I will honestly face skeptics in open debate.
14. I will quit trying to stop skeptics from being published
15. I will admit that glaciers have been disappearing for hundreds or thousands of years
16. I will stop telling people that the climate is getting more extreme, without producing any evidence
17. I will admit that hurricanes are on the decline
18. I will admit that severe tornadoes are on the decline
19. I will admit that droughts were much worse in the past
20. I will admit that efforts to shut down power plants have potentially very serious consequences for the future
21. I will pay for my own tickets to tropical climate boondoggles like Cancun, rather than improperly using taxpayer money for political activism
22. I will admit that there is no missing heat
23. I will admit that temperatures have been cooling for at least the last decade
24. I will publish the raw data and not lose it.
etc. etc. etc.
http://www.real-science.com/new-years-resolutions-climate-scientists
" I demolished PentaxZ's claim earlier regarding the effects of warming on polar bear population demographics,"
You did, did you? Na, don't think so. Perhaps in your delluted dreams, but hardly in real life.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/i-am-spartacus-stand-up-and-b…
>I will honestly face skeptics in open debate.
Pentaxz, is this the bit where you address Rattus' rebuttal?
People have been debating you. For some reason you appear unable to debate them back.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16049028
*You did, did you? Na, don't think so. Perhaps in your delluted [sic] dreams, but hardly in real life*
Well then, genius, try and debate the concepts I proposed in my last posting, instead of writing garbage and then moving on. You didn't even try and support your polar bear example; you merely cut-and-pasted it from some denialist web site as if that was enough proof. Have you read the Tilman & May article (1994) in Nature that defined and described the concept of the extinction debt? Or any articles from Martin Scheffer and colleagues in which the concept of 'ecological tipping points' is addressed? Do you think you win kudos merely by stating something you read from some right wing blog and rehashing it here?
Truth is, Pentaxz, you can hardly write proper grammar or spell correctly, let alone formulate a cohesive scientific argument. You seem to think that stating something as fact in your own deluded worldview makes it the truth.
SteveR, I would normally agree with your comment. The reason that I expend energy writing to blogs in my capacity as a scientist is that I hope to counter arguments with respect to various aspects of global change where commentators downplay the human fingerprint, and second, to help those who are sitting on the fence realize that the scientific evidence for various anthropogenic threats is immense in the empirical literature. If I can change a few minds by arguing from my area of expertise (population ecology) than I feel like I have made a contribution. But there are those who write into blogs - Olaus being one of them - who exhibit wilful ignorance that is embedded on the basis of their own political and ideological agendas. Not once has Olaus hinted that he read the scientific literature in peer-reviewed journals or that he understands it. He instead relies for his information - like PentaxZ - on the musings of right wing bloggers and web sites like WUWT, where the material is clearly driven by a political ideology IMO.
Tim,
I see that pentaxZ is ignoring your instruction to comment only on the Jonas Thread. Can we expect some action to be taken?
Here are 3 new papers to add to the huge list of papers that you all ignore
( http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011JC007591.shtml )
( http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL049784.shtml )
( http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011PA002130.shtml )
ps. Pinocchio, ensure you have your harpoon
at hand, you may be washed out to sea.
Although pentaX is usually just a boring nuisance, I gotta say I liked the link to Tallbloke. It gave me a nice quote from Hans Jelbring calling his former supervisor a dishonest scientist.
Of course, there are a lot of people who consider Hans Jelbring a dishonest scientist, so maybe he's just trying to put the blame for that on someone else...
Trooseptic, why would we ignore a local study of sea level rise (check the IPCC reports, it points out that sea level rise is not expected to be uniform), a study that discusses stratospheric cooling and its effect on ozone (hmmmm, stratospheric cooling is a fingerprint of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increasing amounts of GHG, are you sure you wanted to point that study out?), and a third study that discusses the effect of AMO on local SST on a millenium time-scale?
[Sock puppet](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) alert. Can we banish this version back to the Jokers' pit too?
"Trooseptic" is Pentaxz. He gives himself away with bad punctuation, grammar and spelling and posting links that actually go against his point of view because he doesn't understand the contents of what he is posting.
Marco, I thought that the stratospheric cooling was supposed to appear over the tropics, it hasn't yet.
From wg1
There has been robust detection and attribution of anthropogenic influence on tropospheric warming, which does not depend on including stratospheric cooling in the fingerprint pattern of response. There are observational uncertainties in radiosonde and satellite records. Models generally predict a relative warming of the free troposphere compared to the surface in the tropics since 1979, which is not seen in the radiosonde record (possibly due to uncertainties in the radiosonde record) but is seen in one version of the satellite record, although not others (Section 9.4.4).
and
Simultaneous warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere due to natural factors is less likely than warming of the troposphere or cooling of the stratosphere alone. Cooling of the stratosphere is in part related to decreases in stratospheric ozone. Modelled and observational uncertainties as discussed under entries for tropospheric warming with additional uncertainties due to stratospheric observing systems and the relatively poor representations of stratospheric processes and variability in climate models
( http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-7.html )
But science don't need idiots to evolve. Back to the Jonas thread, troll!
Then why are you here?
[p]entaxZ:
Um, because you're an idiot and a troll?
> Science would never evolve if there weren't any critics or skeptics.
'Skepticism' isn't a one-way street, troll.
-- frank
fraud
Tim, can we piss pentaxz back to the jonas thread?
Wrong Scribe at #24. Plimer is correct. I visited there a bit in 2011 and can attest to the fact.
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. "
That applies to anyone trying to get the trolls to answer your questions or admit any error or in any other way expecting them to act like rational human beings rather than shit stains. Give it up, guys.
What about my predictin timbo. You know - the one bout the drowt endin ? My lucky gess woz it ?
Another shit-stain-on-humanity denialist, telling blatant lies and demonstrating rank hypocrisy. As with that other shit stain, Alex Harvey, the efforts of folks here to engage his arguments will be conveniently dismissed, and he will wield my telling the truth about what sort of person he is as a convenient tool of evasion.
Most libertarians understand virtually nothing about economics, but this cretin seems to be below even those low standards.
AGW advocates, look at the following graph for a minute and I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, consider it possible that you may be wrong.
http://bit.ly/xakrmJ
AGW advocates, what changed in the 161 years of annual global mean temperature data?
Is not the only change the uniform global warming of ONLY 0.06 deg C per decade?
I'm with David Duff. It's been freezing here... and more to come if cycle 25 is as predicted.
Well my warmy friends - who's looking through 'the round window' now ?
Anyone know about a study i heard (from Cornell I think) about aerosols maybe a month ago. It was a woman on NPR talking about their research that shows aerosols not only block some radiation, but that they can also have a decade effect mitigating CO2 by biological processes as a precipitate after coming out of the atmosphere.
This is the type of thing I have always thought if there were mitigating factors that biological ones might be more likely. But I have read nothing about it since
Tony, is this the story:
Air Pollution: Bad For Health, But Good For Planet?
First of all Happy New Year to you all and I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves - I can't stand yet another dim, drear, wet, chilly Summer.
However, I have another reason to enter these august columns today because I wish to bring to your attention some very wise words of warning from Friedrich Hayek, delivered during his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Economics. Referring to the over-use and over-reliance on 'mathematical models', he said this, and I would simply urge you all to substitute the word 'economists' with 'global climate technologists':
âIt seems to me that this failure of the economists [global climate technologists] to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences â an attempt which in our field may lead to outright error. It is an approach which has come to be described as the âscientisticâ attitude â an attitude which, as I defined it some thirty years ago, âis decidedly unscientific in the true sense of the word, since it involves a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed.ââ
The comments thread to the post is worth reading, too:
http://cafehayek.com/2011/12/hayek-on-scientistic-hubris.html
So, there is your new Year's resolution - avoid 'scientistic attitudes'!
David Duff, thanks for bringing us yet another spirited defence of bullshit. More, please.
-- frank
*I can only hope fervently that your prognostications for global warming hurry up and manifest themselves - I can't stand yet another dim, drear, wet, chilly Summer*
The U.K. experienced its second warmest year on record in 2011; same over here in the Netherlands. Spring was the warmest and driest yet recorded in both countries; autumn was also near the warmest and the driest as well. For the first time ever water restrictions almost had to be applied here in late November. The winter has so far seen record warmth: no frosts at all in December, and to my utter shock spring and summer annual plants - crucifers, umbellifers etc - are not only growing well but many are flowering in warm microclimates along south facing ditches and slopes. I spent the Christmas period on the island of Terscehlling and the level of plant growth along roadsides and medaows was something I have never seen at this time of year. Unprecedented. If this goes on it will cause havoc amongst a wide array of late winter-early spring ecological interactions, and further exacebrate phenological asynchronies.
Eastern North bAmerica has also had an exceptionally warm winter period: no snow at all in Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota, and a colleague at the University of Toronto told me that lakes in central Ontario that normally freeze in late Novemeber were still open just before Christmas.
Duffer: go back to school and learn a little.
Not just eastern North America. The Canadian prairies have been well above average, with my part of Manitoba being forecast to be 18C above normal today.
'Yeah, but it's just weather, innit'!
Now where have I read those words, or something very like them,before?
Yes, Duffster, it's just weather. So why did you need to misrepresent it in the first place?
Also, what part of climatology is not part of "brilliantly successful physical sciences"?
re:3 and Hayek's rejection of scientific models
Not surprising since Hayek's ideas are closer to religion than science.
The words below are truly wise words, but of course they'll simply fly over David Duff's head:
> Fairness means "everyone wins" to you? That's your problem then, that's not what fairness means at all. Fairness is when the rules are applied equally to all no matter what someone might think of them.
(Context.)
-- frank
Jeff @ 5
Absolutely, I have heard much about such disruption of late but I doubt Duffer can even parse those last three words without reference. Quite beyond his experience.
Of course, Duff's whinging about "it's just weather" has to do with the repeated attempts by denialists to claim that some "anomalously" cold or snowy weather over a very short time scale over a very small land area disproves the reality of climate change (aka "weather affects climate").
Whereas what we know of physics, of the atmospheric and oceanic circulatory systems, and weather variability, we would expect to find that the rapid human-induced global warming would result in a 'loading of the dice', so to speak, favouring increased quantity and severity of extreme hot weather events and fewer (though not, indeed never "no") extreme cold weather events (aka "climate affects weather").
What do we find when we examine the data? [What a surprise!](http://skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1116) Climate affects the weather.
*'Yeah, but it's just weather, innit'!*
Sure thing Duffo, but isn't it interesting that when the deniers conflate climate and weather its OK, but when their opponents do it the deniers scream foul play! Foul play!
Sunspot has honed the technique. He cuts-and-pastes obscure articles about cold weather events some place or other, than when others do the same with many more examples showing record high temperatures, extended heat waves etc., he goes off on a tangent about the evils of 'warmers' and how they just don't understand the importance of scale.
Tells me all I need to know about deniers: hypocrites one and all.
Duff:
No-one here gives a flying one for your grubby urgings. Please take them, along with whatever thoughts wander into your head looking for something to connect with, elsewhere. I'd like to think we can have one Open Thread that doesn't devolve into 2500 vacuous, drivelling posts by Duff, but going on previous history...
Why does anyone bother to engage with this pompous buffoon?
DD, your Hayek analogy fails because -
IMHO, orthodox economists tend to try and fit reality into their models and theories, disregarding reality when it doesn't do what it should do.
Climate scientists tend to try to understand why reality is doing what it is doing, and use models as a tool for understanding. The models get dropped or their structure and interactions refined if they don't correspond to reality.
Hey Duff, did actually read that Freidrich Heydeck quote? He said that the problem with the economists is that they have (unsuccessfully) tried to "imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences".
Climate science is one of those "brilliantly successful physical sciences". Well done on the home goal!
If economists had even a fraction of the success of climate scientists with their predictions, the economies of World would not be in such a mess.
I am skeptical of climate models.
Haven't they been underestimating several effects of climate change?
Aren't they missing important climate feedbacks?
Aren't they lulling policy makers into a false sense of security.
One Arctic expert said to me recently "If there's a conflict between reality and models, the modelers stick to their models."
Reality seems much more serious than the models have predicted.
Good point Geoff Beacon.
Climate models make an important contribution to our understanding of the effects of AGW but I too am concerned that they often exclude data related to Arctic slow feedbacks, particularly retreat of ice sheets, loss of albedo and increase in methane emissions.
How can one possibly predict likely movement in sea level rise and average global temperature without taking these matters into consideration?
@3.
So you either live on the east coast of Australia which has been affected by a La Nina this summer (c'mon Dave, what does a La Nina do to the east coast of Australia?), or you are living on another planet somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.
And not 5 milliseconds after making this ludicrous and obvious comment related to local weather and local climate effects, you lambast others for countering with the same.
Heck Dave, why don't you just issue a signed declaration that everything to do with global warming is crap, and leave it at that? Then at least we'd save some time and effort here.
David Duff.
We had our warmest January night ever the day before yesterday, so by your previous winter logic global warming is now moving apace.
Glad to see that you're finally on board.
@ Bernard (above)
The problem is since Duff regularly transposes "weather" and "climate" at will and as it suits his purposes at the time, he will sooner or later quote BoM stats for Sydney in December 2011, which was the coolest since 1960 and the least sunny since 2003, and thus will predictably shriek "climate change is bunk". Like others of his ilk he conveniently dismisses what's going on across the rest of the globe, not to say long term trends.
The Duffer said:
That's excellent advice. If the deniers take it to heart, we should have less noice and more signal in discussions on questions of climate. They are forever copying and pasting stuff they don't understand or can't be bothered reading merely so they can sound as if what they propose is scientifically rigorous when their misuse of the content and copy and paste tropes amount to scientistic gaffleflab. Plimer's "questions" to Monbiot (use the flitches, Luke) some years back were an excellent example of this. So too is anything from Monckton.
Ian Plimer in 2009 "debunks" AGW by claiming that:
Reality intervenes in Plimer's denialist script. 2011 was hottest year ever in Perth:
Well, I'm delighted to tell you that compared to the last two or three winters this one has so far been as mild as May - well, not quite, but you know what I mean. Mind you bitter British experience tells me that we will pay for it in Jan/Feb.
However, I have returned to chide you all - you must do better:
"UAH Global Temperature Update for Dec. 2011: +0.13 deg. C"
The same as November! Come on, chaps, burn a bit more coal!
Why must we forever have to put up with the distraction that is short term data? It's like some flat earther claiming that mountain ranges are responsible for all the deviations from horizontal in the planet's surface, not some so-called 'curvature'. Global warming has always been about multidecadal trends and it saddens me that some people parade short periods of year on year data as if they want to advertise their statistical incompetence. The GWPF even made it their logo!
Duff,
You are nothing more than a pitiable wind-up merchant who is best ignored. I have come across many such as you over time, those in the navy often had poor survival prospects on long voyages for they eventually were turned ashore for treatment at Stonehouse and Netley after they grew mum-chance by being ignored.
Which further demonstrates that you are dumber than a sack of hammers, as this may be the worst analogy ever. Hayek's statement is about the inapplicability of the models of the physical sciences to the social sciences, the problem being that people and human social institutions aren't like molecules. But perhaps, being such a "classical" fellow, you believe in wind nymphs.
Anthony Watts has [a post about shark hybridisation](backupurl.com/lg21up ), where the media confabulated the scientists' claims with signatures of global warming.
See if you can count how many cherries he picked for this one.
And he has the hide to winge about the media's twisting of the facts...
Scribe @ 24
Amazingly, or perhaps not so, The Australian's Graham Lloyd forgets to tell us about Perth in his summation of the [2011 Australian climate](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/drought-breaking-la…).
Wow! Graham Lloyd manages to write an article about climate/weather issues without distortions or quoting any lies from contrarian non-experts.
Wonders will never cease.
Maybe the family Christmas lunch saw him set straight by his wiser relatives?
Also of note at Anthony Watts's blog is this "Unified Theory of Climate" by Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate ). This "theory" is taking in not just the usual suspects who believe the greenhouse effect is fictitious but even some "AGW skeptics" who were previously smart enough to reject that nonsense in favor of their lesser nonsense (such as David M Hoffer, tallbloke, ...)
It is really a train wreck of historic proportions over there, with the usual bluster about new paradigms and Copernicus (apparently the paradigm of Conservation of Energy having outlived its usefulness)...Read it and weep!
I'd like to echo the call to be done with David Duff. I see little point to his posting here or to others responding. I stop by fairly regularly to get information on what's happening in climate circles, but I find the posts between Mr. Duff and others largely noise.
Joel Shore @ 32,
Oh dear, it'a the old "Ideal Gas Law" argument again. PV = nRT.
From Nikolov and Zeller:
> Pressure by itself is not a source of energy! Instead, it enhances (amplifies) the energy supplied by an external source such as the Sun through density-dependent rates of molecular collision. This relative enhancement only manifests as an actual energy in the presence of external heating.
>[...]
>Hence, the atmosphere does not act as a âblanketâ reducing the surface infrared cooling to space as maintained by the current GH theory, but is in and of itself a source of extra energy through pressure. This makes the GH effect a thermodynamic phenomenon, not a radiative one as presently assumed!
Bernhard my friend, I agree. Watts put it all down in a nutshell. When asked directly the CAGW-manhandled researcher says the following (on the link between climate change and shark hybridization):
"I have now stated numerous times that it is extremely unlikely that climate change caused the hybridization event"
And this is the future fellas. When sociologists, anthropologists, theologist, historians, etc, start scrutinizing the "robust proofs" of CAGW, they will conclude that most of it was a hypothesis kidnapped from the "lab" ending up as insubstantial buzz-wordings often reinforced by media and blogs like Deltoid.
Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller also feel they can make up new values for established figures like the mean surface temperature of the Moon, which they put at 154K, not the standard 250K. This enables them to claim their calculations show perfect agreement with observation. The Dunning-Kruger Effect at its best.
As a funny aside, a denier at a different forum had made a claim a few weeks ago that the IPCC doesn't consider water vapor a GHG, so I showed a direct quote from the last report saying it was the most important GHG responsible for a majority of the GHE. He ignored my post and made the same claim to someone else a day later. Now, he's pushing this Unified Climate Theory crap, which actually *does* relegate water vapor to insignificance for the GHE. Like most deniers, he never even noticed the inconsistency. Anything But CO2!
*[Stupidity removed. Take it to the Jonas thread.*]
Maybe the trolls should be contained in their own thread. Don't feed them.
AndyS,
Agreed. Send PentaxZ back to one of the sites where his kind of overt stupidity is appreciated. It isn't here.
Seen elsewhere:
Back in 1990 Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote "Good Omens The nice and accurate prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch"
A few quotes from a scene:
"Been letting ourselves go a bit with the old hydrocarbons, perhaps?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Could you tell me your planet's albedo, sir?"...
"Er. no."
"Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you sir, that your polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category."
...
"CO2 level up point five percent"..."You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominent species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?"
Tamino's running [a little survey of people's estimations of values for a little number](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/what-is-epsilon/):
>Whatâs the chance that if we continue with business-as-usual, man-made global warming will lead to disastrous climate change? It isnât zero. It isnât one. What is epsilon?
I'd encourage readers here to visit if they've not already done so. There are a few issues with definitions, which is why I disagree with Tamino's comment that "[i]t isn't one", but nevertheless the thread is really quite interesting.
It's actually something that I'd like to see more formally conducted, just to get an idea of what folk different fields and degrees of expertise think...
Hey Tim,
Thought you might be interested in a post over at Skepticblog. Shermer posted a review of a presentation by John Lott (more guns = less crime hypothesis). I linked to an old post of yours which I thought was a good critique. Lott shows up in the comments at #29. He doesn't seem to care for you much. If you have time you may want to join the discussion.
http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/03/more-god-less-crime-or-more-guns-…
*Hahaha...of course, in Climate Scientology any Inconvenient Data must be terminated. Hillarious. :-)*
No, only the opinions of idiots. You qualify big time.
Ned Nikolav has now decided that it wasn't enough to compare himself with Copernicus:
"I suppose you also have a problem with the Theory of Relativity, since it was proposed by a low-level clerk working for a Swiss Patent Office ⦠:-)"
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/#commen…
The Newton analogy can't be too far away. lol
This one will make your head explode (more Nikolav/Einstein):
"Large climatic shifts evident in the paleo-record such as the 16C directional cooling of the Globe during the past 51 million years (Hansen et al. 2008; Fig. 8) can now be explained via changes in atmospheric mass and surface pressure caused by geologic variations in Earthâs tectonic activity. Thus, we hypothesize that the observed mega-cooling of Earth since the early Eocene was due to a 53% net loss of atmosphere to Space brought about by a reduction in mantle degasing as a result of a slowdown in continental drifts and ocean floor spreading."
The Earth lost 53% of it's atmosphere in the last 50 million years. Yep.
Bernard, the shark hybridization is even worse than we thought:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqGQyMF5a_0
:-)
I would have gone with [frickin' sharks with frickin' lasers attached to their heads](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ88I1V_v5k) myself.
Composer99, don't bring unrealistic shark scenarios into the picture. Hate to brake it to you but your sharks are Scifi. Mine are real though. ;-)
Davy Boy,
Sorry to come upon this late in the day....
>ome very wise words of warning from Friedrich Hayek, delivered during his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Economics
The problem is that there isn't a Nobel prize for economics and there never has been. What you are referring to is, I think, called, 'The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize' but it has nothing to do with the Nobel Institute, instead it is given by a bunch of bankers. I could be wrong but I believe they also pony up a considerable sum of money each year so the guy or gal who is decided upon by the bunch of bankers gets to sit at the same dinner table as people who win a Nobel prize.
The funny thing is have you ever heard an economist correcting ignorant journalists who insist on calling it a Noble prize.
So Davy boy why don't you go and ask the Australian receipient of a real Noble prize for their assessment of the science done to understand AGW.
Trolls out of their enclosure alert! Back to the Jonas thread please, boys.
Sorry if this is a bit off-topic -- nothing to do with Climate Change -- but as this is in Bernard's broad area, perhaps he (or others who know) could respond.
I heard an item on ABC this morning about duck hunting. As someone who has, in concert with wildlife protection organisations, participated in wildlife rescue over the years, and most especially during "duck hunting" seasons, I need to declare my own predisposition on the matter. That said ...
It was claimed by a farmer-type that duck numbers are in plague proportions. Is this true?
Fran,
Would another question be, what numbers are plague proportions for ducks?
Fran @54
The claim you refer to is one commonly expressed for a number of different creatures by those with a perceived interest in their removal (such as, in my experience ducks,swans,seals.)
With respect to ducks, they are, indeed opportunistic breeders, and the numbers breeding successfully will vary in response to the availability of suitable breeding and feeding sites.
Thus, after a prolonged wet period, waterbird populations will rapidly increase.
I regard the term "plague proportions" with more than a little scepticism myself,particularly when it is applied to native species. However, the term seems quite appropriate when applied to such creatures as goats, rabbits and mice.
Climate Progress have an article on carbon tax reporting in Oz.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/05/398594/murdoch-press-carbon-pr…
While the Murdoch press predictably occupy the top 6 spots for negative campaigning against the carbon tax, the SMH and West Australian are not far behind.
What is striking about the analysis (from Australian Center for Independent Journalism) is how the fossil fuel industry lobbyists have shaped the reporting.
Er .. you do realise that the graph you reference has "present" at 1855?
Here's the same data updated with more recent temps:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/GISP210klarge.png
Is u a confused little twoll now? Here's help from skepticalscience.com:
Myth: Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
@5 and on the general topic of unseasonable weather, particularly relating to unusually cold weather in Europe and-or North America, NOAA ClimateWatch Magazine has a piece on the effect of the Arctic Oscillation - variation in a jet stream which can cause average winter temperatures in parts of the northern hemisphere to vary as much as plus or minus 7 degrees from long term averages, http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/image/2011/so-far-arctic-oscillation-f…
New Scientist had an article last December 16, "Snowmageddon: What's behind extreme winter weather" http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228432.900-snowmageddon-whats-b… (paywalled). It began:
"LAST winter, Florida got so cold that torpid iguanas fell from trees, pythons froze to death, crops were damaged and corals in the seas around the Florida Keys died in greater numbers than ever recorded before. Further north, heavy snowstorms caused chaos across much of the US.
"Across the pond in the UK, it got pretty nippy too - and it stayed cold for much longer than usual. The average temperature of the country in December 2010 was -1 °C, well below the long-term December average of 4.2 °C. It was the second coldest December in central England since records began back in 1659. Here too, heavy snowfalls brought cars, trains and planes to a standstill..."
It goes on to note though that the northern hemisphere as a whole was actually warmer than the long term average - and in arctic regiions, very much warmer. The article concludes that "the jury is still out" as to whether changes due to global warming are implicated in such extreme winter weather events, but says this is suggested by "a growing number of studies".
We are reminded yet again that the connection between climate and weather is far more complex that "if the climate is warming the weather should be warmer".
52 Jeremy,
Not so fast
(From Wikipedia)
So, it's not a "Nobel Prize" per se, but is as good as. Would you equally disparage the actual Nobel Prizes because of their origin?
Of course, there is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics or Biology either. Did this reflect expert opinion at the time, or Nobel's own views on what could confer the "greatest benefit on mankind"?
[Fran](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
As [pterosaur noted](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) many duck species exhibit boom-and-bust type breeding behaviour, in the vein of an r-strategist organism.
Certainly, if one is going to point a gun at ducks, the current season would be the time when doing so has the least effect on overall numbers.
Having said that, whether ducks are "in plague proportions" is another matter. Again, as pterosaur notes, native species rarely demonstrate ecological impacts, as we usually perceive them, that are attributable to "plague species" such as mice. Sometimes we might be inclined to use the term when we plant an agricultural crop on the old habitats or near the extant habitats of natives (think cockatoos), or do something else similarly stupid in terms of inevitable consequence, but this is usually an economic value judgement rather than an ecological one.
And this leads me to expand on [Jeremy C's](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) point about the absolute numbers. What vested interests might term as "plague proportions" is often a fraction of what is an equilibrium size of the population in a non human-impacted context.
Take minke whales for example. Japan justifies their hunting in part by claiming that they are in "plague proportions". Erm, hardly.
Or, to hark back to the waterfowl subject of your question, I once spoke with an old fisherman who worked the Kooragang wetlands and the lower the Hunter River back in the early 20th century. He, and his father before him, used to shoot ducks in flocks that he said darkened the sky from one horizon to the other. He could bring down three or four birds with one shot, and other old-timers I spoke to told of similar bird numbers. From the details they gave, I estimate that at least three or four bird species that used to use the Hunter estuary did so in numbers in the order of millions of individuals of each species. Compare that to today, where one would be fortunate indeed to see a flock of any species that actually reaches into the tens of thousands, let alone more.
Interestingly the fisherman said that their gizzards were sometimes full of rice, apparently from a direct flight from Indonesia: Australia was not growing rice at that time. If this is the case then the numbers and patterns of waterbird migration along the east coast of Australia have been greatly altered indeed over the last century or so.
The bottom line - context is all. One man's "plague proportions" are another man's recovering tattered remnants.
Just recovering from the shock that the shark hybridization wasn't a sign of AGW I got blown away by some more possible good news. Could this be true fellas?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/05/even-with-a-busy-tornado-year-sti…
[*Pentaxz -- from now on you can only post to the Jonas thread*]
You know, its a sad thing that Olaus and PentaxZ are now contaminating this thread with their brand of wilful ignorance gleaned from right wing blogs and never - repeat that never - from the primary literature. Where are the peer-reviewed studies, boys?
Note how PentaxZ then reverts to completely unscientific ramblings - that AGW Ãs a big fat lie'(no supporting references), that 'facts are facts' (no supporting references) and then complaining that the majority of us who hold opposing views want to 'silence the infidell [sic]', meaning him.
No, you clown, we would like you to support your vacuous rants with a discussion of views from the empirical literature. WUWT and Joanne Nova do not make the cut. They are heavily biased Ãnterpreters of interpretations' and neither has published anything relevant in the scientific literature. As for the present day warming being a 'normal event', of course this is patently absurd, given the rate of warming in higher latitudes against the background of a largerly deterministic system that operates over decacadel and even longer temporal scales (as JamesA correctly pointed out earlier). The problem is that deniers like PentaxZ and Olaus don't have a clue about the importance of scale in the scheme of climate maintenance or the regulation of functioning in communities and ecosystems. Their brand of unscientific posturing would be shot down in any academic arena, so they instead insist on contiminating the blogosphere.
With respect to 'ducks being in plague proportions', I agree with Bernard. This is certainly nonsense if we use North America and Europe as proxies. It must be rememberered that very large numbers of wetlands have been drained and filled in over the past century, and that dabbling duck populations at least have suffered as a result. Waders and sandpipers have fared even worse, as many of these species are transcontinetal migrants and require strings of intact wetalnds on their migratory routes in order to 'refuel' en route.
We now know that some migratory waterfowl are also adjusting their seasonal migration patterns in response to shifts in the rapid upper latitiudinal warming, and that some species are either arriving on their wintering grounds up to a month later than normal or else they are altering their wintering distributions. Certainly their are innumerable biotic indicators of a rapidly changing climate, but, as in just about everything, there will be spome winners (e.g. habitat generalists) and a much greater number of losers (e.g. habitat specialists or species with narrowly define ranges).
Thanks for that background info on Kooragang, Bernard. I may have talked to the same gent at one stage. While the numbers of waterbirds around the Kooragang area aren't what they were, the number of species commonly sighted is on the improve* and with the openning of the floodgates at Hexham a couple of years ago numbers hopefully should improve further (and isn't it the aim of all threatened species programs that they are so successful the target animal becomes a pest itself?).
*Saw a Jabiru on the saltmarsh there about 6 years ago and apparently they're regularly spotted these days.
Dear Jeffie, regarding the shark issue I quoted the researcher herself which, in my book, is the way to go. More "primary" is hard to come by (if my citation is correct). Do you have any objections or do you find the media angle on par with her research?
Regarding tornados and WUWT, I posted a Q. I was hoping a deltoid could narrow it down to me, but I see that you, instead, prefer to hide in the comfort zone yours â the cursing and name-calling fetal position.
Way to go Jeff. Keep fantasizing about the right wing illuminati.
*[Stupidity filter applied]*
Sometimes people ask me why I bother to visit here so often. The answer is simple - the commenters here are so witty. Take this for example:
Climate science is one of those "brilliantly successful physical sciences".
Honestly, what a side-splitter - it's the way you tell 'em!
And, Charles @33, the best thing I can suggest is that as you read this open thread stick your fingers in your ears and keep shouting 'la-la-la-la-la'!
Tim,
Thanks for sending Pentax where he belongs. I think that you should do the same thing with Olaus.
Re: Olaus, you are clutching at straws. Essentially, all that you do is surf a few anti-environmental climate change denial blogs and rehash their nonsense elsewhere. How much of the primary literature do you read? That's a fairly easy question, because I have not yet seen you discuss the findings of a single peer-reviewed study. Instead, you simply cut-and-past gibberish from WUWT and then expect people here to engage in rational discourse with you.
As many have said, the issue of climate change-related effects covers an immense amount of literature showing biotic and abiotic effects. What does Watt's think he will get out of data showing that the number of F3-F5 tornadoes has not icnreased significantly since the 1970s? That there is no warming? Even the most die-hard denialists generally acknowlege that the biosphere is warming at present, and there are thousands of biotic indicators to prove it. I can be certain that, since you apparently cannot tell a mole cricket from a giraffe, your understanding of range shifts, pehnological changes, altitudinal shifts, and changes in life-history patterns along with a suite of other biotic responses to warming will be poor or non-existant. That's why my advice for you is to keep your head firmly ticked up your a@#* and stick with the semi-literate brigades over at the denial sites who tell you what you want to hear.
Finally, its no use throwing staw man arguments such as fantasies about the 'rigth wing illuminati' at me. Its pretty well established by now that those most bitterly opposed to the science of climate change and any means of dealing with warming come from the wacky end of the political right. That you deny this tells me more about you than just about anything else. Since you clearly have a very poor grasp of environmental science, along with the Joe Barton's and James Inhofe's of this world, what else is there to conclude? That you motives and opinions are driven by a deep-rooted heart-wrenching search for the truth? Get real.
Hey Jeff, here is something for the deniers in here to ponder.
Australian Bureau of Meteorology Outlook predictions for max and min temperature
( http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1234 )
>Sometimes people ask me why I bother to visit here so often. The answer is simple - the commenters here are so witty.
I agree. What this website needs is more hilariously original cracks about Obama using teleprompters and black lesbian mother-in-laws. Har har har har!
Nice to see you crawling back in here Duff. How many times have you posted since you said you'd never post again?
And any closer to telling me just how you can believe Morner's predictions when his observations are so wrong? Or what alleged projections Prof. Mann has made?
Or are you just going to keep making tepid ad hom attacks to hide the fact your scientific method is opinion first, evidence second?
As Duff as they come:
To complain that you're missing out on global warming-induced disasters, e.g.:
Please Dave, don't let your envy get the better of you. You'll get your disasters soon enough. But if you're so impatient, why don't you buy some property within 1 metre of high tide level? Or buy some property within a flood zone like Bangkok's. Better still, buy some property in Bangla Desh that is both within 2 meters of high tide and within a flood zone. I'm sure you'd get lots of fun for the rest of your life. Or if you don't like the thought of living in Asia, you might be able to tolerate putting up with the colonials in Australia where there's plenty of not yet very but soon to be low-lying and/or flood-prone property in lots of desirable locations. There's more than enough opportunity for people with a psychopathic sense of fun like yours. Don't deprive yourself. Life is too short.
And I long for more of Duff's revolutionary theory on why biology isn't Real Science.
I don't usually read WUWT but I was looking around and read "Mercury fingered in Permian-Triassic extinction". It seems that Watts has quoted some newspaper interview or, possibly, a Univ of Calgary press release though the only one I could find was not the same as WUWT's.
I must say that I was fascinated by the comments. A more stunning example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, probably, could not be found! Apparently no one has even tried to read the original article. (I tried but could not find it on Nature Geology where it supposedly should be in the current issue.)
The opinions and the level of lack of knowledge among most, though certainly not all, commentators was amazing. It was highly amusing in a somewhat sad way.
John:
Or are you [David Duff] just going to keep making tepid ad hom attacks to hide the fact your scientific method is opinion first, evidence second never?
FTFY
Dear Jeffie, I can't help you when you are in tourette mode 24/7. That said, I read the shark article and there was nothing deltoidish in it, hence the quota from her was indeed even more primary than the article itself (since it didn't address AGW vs hybridization).
If the wattsian claim are true regarding the tornados its just another version of the same deltoid virus that Jess' research was caught with (Or the Himalayan glaciers etc...). Some sectarian unscientific scare mongers make a fire and brimstone conclusion distorting the facts.
And, as I said above (and many times before), in retrospect (C)AGW will be looked upon as yet another scientific hypothesis that was abducted from its proper milieu â the lab. And who's guilty? White heterosexual middle aged men in hunt for status an prestige. ;-)
Food for thoughts:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/01/05/error-cascade/
Curry is a real climate scientist, by the way.
TrueSceptic@ 60.
Point taken that the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not chosen by a bunch of bankers but only funded by them.
However, mathematics has its own prize, the Fields Medal and economics was around when the Nobel Prizes were established. I'm not sure what prizes are around for biology.
Olaus Petri:
> If the wattsian claim are true
If.
> as I said above (and many times before), in retrospect (C)AGW will be looked upon
In other words, your 'predictions' have invariably been shown to be bullshit, and that makes you very proud?
Go buy some land in Bangladesh and knock yourself out.
* * *
Meanwhile, some good news.
-- frank
Dear frank, "if" is vise to add when not all cards are on the table. Any problems with that?
I also said "retrospect" which means in a near future, not hundred years from now. But what the heck, we have already reached beyond the point of return, according to you climate scare cultists. :-)
Olaus Petri:
> > In other words, your 'predictions' have invariably been shown to be bullshit, and that makes you very proud?
> I [...] said "retrospect" which means in a near future
Enough said.
-- frank
Yes, I believe so frankie. Take a deep breath and exhale all the hot air that is reckoned as science at Deltoid. :-)
Really? You've found a real climate scientist? Is she the only one, or are there others?
@stu
I'm sure there are others stu. In the main, they tend to keep very quiet about it though in an attempt to "fit in".
Being 'outed' can be detrimental to your career.
;)
GSW:
> In the main, they tend to keep very quiet about it
Or maybe it's just your excuse to ignore what someone actually says so that you can put words in his mouth. GSW, you are an idiot.
(Hint: when I say 'GSW, you are an idiot' I don't secretly mean 'GSW, you are a genius'. Seriously.)
-- frank
I thought Olaus had also been banished to the Jonas thread? All the trolls seem to be testing their chains.
I see that the biggest CO2 emitter in the world, China, has decided to implement a [carbon tax](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/05/china-carbon-idUSL3E8C5D12201…). Makes for uncomfortable talk around the denier dinner table.
"Oh noes, theys are all against us. Imagine if they end up creating a better world & its all for nothing!".
Whether she (still) is or not, she isn't doing climate science in that article. And Pekka Pirilä gets it right:
Also in that den of ignorant and illogical deniers (none of whom Curry ever corrects, regardless of how blatantly wrong they are), one can find posts by a handful of sensible people, like Joshua. His comments are indeed food for thought -- by people able and willing to think, unlike cherry pickers like Olaus for whom the only "real" climate scientists are those who say (or can be misinterpreted to say) what he wants to hear.
Curry has cut and paste a piece of pop psychology from a scifi fan.
And the stupid are lapping it up. Petri, the crank magnet was never going to miss it - being completely devoid of science, it is right up his alley.
I see that dear old Uncle Fred is at it again. He claims that the recent warming is all a big [Fake! Fake! Fake! Fake!](http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/fake_fake_fake_fake.html)
Thanks Bernard and others for taking the trouble to respond to my question on duck numbers.
OK GSW, if 'in the main' is not the same thing as 'all of them' which are the exceptions the 'real climate scientists'?
Well, we all know those commies are a bunch of libs.
(Seriously, it's not just with right wingers that it is difficult to have a nuanced discussion about China's political system and its ramifications ... most people avoid the subject lest their heads explode, preferring the convenient fantasy that Communism died with the fall of the USSR.)
In the same way that Olaus is a real sceptic.
TrueSkeptic @ 91: Old Uncle Fred claims that:
> But I do claim that the commonly reported and accepted warming between 1978 and 2000 is based only on thermometers from land surface stations and is not supported by any other evidence that I could find. Specifically, [ocean data](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1978/to:2000…) (from 71% of the earth's surface) and global atmospheric data (as recorded by [satellites](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/to:2000/trend/plot/uah/plot/u…) and independent balloon-borne radiosondes) do not show such a warming at all.
(My links to Wood for Trees).
Curry, whatever she is doing now, at least has the training and credentials of a climate scientist, whereas Olaus is just a gullible ignoramus who will swallow anything that plays to his preconceptions -- like that piece that Curry lifted from a raving denier blog (the articles before and after that one are "Naming and shaming the AGW fraudsters", which quotes approvingly from James Delingpole, and "The Great Blizzard of 2010", the title of which speaks for itself).
A typical comment at Singer's (registration required) blog:
Of possible interest here. Have folks seen this item from the '7.30 Report'? :
[Robert Purves throws weight behind climate science](http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3396867.htm)
Hope the link works.
Missed all but the end of it myself on ABC News24 until online search for it just now.
There was also a good interview with Naomi Oreskes & somebody else - a Tasmanian environmentalist on rainforests (if vague memory serves here?) on another ABC news24 programme seen whilst staying up to see comet Lovejoy a few weeks ago.
Thanks for the support guys. I appreciate it. Curry is a real climate scientist because she tries to emancipate herself from religious unscientific dogma. Good, me thinks.
Normally I don't like questioning the beliefs of religious groups. People is of course entitled to worship anything they like. But you guys thinks that your faith is science and that makes you free game. On top of it you also engage in missionary work including pointing out sinners, rambling about fire and brimstone and armageddon.
And naturally you ascribe conspiracies and evil agendas onto anyone daring to come up with question mark based on reality and pure science.
Get used to it being ridiculed. The future is soon here. Repent! ;-)
@David Duff | January 3, 2012 9:43 AM
Well, as the old adage goes, be careful what you wish for - you may get it! ;-)
Personally, I'd like another cool summer - much more pleasant when you're working outside than heatwave conditions.
Anecdotal natch but last summer here in Adelaide was exceptionally cool but the summer before that we had our hottest ever heatwave on record and the one before that we sweltered through our longest heatwave on record. (Or was it the longest heatwave in 2009-10 and the hottest in 2008-09? Anyhow.) This summer we've just had the hottest start to a new year in about a century.
Of course what's happening in Adelaide is not necessarily conclusive for what's happening all around our planet but the trend does seem somewhat suggestive. Records being broken for ever higher temps ever longer in most of the last five years. Hmm.. could that possibly have something to do with Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating (HIRGO) as I prefer to call it?
Um, okay. But how is this relevant exactly? Where is Hayeks's supporting evidence here?
Also you know HIRGO predictions and understanding is based on an awful lot more than just climate modelling don't you?
Thanks but I've already made my New Years Resolutions and that one misses the cut.
Aha! Found it see :
[Women Warriors for the Environment - Big ideas](http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2011/07/12/3266867.htm)
with Naomi Oreskes and award-winning young Australian writer Anna Krien.
Olaus writes, *Yes, I believe so frankie. Take a deep breath and exhale all the hot air that is reckoned as science at Deltoid. :-)*
A bit rich coming from someone who has never read a published scientific article in his life and who, like his ignoramus sidekick, PentazZ, relies for his world view on the garbage spewed from a few web logs like WUWT and Joanne Nova.
As I said before, Olaus and Pentax are completely incapable of reading published studies in the empirical literature and of understanding the science in them. So they instead endlessly surf the internet in search of web sites that spew out the kind of interpretations they like to read. I demolished PentaxZ's claim earlier regarding the effects of warming on polar bear population demographics, and what does the schmuck do here? Rehash the same demolished argument. He was unable to debate the concept of temporal lags, the extinction debt, optimum habitats, critical thresholds, tipping points etc. etc., so he said nothing when I rebutted his comic argument on another infamous thread. No response. Nada. Then he re-pastes the same polar bears are doing fine argument up here that he cut and pasted from another denilalist web site run by a blogger who has no relevant expertise in any field of science.
Olaus, Pentaxz, given that both of you nincompoops clearly have never set foot within 100 miles of a science lab, why do you continue to pollute this blog? I will certainly debate you on the concepts above as well as on other ecological concepts and processes related to the current warming, but since your understanding of this is at the level of a child in kindergarten level, do you really think its worth your time to try?
@15 Alan | January 3, 2012 5:50 PM
a) Why not? Isn't it better than letting him go unanswered?
b) Our own entertainment and debating practice &
c) The faint hope of getting through to him and the bigger hope that at least some lurkers or more open minded people reading will be convinced or enlightened by it.
@Olaus Petri | January 6, 2012 1:12 PM :
No, Curry is a genre (is that the right word?) of spicy food associated mainly with Indian and South Asian cuisine.
Judith Curry OTOH is [this person who has some climatological expertise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry) but would seem to be part of the 2% against accepting the scientific consensus on HIRGO vs the 98% of climate scientists who accept the reality of HIRGO.
@72.Chris | January 6, 2012 7:58 AM :
Just curious but is Bangla Desh just a typo for Bangladesh or is it a legitimate variant spelling of the placename or something else?
@69. Jeff Harvey | January 6, 2012 7:11 AM
I would strongly disagree with that advice.
Olaus is to be welcome here in my view because he (& those like him) may, just may, eventaully learn something and be exposed to ideas and facts that the denial sites try to keep folks like him unaware of.
Its the denier sites that want to keep people misinformed and I think we should be fighting such misinformation and trying to expose as many as possible to the real situation and real science instead of condemning them to ignorance through not wanting to engage them.
Of course I'd rather Olaus and folks like him didn't just troll and post garbage constantly but it gets such rot out there where it can be debunked and countered so even that's not the worst thing possible. It'd be nice if the contrarians just lurked and learned here but at least they are *here* where they might potentially learn something and one day understand how wrong they are.
It is tedious and annoying often I'll grant you that much.
But climate contrarians can be convinced otherwise. How do I know? Well, to my shame I was one myself for some years -taken in by Plimer - before arguing & researching online gradually convinced me otherwise.
SteveoR, you mistakenly believe people like Olaus can be swayed by things like "facts" and "evidence". This is nonsense. Olaus is a political denier. Olaus, like all deniers, has his own, entirely contradictory set of evidence which changes as often as the seasons do.
As with creationists, there is no point arguing from facts or logic because they are not basing their scientific opinions on the science. They are basing their scientific opinions on their politics. No matter what you say you will always be wrong because God created the world global warming is a scientific scam.
Judith Curry is a real climate scientist, not because she set herself a conclusion and is working back from it to the most supportive facts, but because she has gained the necessary qualifications and has published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.^fn1
That doesn't make her right, however. Furthermore, what she chooses to say on her blog is not the same as gathering the evidence and publishing it in peer reviewed scientific literature. Curry's current foray into a febrile psychological (self?) examination as to the motives behind what other climate scientists publish, well, it speaks volumes to the examiner, but not in a manner likely to be to her pleasing.
Climate science (with regards to AGW, ie anthropogenic global warming) is fast becoming the most re-examined science on the planet, and yet, it consistently passes the testing and re-testing of the evidence. Judith Curry is out on a thin limb, on this one...
fn1: Yes, I lapsed into some sarcasm, irony, call it what you will.
Curry may be some type of climate scientist but the important thing is that she's a fool.
Trust us on this: Olaus and PentaxZ aren't like you.
@111. John : You may well be right. But I hope not.
SteveoR,
Please take a look at the [Jonas Thread](http://www.google.com/url?q=http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/09/jon…) and despair.
That's @ #106 John for clarity.
@108. Chris | January 7, 2012 6:44 AM :
Thanks for that link. Interesting stuff there.
@David Duff | January 3, 2012 9:43 AM
So I guess you haven't seen [this video illustrating the decline in arctic sea ice](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRc_9nNTZg0) - note especially at the 2 minute 30 seconds to 2 min. 50 secs mark where the graph shows that observed ice levels are far less than any of the 15 climate models.
The melting of the Arctic sea ice - changing our planet's albedo and potentially causing all sorts of escalating feedbacks - is *very* manifestly real.
Human Induced rapid Global Overheating is *ahead* of schedule - not behind it. That is something that should concern us because the implications are .. well think and read about them yourself. Not good is an understatement.
Can I interest anyone in a second-hand Chevy Volt? Awfully green, you know, and will win you lots of kudos with concerned and caring people in the global warming movement.
#32 Joel Shore
Nice to see my ramblings are regarded as "lesser nonsense" by one of the purveyors of the "greater nonsense". ;-)
I notice you repeat here your nonsense claim that Nikolov and Zeller disregard energy conservation, despite my putting you right on this elsewhere. While it's true they could have better phrased the paragraph which led you to your misapprehension, you have no excuse for continuing to spread your disinformation, so please desist.
Nikolov and Zeller raise agin the old controversy (still unresolved) between Boltzmann, Maxwell and Maxwell's old tutor Loschmidt. We are having an interesting discussion on the topic at the moment. The algebra is pretty fiendish, so it could well be that someone cocked up somewhere. Not Maxwell though, he just dismissed Loschmidt by appealing to his second law of thermodynamics, which disregards the gravitational field which impinges through his otherwise isentropic thought experiment.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Happy New Year to all Deltoids!
Saith Roger "I am Spartacus" Tattersall:
> Let the chips fall where they may.
Whatever, Spartacus wannabe.
And by the way, is Spartacus still planning to punish the policemen guilty of "malfeasance" resulting in an "inappropriate" search warrant? Or is Spartacus just preparing to launch phantom lawsuits against the Internet?
-- frank
I strongly suspect that old (and they're always old) 'Spartacus' Tattersall is merely another in the long, long think-tank production line of anything-but-the-IPCC dupes with delusions of grandeur who should've stuck to making T-shirts for deluded old cows.
Joel has misidentified/mischaracterized you, since there seems to be very little nonsense (the grossly incompetent G&T, "[It's a] ridiculous notion [that CO2 is a pollutant because] [i]t is a naturally occurring gas") that you don't purvey. Your comment on the latest drivel from G&T is priceless:
Best Wishes for the New Year Rog!
check,
Isnt' this
Of course a few million residents of Pakistan might argue with this, but hey nobody in the US was killed or inconvenienced by the event in Pakistan last year...
Being a bit harsh on the brilliant thinking exemplified by this quote:
Argh, that last one got pretty well screwed up... Try again:
Isn't his:
A bit harsh on the author of this brilliant piece of thinking:
Of course a few million residents of Pakistan might argue with this, but hey nobody in the US was killed or inconvenienced by the event in Pakistan last year...
Thanks for the intervention, RN.
Upon reflection, I retrospectively amend my previous statement to: "deluded, old sacred cows".
+1 to John@106
>>Olaus is a political denier. Olaus, like all deniers, has his own, entirely contradictory set of evidence which changes as often as the seasons do.
People like Penatax, Duff & Olaus are evidence immune. They are not here to attempt to understand or advance AGW science in any way. They have made up their minds in advance & no amount of evidence will change that.
Canada after Kyoto
http://deepclimate.org/2012/01/06/canada-after-kyoto/
âCanadaâs message: The world and its climate be damnedâ. That headline on Jeffrey Simpsonâs scathing commentary on Canadaâs pending formal withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol said it all. ...
But I want to turn today to an analysis of the Conservative governmentâs putative alternative to Kyoto, namely the 2009 Copenhagen agreement, as well as the GHG reduction plans put forth in 2008 by Canada and the province Alberta (home to the oil sands and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper). That analysis confirms the contention of Jeffrey Simpson and others that the government of Canada is âmockingâ the 2020 target agreed to only two years ago; the promised 17% reduction in annual GHG emissions (relative to 2005) is already out of reach. A big reason for this is an Alberta target (itself very unlikely to be met) that calls for a rise in GHG emissions until 2020. Not only that, but Albertaâs 2050 target, predicated on massive expansion of oil sands operations, is only 14% below 2005 levels, and sets Canada on a path that can not possibly be reconciled with the Harper governmentâs own stated long-term target, let alone any reasonable goal compatible with Canadaâs responsibilities.
I've posted the same prediction over at Tamino's, but just to have some fun and stir the pot, I thought that I'd repost here.
The annual GISS January-December land-and-sea mean global temperature anomaly for the next WMO-defined El Niño year will be:
0.70 ± 0.10 degree celcius.
#113
#114
#115
Sorry gents, I mistook this for a science blog. As you were.
94 AndyS,
Indeed. Not only does he make obviously false claims, but, like most pseudosceptics he contradicts himself. In 2006 he co-authored a book, 'Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years', in which current global warming is claimed to be entirely natural.
Doncha just love their DoubleThink?
I asked Roger "I am Spartacus" Tattersall:
> And by the way, is Spartacus still planning to punish the policemen guilty of "malfeasance" resulting in an "inappropriate" search warrant? Or is Spartacus just preparing to launch phantom lawsuits against the Internet?
The answer from our Spartacus wannabe:
> Sorry gents, I mistook this for a science blog. As you were.
Shorter Spartacus wannabe:
> This questions embarrases me, so here's a lame excuse.
-- frank
>Sorry gents, I mistook this for a science blog.
Given the company that you habitually keep, do you in fact know how to recognise a science blog?
Ah, I see your mistake now. You're confusing a 'science blog' for example like Deltoid here or Deep Climate or Tamino's, with 'crank blog' like your own, or Climate etc.. or WTFUWT.
Not an easy mistake to make, to be sure. Unless perhaps you're suffering from Spartacled delusions.
> MichaelEMannGood @Guardian piece on ATI attack on clim. scientist @KHayhoe over Gingrich book chapter. ATI's attack on me noted. bit.ly/xkGop1
Sheer hilarity. Read the last 2 paragraphs.
-- frank
By the way, I thought you guys might be interested in seeing an example of how one of the owners of a "skeptic" blog, tallbloke, censor you if you write correct science that he happens to disagree with, I posted this comment in this thread there http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/g-t-weigh-in-on-adiabatic-atm…
The response I got from the moderator (I presume tallbloke) was:
So, apparently I am censored from the site for stating something so obvious that even skeptics like Willis Eschenbach and Roy Spencer agree.
Maybe he will yet have a change of heart and decide that censorship isn't the way to go...but it will be interesting to see.
#128
here's the reply I left for Joel on his second unpublished comment, which he can see and save to his hearts content.
[Reply]Hi Joel. Show us the maths proving Nikolov and Zellerâs theory breaks energy conservation and you can have a guest post. Appeals to authority donât cut it with me.
Hi, tallbloke. It is nice to see that blogs like this truly allow the free exchange of ideas, as opposed to your blog which just gives lip service to the idea! Here is what I posted back to you on your blog:
Hi Joel. I gave up on you at WUWT because you seem unable to comprehend or address the mathematically, and empirically supported result which resolves the issue you have with Nikolov and Zeller. If I do choose to re-engage with you it will be at WUWT where there is a team of moderators on hand to handle your tendency to noisy ears closed dispute and I won't have to wear two hats at once.
Since you have chosen to post parts of our behind the scenes chat here, I'll post our entire exchange for the record and leave comments closed.
Cheers.
Roger "I am Spartacus" Tattersall:
> Sorry gents, I mistook this for a science blog.
Joel Shore:
> Unfortunately, it turns out that said effect is 9 orders of magnitude too small, besides which, we already know the solution to the conundrum that the Earth's surface is emitting ~390 W/m^2 whereas there is only 240 W/m^2 absorbed by the Earth and atmosphere from the sun: [...] The rest of the emissions from the Earth surface are absorbed by the atmosphere. We call this the atmospheric greenhouse effect...
Roger "Spartacus" Tattersall:
> you seem unable to comprehend
Ooh, Spartacus wannabe is looking vewwy vewwy oppwessed at the moment, is he not? But maybe we are just "unable to comprehend" the supreme Spartacus-ness of the great Spartacus wannabe who's feeling so oppressed right now, even as he refuses to answer questions on the phantom lawsuit against policemen guilty of "malfeasance".
-- frank
*at WUWT where there is a team of moderators*
You'd get the idea from this that WUWT is actually important in the context of scientific debate on climate... what with a 'team of moderators' and all. Truth is, it ain't. There's not a real climate scientist amongst them.
re: Roger,
If I may paraphase the 'skeptics' take on this;
'Roger moderates becuase he knows he's lost the argument.'
Or it's some vast right-wing conspiracy has made scince corrupt.
Take your pick.
Is it my imagination or has there been some kind of group new-years-resolution amongst the 'skeptics' to take nonsense to a new level?
This current meme going viral about atmospheric pressure being the cause of warming - yikes.
Is it some form of mass delusions of granduer?
Am I understanding this correctly: WUWT and its fans are in fact denying the existence of the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect?
I'm getting very confused about the denialist position: one minute they're all saying "Oh, nobody denies *that*, we're just saying models exxagerated adaptation".
So, when the latest review of US temperature stations came out showing there was nothing wrong with them, they started saying "We never denied temperatures are going up, we're just saying the anthropogenic factor is overstated".
And yet, now, they're right back to saying there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect on the back of a crank paper by two people whose expertise in climate science is not very well established.
Which ones of them are stupid, and which ones are part of the Oreskes-documented campaign of dishonesty?
Joel, Frank, Jeff,
You don't often see such a perfect example of incompetence combined with arrogance as we see in Rog Tallbloke: classic Dunning-Kruger in fact. He's obviously a deluded f@@kwit but thinks he is capable of evaluating the validity of science that's far beyond his abilities.
IOW anyone who tries to correct his dogmatic ignorance is wasting their time, although it might benefit others (on sites that allow those corrections to be shown!).
Roger (may I call you that - Roger?).
I haven't laughed so much in weeks. Thank you.
The fact though is that I wasn't laughing with you...
>Since you have chosen to post parts of our behind the scenes chat here, I'll post our entire exchange for the record and leave comments closed.
Sounds suspiciously like silencing dissent to me!
C'mon, he's a web content editor for a university, obviously well-positioned to be the next galieinsteinarwin!
WUWT is just a mouthpiece for Libertarian zealots.
Science and truth is not for them, just ideology...
http://www.libertarian.to/author/index.php
check out this author list :)
Apart from a roll-call of the usual suspects (including the hilarious 'Galileo Movement') I note Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot and Oliver Cromwell(!) on that list!...
And no Hayek!
Okay guys, I'm a libertarian. But I don't let ideology get in the way of evidence. Trust me, I get beat up enough within that realm because I follow evidence first. I think that government shouldn't intrude in people's lives as much as possible, but government needs to protect the people's rights. So in my "ideological" view, when people are dumping crap into the water, or air it is the government's responsibility to take action where I as an individual cannot. Maybe I'm rationalizing to support the real world and evidence in the case of AGW. Anyway, some of us libertarians aren't nutcases...sadly most are when it comes to this issue in particular...though I think many just say they are libertarian when convenient as they oppose things like gay marriage, no corporate welfare, and military adventurism. They are just neo-cons pretending to be libertarian. Sorry for the rant.
Sorry...in my last post I wrote the pseudo-libertarian opposed military adventurism. That was the opposite of what I meant. They are in favor of such when the majority of libertarians are against it. Anyway, again I apologize for the rant.
It would be interesting to hear Tallbloke's expert opinion on where the differences lie between Nikolov and Zeller, and Gerlich and Tscheuschner.
/me ducks
The gents here are scientists or educated in science, whereas you are an ignorant crank who doesn't understand the "squiggles" of technical papers, someone so mindbogglingly stupid as to proclaim that it's ridiculous to think that CO2 is a pollutant because it's a naturally occurring gas (so is sulpher dioxide, moron), and so inept and lacking in scientific understanding as to proclaim the unscientific dunces Gerlich and Tscheuschner -- who reject basic physics -- to have "real atmospheric thermodynamic expertise" (so much for appeals to authority not cutting it with you). You're a cherry-picking sack of shit, an idiot and a liar, an asshole and a jackass, a shit stain on humanity. Since this isn't the sort of blog you were looking for, you should get lost.
@137 Vince Whirlwind
This is perhaps the only interesting question remaining about deniers. People like Christopher Monckton, Ian Plimer, Jo Nova and Stewart Franks are clearly in it for the money, but their acolytes and minions seem more driven by neural deficiency than lucre.
Still, it's hard to tell how many of the persistent and anonymous skeptidiots are professionals on a payroll. There are agencies that hire out people to shape opinions on the 'net by trawling blogs and social networking sites.
Roger Tattersall's remarkable (heh heh) level of scientific understanding, as well as his credulity, are on full display at
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/why-the-sun-is-so-important-t…
For someone who claims to reject appeals to authority, ya gotta love his comment,
But when Spencer explained what a crock Miscolcziâs theory is (for more trashing see http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=232818 ... gotta love the denier idiots there who argue that the fact this garbage paper isn't cited proves that there's something to it and it's "being carefully ignored"), Tattersall didn't understand a word of it, except that it wasn't what he wanted to hear, and so he hopes that Miscolczi will respond so his confirmation bias can latch onto that.
Since he is incapable of grasping it from what Spencer wrote about Miscolczi, Tattersall ought to ask him what he thinks of G&T, heh heh.
Most of them are both.
Sometimes ianam's short fuse and colourful language make me wince, but I had to laugh at:
>You're a cherry-picking sack of shit, an idiot and a liar, an asshole and a jackass, a shit stain on humanity. Since this isn't the sort of blog you were looking for, you should get lost.
I'm not saying that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with it, but one has to concede that he does put his point across...
And Roger (may I call you that - Roger?)...
Personally I'd like you to hang around for at least a while longer. I suspect that there are a few of us who haven't finished dissecting your approach to discussing physics...
Whereas liberals think it should?
Without taxation?
Other libertarians might say you're just a liberal pretending to be a libertarian.
Libertarians are naive, ignorant, dogmatic, hypocritical, and intellectually dishonest ... just not all in the same areas.
Good grief, Roger is even dumber than I could have imagined:
Roger the imbecile: I believe the current thinking is that most of the emission to space is from about 5km, lower than the tropopause.
Maurizio: No, the 5km is an âeffective heightâ, not a physical layer.
Roger the cretin: : Ok so the âeffective heightâ is so called because â what?
It is at the temperature the bulk of the outgoing long wave radiation must go from?
Maurizio: The effective height is a mathematical concept. Itâs the equivalent of computing orbits by assuming the whole mass of every planet is concentrated in a central point. Useful if everybody understands thatâs not where the mass actually is.
Roger the retard: [still didn't understand a word of it but at least knew better than to keep making a fool of himself on that subject]
Some clarification.
#133 Frank the 'swifthack' decoder
Frank removes context in order to create the impression we are claiming that the relevant effect we are discussing is the 'gravitational redahift' which is 9 orders of magnitude too small to do anything exciting. This is incorrect, but indicative of his debating methods.
#134 Yet Joel appeals to Willis Eschenbach's authority on the subject.
#135 Paraphrase as much as you please. We are selective about who joins the conversation at the Talkshop because we want to be able to discuss science in a pleasant easygoing atmosphere where the focus can be on the subject matter, rather than devolving into a noisy ruckus of misrepresentation, innuendo, insult and off the cuff negative assessments of peoples mental states from armchair psychologists.
#136 See above.
#137 There is no single 'denialist position'. This is a figment of the imaginations of people who also believe there is a 'concerted campaign of dishonesty'. At the moment, the Talkshop is concentrating on assessing the.claims in the Nikolov and Zeller extended conference poster. At the end of the process (which will take some time yet, because properly assessing theories which cover a lot of ground and offer major paradigm shifts can't be judged overnight), we will arrive at our conclusion. let the chips fall where they may.
#138 I have a background in mechanical science and engineering, and a degree in the history and philosophy of science. I'm more competent than some, less competent than others to assess specific scientific claims. In such cases where specialists turn up to offer assessments I mostly act as librarian, looking up and providing relevant material for others to assess and comment on. I also provide the environment in which the discussion can take place in relative calm, without "f@@kwits" like you messing it up for everyone.
#139 No problem, laughter is good for the soul, whatever its source, it makes me glad for you.
#140 See the reply to 135 above.
#141 Who?
#146 I don't have an expert opinion on that, which is why I posted the article so others could offer their opinions.
#147 You will be delighted to hear that this is the last contribution I'll be making to this particular thread. At the moment, my time is better spent trying to help untangle the old disagreement about the gravito-thermal-effect between Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Maxwell's former tutor Loschmidt. I'll leave you scientists to your deliberations.
#148 We'll see, eventually.
Thanks for your thoughts, even the nasty ones. I got a laugh too. - thread saved.
We've heard this before.
As I said, we already know, moron.
Tallbloke is an industrial strength crank magnet who believes that there was a conspiracy to hide evidence that proved the existence of an ether. According to Tallbloke the evidence was "buried by mainstream astrophysics in favour of Einsteinâs theory of General Relativity."
True MikeH - as soon as you hear Maxwell (and/or his equations) being lauded by people who couldn't add together two six-packs without removing a shoe, you just know that the Einstein and the aether conspiracy is to follow.
Roger "I am Spartacus" Tattersall:
> Frank removes context in order to create the impression we are claiming that the relevant effect we are discussing is the 'gravitational redahift' which is 9 orders of magnitude too small to do anything exciting.
You mean the context in which you scream "I am Spartacus!" while threatening to launch phantom lawsuits against policemen and the Internet? Ah yes, I may have omitted that, Spartacus wannabe.
> There is no single 'denialist position'.
Yes there is, and it's called 'Not The IPCC'.
The 'position' where anything and everything that disagrees with the IPCC is right and good, even if they flat out contradict one another.
> At the moment, the Talkshop is concentrating on assessing the.claims in the Nikolov and Zeller extended conference poster. At the end of the process (which will take some time yet, because properly assessing theories which cover a lot of ground and offer major paradigm shifts can't be judged overnight), we will arrive at our conclusion. let the chips fall where they may.
OK, so not only is Tattersall Spartacus, he's also
> I also provide the environment in which the discussion can take place in relative calm
I didn't know Spartacus was about civilized debate. I thought that was the province of Cicero. Or was it Galileo? Dang, mixed metaphors are so confusing.
-- frank
> Maurizio: No, the 5km is an âeffective heightâ, not a physical layer.
I'd never thought I would be commending Omnologos... but here he is precisely right.
The "effective radiation level" is like the "expected throw" of a fair die, 3.5. No real die, fair or loaded, can ever throw a 3.5. Similarly very little radiation comes from this level; most comes from far above it (in the CO2 15 micron band) or from far below it, from water vapour or the solid Earth surface.
This is a quote of one of the authors (Nikolov) that Tallbloke goes gaga over at his blog:
This Nikolov character is capable of a wide range of science denial. I don't know sort of blog Tallbloke is running but it has very little to do with science.
Leeds U, where Tallbloke (Roger Tattersall) is a web content editor in school of education, actually has a fair-sized School of Earth & Environment and the Earth and Biosphere Institute. The latter regularly publish in real journals.
People might rummage around, see if they know anyone there and ask if Tattersall shows up for seminars, interacts with faculty, etc and thus perhaps get a local perspective on his level of expertise. One of the benefits of being attached to or at least conveniently-near a decent university is the opportunity of such interactions with real researchers.
Degassing due to surface warming does not explain the observed decrease in pH in those surface waters over the same period of time. It does not explain the observed stable isotope signature. Deniers who throw these simple responses up ignore the fact that the earth is an interconnected, system, subject to conservation of mass and energy.
>> 134 Yet Joel appeals to Willis Eschenbach's authority on the subject.
But Eschenbach is a mining executive with no qualifications in science at all. Has that changed?
>> 138 I have a background in mechanical science and engineering
Somehow I knew the [salem hypothesis](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_Hypothesis) was at play here.
Not only that Phil, but the phrase 'background in' is itself super vague.
As Jeff Harvey once memorably observed to some unlikely candidate claiming 'a background in high-energy physics' that could just as easily mean working in the security hut in front of the CERN building as much as the attempted intended implication.
John Mashey
I wonder if the faculty and students of the two departments you mention are aware of how Rog T amuses himself in his spare time?
Perhaps not. Otherwise I imagine that at least some of them would be regular (and vexatious) correspondents at his blog.
An opportunity missed, if you ask me.
And Roger (may I call you that - Roger?)...
Given just the commentary on this thread, I'd be forced suggest that perhaps you consider asking for a refund of the money you spent on your formal education.
If the evidence here is any indication, something - a lot of something - didn't stick.
[John Mashey's oft-repeated advice](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) is also good: go visit the scientists at your institution, listen - and start to learn.
Yes, even a dogmatic denier crank like Morabito is not so devoid of comprehension of even the simplest matters as Tattersall. I'm not clear on why Joel identified tallbloke as someone who was "previously smart enough to reject" denial of the greenhouse effect, when he seems to be and have been a leader of that imbecilic pack.
@Anthony #163:
Don't forget that there's another problematic issue when invoking the oceans as the source of the CO2 increase: with a simple calculation, assuming that more than 80% of the CO2 increase is due to ocean outgassing, you'd have to find a sink that takes up well over a hundred gigatons *each year*.
After all, humans release about 30 Gt CO2/y mainly through fossil fuel burning, and if that's only 20%, this means oceans would release (net!) 120 Gt CO2/y. Since the increase in CO2 is about 15 Gt CO2/y (let's keep it simple), that means there's a sink that currently takes up 135 Gt CO2/y.
That's more than 1000 Gt in a decade, and allowing for the somewhat exponential increase, probably around 3000 Gt over the last 50-60 years.
If the ocean is a net emitter, the biosphere must be the net sink. Estimated total carbon in the biosphere is around 2000 Gt C, which is ca. 75000 Gt CO2. You'd think we would notice if the biosphere increases by 30%, no?
> Yes, even a dogmatic denier crank like Morabito is not so
> devoid of comprehension of even the simplest matters as
> Tattersall.
What fascinates me is this not even getting their act together on the basics. Sure, scientists may also disagree on esoteric details, but among them they have the basics sorted out. In contrast every denialist seems to have his own very personal mix of basic things that he actually 'gets', and just as basic things that he is delusional about.
If I were at that college, I'd be sure to spend a few hours networking with staff and students of the faculty concerned to make sure they were all aware that their web jockey plays a climatologist-wannabe online and promotes reactionary tosh. That's just the sort of retaliation we need to mount against these subversive Luddites.
Martin, remember that there also are plenty of scientists who are at least as deluded. See Gerlach and Tscheuschner, see Zeller (he has a PhD in Fluid Mechanics and Wind Engineering), see Nikolov (PhD in Forest Ecology. Regarding Nikolov: the Forest Service should be concerned having someone with such basic failures of understanding the carbon cycle being so deeply involved in their studies on the same...
Roger Andrews points him to the basic problem with his claim, but I suspect he will ultimately ignore that...
I hereby award Omnologos the Stopped Clock Award for the month of January ...
re: John Mashey @ 162
I see Leeds U, (not very far from me), also have links with the Oil industry :-
http://www.cipeg.leeds.ac.uk/
Therefore, one might question the impartiality of some of their staff.
Another phantom lawsuit by Rog "I am Spartacus" Tallbloke?
http://ijish.livejournal.com/43788.html
-- frank
Re:174
Without further data, I would be really careful.
There is a large group of people doing fine environmental research, as evidenced by Science and Nature publications. The school may get funding from oil companions as well, and the effects could range from bad to just fine, depending on circumstances.
That is often true of industry funding of university research: you really have to evaluate them case by case.
For instance, there are plenty of reasonable people at George Mason University, but a few parts ate like branches of the Kochs and Scaife, etc.
ianam says: "I'm not clear on why Joel identified tallbloke as someone who was 'previously smart enough to reject' denial of the greenhouse effect, when he seems to be and have been a leader of that imbecilic pack."
Well...You are probably right that I did not realize how imbecilic he was from the start.
Marco says: "Martin, remember that there also are plenty of scientists who are at least as deluded. See Gerlach and Tscheuschner"
Actually, that is only one possible interpretation. Another possible interpretation is that G&T are engaged in intentional deception of others. I tend to imagine that G&T might think of themselves as defense lawyers for CO2. So, for example, they jump on picayune details that the eyewitnesses disagree on or get wrong in order to distract the jury from the fact that this still doesn't show that the defendant is guilty as sin. (This is particularly apparent in the section where they critique various statements of the greenhouse effect.)
I said "...in order to distract the jury from the fact that this still doesn't show that the defendant is guilty as sin."
I think there is a missing NOT in that sentence. I am reminded of this exchange from "Kentucky Fried Movie":
"Hornung: Mr. Grunwald, in addition to your occupation as a spoon, is it not true that you are a driving instructor?
Grunwald: No.
Hornung: Then it is true.
Grunwald: Yes.
Hornung: That you're not a driving instructor?
Grunwald: No.
Hornung: Your Honor, I object to this line of questioning.
Judge: Overruled."
Marco:
Hmmm..."Natural Science", apparently another journal to scratch off the "real scientific journals" list!
Sorry...That last post to Marco was an errant one meant for Rabett Run: http://rabett.blogspot.com/2012/01/indelible-dumbness-of-physicists.htm…
Joel, fair enough to put it here also. I am not an expert in climate science, but even I can see the strawmen arguments in that paper. I just loved their "does not make physical science". There, now it has been proven it does not make physical sense, because we said so. Or the "as we have argued", and then suddenly that argument (with the argumentation perhaps(?) embedded in a lot of math) is proof. After all, they have argued, and therefore it is so.
But I really can't understand what reviewer (or Editor) would allow the personal attacks they put in their introduction. That by itself tells you enough about "Natural Science" as a journal.
Don't forget to mention Roy Spencer and his delusional "natural" CO2 hypothesis. So many qualified crackpots, so much denial.
Marco,
Yeah...It makes you wonder if there was any review whatsoever! It does seem to have undergone one revision which makes me wonder what it could have possibly been like before that revision?!?
I just saved that paper to my computer with an appropriate name: Kramm_crap_2000.pdf
The journal Natural Science does not appear to have an impact factor or to appear on the Web of Science. Like most of the other contrarian crap, its a small wonder that dross ends up in there.
Chris O'Neill says: "Don't forget to mention Roy Spencer and his delusional 'natural' CO2 hypothesis. So many qualified crackpots, so much denial."
Yeah...That was a low point for Roy Spencer, and to my knowledge he has never even admitted his incredible error there. To his credit, Roy has been trying to explain why the Unified Climate Theory is nonsense. Unfortunately, his worshipful fans like tallbloke seem to have no problem ignoring what Roy says when he actually says something intelligent.
I guess tallbloke is a perfect garbage filter: No matter what goes in, only the complete garbage gets out.
For sufficiently small values of "plenty". OTOH, what Martin said of deniers applies to all of them.
A low plateau, as he continues to feature it (#2 on the menu, after the home link but before "about" Dr. Roy Spencer) on his web site. A good rebuttal is at http://www.skepticalscience.com/how-we-know-recent-warming-is-not-natur… .. in typical intellectually dishonest denier fashion, Spencer makes no mention of this or any other criticism of his argument.
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Climate change may force human evolution (podcast) features interviews with climate scientists. Recommended.
âââââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
From new article in the Australian Conservative
Time to apply for your free copy of Plimer's latest offering. This is a new paradigm in book publishing: publish and give away. Where's the profit, you may ask? It's in the smokestacks of the polluting industries funding this trash pamphlet.
@68 on Warwick Hughes.
Posted similar to this on his web site but was quickly snipped. It appears that poor olâ Warwick canât handle substantive criticism.
Start here warwicks source graph:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/archive/temperature/20110919.shtml
The displayed graph and accompanying text clearly indicates:The chance that the average October to December maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature
Follow the link to here for the baseline data:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/climatology/temperature/percenti…
Note the coverage: Based on 56 years of data 1950-2005.
Now to measure the effectiveness of the outlook WH should have gone here: http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/temperature-percentiles/…
Alas, in a flux of analytical ineptitude we got this:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest…
and poor ol' WH forgot to note that these were temperature anomalies:
All temperature anomalies are calculated with respect to the average over the 1961 to 1990 reference period.
So the two are not directly comparable, differing measures and differing baselines.
Well spotted sillyfilly. I posted this at his site. We will see if it survives.
----
The first graph is the chance of exceeding the median Max Temp which is based on 56 years of data 1950 to 2005.
The second graph is labelled at BOM with "All temperature anomalies are calculated with respect to the average over the 1961 to 1990 reference period."
You are comparing apples and oranges.
@190 clarification:
link to current data needs correction, actuals are here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest…
Joel (and others): Steve Carson (at Science of Doom) has already taken on the Kramm & Dugli article, nicely pointing out that its conclusion does not follow from the article itself, as well as its odd way of dismissing a theory in part because there's an error in a textbook and an (semantic) error in a description of the greenhouse effect.
Quite telling: Kramm has responded, but not to Steve Carson's questions and comments...
Chris: the Roy Spencer argument has been accepted by Ned Nikolov, he points to Spencer's analysis in a comment at Tallbloke. I would like to remind everyone that Nikolov's job at Forest Service is to look at exchange of various gases between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Quite worrysome that someone who is so deep into that part of the carbon cycle makes such uninformed comments about other parts of the carbon cycle.
Ned, if you are reading this: has the biosphere increased in mass with 1000 Gigatons of C in the last 50 years?
Re 190,192, Hughes really doesn't understand how the BoM probability forecasts are derived,doesn't understand how to judge their success,and insists they "cost millions",which is an absurd claim that he has never substantiated. He seems to think they are sophisticated models,and when they are 'wrong' by his estimation they have no value. They are actually inexpensive spinoffs from standard data collection: once you have long records across land and ocean,it's simple combination and comparison to generate likelihoods. Hughes needs to read-and understand-the background information presented with each forecast.
Hi everyone, I know this is a bit of a deviation from the thread, but I wanted to let everyone know that in just over a week I will commence a winter camping/hiking trek across one of Canada's most famous parks in Ontario. One of the themes (see below) of the trek is to bring attention to the effects of climate change on local biomes and their biodiveristy. We have a facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/AlgonquinTraverse
Officially:
Beginning on Saturday, January 21st a long-time friend of mine in Canada, Mark Williamson (he is also a professional biologist) and I will commence a winter hiking/camping trek across Algonquin Park, which is located in central Ontario, Canada. The park consists of a huge expanse of unbroken wilderness consisting mainly of boreal forests (some northern hardwoods) and hundreds of lakes, and there is only one road going through the extreme southern part of the park. The trek will cover some 180-200 km, in winter conditions, where the average daily temperatures are -6 -10 C and the night temperatures a 'balmy' -15 -30 C(!!!). Its been a lot warmer than that over the poast two monthsm though, and researchers at the University of Toronto have already noted shifts in vegetation patterns in the province over the past 20-30 years. I will present a lecture at the University on the mechanisms underlying plant invasions in late February.
We anticipate that the entire trip will take us some 20-25 days to complete. A successful winter traverse of the park from west to east has never been done before, so its nice to be doing something for the first time! We have acquired excellent gear for the trip, including some sponsorship for various materials, and expect to have some of our adventures published in one or two Canadian outdoor publications. The aim of the trip is twofold: first, to bring attention to the effects of climate change, which is certainly impacting local biomes in the region, and to collect samples of snow and ice and to test them for the presence of trace organic contanimants. We also hope to see some of the native fauna whilst hiking across the park: grey wolves (there are at least 15 pack territories in the park), lynx, fisher, American Marten, Moose, White-Tailed Deer, Great-Horned, Barred and Great Grey Owls, two species of crossbills, Pine Grosbeak, Boreal Chickadee, Common Raven, Grey Jay etc. We have set up a facebook page for anyone who might be interested (see above). This will be updated regularly.
Providing I make it out of the park in one piece, I should be back in Holland on February 27th.
Jeff
I did the 'snow-sampling' thing whilst trekking across Vatnajokull a few years ago. Looks to me as though you're going to see a whole lot more than just the inside of a ping-pong ball on your trip.
Good luck and have fun
H
I am seeing Denialist trumpet a new paper by Scaffeta. It looks like to me it is the same old, same old. How did it get published? And what do you people think is the best rebuttal?
Trent1492, realclimate already took ta prior paper on:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/08/an-exercise-about…
You can fit any data with a sufficient number of oscillations. Especially if you add something with a 60 year phase and the whole calibration period being about 2 such oscillations.
Hello Marco,
That is a different paper than the one I linked too. From my amateurs and none to competent look it appears to be saying the same thing. Yet, I am seeing it published in pretty respectable Journal
Trent1492,
Don't overestimate the respectability of the journal - its impact factor (IF) is 1.579, which puts in strongly in the lowest quarter of journals in the same field. If the Scafetta paper was published in a journal with an IF over 3, then I would think there was a lot more to it. But is remarkable how much contrarian science ends up in relative 'bottom feeding' journals. This begs the question: do the authors of said articles realize their stuff was weak in the first place and decide to go low, or was it rejected several times from more rigid journals before settling near the bottom? This is a question I would like to see addressed, because low IF journals have lower thresholds for peer review than stronger journals. I had 10 papers published in my field (ecology) last year: 3 went into journals with an IF over 3, another 4 went into journals with an IF of 2-3, and the last three went into journals with an IF of 1-2. I would certainly never expect any of my research in journals with IF < 3 to get a lot of attention outside of my general circle of researchers, but its amazing how the climate change denial echo chamber hypes up relatively weak studies.
Thanks for the info, Jeff. I have already pointed out that the paper fails to explain such phenomena as a cooling stratosphere, etc, etc. I got into a "debate" with some clown over at Scientific American on an article about Michael Mann. He is claiming expertise in computer modelling and waving this latest paper from Scaffeta around like a holy relic. If you or any one else would like to join in I would appreciate it.
What is the likelihood of this paper ever being addressed by the scientific community?
Point of information: to beg the question is to make a circular argument -- "beg" being in the sense of "evade", not "implore". What you want here is "raises the question".
Oz: this is one of yours.
I've taken on a task that requires serious head-vise, that of reviewing numerous issues of Heartland's Environment and Climate Newsletter. See IPCC Author Selection Process
Plagued by Bias, Cronyism: Study, based on a study for SPPI (Science and Public Policy Institute, by John McLean.
This was 2008. Has anything much been heard from him of late?
[SPPI is a 1-man effort by Robert Ferguson, actually a PO box in a suburban UPS store about 10 minutes' walk from Ferguson's house.
JM - he's still rattling around. Fulminating on the newspaper letters page every now and then. You made me download the report and read it. I didn't realize what a funny writer and master satirist he is. It's HILARIOUS!!
John McLean is some sort of IT guy who was pretending for a while that he had a PhD.
He predicted 2011 would be the coldest year since 1953.
He's totally clueless.
JM @ 203
Mclean has become infamous for predicting
"it is likely that 2011 will be the coolest year since 1956 or even earlier"
http://www.skepticalscience.com/mclean-exaggerating-natural-cycles.html
Check out the temp graph with the almost vertical line and the hover label that says "Mclean is batshit insane".
Jonas N finally admits that my
>attempt... to derive knowledge/information [about the papers he read in order to accuse the IPCC of making up its confidence level numbers is fraught due to] ...the absence of such.
I've [acknowledged his confession](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/09/jonas_thread.php#comment-6210397).
McLean's hilarious prediction got a run over at Hot Topic, too, the NZ Climate Science Coalition (*cough*) having decided it was worth running with.
This, and subsequent even more outlandish predictions and warnings of an impending little Ice Age, was all so entertainingly and monumentally Stoopid that the Friends of G&T decided it needed international recognition.
Watts has changed the banner on WWWT so that there is now a graph of global temperature in the background... superimposed with Spencer's favourite 3rd order polynomial as a 'trend' line...
The thing is, a third order polynomial is the only order polynomial (less than 7, at least) that gives a clear (or indeed - any) negative slope at the end of the current mean annual global temperature data, implying cooling. Running averages of various lengths also describe consistently increasing trends beyond the noise.
What Watts and Spencer have done is select (from dozens of options) the only simple curve that can be fitted so that it is monotonically decreasing at the end of the temperature series. On top of that there is no mathematical justification for fitting the single "valley and hill" shape of that category of cubic polynomial to the temperature series (I'd actually spent some time explaining why this is so, but decided that I'd just make people's eyes roll back in their heads).
Watts and Spencer should be embarrassed and ashamed.
Thanks all for McLean update.
This is such fun I bring another, which oddly ties back to Deltoid and relates to #209 on polynomials.
People may recall a bad graph, a worse version, with a sixth order polynomial.
I have added Heartland's attempt to make the graph even more misleading.
(Note: Fixed broken, link, the right one is See Jan 2009 E&CN, p.5.)
> Mclean has become infamous for predicting "it is likely that 2011 will be the coolest year since 1956 or even earlier"
I was thinking that now the data for 2011 should (just about) be in, it would be a good time to revisit the prediction, preferably in as many places where it was prominently touted as possible.
Don't think the [2011 data](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2010/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:20…) is quite complete at WoodForTrees yet - looks like another couple of months for most data series are needed - but they'd have to be bloody cold to make the year anywhere near 1956.
> ...superimposed with Spencer's favourite 3rd order polynomial as a 'trend' line...
Where's Tim Curtin when you need him? ;-)
Guess they'll either remove the 3rd order polynomial quick smart when new data comes in that changes the fit to one with a solid upwards thrust at the end - or avoid updating the underlying data altogether. And not one of their fans will protest - or even notice.
Speaking of McLean's "cold 2011", the [GISS](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt) Dec-Nov annual mean anomaly is available for 2011, but Jan-Dec is not yet.
No prizes for guessing that 2011 Dec-Nov was a lot warmer than 1956: +0.51 C vs -0.20 C.
Now all McLean requires is that Dec 2011 proves to have been about -8 C to be in with a chance on the 2011 Jan-Dec metric!
Tonite is fine time for graphical follies of one sort or another, so I offer one more example from Heartland E&CN, before I got back to grinding through these things.
E&CN May 2008 offers fun items.
p.1.1 has a group picture from the Heartland Climate Conference. Oz folks may recognize some I don't.
p.5 has the first of a series of half-page ads, "A Picture is worth a thousand words", advertising a booklet by Ronald Rychlak.
Heartland says:
"This new Heartland Policy Study, by law professor Ronald Rychlak, explains how advocates of the alarmist perspective on global warming have manipulated the evidence with charts, graphs, and other visual exhibits designed to âmisrepresent data, misleading the public and describing a ârealityâ unsupported by science.â
Fortunately, this booklet is now freely available for your perusal.
Re #214 John Mashey, yep, they are specialists on the subject of misleading people... well worth a read.
Amazingly they don't insist on plotting global temperatures on the Kelvin scale ;-)
Thanks for that link to the booklet John (sort of)
Don't you just love it when people criticise the presentation of data by others whilst apparently only being able to use the default settings on Excel themselves?
As for the objections raised about 'Fig 21'. Is it really that difficult to see that the foreground in the 1928 image is predominantly taken up by *glacier* and not seasonal snowcover as the author appears to suggest?
That was enough for me. What a bunch of w...jokers they are!
Hasis,
Yes, the discussion about Fig 21 is hilarious. The image shows a **glacier** in 1928 and a **lake** at the same place in 2004.
The text:
> The comparison certainly suggests that much snow was lost between 1928 and 2004 at the Upsala Glacier, part of the South American Andes in Argentina. Of course, there is no indication of the month in which each photograph was taken. One might have been taken in the summer and the other in the winter. ...
> One might have been taken in the summer and the other in the winter. ...
Well, you could take a picture or find one from winter and solve that issue, couldn't you?
Or is it easier to complain?
That booklet is pathetic, but the thing that really amuses me is the overwhelming air of smugness that pervades it.
almost 300 comments, and not one word on GingerbreadGate! Typical.
SteveC it never gets to that many posts if people ignore the person who'd grab attention for hundreds of posts. It's the byplay. If you're caring about the lurkers, gather the technical points and make them all at once in a post without using a troll's name, is my advice.
This new old incarnation of the ideal climate theory is all too similar to the Goddard/Motl ad hoc model.
Did they even straighten out, ever, when the wet and dry adiabatic rates apply?
Rebutting the greenhouse effect itself takes a great deal of crazy.
Shermer's a radical market fundamentalist. Yet another person whose definition of skeptic should be followed by "for other people's religions and fixed ideas, but never mine."
Fran Barlow, if you're to be allowed to continue to comment in the presence of your betters, we'll have to have (shuffles papers) at least 27 My time flitches from you. See that they're well-scooped or we'll insist you evaluate them for 6 Sigma Gauge Reproduction and Reliability, as well. If your geological results don't indicate an iron sun, you're doing something wrong. All of this comes straight from Ian, so I want no backtalk.
http://www.thelocal.se/2173/20050928/
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/13/business/13PRIZ.html
That duff guy didn't get his own topic yet?
Aw c'mon.
re: #214, etc.
Regarding the booklet, I really do suggest checking Rychlak's background to assess his expertise and viewpoints. This may help explain some of this ...
and really, do look at #210. Polynomials are fun.
Re McLean's folly: The Reckoning...
216
Last night when I went to sleep my back yard was ice free but this morning there was a glacier there. Record summer cold snap in southern Australia. Damn those glaciers - up and down like a bride's nightie.
re: 299
As Wikipedia tells us:
"Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is the Associate Dean For Academic Affairs and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, and is known for his published works, career as an attorney, and writings on the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II."
Mississippi is not known for its glacier experience.
BTW: it turns out there are many more strange connections between Heartland and Australia than one might imagine, involving odd money flows findable in the depths of IRS Form 990s.
Hello Everyone,
I got this guy over at Scientific American in a thread who claims he wants to wager 100,000 usd on climate. I thought I recalled someone here who wanted wager 10,000 Euros? Anyway I invited this guy over here to see if anyone wanted to play with him.
Re the booklet John Mashey gives us @ 214
(This 'describing' photographs documenting the disappearance of tens of thousands of tonnes of glacial ice.)
Yep, that's one of the most Stupid observations I've encountered in this debate, and that's truly saying something.
Okay, here's a comment over on WUWT that I have to admit has left me totally speechless: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/12/earths-baseline-black-body-model-…
It had never before occurred to me that this sort of depth of lack of self-awareness could actually occur in sentient human beings.
Congratulating themselves on what a paragon of reasoned discussion they are presenting to the world is quite the theme at WUWT, in my experience. I'm sure Messrs. Dunning and Kruger would colour themselves unsurprised.
[Trent1492](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
That was me trying to wager with Jonas N and his Scandinavian trolleagues about the eventuality of significant/catastrophic climate change.
As a marker of 'catastrophic' warming, I selected Arctic sea ice volume, because it conspicuously and undenialbly reflects polar atmospheric/ocean temperature, and because it serves as important habitat for at least two iconic species - the walrus and the polar bear. Loss of summer Arctic sea ice would be unprecedented - at least, for approximately [the last 700 thousand years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Arctic#Modelling.2C_…) - and it would be ecologically 'catastrophic'.
The logic of my wager is simple... Denialists say that there is no global warming; I say in response that if the planet is not warming, they should be prepared to put money on it, and to put more money on it, the warmer the planet (potentially) becomes as indicated by decreasing summer Arctic sea ice volume.
The conditions are on the Jonas thread. My only concerns now are that:
1) neither of the landmark time periods - 2025 and 2050 - might be reached with escrow accounts intact: the global economic system is decidedly wobbly, and is likely to be more so in the future, especially over longer-term spans. Even so, if I can find a denialist who's prepared to put even 10K euros down for my 10k, then I'd be interested.
2) the euro seems to be a currency whose value is not guaranteed in the future. Perhaps the answer to this would be to convert the current wager values into gold gram equivalents.
Strangely, once confronted with odds reflecting their stances, no denier seems to retain the desire to stand behind their positions...
[Joel Shore](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
A few days ago another teacher waxed lyrical about how WWWT had opened her eyes to the IPCC fraud, and how she relies on WWWT for teaching her students. And she's not the first I've seen making that sort of statement; and even more sadly, I've seen the same declarations come from Australian teachers.
Frankly, there's a serious problem there, and one that really begs for some appropriate intervention.
Thanks for the response Bernard. Do you have a link to the bet? I do not think this guy is serious or honest but I think being able to counter him by being able to direct them to that wager will shut him up.
I also want to just put in a word for you gang showing up at Scientific American occasionally.
Flying Spaghetti Monster on a stick.
"Monckton responds to âpotholer54â", conveniently saved to [at BackupURL so that people don't have to tread in the mess](http://backupurl.com/z53ohv).
It's hard to know where to start, but I suspect that Peter Hadfield will have a rather good idea...
Public service anouncement: put down the tea, and tighten the head-vice.
>âMonckton says he advised Margaret Thatcher on climate change. He didnât.â I did.
I see Monckton comes from the Pentaxz school of logical argument.
>âMonckton says Greenland is not melting. It is.â Well, it is now
I actually spat tea everywhere at that. What a comedic genius.
>âMonckton says thereâs no systematic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. There is.â No, I said that the 30-year record low ice extent of 2007 had been largely reversed in 2008 and 2009.
Ha ha ha ha!
I could go on. He pulls so many Monckton Maneuvers throughout the rebuttal it will take Potholer54 weeks to disect them all which, I suspect, was the point.
Oh God, Peter's going to have a field day with this, and I haven't even mentioned the slimey tactic Monckton uses to get around quoting Hadfield accurately:
>I noted them down rather hastily, since I am disinclined to waste much time on him, so the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.
This is from a man who considers himself a scientist, mathematician and academic.
233 Joel,
Could it really never have occurred to you before?
You have been bravely and thanklessly attempting to educate the uneducable at WUWT for quite some time. How could you still be surprised?
Well, okay, TrueSceptic, it has occurred to me before...But just when I think they have gone as low as they can possibly go, they prove me wrong!
I have been asked to post an offer of a wager at this site regarding the reliability of the current set of GCMâs.
I am will to wager $100K usd that your GCM of choice will not be able to reasonably accurately predict the annual rainfall amounts 36 months from now at 30 different locations around the world. I have used this to demonstrate that GCMs are not accurate enough to give us reliable predictions of future rainfall at any specific location around the globe. For the wager we will call reasonably accurate as being =/- 5%.
Would anyone like to make this wager?
pokerplyer:
I can do better than that. I'm willing to wager $1m USD that, using currently available information, your favourite method of analyzing climate data will not be able to predict the exact name of the Japanese Prime Minister at 1 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC.
-- frank
pokerplayer, whoever thinks that they want a GCM to predict the weather "36 months from now at 30 different locations around the world" doesn't understand what GCMs do, or what climate is.
You'd be better off trying your weather wager with a crackpot like [Piers Corbyn](http://www.weatheraction.com/)
> doesn't understand what GCMs do, or what climate is.
You could have left it at that.
Either "pokerplayer" doesn't know what climate is, or they're deliberately trying to find something that can't be answered so as to "win" the bet.
242 Joel,
What's that saying? "There's no bottom to stupid"? ;)
He is over at this thread on Scientific American crowing about how no one is taking up the bet.
Trent, let him crow. He's just portraying his ignorance of GCMs and climate.
Worse, he does not even realise the implicit problem of the uncertainty of 'predicting' rainfall. We *know* that the regional projections are not only dependent on the emission scenarios and potential natural variations we cannot control (if another Pinatubo goes off, our current 'prediction' will get even more likely to be wrong), we also know the regional projections are still not accurate enough to make any solid projections.
However, unlike what pokerplyer likely implies, this does not mean we should not worry about climate change. In fact, quite the opposite: it means this uncertainty should make us worry even more. Due to the uncertainty, we have no idea what we have to adapt to. In other words, the uncertainty makes mitigation by far the only acceptable path to take!
Here is what I wrote at unScientific American.
The whole issue of GCMs is one of the most critical to the issue and one where many readers are highly misinformed. I am an aerospace engineer and am very familiar with complex model development and use. I do not claim to be an expert on the development of GCM's because I do not know what variables or the weights or timing of those variables that are or should be programmed into the models.
I do know how complex models should generally be developed and documented because virtually everyone follows a set of engineering guidelines for model development. This process involves defining the key criteria that you wish the model to be able to predict, within what margins of error, over what timeframes or conditions. This practice has NOT been followed for GCMs.
Ask Mann why it makes sense to average the results of many models vs. determining what model produces reliable, repeatable results and only using that model until a better one is developed. Ask Mann why he can trust the output of GCMs that produce significantly different results when they are runs multiple times using the same data.
As a engineer, I am telling you that the current GCMs are HIGHLY unreliable, and were never designed for use in governmental policy development. These models are a waste of the US taxpayer s money. The same funds could be spent much better one the development of two sets of much more practical models. The 1st west would be regional models that could reasonably accurately forecast condition 20 to 30 years in the future. The 2nd set would be local and regional models that would be highly reliable 12 months into the future. These two types of models would allow people to completely adapt to potential changes in the weather or climate. Mann is spreading baloney.
> I am an aerospace engineer and am very familiar with complex model development and use.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Really, before you try to fit that sock onto your hand for the third time, you should look up the words "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" in an undergraduate level textbook. If you don't have the appropriate undergraduate level textbook, consider getting one.
-- frank
pokerplyer:
Yet another ignoramus who thinks climate models are meant to predict weather.
Marco
I have not written that we should not be concerned about future weather, but I have written that we have limited resources and should address the issue smartly and efficiently.
Virtually every concern that could come about as a result of the world being somewhat warmer can easily be adapted to by the construction of proper infrastructure. Humans need to build or re-built infrastructure every 25 to 30 years as a matter of course, so this is a very cost effective approach and can be done in the US quite easily.
Many countries around the world do not build proper infrastructure to protect their citizens and societies. They do not do this for a variety of reasons, including cultural and corruption related factors. That is not a problem for the US or the EU to resolve. I see no reason why the US owes funding to any other country or the UN in general over the issue of CO2 emissions. Independent countries can adapt to the future climate if they build what is needed, but if they fail to do so, it is not a problem for the US tax payer to be a part of fixing.
pokerplyer, are you still seriously expecting us to buy your "I am an aerospace engineer" pretence?
Especially when you've shown no knowledge of actual engineering, but only lots of knowledge of being a blathering idiot?
Do you really expect that the people reading this blog are this gullible?
-- frank
Chris
If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers are using GCMs to claim that a particular region of the world will be harmed by a warmer climate because that region will receive 10% less rainfall it means that the IPCC or the writer of the paper is using the GCM to forecast future weather. I am writing the models are not sufficiently accurate for that purpose.
pokerplyer:
Still claiming "I am an aerospace engineer", when you exhibit the opposite of knowledge regarding the concepts of "turbulence" and "chaos" and "stochasticity"? Hello?
The more you blather on, the more you expose yourself to be a blathering idiot, and a fraud.
-- frank
Frank
Whether you believe it or not I don't really care, but it happens to be a fact. Mechanical engineering undergrad with a masters in economics and finance.
Whether you believe it or not I don't really care, but it happens to be a fact. Mechanical engineering undergrad with a masters in economics and finance.
Kinda like this guy?
pokerplyer:
So you previously claim to be an "aerospace engineer", and suddenly now you just have an undergraduate in "mechanical engineering" and a "masters in economics and finance"?
And you claim all these things even though you can't grasp the undergraduate level concepts of "turbulence" and "chaos"?
> Whether you believe it or not I don't really care,
Oh, I think you do care. Because without all that pretentious degree dropping, your 'arguments' are nothing more than the blatherings of a blatherer.
-- frank
Whether you believe it or not I don't really care, but it happens to be a fact. Mechanical engineering undergrad with a masters in economics and finance.
Repeat with a link that can be followed:
Kinda like this guy? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Pointy-Haired_Boss.jpg
pokerplyer:
No it doesn't.
caerbannog: link broken alas. :(
Frank
When an engineer has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years they are generally called aerospace engineers. Care to make a wager on my resume idiot?
When an engineer has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years they are generally called aerospace engineers. Care to make a wager on my resume idiot?
I've known plenty of aerospace/defense engineers with over 25 years of experience, and for the most part, they didn't know *squat* about climate science.
Typical case:
Engineer with 25 years of experience: "Michael Mann's method generates hockey sticks from random noise."
Me: "How do the random noise eigenvalues compare with Michael Mann's tree-ring eigenvalues?"
Engineer with 25 years of experience: "Huh?"
and what part of comment #250 does anyone think is incorrect and why? I'll try to check back
pokerplyer,
If you understood the terms "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochasticity", you'll immediately realize what a blathering pile of blather your comment 250 was. The proof of this is, as they say, left as an exercise for the reader.
-- frank
Again to "pokerplyer":
> Really, before you try to fit that ["I am an aerospace engineer"] sock onto your hand for the third time, you should look up the words "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" in an undergraduate level textbook. If you don't have the appropriate undergraduate level textbook, consider getting one.
-- frank
Frank I do not know what your background is, but your comment is so silly as to be nonsense. Your having asked me to look up "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochastic" only demonstrates that you do not desire a meaningful exchange.
Are you inferring that because GCMs are complex models that the developers should not define the characteristics that the models are expected to be able to accurately forecast, within what margins of error, over what timeframes? Idiot, exchanges with you seem to be a waste of time.
pokerplyer said:
Why should they have to pay to improve their infrastructure when it is others, mostly Western countries, who have caused the problems they wil be facing?
You are a typical arrogant, ignorant and selfish denier. Your motto is:
pokerplyer:
Why don't you tell us in your own words your understanding of the scientific meanings of "turbulence", "chaos", and "stochasticity"? I thought this is stuff that "I am an aerospace engineer" would know like the back of your hand? Stuff that you'd factor into your own calculations?
Or are you trying to hide your lack of knowledge, and your ridiculous degree dropping, by dodging these concepts?
-- frank
*Care to make a wager on my resume idiot/*
Pokerplayer, I'd certainly wager on your complete inability to understand the significance of short term versus long term events as well as temporal trends. Your wager infers that you think that weather and climate are interchangeable concepts. In other words, in inferring a short term linear relationship, this does not allow for stochastic events to occur along a significant statistical gradient.
I am a scientist with a PhD in population ecology, and if I analyzed regression data sets I generate in my experiments the way that you are suggesting, then I would have to consider no result as being statistically significant if there were only one outlying data point somewhere along the x axis. This is clearly what you are suggesting - that every data point along the axis must, by your inane definition, be higher than the previous one closer to the point of origin. Your wager is that the odds are that some of the points along the regression will be (in terms of some short term meteorological event) lower on the y-axis that a point that follows it along the x-axis, without taking into consideration the many data points along a long x-axis (representing years).
You may be an aerospace engineer, but this is hardly rocket science. Clearly you have not got a clue about even basic statistics. Statistics is not my strong suit, but your grasp of it is abominable.
Then you write this patent nonsense:
*Virtually every concern that could come about as a result of the world being somewhat warmer can easily be adapted to by the construction of proper infrastructure*
How many times must one put this kind of anthropocentric clap-trap to bed? The problem is not human adaptation to a rapidly changing climate, but the ability of complex adaptive natural systems to adapt. Warming threatens to disrupt the flow of a wide range of supporting ecological services that sustain humanity but which have few or no technological substitutes. Pokerplayer writes as if humans are exempt from the laws of nature, and that we can forever continue hammering away at the planet's natural systems to death and that, thanks to some miracle of human ingenuity that we can forever increase the human carrying capacity. But the planet's natural systems already have a reduced capacity to support man. Its time we factored in the costs to natural systems of human overconsumption and simplification, because at present these are excluded from economic pricing. Costanza et al's seminar 1997 Nature article estimated the value of supporting ecological services to the material economy alone and concluded that they were worth a staggering 33 trillion dollars, or more than twice the combined GDP of all nations on Earth at the time. As Costanza explained, the reason he wrote the paper is that he was fed up with neoclassical economists estimating the value of nature to be about 2% of global GDP - a complete inverse of reality. More and more economists are now realizing that the value of nature in sustaining human civilization goes well beyond consumptive value - something pokerplayer clearly does not understand.
re:pokerplyer @255
aaah, 'IPCC' & 'alarmist' in the same sentence shows your pre-judgement. Furthermore, obviously you have DK syndrome
and re: enhancing ones qualifications, didn't a certain David Evans (electrican /electrical engineer) claim to be a Rocket Scientist after a short spell at NASA?
Jeff
You misunderstand my perspective. I am not claiming that additional atmospheric CO2 will not warm the planet, or that the significant increase in the human population is not impacting the habitats of other creatures. I do claim that we do not really understand what the rate of warming will be from additional CO2 and that there is no reliable evidence that a warmer world is worse for the world human population overall, or for the US in particular over the long term.
You wrote- âThe problem is not human adaptation to a rapidly changing climate, but the ability of complex adaptive natural systems to adapt.â I suggest that your position is clearly different than the one of the IPCC, and that yours would be stronger to argue for population control or reduction than it is for CO2 control.
You wrote- âWarming threatens to disrupt the flow of a wide range of supporting ecological services that sustain humanity but which have few or no technological substitutes.â What specific supporting ecological services do you believe are threatened by potential warming? Again, what you have written seems less about warming than it is about the human population disturbing the environment overall and the natural evolution of that human population to desire to have the highest lifestyle that it can obtain in spite of the impact on the environment.
By no means do I believe that humans are exempt from the laws of nature. I am simply a realist who understands that the planet is governed by 200 independent nation states with frequently conflicting goals. I do not see any reason why taxpayers in the US should be obligated to work harder or to pay more taxes because people in India of Pakistan (as examples) have not built proper infrastructure and have had unsupportable population growth.
Why do skeptics keep buying into the straw man arguments about whether it is warming or not. I know of no serious student of climate science who does not admit that the planet has been warming since the Little Ice Age. Given that the argument that Constantanople had the warmest April ever is trivial. Of course if the planet is warming than lots of places will set records. They mean nothing. The question is is that warming do to "Natural Variation" - meaning we are not sure exactly why it is warming. Or is it do to Anthropological increases in atmospheric Co2 which is of course the question under consideration. Generally it is considered that CO2 was not a major factor before 1950 and that 30 years is needed to have a reliable trend. Examine this graph for the 30 year periods 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2000 http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/pl… or to make it simpler just the trend lines. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/pl… Now you will note there is an increase of temperature. Given that it is accepted that that has been happening because of the LIA rebound the question is are the trend lines different. If they are you have an argument for AGW if not you will have to make an argument that somehow the natural warming in the second half of the 20th century is somehow different. A much more difficult argument than its warmer today in this place than it was last year.
[Citation needed]
For the Little Ice Age you might look to [Article in Science](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/274/5292/1503.abstract) Though this is behind a paywall. You could look at "Mechanisms of global climate change at millennial time scales
By Peter U. Clark, Robert S. Webb, Lloyd D. Keigwin"
Looks like we've found ourselves another Dunning Kruger posterboy! Yet another surly buffoon with multiple degrees in Advanced Geniusness who cannot distinguish between weather and climate.
For any who want to learn about climate models, see the 2 FAQs at RC: #1 and #2
I've addressed this question of why technical people can be very confused about models, in some detail. See 3) about mechanical engineers. By coincidence, some of that discussion had started here at Deltoid.
Some technical people use computers for some kinds of modeling and therefore think they automagically know about other kinds of modeling. Generally, they don't, as their modeling experience is usually far too narrow (by my standards, which I admit are atypical).
Some people with M.E. backgrounds, for example like John Abraham understand climate modeling, as do some of the fine aerospace researchers at NASA Ames.
But is there any reason to suspect that typical corporate aerospace engineers understand the differences between their modeling and thsoe of climate modelers?
NO, and I don't have a survey, but I certainly have anecdotal experience that the answer is generally NO. Background in CFD or other finite-element models is useful, but people have to spend time understanding the differences, and there is no reason for most to do so.
The problem comes when someone aggressively over-generalizes.
I used to be Chief Scientist @ Silicon Graphics in the 1990s. When I wasn't doing design work on {software, microprocessors and supercomputers, I spent 50-60% of my time talking to customers and partners, including many who did M.E. tasks like Computational Fluid Dynamics or structural mechanics, as well as people who did climate models (NCAR, GFDL, NASA), petroleum geophysicists, molecular modelers, high-energy physicists, operations research folks, etc, etc.
I spent lots of time with 3rd-pary software developers, so for instance, spent a day with the developers at MSC and then did a keynote talk at a conference of theirs. The first part was to geared to discussing algorithms and any impediments they were finding so I could bring them back to our software people and for longer-term issues, think about memory system designs.
I used to visit Boeing to give half-day technology briefings to senior staff. I used to talk regularly with other aerospace companies as well, and of course, many of the car companies, who sometimes used related software, although they probably did a lot more simulated crash testing, those being more common for cars. Of course, they use CFD codes, too.
NASA AMES was often our lead customer for our biggest machines, always wanting something that wasn't on our price list. Their senior guys would come over to visit often, since we were a few miles away.
Them: Why can't we buy a Terabyte or memory, only .5TB? Our big CFD codes need it.
[They liked to run one big CFD code using an entire machine.] This was back when a TB was big.
(Me) A: Don't worry, the hardware is designed for it, when the prices on the next 4X DRAM become sensible, about 6-9 months. But do you have the budget?
(Them): Sure.
(Me, asking a question whose answer I knew):
Will a Terabyte be enough?
(Them): (Outrage) No, no, our grid elements are still way too big for us to simulate whole vehicles ... etc, etc ... a tale I'd heard before, having worked with guys like Paul Woodward when he was doing stellar modeling that needed big memories.
(Me, asking another question whose answer I knew):
Well, how much *would* be enough?
(Them): There's never enough.
(Got to love that kind of customer. They always wanted something 4X bigger, and the only way to get that was for us to assemble the first such configuration at their site, and then finish the debugging.)
But some parts of NASA do climate modeling and some of their people perfectly well understand the differences between that and aerospace M.E.
GCM's aren't built to predict rainfall in any particular place a few years off. Expecting that is even sillier than:
- expecting a NASTRAN or LS-DYNA or ANSYS run to predict whether or not a specific plane will be in for repairs some specific day a few years off or
- expecting PAM-CRASH to tell you whether or not a specific car would be in a crash some specific week.
Killer, John.
That should pass into the lexicon.
Glad you got my point Bill/
Pokerplyer.
I don't do silly strawman excursions such as your GCM nonsense is, and I've come to realise that most denialists are scared of the wager to which I refer above (I'm sure that you can find the details), probably because there are to many options, so I'll cut to the chase.
I'll bet you $100k against your $100K that the summer Arctic PIOMAS sea ice volume will, by 2020, drop below the current summer record.
In the interest of informed decision-making I refer you to:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-low-means-what.html
How accurately do you need to know the future rate of warming and what level of confidence that a warmer world will be worse do you need before you accept that action needs to be taken?
Perhaps because the US is a major contributor to global warming? Why should they be required to pay for damage you have caused?
I am curious as to how you think improved infrastructure can prevent or circumvent drought in Texas or acidification of the oceans. It seems to me that you are a prime example of the adage that 'to a hammer, everything looks like a nail'. Also, as others have pointed out, you need to learn the difference between weather and climate.
279 Chek,
Computer geeks (and others?) have been using that for years. ;)
> I am simply a realist...
Interesting claim. Let's see.
> ...I do claim that we do not really understand what the rate of warming will be from additional CO2...
Nor do you apparently understand scientific uncertainty bounds, nor why predicted warming of *climate* is much better bounded than weather predictions, nor the science of decision making under regimes of incomplete information - in particular, risk mitigation.
The latter is interesting for someone who claims postgrad economics and finance qualifications, which is normally considered quite heavy on working with incomplete information. (You might want to apply for a refund on your tuition fees.)
So I take it you don't buy house insurance until the forest fire is licking at your eaves because prior to that data coming in there's "no reliable information" that this particular fire will harm your property?
No? You **do** have insurance? Hmmmm, interesting.
But you want the ecosystem and human population - especially everyone other than the US - to take the risk with CO2 rather than "buying insurance", right? And you are confident you have good reasons for that, right?
So you must have a risk-option-cost model that you used to come to this decision, right? What are the bounds on the impacts imposed by CO2-based warming, and the bounds on the costs of dealing with the impacts for the various options on the table in your model, and how were they derived? Oh, wait, you say you *don't really know* how much it will warm so therefore you *can't even have bounded* the impacts, and:
> ... and that there is no reliable evidence that a warmer world is worse for the world human population overall...
...so you are arguing you don't have enough information to bound the *effects* of the impacts either.
If we can't reliably bound how fast it will warm nor reliably bound the impacts we care about let alone their costs, then risk mitigation says the **only** safe course of action is to completely avoid driving the system into those unknown states with potentially unbounded impacts. In other words, we have to keep CO2 at geologically recent levels - which we've already exceeded, so we'd better swing into action to get the levels down *pronto*. That's where your implied facts inexorably lead.
You, however, appear to have drawn the opposite conclusion. That suggests you are either deeply incompetent at risk mitigation, or you aren't even attempting to argue a position based on a realistic assessment of the known information.
Hey, look - turns out you're not a realist after all!
Pokerplyer @ 250
What is it with climate change deniers that they wear ignorance as a badge of honor?
Like the man with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail, our intrepid idiot (I am engineer - listen to me) who claims a passing knowledge of models in the aerospace industry believes that GCM models of a chaotic and non linear system must be the same even though he admits he has little knowledge of them.
His wager is simply additional illustration of his ignorance.
If he bothered to actually educate himself before making his blowhard comments, he could have read the following FAQ on climate models at Real Climate.
Q. "[Can GCMs predict the temperature and precipitation for my home?](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-mo…)"
A. "No. There are often large variation in the temperature and precipitation statistics over short distances because the local climatic characteristics are affected by the local geography. The GCMs are designed to describe the most important large-scale features of the climate, such as the energy flow, the circulation, and the temperature in a grid-box volume (through physical laws of thermodynamics, the dynamics, and the ideal gas laws). A typical grid-box may have a horizontal area of ~100Ã100 km2..."
Or he could have read "[Why global climate models do not give a realistic description of the local climate](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/climate-models-lo…)"
So tell us please Pokerplyer - who is claiming that GCMs can predict the annual rainfall at a specific location 36 months from now? Or did you just make it up?
Let me start with a compliment to this site as it has not done as Real Climate or Skeptical Science does and deleted posts that disagreed with the moderators position. I also want to thank those who disagree with my conclusions and actually respond with coherent rationale as to why they disagree. I will review responses to my points worth review.
Comment #261 by Chris I wrote- If the IPCC or other alarmist individuals writing papers are using GCMs to claim that a particular region of the world will be harmed by a warmer climate because that region will receive 10% less rainfall it means that the IPCC or the writer of the paper is using the GCM to forecast future weather.
Chrisâs reply- No it doesn't.
My question- what data was the IPCC or the writer of a paper using to determine that rainfall would change fit it was not from a GCM?
Comment #269- My comment- Independent countries can adapt to the future climate if they build what is needed, but if they fail to do so, it is not a problem for the US tax payer to be a part of fixing
Ianâs response- Why should they have to pay to improve their infrastructure when it is others, mostly Western countries, who have caused the problems they will be facing?
My response- They should have to pay for the infrastructure in their own country and not the US taxpayer. It seems as though you are unknowledgeable of actual world conditions. Much of the world does not build virtually any infrastructure and as a result when it rains heavily people are harmed. Travel in SW Asia and you will learn that infrastructure is not built largely due to vast corruption. It has nothing to do with anything the US or the EU has done or not done. If (hypnotically) that everything you believed was true regarding AGW, the difference in degree of harm to people from severe weather would be minimal as compared to the difference between a country that has prepared by building proper infrastructure and those like those in SW Asia that have not.
The US has not been responsible for the fact that many countries have not built proper infrastructure to protect their citizens from bad weather. The vast majority of people harmed by severe weather events would not have been harmed if proper infrastructure had been constructed.
Comment #278 by John Mashey
John wrote a long comment about his experiences with aerospace engineers- (we may have met I was with Boeing for 20 years), but his key comment was:
âGCM's aren't built to predict rainfall in any particular place a few years off.â
John- I agree. It would has been much more useful if the models would have been built to actually accurately predict conditions important to government policy making. Since the GCMs cannot accurately forecast future rainfall, what tool was used to determine that parts of the world would be harmed by less rainfall as a result of higher temperatures?
Comment #281 by Bernard- âI'll bet you $100k against your $100K that the summer Arctic PIOMAS sea ice volume will, by 2020, drop below the current summer record.â
My response-I think you would win that bet, but do not think it is evidence of any overall harm.
Comment #282 by Richard - âHow accurately do you need to know the future rate of warming and what level of confidence that a warmer world will be worse do you need before you accept that action needs to be taken?â
My response-I would agree that actions are warranted as long as they are cost efficient based upon a cost benefit analysis. Taking actions that are expensive but do little to nothing to address the issue are pointless. It all depends upon the specifics.
Richards further question- âI am curious as to how you think improved infrastructure can prevent or circumvent drought in Texas or acidification of the oceans.â
My response- The drought in Texas is a weather event and not the result of AGW. The result of the drought would have been better adapted to by better, deeper reservoir construction which would have provided for more water having been saved to prepare for droughts. I actually have property in Texas btw.
I do not believe ocean acidification is a real concern that is related to AGW. Much of what has been written on the topic is nonsense.
My, my. Pokerply piles ignorance onto ignorance.
SW Asia is the Middle East, you geographically challenged clown. Much of the infrastructure in the ME is more modern and advanced than the aging infrastructure in the USA.
In one of the poorer nations, the slums of cities like Cairo are in part a result of years of US military support for dictators like Mubarak. The citizens of Egypt may be poor but they are smarter than you - they identified the problem and are dealing with it.
Egypt's carbon footprint is around 233 Mt of CO2e per year, the USA's is 7000 Mt of CO2e. Historically the contribution of the developed world to CO2e in the atmosphere dwarfs that of the poor nations.
Your argument is "I can tip all my garbage into my neighbour's back yard and if he cannot afford to clean it up too bad." You are grotesque.
Looks like pokeplyer still doesn't get the point. I'll give you a clue. For a given climate, the annual rainfall usually varies by much more than 5% from year to year.
You are waffling.
But it is the type of weather event that is expected to become much more common with global warming. How can you save more water if the rainfall is decreasing (think Colorado)?
Oh, really? What do you think is the cause of ocean acidification? Care to give an example of this nonsense from the scientific press?
Let me guess; in reality you serially disregarded their comments policy and insisted on making your non-complying or off-topic assertions on any post you chose?
Oh, mighty Genius, and it seems you know more than ocean chemists now, too!
You, sir, are the apotheosis of a fool.
chris o'neill- perhaps you didn't get or wish to respond to the point that the IPCC has referenced potential harms that are based on the premise of changes in rainfall can be predicted by GCM's. I state that is an incorrect assumption.
Mike H- Since i grew up in Saudi Arabia as a teenager I am very familar with the area and infrastructure is not a priority in the region. I am in the region and was referencing India and Pakistan as SW Asia
Pokerply @ 288 says in response to John Mashey's comment
"GCM's aren't built to predict rainfall in any particular place a few years off"
It appears we are dealing with a simpleton who cannot comprehend the difference between a weather forecast for a particular location and time and long term climate trends.
Is he pretending to be thick or is he really thick? - hard to tell.
Tell me this Captain Clueless. Are the existence of climate zones in the US (which every school kid learns in geography) a record of past climate and a prediction about future climate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Climatemapusa2.PNG
Using your logic, those zones were mapped by examining the rainfall at particular locations 36 years in the past.
Bill
Your comment that "Ocean chemists" believe that human relaesed CO2 is the primary cause of the ph level of the oceans changing, and that this is a harm is so far fetched as to be laughable from what I have read. I absolutely agree that humans are damaging the oceans. Do you seriously think that human release of CO2 is at or near the top of the list?
Mike H
In response to comment 296
Try to keep up- What information did the IPCC use other than GCMs to predict that additional human released CO2 would change rainfall amounts and harm specific regions? LOL they claimed that they could predict that the future rainfall would be changed by certain amounts based upon GCMs and not looking at history
Pokerplyr @ 286
Yes - I have noticed that Real Climate does not suffer fools so I can understand why you are not welcome there.
Here most commenters prefer the Aussie tradition of "[doing you slowly](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Keating)".
pokerplyer:
Obviously you don't get or wish to respond to the point that even if you know the climate (which is all a GCM can give you), it is impossible to know the future rainfall in any particular year to an accuracy of 5%. Climate is the average over some number of years such as 30, not the rainfall in any one year.
Pokerplyr @ 295
As I said geographically challenged. This is [South West Asia](http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Asia)
Pkerplyr @ 298
You are now getting desperate throwing assertions about like confetti. How about the occasional reference to support your bluster. I can see why you got turfed off Real Climate - they expect hand waving to be supported by actual evidence.
@ 297
Here is a tip - tear yourself away from the climate denier web site that currently has you in its grip and read some real science.
How about the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the world's leading oceanic research organisation on [Ocean Acidification]
(http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification).
Your bullshit may get you some plaudits at WUWT or the other moron infested blogs that you hang around in but people here for some weird reason are interested in science.
Fixed link
[Ocean Acidification](http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification).
Interesting to note how deranged people like Ned Nikolov and Roy Spencer must be to think that the oceans are outgassing when NOAA's data shows oceanic dissolved CO2 is increasing.
re: Pokerplyer @ 297
So, in your vast multi-discipline scientific experience, what do YOU think is the primary cause?
> Try to keep up...
I'm guessing you *wanted* to look extra foolish when you chose to use that gambit with people who are way ahead of you.
No, wait, I'm wrong. Dunning & Kruger are on the other line and they would really like some of your time.
>Comment #281 by Bernard- âI'll bet you $100k against your $100K that the summer Arctic PIOMAS sea ice volume will, by 2020, drop below the current summer record.â
>My response-I think you would win that bet, but do not think it is evidence of any overall harm.
So you admit that the planet is warming, but you think that it doesn't matter...
Erm, excuse me if I appear to be sceptical, but exactly how much does the planet have to warm, in the opinion of an "aerospace engineer" who doesn't seem to play much poker, before there is "overall harm"? And what exactly constitutes "overall harm"?
>I do not believe ocean acidification is a real concern that is related to AGW. Much of what has been written on the topic is nonsense.
+
>Your comment that "Ocean chemists" believe that human relaesed [sic] CO2 is the primary cause of the ph [sic] level of the oceans changing, and that this is a harm is so far fetched [sic] as to be laughable from what I have read.
Why exactly is ocean acidification not "a real concern that is related to AGW"?
Exactly how much of what has been written on the topic is "nonsense"? What is it exactly that is "nonsense"?
What exactly have you "read" that permits you to discount the opinions of chemists and physiologists? I'm a biologist with a decade and a half experience in biomedical sciences before jumping horses to ecology (including, recently, marine ecology), and I have decades experience in maintaining (both professionally and as a hobbyist) freshwater and marine aquaria. And I have no doubt that the scientific consensus on the dangers of ocean acidification are as serious as they are described.
I'm very curious to hear why an "aerospace engineer" has so much insight into scientific disciplines completely detached from his own trade that he can discount the understanding of physicists, climatologists, chemists, and biologists.
It seems to me that your problem is that you are "plying" that poker a little too hard. Your proctologist would probably advise you to ease off a little from your pernicious habit.
It's a shame that you turned out to be just another Denialatus windbag. I was hoping that you might actually believe your own guff sufficiently that you would put that $100k on the table: it would have been by far the biggest single contribution to my house construction that I am likely to see.
Plythepoker,
Oh, for God's sake... Start here. Or see Professor Keith Hunter talking about it here. WARNING: some danger of learning something.
Quite why "Ocean chemists" merits quotation marks is beyond me...
It is interesting to interact with so many true alarmist concerned about the potential harms of CO2. Here is another summary of some of the points raised:
1. Ocean acidification-Rather than me writing Iâll provide a link that also references other studies- http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/4704-matt-ridley-taking-fear…
2. This question was posted- âbut exactly how much does the planet have to warm, before there is "overall harm"? And what exactly constitutes "overall harm"?
My response-It is the sum of the known harms. In relation to AGW the issue is whether the actions being proposed will be efficient when evaluated based on a cost benefit analysis to address the reported âharmsâ. Many suggested actions âharmâ people to a greater degree than the benefit justifies.
3. What is SW Asia?--
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-7…
Looks like pokerplyer has given up trying to understand the difference between weather and climate (if he ever did try).
Chris #304: I would like to stress again that Nikolov actually is involved in analysis of parts of the carbon cycle in his job. This makes it even more mindboggling to see him make such a mistake.
And it should be a real concern to his employer...
Gee, I reference bona-fide ocean chemists, and you reference ...?
(And didn't he do a great job when he was the head of a bank?)
And oh, Mighty One, did you actually read that piece? I did, and then thought - funny, no actual citations. I found the Scripps article, though.
I suggest everyone reads it, then compares what it says to Ridley's interpretation. Cherrypicking, much? And then some unidentifiable cherrypick gives us 'marine and freshwater assemblages have always experienced variable pH conditions'. Gee, 'climate has always changed' Mk II! Oh, and freshwater lakes pH - well, that's cleared up the ocean acidification issue, then. Plus also 'freshwater mussels thrive in [acidic] Scottish rivers'. Whoop-de-doo!
And then we get that tiresome idiocy about the ocean not really being acid because the pH is still above 7.0.
And can you pair
with
...and tell me what happens to even these surviving calcifers beyond that point? And what we might expect generally if pH fluctuates around an average if that average is rapidly trending downward?
I'll leave you to find any remaining references to actual science, since Ridley's piece is intriguingly coy on these studies - it's almost like he wouldn't want us to look them up!
This substance-free link-spamming is doubtlessly why you got chucked out of the other sites you claim to have been victimised by.
> Many suggested actions âharmâ people to a greater degree than the benefit justifies.
A post-grad finance/economics grad should know that one can't evaluate that equation until you've got a handle on the potential "harm", which a person of ordinary intelligence here understands to be the risk due to climate change. Risk by definition involves a range of possible outcomes and some form of probability distribution. You've previously indicated you cannot quantify this risk to any reasonable level of certainty, although you can't admit it to yourself so you assert that it is low.
Which means you're pulling the claim to have evaluated this cost-benefit equation out of your arse.
Pokerplyer: I was going to suggest some scientific papers you could look at to see that ocean acidification is a concern, but in view of the link you gave it's obvious that they would be beyond you. Take a look at this outline at SkepticalScience.
BTW: You have still not answered these questions: exactly how much does the planet have to warm, in the opinion of an "aerospace engineer" who doesn't seem to play much poker, before there is "overall harm"? And what exactly constitutes "overall harm"?
I believe a post-grad finance/economics grad should know that one can't predict climate change until s/he got a handle on the mechanism behind climate change, which all person of ordinary intelligence understands.
PokerPlayer quoting something found at the GWPF is like picking your reality checks from J K Rowling - both based on fiction.
Here is some perspective to help dispel your illusions.
Here is some more, revealing the other jokers in this pack with even more here . The fact that the now much self-debased Plimer is in the mix should tell you plenty.
Erm, excuse me if I appear to be sceptical, but exactly how much does the planet have to warm, in the opinion of an "aerospace engineer"
Actually, pokerplyer isn't really an "engineer" -- for his Master's degree, he took the path of least resistance and chose finance/business instead of hard science/engineering.
He's a PhB (Pointy-haired Boss) beancounting-type, not a hard-core technical person. And it shows in his posts.
Interesting to note how deranged people like Ned Nikolov and Roy Spencer must be to think that the oceans are outgassing...
What's really pathetic about that is the fact that demonstrating that natural processes must be net CO2 *absorbers* is a straightforward high-school math bookkeeping exercise.
Really -- converting MTons of CO2 emissions to PPM changes in the atmosphere is something that a high-school student should be able to do! It seems that hard-core denier-think negates not only college degrees, but high-school diplomas as well!
What is interesting is the tendency of the posters here to be so sure of their position as throw out insults vs. actually discussing the relevant issues in play.
I started out posting what I acknowledge is a silly bet that nobody familiar with what a GCM can do would have accepted. The purpose of that wager was to get people who fear cAGW to actually learn about the capabilities and limitations of general circulation models. These models were not designed to provide data for government policy making and are unsuitable for that purpose. Mann has pushed the approach but it is wrong due to the unreliability of those models. If you believe GCMs outputs are consistent and reliable you are mistaken.
One the questions several times is how much the planet has to warm to be considered dangerous climate change I offer the following rationale for discussion.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/05/what-constitutes-dangerous-climate-ch…
Btw--please notice I have not really slammed those who have posted really stupid comments that are factually wrong. Read the one who told me to learn geography for considering Pakistan and India to be part of SW Asia? I guess you all think I was wrong about that also.
>Actually, pokerplyer isn't really an "engineer" -- for his Master's degree, he took the path of least resistance and chose finance/business instead of hard science/engineering.
Ahhh, so he's a porky-pie-er, not a poker player. That's why he folded as soon as his 100K bet was confronted.
It's interesting to note (especially for any of the Scientific American lurkers who might have wandered over to see how their Denialatus bruvver is decimating the scientific consensus) that Porkypie-er doesn't ever actually engage in testable scientific discussion, backed with testable references. A bit like the Scandinavian Trollege of Advanced Obfuscation and Confabulation...
Yes, too many Denialati emperors, and not a stich between them.
pukerplyer @ 309
Our intrepid explorer is still searching for SW Asia. Here is a tip dullard - try an atlas instead of a random collection of images.
http://www.physicalmapofasia.com/regions-of-asia/southwest-asia
Showing the same ineptitude for science as he does for geography, he provides a link to the laughable climate denier outfit, the GWPF ([described](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/22/chris-huhne-lawson-th…) as 'misinformed', 'wrong' and 'perverse' by the energy secretary in the UK Conservative government). That in turn links to some reheated tripe in Murdoch's WSJ. The Murdoch press - the go to place for phone hacking, far-right opinion and Ocean Science. What's next pokerplyer - a link to Fox News.
Here are some excerpts from [research](http://sio.ucsd.edu/Ocean_Acidification/ocean_acid_brochure_2011_final…) at Scripps that did not make it into the WSJ article. Too inconvenient?
Hello Everyone,
Poker Player is now claiming that he has been banned from this site. I know he is lying because I am cognizant of the how this site handles trolls. And Poker Player has been here nowhere here as long as David Duff and his fellow idiots.
His claim of banning is found here on comment #69. By the way, the article I linked too is an interesting interview with Michael Mann on computer models.
I want to thank everyone who took part in the destruction of Poker Player. A link back to this thread is going to serve as a nice big cudgel. His collapse in the face of Bernard J. is just something that is going to come in very handy.
And yes, he is geographically ignorant. I served in the Persian Gulf back in 1991 and one of the the medals I received was the Southwest Asia Service Medal .
re: #322 Trent1492
And you might refer to #278, as the expertise claimed as an "aerospace engineer" seemed to evaporate, perhaps because the people I usually briefed were likely were rather higher in the management chain at Boeing.
All of this likes moving goalposts.
Pokerplyer may have written a comment that got caught in the moderation filter awaiting action by a human, and concluded that his comments are being *SUPPRESSED, I TELL YOU!!!!*
He wouldn't be the first. Some of them also aren't aware that when cleared by the moderator their comments appear in submission order.
You might want to ask him at SciAm **how** he knows he has been banned. Bet that proves somewhat interesting ;-)
Darn it. This is the link to the Southwest Asia Service Medal. My apologies.
Yes. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
However, the observed global temperature does not show accelerated warming with increase in CO2 emission.
Global Mean Temperature (GMT) data => http://bit.ly/pxXK4j
The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. Also, the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulumâs swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulumâs neutral position.
In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
In the GMT data, a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade. Not 0.2 deg C per decade as claimed by the IPCC.
That comment system at SciAm is quite the experience! I left a little note for Plythepoker; we shall see what results...
Hmm, one of AWOL PorkiePyer's comrades-in-arms has joined us; 'sam' is 'selti' at SciAm, and this is a just a copy of his post #72 over yonder. I cheerfully leave this masterpiece of almost Girmaesque WFT selective detrending to those with more patience than me, such as Trent 1492, who has already pointed out the obvious over there.
[Sam](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
Thank you for the biggest laugh that I've had all week.
You are obviously statistically illiterate, but I simply have to repeat some of your gems just to reinforce how silly your 'analysis' is:
>The most important observation in the above data is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. Also, the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulumâs swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulumâs neutral position.
>In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
A first-year university student in science would be failed if s/he handed in that sort of tripe even in the first week of first term. You show no indication of understanding:
Seriously...
>In the above data, the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, about every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
You are so clueless that I'd have to write an introductory textbook here just to explain why. For those ignorant lurking colleagues of yours who might be lurking here, and who don't understand the source of my derision, ponder this analogy...
...a philosophy professor asks his freshmen at the end of first term to describe what defines inner beauty. Someone in the front row put his hand up and earnestly says "big tits".
Except sam's effort is worse.
Apologies to the poster who recently linked to [this gem](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8VD4JXUozM&feature=related), but I can't remember who you are. It neatly exacpsulates my exasperation with sam though.
Sam @ 327
You are an imbecile.
Sam is a Poe, surely? It is just not possible to be that statistically-illiterate and still be able to turn on a computer.
Has anyone noticed how the quality of visiting denialists is deteriorating around here? I am starting to yearn for the days of Tim Curtin and Ben. They were at least semi-coherent.
[GWB's nemesis](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
Samn is from the Scientific American blog deniosphere.
The Stupid is so dense there that poe-ing would be a largely fruitless exercise: I suspect that this one is real.
It would be a frabjous day indeed if sam was in fact a poe. That would inch SciAm back just that little bit more from the brink. Speaking of which: Trent, you're doing excellent work there countering the flood of scientific illiteracy - keep it up.
coneill at sci am summed up sam the "fun with graphs" moron with the comment
If cruelty to data was a criminal offense, most of the denialati would be in jail.
Pokerplyer's [#319](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) has shown up. I'm guessing it was held up in moderation and that was why he claimed to have been banned here.
Mind you, it sounds like a bit of hasty arse-covering revisionism which rarely works around here (acknowledgement that his original bet was silly, but no unsilly new bet offered), and re-assertion of various unjustified claims. The latter include "models are unsuitable for government policy making", which presumably still relies on his initial fallacy that models must predict long range local *weather* to be suitable for that purpose since he hasn't withdrawn that implication. (That was a bit like claiming that a model of future average traffic demands is useless for deciding when to build more freeway capacity because it can't tell you how many cars will be on a particular 5km stretch of freeway 17 years, 2 months and 13 days from now between 3:22pm and 3:34pm.)
And still no glimmer of acknowledgement that if models *aren't* sufficiently reliable for government policy making, then we have to make policy **under even more uncertainty**, which means we have to slam the brakes hard on GHG emissions right now.
Oh, and he links to Curry re: "what constitutes dangerous climate change".
> ...you've tortured the data until it confessed to what you wanted it to say.
One critique at SciAm was: why did you force those axis scales?
So have a look at the massive difference in presentation if you [merely move the offset for series 5 and 7 to somewhere near the other five curves](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/offset:14/plot…) instead of using them to massively expand the y-axis range.
How to lie with graphs, indeed.
Wow, as a marine biologist who used to specialize in chemical ecology on coral reefs (in SW Asia) and who now works on coastal development in South Florida, it almost seems like Pokerplayer is a gift from the heavens offered up to me.
First, for your claim that it's relatively cheap and easy to adapt to warming... Consider where I live in South Florida. There are 5.5 million people living within 20 miles of the coast on land that mostly falls within 3m of sealevel and is interwoven by hundreds of miles of bays, canals, and inlets. All of the fresh water comes from aquifers which are susceptible to (and already suffering from) saltwater intrusion. As sea levels continue to rise, how do we protect our water source from saltwater intrusion or find another source that is as cheap as using the naturally occurring aquifers? Also, how do you protect the billions of dollars in property that are already essentially at sea level? Parts of Miami Beach and Ft. Lauderdale already flood with seawater during extreme high tides. Are you going to relocate 5.5 million people and have them abandon their property- some of the most valuable in the country? Or maybe you would build several hundred miles of seawalls, gates, and massive pumps (and where are you going to build these structures in a coastal area that's already almost 100% developed?)? Lets not forget how that solution worked for New Orleans either. Is this something we really want to try in a more hurricane-prone city? How much do you figure that would all cost just to protect 1 coastal metropolitan area? How about for all the major coastal cities in the US? How does that cost compare to improving energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels?
Now, as for the GWPF link in 309- "bafflingly stupid" is about the best summary of it. A couple of hints to anyone who has any desire to understand ocean acidification-
1. Learn the difference between the terms "alkalinity" and pH as used in marine chemistry. In marine chemistry, alkalinity refers to the concentration of certain buffering ions- usually carbonate and bicarbonate(but not including H+), not to pH. While any solution with a pH above 7 could be described as alkaline, in the case of seawater, saying you've reduced the alkalinity is NOT equivalent to saying you've reduced the pH. Acidification is the term used because it describes the process of adding acid and it avoids the ambiguity of using alkalinity/alkaline in regards to seawater chemistry.
2. Look up "light-enhanced calcification." The diurnal variation in pH is not physiologically insignificant, as the GWPF author would like you to believe. Most corals and calcifying algae show reduced growth at night. The reason? Photosynthesis consumes CO2 from the water in the calcifying tissue layers during the day, which makes the local chemistry more favorable for CaCO3 deposition. At night, respiration produces CO2 which makes conditions unfavorable for calcification. Despite what the author implies, what we know about diurnal variations in CO2, pH, and alkalinity and the impacts they have on calcifiers is in no way comforting in the face of a long-term decrease in pH due to addition of CO2. In fact, it's a large reason why we're worried.
3. In looking for studies which examine the impacts of reduced pH on calcifiers it's important to distinguish between those studies which manipulate carbonate alkalinity vs. those that don't. As you add CO2 to seawater it shifts the carbonate/bicarbonate equilibrium towards bicarbonate. However, in order to isolate pH as a variable, lots of studies have artificially maintained constant carbonate concentrations (which isn't what happens in nature). Under these conditions, calcification often remains fairly close to normal even at reduced pH. However, if you reduce the pH without maintaining high carbonate concentrations (which is what happens in the oceans) calcification is reduced.
Mike G.
You might be interested in the [Tim Curtin thread now a live show](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/tim_curtin_thread_now_a_live_s…) thread...
Over at that SciAm thread, "selti" a.k.a. drive-by "sam" continues his nonsense.
He implies that the concern about warming is merely due to a "continued warming projection" - but subsequently doesn't seem to realise he contradicts himself by arguing that "...GLOBAL WARMING has STOPPED..." (no prizes for guessing he's cherry-picked a 1998 start for his trend).
He also goes for "AGW is a fictitious theory not supported by the data", and asserts from his tortured graph (having not understood the earlier critiques) that "...true climate sensitivity is only 3x0.06/0.2 = 0.9 deg C".
Bernard, "selti" at SciAm would appear to have the right set of beliefs to consider a wager with you, although I don't know if he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is. He argues (re: the AMO):
> This thermohaline circulation has a warming and cooling phase of about 30 years. From about 1970s to 2000s, the thermohaline circulation was during its warming phase and that is the reason for the observed global warming. From about 2000s to 2030s, the thermohaline circulation will be in its cooling phase. As a result, in the 2000s, the GMT (as already observed) plateaus, and global cooling should follow until the 2030s.
> ...
> ...AGW will die its deserved death in the coming five years with the expected global cooling.
Although he does also go on to state (illogically, but that's how his other beliefs have been derived):
> On the other hand, if the 1998 record is exceeded in the next five years, I will join the AGW believer camp.
Does "selti" know that according to NASA temperature records, the hottest year on record globally is 2005?
Not that I expect it's likely to change his/her mind.
FYI, "selti" at SciAm says he is Girma, which should mean something to most long-time Deltoid denizens.
He says he is prepared to bet, but it's (a) over weather time-scales, and (b) not related to AGW trends which are not detected via records:
> I bet the 1998 record for hadcrut3gl.txt will not be exceeded in the next three years (2012, 2013 & 2014). This is a simple extension of the Annan & Whitehouse bet.
All I have re: degrees is a bachelor's in music, and I know I don't know very much about climatology.
Nevertheless from reading pokerplyer's nonsense I get the impression that I know a bit more than he does.
Lotharsson, as James Annan just noted, in HADCRUT4 2005 and 2010 already exceed 1998...
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2012/01/not-so-fast.html
HADCRUT3gl will likely be discontinued, now that there is a new updated version coming, so his bet is likely a dud.
Engineer with 25 years of experience: "Michael Mann's method generates hockey sticks from random noise."
Me: How?
Engineer: you have to generate random noise, yeah, and then you get a hockey stick. I've done it!
Me: OK, I just get a wavey line that doesn't curve up at the end. How did you do it?
Engineer: You must be incompetent then, since I did it easily!
Me: OK, so how did you do it?
Engineer: You can get it from someone else on the internet, can't you use google?
Me: But you said YOU did it. Just pass over the program you had that generated the random data and I'll use that.
Engineer: I don't have time to do that, it's easy to get from the internet.
Me: You said YOU did it. Did you lie? After all, it should be fairly easy to show me YOU did it, by showing what you did. Go on.
Engineer runs away.
You see, the engineer hasn't actually done it. They just read someone used "Pink noise" and got a hockey stick.
What they seem to fail to realise is that
a) pink noise isn't totally random: it has a bias on it. A trend if you like.
b) you have to SELECT a curve that looks hockey-stick-like. Well, it's rather easy to get any curve you want from random numbers if you just select the run and period. But that's the selection process making a hockey stick, not random noise.
Marco:
The fact denialists will cry blue murder over this.
Let's see if this post goes through on a timely basis.
Mike G asks: âAs sea levels continue to rise, how do we protect our water source from saltwater intrusion or find another source that is as cheap as using the naturally occurring aquifers?â
My response- Do you believe that sea levels are rising solely due to AGW? The rate of sea level rise over the last 20 years is roughly 1 foot per century. This rate is not a problem. Over a long term basis, since sea levels are near their all time low levels they are likely to rise. Local communities need to prepare since nothing related to CO2 emissions will lessen the long term trend.
Mike G asks: âAlso, how do you protect the billions of dollars in property that are already essentially at sea level? Parts of Miami Beach and Ft. Lauderdale already flood with seawater during extreme high tides.â
My response- It is not my responsibility to protect property built in areas likely to be damaged by being built in areas highly susceptible to damage by natural disasters. They should probably build sea walls to protect the property built in an unsafe area or have very expensive insurance since the property is likely to be damaged by a storm.
Mike G asks: âAre you going to relocate 5.5 million people and have them abandon their property- some of the most valuable in the country?â
My response- No that is their problem to deal with. If the property is in an area likely to be damaged by storms it will have high insurance costs and the property values will fall as a result. People make choices where to live and deal with the consequences. Supply and demand is a system that works.
Mike G asks: âHow much do you figure that would all cost just to protect 1 coastal metropolitan area? How about for all the major coastal cities in the US? How does that cost compare to improving energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels?â
My response- Mike, all the areas you mention need to be protected from bad weather regardless of whether humans emitted CO2 or not. The issue is that sometimes people are shortsighted and do not build the infrastructure to protect their investments or build on property that looks pretty when all is well, but is highly susceptible to damage from storms. Should others have to pay for those peopleâs poor choices?
If this post goes through I will get back to discuss OA
All our human emissions are projected by models to change world's oceans by about 0.3 pH units over next 90 years, & that's referred to as "catastrophic", yet we now know that fish & some calcifying critters adapt naturally to changes far larger than that every year, sometimes in just a month, and in extreme cases, in just a day'
What makes Mike so sure that the .3 ph rise over 90 years would be a problem?
Pokerplyer, the difference in average annual temperature between Marseille (France) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands) is less than 5 degrees. Much less than the temperature swings these two places can experience on a daily basis (monthly high and low easily differ by 10 degrees or more during several months). The Netherlands is likely to see a 3-4 degree increase in temperature over the next 90 years on a business as usual scenario.
Compare the flora and fauna between these two places and then reconsider your comment in #348.
Marco
I do not think the comparison to temperatures and ocean ph levels is a good one in your example. The argument has been that the average ph change of .3 ph units over 90 years will be harmful. It turns out that the ph level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis. Therefore, it would not appear that the average amount of change over the long term would be harmful.
Pokerplyer clearly cannot understand the argument that Marco has put to him! It's as simple as that.
> Should others have to pay for those peopleâs poor choices?
Apparently not.
But when asked:
Should others have to pay for those GHG emitters' poor choices?
Apparently so.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
By golly I think he's cracked it. Based on pokerplyer's expose of the flaws in the science on the impacts of ocean acidification, it follows that since where I live the temperature fluctuates by more than 10deg C every day, and that since I and everyone else survives it easily, the 4degC rise in global mean temperatures predicted by all those climate "scientists" is nothing to worry about. And even if pokerplyer is wrong, well it's some some plankton and shit that'll die, and maybe some parts of the GBR won't be worth the trip, but the tourism industry will adapt, so who cares. And who the hell are The Puget Sound anyway?
Simple is as simple does.
> The argument has been that the average ph change of .3 ph units over 90 years will be harmful. It turns out that the ph level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis.
You really haven't thought this through, have you?
My speed when driving varies by 110 km/h. How can an average change of a mere 30 km/h be harmful? After all, the stopping distance and kinetic energy are ... er, proportional to the square of my speed, so ... er ... my
chances of avoiding - let alone surviving - an accident at 110 km/h ... er ... compared to 140 km/h ... er ... er ...
Or try this. The interest rates bond holders demand from (say) various European governments vary by a few percent on a quasi-regular basis, so what's an extra percent or so between friends? That must mean that once it hits about 7 percent ... er ... crap.
Or this. You have a margin account at a stockbroker, and you trade short. Your outstanding borrowings from the broker regularly range from 50 to 96% of your margin limit, so a small increase of 6% due to a market crash can't possibly ... oh, crap, margin call ...
Your argument that some marine life "...adapt[s] naturally to changes far larger than that every year..." is deeply misguided; the annual cycle is *not* **adapting** to changes in the **average**; they're adapted **to** a given **range**. When you move the entire range, *then* they have to adapt - and a bunch of them won't do well when they try (especially when combined with changing ocean temperatures). And if some key species don't do well, they can cause entire sections of the ecosystem that depend on them to collapse.
And it's worse in non-linear systems - which you *should* be very familiar with from *both* your engineering and finance perspectives. You don't seem to understand that ecosystems (and pH scales) are both highly non-linear.
On a meta level, perhaps it would be prudent to reassess your personal belief that your personal analyses based on very limited expertise in these fields and running contra to expert analysis is correct - especially if you're intending to bet on it?
Oh, and the latest response to Trent by pokerplyer at SciAm is classic. Posted in full apart from the address to Trent, so that it may be correctly savoured:
> You try to claim that sea level is rising at an alarming rate and ignore the 20 year trend of good measurements and reference data drawn based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. You must realize how inaccurate that information is don't you?
(What, the US Atlantic is "the globe" now? My denialist bingo card is starting to fill up.)
> Now I don't have any idea what youthink I am lying about, since I take being truthful as extermely important. I am guessing it was my comment about being "banned" from that other site, when I was really only temporarily prevented from posting comments there. It is really interesting about the tone of the comments there. A very high degree of ranting and very little substance. I rather assumed that you run the site.
Methinks pokerplyer has a little problem with *recognising substance*.
pokerplyer @ 348
I would not assume that pp knows that [pH is a log scale](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_4.html). He shows no knowledge of any other science. His talking points are just echoes of denier blogs.
Lotharsson @ 352
You nailed it.
> I cheerfully leave this masterpiece of almost Girmaesque WFT selective detrending...
Hah - [you called it](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…)!
They often 'adapt' by not growing. How's that going to work on a permanent basis?
Porkyplyer needs to buy a clue.
>Let's see if this post goes through on a timely basis.
Right where you post there's this:
>Post a Comment
>(Email is required for authentication purposes only. On some blogs, comments are moderated for spam, so your comment may not appear immediately.)
Deltoid posts are held for moderation when excessive links and/or keywors are used. I have posts held often: I don't assume that I'm temporarily or permanently banned.
>Do you believe that sea levels are rising solely due to AGW?
Of course not. But unlike you, we have read the literature and have some understanding of attribution of causes of sea level rise. We accept that global warming is mostlly responsible for sea level rise.
What is your understanding of attribution of causes of SLR?
>The rate of sea level rise over the last 20 years is roughly 1 foot per century. This rate is not a problem.
No, it's simply a problem over longer time-scales.
And you completely avoid the fact that the rate of sea level rise will increase greatly in the future. Or are all 'aerospace engineer[ing]' processes in your world linear?
>Over a long term basis, since [sic] sea levels are near their all time low levels they are likely to rise.
What, like London and Sydney are near their "all time" [sic] proximities and are likely to drift closer?
Seriously, [what constitutes "low" in "aerospace" engineering terms](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Sea_level_temp_140ky…)?!
>Local communities need to prepare since [sic] nothing related to CO2 emissions will lessen the long term trend.
Except that if we stopped emitting today we'd save metres of sea level rise for future generations.
Unless of course you subscribe to the notion that humans have already tipped the mean global temperature toward a future maximum possible value.
>My response- It is not my responsibility to protect property built in areas likely to be damaged by being built in areas highly susceptible to damage by natural disasters.
No, but it is your responsibility to ensure that you don't alter and/or increase in extent the "areas [that will become] highly susceptible to damage by natural disasters"
You are not responsible for the neighbour's tree that grows over your neighbour's house. You are responsible for ensuring that your tree does not grow over his house.
>They should probably build sea walls to protect the property built in an unsafe area or have very expensive insurance since the property is likely to be damaged by a storm.
And who's going to pay for the increase in requirements for sea walls and insurance? The victims of the storms or (where the two do not coincide) the people whose emissions caused the increase in storms?
>Mike G asks: âAre you going to relocate 5.5 million people and have them abandon their property- some of the most valuable in the country?â
>My response- No that is their problem to deal with.
Why, if it's not their fault?
>If the property is in an area likely to be damaged by storms it will have high insurance costs and the property values will fall as a result. People make choices where to live and deal with the consequences.
But what if the property is not presently in an area likely to be damaged by storms?
>Supply and demand is a system that works.
Then sell me a fillet of dodo, please.
>My response- Mike, all the areas you mention need to be protected from bad weather regardless of whether humans emitted CO2 or not. The issue is that sometimes people are shortsighted and do not build the infrastructure to protect their investments or build on property that looks pretty when all is well, but is highly susceptible to damage from storms. Should others have to pay for those peopleâs poor choices?
You're confabulating weather with climate again.
It would seem that the standard for entry into "aeropsace enginneering" is not an onerous one to fulfill.
>If this post goes through I will get back to discuss OA
You'd better do a lot of homework first. I highly recommend the Skeptical Science series.
>The argument has been that the average ph change of .3 [sic] ph [sic] units [sic] over 90 years will be harmful. It turns out that the ph [sic] level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis.
Not in all parts of the ocean.
And a 0.3 unit change in pH represents a doubling/halving of acidity. For many marine organisms that is a seriously huge ecophysiological challenge. And yet you say that "the ph [sic] level varies by a much higher amount than that on a regular basis"?
This would be extraordinary news to marine ecologists: please, please reference this claim. Consider that a:
As an "aerospace engineer" you make a lousy marine ecophysiological chemist. Reread Lotharsson's explanations of press versus pulse exposure is you don't yet have a clue.
pokerplyer:
Where do you get this unmitigated garbage from? (refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial\_Sea\_Level.png) It's becoming clear that you don't care if you spout garbage.
The magic sea-pixies told him! That link included a redundant bracket - this would work better.
Dang.
>What, like London and Sydney are near their "all time" [sic] proximities and are likely to drift closer further away [from each other]?
[Chris](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
Porkyplyer's outright untruth is all the more egregious for the fact that it's not just since the last glacial maximum that the current sea level is notable. If one considers [the link](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Sea_level_temp_140ky…) in [my earlier post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…) it's clear to sea that sea level is presently almost as high as it has ever been over most of the last one million years, and that a business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions scenario will soon push sea level to the highest that it's been in at least that period.
That's a definition of "low" that I've not encountered before. Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to be an "aerospace engineeer"...
Humour aside, Porkyplyer is probably trying to use sea levels over geological time spanning the age of the Earth with which to make his claim.
This ludicrous cherry-picking raises two important points:
All that humans can do in a practical sense is to consider (and act on) the causes of global warming/sea level rise that they do have influence over, and to that end there is only one significant candidate cause - CO2 emissions.
I have already noted that pukerplyer is geographically challenged. Let us see if he can find Britain on this [map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Last_glacial_vegetation_map.png)
Perhaps sea level rise, [the movie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Jwnp-Z3yE) will help.
So...
...'sam' is 'selti' is Girma Orssengo.
This explains why the guy's statistical understanding is non-existent. His degree really is a shameful blight on the reputation of UNSW.
Wormtongue says at #85 on [the SciAm](http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=michael-mann-d…) thread that:
>AGW will die its deserved death in the coming five years with the expected global cooling.
and that:
>On the other hand, if the 1998 record is exceeded in the next five years, I will join the AGW believer camp.
I have a better suggestion. Whenever in the future the 1998 record is exceeded as defined by the GISS dataset, promise us that you will explicitly acknowledge that your PhD is undeserved and hand it back to UNSW.
You don't deserve to just "join the AGW believer camp", because your extensive pseudoscientific anti-physics, statistically-bogus propaganda campaign is being used to garner public support to delay urgent action to reduce carbon emissions. Your Randian cornucopia delusion is bringing great harm to the planet, and your starry-eyed egocentric self-indulgence is endangering the security of future generations and of the planet's biodiversity.
I truly believe that you don't deserve the degree that you wangled from UNSW, and that you in fact owe the whole planet more than just the return of your degree to the university.
For anyone not familiar with Girma Orssengo's Randian, delusional world, enter his name into the search field at the top of the page and be prepared to weep at the extent of his idiocy.
> Supply and demand is a system that works.
Category error. (And after you remedy that, you'll still need to define "works".)
"Supply and demand" are two *forces* that may act upon or within a system, but they do not *constitute* a system - for that you need at least *something* that responds to those forces in some way that contributes to the system "working".
It's like saying that "gravity and air pressure is a system that works (to fly)". Nope. But add an aerofoil with some control surfaces and perhaps a controlled propulsion system and a few other bits and pieces and you might have one that "works (to fly)" in a reasonably controlled fashion under a certain range of conditions.
But you still won't get dodo fillet, and that system still won't fly to the moon. Understanding the limits of effectiveness of any system (and the tradeoffs that apply even within that range of effectiveness) is a *key* engineering skill, and you should consider applying it to the matters at hand.
Nice to see pokerplyer not getting my analogy at all...
Also nice to see others calling him on it, but I don't expect him to understand.
I also guess pokerplyer throws all his trash on the neighbours lawn and then blames the neighbours. Shouldn't have lived right next to him...
> Nice to see pokerplyer not getting my analogy at all...
It was pretty straightforward, with a very strong correspondence to the problem of ocean acidification. I'm sure most high school students would get it.
> I also guess pokerplyer throws all his trash on the neighbours lawn and then blames the neighbours. Shouldn't have lived right next to him...
Worse still: he throws his trash on the lawns of people all over the city over including those who aren't even aware of his existence...and then blames them for not building high enough walls to keep his trash out.
[Lotharsson](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
I think that my allusion may have been a little obscure...
When dodos were in supply and Dutch sailors were eyeing them off as a food source, there was no feedback to control the sailors' demand. They simply scoffed them (along with red rails and other species), permitted to be introduced to Mauritius the species that they carted around with them on their ships, and bugger the notion of sustainability.
Ivory becomes more valuable the more that humans reduce elephant numbers. Same with rhinos and their horns. Again, there is a disconnect with "supply and demand" as a sustaining mechanism.
As you say:
>"Supply and demand" are two forces that may act upon or within a system, but they do not constitute a system.
The world is replete with examples that demonstrate that "supply and demand" in and of themselves do not constitute a functioning and balanced system. Anyone who tosses that meme around to justify an exploitative enterprise is trying to sell a bridge, or is having a fiddle with themselves, or both.
Which rather describes Porkyplyer, actually...
Hmmm. When I saw comment 327 I did wonder ... could it be ... and sure enough ...
I made this bet with GO at Deltoid in Sep 2009.
with a 2nd bet taking us to 2030.
I'm a bit concerned that HADCRUT3 might soon be replaced by HADCRUT4, but we agreed on "HADCRUT", didn't we? All the same, I won't take the easy option: will there be a means of estimating what HADCRUT3 would have been once HADCRUT4 takes over?
There is not a problem with increased CO2 in the water, leading to acidification There are 4 primary factors:
⢠First, laboratory work shows there is no basis to predict the demise of ocean shelled plants and animals. The animals above them in the food chain will still find food. The science actually indicates plants, crustaceans, and shelled algae plankton will be more successful. Since they are at or near the bottom of the food chain, this is good news.
⢠Second, the Earth has been this route before. The oceans have been far warmer and far colder and more acidic (2-20X) than is projected. The memory of these events is built into the genes of all species. Virtually all ecological niches have been filled at all times. If someone could demonstrate that there were no corals, clams, oysters, or shelled of CO2, we would be concerned. The opposite is true.
⢠Third, observational data in studies properly controlled for other variables (e.g., upwelling, rainfall, pollution, temperature, disease) show no harm. IPCC concluded (prior to the Iglesias-Rodriguez paper (positive impact)) that there is no observational evidence of oceanic changes due to acidification. There is also nothing conclusive in the recent research to indicate any reason for concern.
⢠Lastly, natural changes are greater and faster than those projected. Major warming, cooling, and pH changes in the oceans are a fact of life. Whether over a few years as in an El Niño, over decades as in the Pacific Oscillation, or over a few hours as a burst of upwelling appears or a storm brings acidic rainwater to an estuary. Despite severe and rapid changes that far exceed those in the scenarios, the biology adapts rapidly. The 0.1 change in ocean alkalinity since 1750 and the one degree F. rise since 1860 are but noise in this rapidly changing system. In the face of all these natural changes, whether over days or millennia, some species flourish while others diminish.
⢠Conclusion. The crustaceans responding favorably in research by Ries et al. (crabs, lobsters, and shrimp) are probably similar to those at the base of the ocean food chain such as krill and copepods. Since they eat algae, which also responds favorably to CO2 increases (and warmer temperatures), it is likely there will be increased food in the sea. With no laboratory or observational evidence of biological disruption, we see no economic disruption of commercial and recreational fisheries, nor harm to marine mammals, sea turtles or any other protected species. Open-minded research is needed to sort it out.
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/TestimonyInde…
It is unfortunate when your fear turn out to be unfounded
Is anyone here claiming that humanity has suffered a ânet harmâ by the emission of CO2 to date? Lotharsson- people around the world have clearly benefitted because humanity emitted CO2. It is only in your and a few others views that the US owes a debt to some other country because of it CO2 emissions.
Please- try to make a case for even one significant country where you think the US owes a debt. In virtually every instance, countries have not educated their population and built the proper infrastructure to protect their citizens and develop their societies. That was not due to the US, but due to their failure to prepare. Had they built infrastructure, far fewer people there would be getting harmed by severe weather events. This will continue to be true in the future. Even if you are correct, and cAGW occurs, these societies will be damaged because they didnât build infrastructure in the past, and they are unlikely to do so in the near future. Sorry, not my or the US problem to fix.
As for Australia- it is the laws passed to control emissions there are a joke. It may be a good way to raise revenue for the government, but it is doing nothing to impact the worldâs climate.
> Is anyone here claiming that humanity has suffered a ânet harmâ by the emission of CO2 to date?
Why are you asking? Can't you read?
> people around the world have clearly benefitted because humanity emitted CO2.
So clearly you can't find such an accounting...
Really. HOW have people benefitted by human emission of CO2???
> try to make a case for even one significant country where you think the US owes a debt
India: Bhopal.
The Entire Middle East: WW1 and post WW2 activities
> That was not due to the US, but due to their failure to prepare
So the Maldives ought to have bought some rocks and built up their islands so that they can withstand sea level rises???
Wow--How have people benefitted from the emission of CO2 to date? Do you really need a few of these things pointed out to you?
Food production, distribution and preservation would not have been possible to support the worldâs population without CO2 having been emitted. All the benefits of electricity that society benefitted form would not have been possible without emissions. The list of net benefits is long and obvious.
WOWâI notice you have not made a case for any major country to be owed a debt by the US due to AGW. Do you believe that sea level would stay where it is, near its historic low levels over the last 500 M years if it was not for the human impact? That is sure a leap of faith unsupported by history and science.
To summarize pokerplyer's 'arguments':
1. Climate models are wrong and global warming is a scam!
2. Because I say I am an "aerospace engineer"!
3. I mean, I'm a "mechanical engineering undergrad" with a "master in economics and finance"!
4. And, even if climate models are right, global warming may not be catastrophic!
5. And even if global warming may be catastrophic, climate legislation will not help!
6. And even if climate legislation will help, I refuse to support it, because it's the poor nations' fault that they can't handle climate change!
7. I demand that you accept this bet on future weather conditions set by me!
8. However, I refuse to accept any bets on future weather conditions set by you!
9. Did I say I'm an "aerospace engineer"?
-- frank
> Food production
Food isn't grown from CO2 production.
> distribution
Nope, that was transport. And the famines we have are not because we can't grow the food but because we can't distribute it.
> and preservation
Nope, not CO2 either. You don't use dry ice to preserve food.
> All the benefits of electricity
Electricity isn't CO2.
I notice you seem to believe that CO2 is some sort of miracle pixie dust, the sole cause of all goodness. I'm afraid we don't USE CO2 production for these things. CO2 is a waste product of transport and 19th-century technology for energy production. But they're not the cause of them.
> Because I say I am an "aerospace engineer"!
Wasn't there a banned denialidiot Tim something or other who proclaimed that he knew all about models because he was an aerospace engineer? And he was equally idiotic about things too.
Is he back with a num-de-plum?
Wow,
But... but... but... pokerplyer is an AEROSPACE ENJINIR!!!!!!!111111
Since an aerospace engineer is a kind of scientist, and clearly all scientists are infallible gods, except when they aren't, therefore, well, therefore.
-- frank
Wow,
> Is he back with a num-de-plum?
Well, if so, then Tim just needs to ban the loser again.
-- frank
Interesting how some of the foolish posters here respond.
Frank wrote
1.Climate models are wrong and global warming is a scam!
My response- No, I wrote that general circulation models were not designed for government policy making and have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for being used for that purpose. I never wrote global warming is a scam. Why do you lie?
2.And, even if climate models are right, global warming may not be catastrophic!
My response- That is a correct statement. A warmer world will benefit humanity in many ways. There is no reliable evidence that it is actually harmful to humanity overall, or for the US specifically overall.
3.And even if global warming may be catastrophic, climate legislation will not help!
My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that. Do people at this site frequently lie about the comments of others?
4.And even if climate legislation will help, I refuse to support it, because it's the poor nations' fault that they can't handle climate change!
My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that. Do people at this site frequently lie about the comments of others or is it just Frank?
So WOW, are you so stupid as to not to be able to understand that without the emissions of CO2 that the things I wrote previously would not have been possible?
You can't really be that dense can you?
So transport will not work unless it emits CO2???? You can't preserve food unless it's with CO2!?! You can't grow food unless without producing extra CO2!!!
Wow, are YOU dumb!
wow, would you care to explain how in "wow's world" farmers would have powered their tractors, fertilized their crops, distributed their products, etc. if CO2 had not been emitted over the last 50 years?
"if CO2 had not been emitted over the last 50 years?"
Sorry, do you believe that tractors run on CO2?
> No, I wrote that general circulation models were not designed for government policy making
This is true. Then again, there's almost nothing that's designed for government policy making. They can all be used for it, however, since we have humans making the decisions and they are adaptable at using information to reach conclusions, even if that information was produced for another reason.
> and have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for being used for that purpose.
Care to prove that? Because your blank assertion appears 100% wrong.
I believe that you are either too stupid to have a reasonable exchange with, or are just acting that way.
Hmmm. So you're not able to admit that you think tractors run on CO2, but you want to pretend they do.
After your prior nonsense comments, you want me to give you links to articles about GCMs? Try looking up the outputs of the fourth version of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4). If you get to the point of exchanging something meaningful, I would try to educate you on GCM's
> After your prior nonsense comments, you want me to give you links to articles about GCMs?
No. I already know about GCMs.
I'm wanting some evidence that GCMs "have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for being used for that purpose".
wow-why don't you start with explaining how humans would have generated power over the last 100 years if CO2 had not been released before you try more complex concepts.
pokerplyer is such a caricature of a dimwitted sociopathic libertarian that you almost have to wonder if he's real. In any case, you're wasting your time engaging him, especially on his intellectually bankrupt argument that there has been a "net benefit" over the initial period of processes that have their greatest costs past the initial period (like, say, spending all your capital, or living off of dodo fillets).
ianam- Are you of the opinion that humans releasing CO2 has been a net harm to our society up to this point in history? I am tryinng to understand your rant. It becomes difficult when you use descriptions such as dimwitted sociopathic libertarian.
I may be dimwitted, probably not sociopathic, but do generally perfer people to have power vs. government. Is that bad in your view, or do you believe a larger government is necessarily better?
By calling him dimwitted I was being generous, it seems. Nothing more to be said about him.
It is unfortunate that some people like ianam are incapable of having a meaningful exchange of views.
Dimwitted, would be to ignore the benefits that have resulted from the emission of CO2 up to this point in human history.
pokerplyer: I think part of the point ianam was making is that you are like the man who, as he fell past the 34th floor of the Empire State Building, was heard to call out 'So far, so good.'
Continuing on the theme of "good riddance" that pokerplyer brings to mind (if only he would leave, sigh), Keith Kloor tosses in the towel on blogging for free. Sort of.
Good riddance.
I'm telling you, Richard, you're wasting your time trying to explain anything to the sort of imbecile who would talk about the "net" benefit "to this point" of saving the money that might have been spent on fumigating a termite ridden building.
Please reread the comments from Richard Simons, dhogaza, ianam, Frank, and wow, and point out anything written that makes any sense about their concern over the release of CO2.
Nothing that they have written addressed any relevant issue or point.
I have correctly pointed out that sea level is not rising at an alarming rate and it is rising much slower than was predicted by those who claimed AGW would be a problem. There is no evidence that the rate is accelerating. Yes, it is possible that it could accelerate in the future, but there is no reliable data to point to that as probable.
I have also pointed out that CO2 released to date has had a beneficial impact on society. I did this to demonstrate that nations such as India are not owed anything from other countries because other countries have emitted CO2 historically. Not a single coherent comment refuted this simple point. Nobody provided a rationale argument as to why any significant nation would be owed something by the US due to AGW.
I have also pointed out that the key to preparation for the future climate is the prudent planning for, and construction of; proper infrastructure. It is the responsibility of individual nations to do this to protect their citizens. It is not the duty of US citizens to pay higher taxes to help build infrastructure in Pakistan. People are generally harmed by bad weather when infrastructure is not constructed of maintained. If India (as an example) does not build proper infrastructure, its citizens will be harmed by weather regardless of whether AGW is real or not. Once again no coherent response.
Good ol' KK - he won't be missed. Mainly due to the fact he was never known outside of some elements of the blogosphere for which there aren't enough zeros after the decimal point to accurately guage public impact.
Though you do have to admire the barefaced bravado of his underlying assumption that the 'public debate' on climate science just 'happened', rather than being fed, nurtured and distorted by hundreds of thousands of industrial think-tank man-hours poured into mis- and dis-information.
Good riddance, indeed.
So where's your "coherent response" to bill, Lotharsson, marco, Richard Simmons, Bernard J and others who blow your "oceanic pH levels dropping by 0.3 units is trivial" argument out of the water? Time to stump up with your "evidence" or admit you are talking out of your ar$e.
steveC
I am very willing to have an exchange on the topic of âocean acidificationâ, I think only bernard posted a reasonable response. I did not respond, because I only noticed his comment later as is was missed due to reading all the other stupid comments that didnât address any factual points. Tomorrow, if someone is here who wishes a meaningful exchange on the issue we can do that.
BTW- I am not writing that humans are not damaging the oceans. I just do not think the greatest harm is atmospheric CO2.
Pontifical nonsense from the latest Dunning-Kruger poster boy who cannot distinguish weather from climate, and holds blinkered selfishness to be the supreme human virtue.
It is you who has not demonstrated that he has even managed to comprehend the most basic of arguments, you who cannot distinguish between a trend and noisy fluctuations, you who has over-inflated your credentials - such as they are - like some ridiculous bedraggled little peacock and then backed down the moment you realised someone might be in a position to call you on them, you who believes that your dreary hubris somehow trumps the facts painstakingly assembled by those who actually possess qualifications and expertise in these fields, and you who, in the face of all evidence to the contrary assembled by those who actually know what they're talking about, simply re-asserts his original position regardless.
In short, you are the apotheosis of everything that is wrong with the entire Denier camp.
Oh, and your conception of foreign policy is a species of nationalist sociopathy, but, sadly, that's now so common in the US that it's barely noteworthy.
You, sir, are a joke.
porkieplyer:
Near "historic low" meaning a mere 400 feet above the actual low.
I gave you a link to information about it. I take it you did not read the material there.
You still refuse to acknowledge that, of major countries, Australia, the US and Canada are by far the largest producers on a per capita basis. Why should Indians, who each produce 1/10 of what you produce, have to pay for the damage you cause?
Are you still of the rather bizarre opinion that all the problems of increased CO2 and higher temperatures can be fixed by engineering massive structures? Do you really believe that events such as severe heatwaves in the Moscow area and the southern US can be ameliorated by air conditioning? In your society, does no-one ever go outside or try to grow crops?
> I wrote that general circulation models ... have insufficient accuracy to be suitable for [government policy making].
And then people explained that you were wrong for various reasons, and yet you reassert your claim as if you think it is still correct. You don't seem to be at all interested in conforming your opinions to the evidence.
> There is no reliable evidence that [a warmer world] is actually harmful to humanity overall, or for the US specifically overall.
Similarly, this line of argument was also refuted, and yet you reassert it. Why, it's almost like you have a preconception that you wish to defend regardless of the evidence!
> Are you of the opinion that humans releasing CO2 has been a net harm to our society up to this point in history?
Are you of the opinion that **that's the right question**?
Seriously!?
Would you assert that a loss of power to a jet plane at 10,000ft over the middle of the ocean is no problem because the altitude loss thus far has only been 5000ft? (Or see Richard Simons' trenchant [comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).)
Are you *actually* utterly clueless, or would you rather look stupid and tell yourself no-one will notice, than change your opinions to be consistent with the evidence?
> I am very willing to have an exchange on the topic of âocean acidificationâ, ...
Evidence to date indicates otherwise. You've been willing to *make assertions* but not address refutations of the same.
> I am not writing that humans are not damaging the oceans. I just do not think the greatest harm is atmospheric CO2.
And that's supposed to justify your position?
I wouldn't think the greatest harm to my car is from driving over a bunch of inverted nails if someone puts sugar in the fuel tank and punctures the radiator at the same time.
But I'm sure as hell not going to drive over the inverted nails.
> I have correctly pointed out that sea level is not rising at an alarming rate...
And it has been pointed out to you that the *alarm* is about where it's heading, based on reasonable physical models (and significant uncertainty on the *upside*), so your claim *fails to address the basis for concern*.
It's like saying you're not concerned that your car has lost its brakes because it's only doing 30km/h...when you've just started down a very long and steep hill.
> ... and it is rising much slower than was predicted by those who claimed AGW would be a problem.
I don't recall seeing you demonstrating that, but last time I looked (a) sea levels were rising at something like rates around the top end of the previously predicted range, and (b) ice sheet melt dynamics were pointing to *much* faster melt rates under circumstances that are likely to occur more frequently in the future.
> I have also pointed out that the key to preparation for the future climate is the prudent planning for, and construction of; proper infrastructure. It is the responsibility of individual nations to do this to protect their citizens.
Yes, you "pointed this out" but specifically failed to point out the link between emissions and the *changes in future climate* that drive incremental costs in that "prudent planning". In fact, you did your level best to imply that such a link does not exist in this context.
And you completely and utterly ignored the massive costs or complete inability to "prudently plan for" some of the potential outcomes for which "proper infrastructure" is difficult to even imagine, let alone figure out how to pay for.
Your opinion that "she'll be right, mate" is based on asserting that a significant body of evidence simply does not exist, or is "too uncertain to count" - the latter being an incoherent illogical claim, no matter how often you assert otherwise.
> Nothing that they have written addressed any relevant issue or point.
Good grief! That takes the cake!
Dunning & Kruger are calling and they're asking for you.
pokerply at 368
This is not how anyone with a scrap of ethics would see the issue.
So pp - should those children be compensated? After all their mothers benefited from the treatment of their morning sickness.
We could also discuss asbestos, tobacco etc.
We could also discuss how many of the poorer nations were free to develop their infrastructure during the period of the industrial revolution. Almost all of them were colonies of the West up until very recently. They were exploited for cheap labor and resources .
India is a case in point. Under British rule its standard of living actually fell. India was displaced as the premier supplier of cotton goods by acts of the British Parliament which banned the import of Indian cotton goods.
Not much has changed - a fair chunk of CO2 emissions in the third world is for manufacture of goods for Western consumers.
I do not expect pp to know much more about history than he knows about anything else - which is not much.
In any event the argument is a side issue at best. pp only raises it because he believes that it will appeal to bigots in the denialati.
In a few years when the scale of the AGW problem smacks the population in the West between the eyes, the wealthy nations will be falling over themselves to fund the end of fossil fuel burning, deforestation etc. in the less developed world.
The other fallacy in pp's argument is the implication that infrastructure is only an issue for the third world.
Even [Fox News](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/07/billion-dollar-weather-disasters-s…) was unable to ignore it.
PP,
You obviously either didn't look up "light enhanced calcification" as I suggested or you didn't understand what you found. You continue to suggest that the diurnal cycle of pH changes is physiologically insignificant for calcifiers when it's well demonstrated that it does have significant effects. As Richard Simons pointed out, corals "adapt" to these changes by growing a lot less at night when pH drops.
So what makes me so sure the projected acidification is a problem?... several lines of evidence.
1. Geologic history- The oceans have acidified before in times of high CO2. These generally were not good times for reef builders. Modern corals essentially disappeared for about 15 million years and nearly went extinct at one point.
2. Growth experiments- They show pretty consistently that the impacts of reducing pH are strongly negative for a broad range of calcifiers including corals. The organisms that aren't negatively affected tend to be those that calcify internally or are fertilized by bicarbonate. Shifting the species contribution in a community either by fertilizing one group or inhibiting the growth of another tends to have a destabilizing effect- both cases are usually bad.
3. Field measurements- Growth rates of massive corals in Australia, Bermuda, and Belize have all been documented to be declining in recent decades. There are lots of possible factors that could be influencing this change, but it is consistent with what's expected due to acidification.
4. Chemistry and Biochemistry- The current understanding of the biochemical mechanism of calcification in corals tells us that reducing the pH should make calcification less favorable.
5. 10 years of personal frustration trying to grow corals in an aquarium with a pH of 7.8- The CO2 concentration inside a modern house is enough to drive the pH of an aquarium down into the upper 7 range. For 10 years I've been unable to get a pH above 7.8 in mine. As long as I maintain high carbonate alkalinity, that's not a problem. However, as soon as I let the alkalinity drop, growth of my corals stops. Unfortunately the oceans don't have someone to maintain alkalinity for them like I do in my tanks.
Some more aquatic ecosystem impacts for pokerplyer to ponder:
["CO2 sends fishes' nerves haywire"](http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/carbon-dioxide-sends-f…)
> "We've now established it isn't simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption, as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons, but the actual dissolved carbon dioxide itself is damaging the fishes' central nervous systems,"...
Pokerplyer, if you live in a place with a lot of rain, I sincerely wish you will get a neighbour who installs a very efficient drainage system in, on and around his house, with all the drained water going directly onto your property. Surely he can't be blamed, by your own argumentation, for causing you extra expenses to get rid of that extra water. You should just have installed better infrastructure to start out with. Right?
> ... [sea level] is rising much slower than was predicted ...
Really? It seems to be rising [at the top end of the IPCC TAR predictions](http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm) from ten years ago; the rate is accelerating, and subsequent research points out good reasons to worry about potentially large uncertainty on the upside as time goes on.
John McLean has apparently turned up in comments at [The Reckoning](http://hot-topic.co.nz/mcleans-folly-2-the-reckoning) thread to complain how "churlish" he finds the article and indicate that "Shortly Iâll be posting an extended comment about what happened in 2011". Should be fascinating ;-)
> why don't you start with explaining how humans would have generated power over the last 100 years if CO2 had not been released
Why don't you explain how the waste product of a process is a benefit to people using the process?
[Lotharsson](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php#co…).
Perhaps you could ask [McLean](http://hot-topic.co.nz/mcleans-folly-2-the-reckoning/#comment-28526) what satellite data has to do with the global temperature in 1956...
>At least it did prompt me to investigate whether the UAH MSU data for December was now available.
Irrelevant. A distraction so that you can avoid questions of science asked above.
We no longer build houses of asbestos and paint them with lead paint because we now know it is dangerous.
We now know that burning fossil fuels is dangerous to humanity's health.
The evidence is clear to anyone who cares to look.
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
As Einstein said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result"
> Irrelevant. A distraction so that you can avoid questions of science asked above.
It's also irrelevant to the idea that people have benefitted from the release of CO2.
> Perhaps you could ask McLean what satellite data has to do with the global temperature in 1956...
'twas wondering myself...
Bill-writes a comment with zero substance
Chris Oâneil writes- âNear "historic low" meaning a mere 400 feet above the actual low.â Chris- to be fair you might have been writing about some specific place where that occurred, but you would be completely wrong if writing about sea levels overall. Sea level does fluctuate more on a local basis that it does globally.
Since links get delayed here I wonât post one, but look up the Exxon âVail sea level curve. It will demonstrate that sea level globally was NOT 400 feet higher than today and that it is near the historic lows. The main and undisputable point I am making is that regardless of human actions the trend is for sea levels to rise. Yes it is possible that human caused warming will increase the rate of rise, but there is no reliable evidence that it is happening. The best data is the satilette records and they show a very modest 1 foot per century. The alarmist models that predicted a higher rate of rise have been demonstrated to be wrong
Richard Simons wrote- âYou still refuse to acknowledge that, of major countries, Australia, the US and Canada are by far the largest producers on a per capita basis. Why should Indians, who each produce 1/10 of what you produce, have to pay for the damage you cause?â
My response- Your argument is based on the idea that India is damaged due to more CO2 and we have nothing to tell us that is true at all much less what the so called damage might be. Also, per capita emissions standards are only one measure. Should India get some special aid due to having an unsupportable population growth? I donât think they should.
Richard the damage to both people and property due to the annual bad weather in India is overwhelmingly caused by the fact that they have never built the infrastructure necessary to prepare for and protect their citizens and property from bad weather. Have you ever been to India? I was there recently and the new airport got flooded when it rained. This was completely due to poor planning. If India built proper storm drainage systems and flood retention facilities there would not be the damage they currently see from their annual storms. The fact that they fail in this is not a problem for outside nations to pay to address. It really doesnât get fixed today largely due to the massive corruption in the culture. In summary, IF the climate changes in India due to AGW and becomes either somewhat drier or wetter the local population will continue to be harmed unless their government builds the proper infrastructure to prepare. The cost of infrastructure that prepares for AGW is very little different from infrastructure that doesnât prepare. Not building it or doing it badly leads to humans suffering harms.
Richard, proper planning absolutely does lessen the harms that come about due to bad weather and it generally is not massive structures. In Texas, (where I happen to have a home) it was a dry summer. The issue would have been much less severe if Texans had done a better job of making the water retention areas deeper to store more water. Every summer in Texas, people complain that the local manmade lakes get warm and algae grow due to the shallow depth. It was not considered a âproblemâ because the area averages 31 inches a year of rain. In a year when TX gets 2o inches it becomes an issue.
Moscow had a hot summer. It was not caused by AGW. Yes, the harms of a hot summer would have been much less if they had prepared for that potential.
pokerplyer:
> In summary, IF the climate changes in India due to AGW and becomes either somewhat drier or wetter the local population will continue to be harmed unless their government builds the proper infrastructure to prepare.
But I thought you said,
> > [pokerplyer's 'argues' that] even if climate legislation will help [to mitigate climate change], I refuse to support it, because it's the poor nations' fault that they can't handle climate change!
> My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that.
So why are you arguing precisely that? The liar is you, and your pants are on fire.
And porky "I am an aerospace engineer" plyer, what can you actually tell us about aerospace engineering other than the fact that you're an aerospace engineer?
You do know that you're telling porkies, don't you?
-- frank
porkieplyer:
You are totally, utterly wrong.
Why are you so sure of this? If you check out what climatologists think, you will find that they generally believe AGW to be a contributory factor.
How? How do you prepare for it being so hot that your crops do not pollinate, in an area where it is not usually suitable for more heat-tolerant crops? How do you adapt if it is even too hot for the heat-tolerant crops (as has happened in SE Asia). In Texas, how do you fill the reservoirs (even very deep ones) if there is not enough rain or if the rivers are used by other people before they get to you (eg Colorado River and Mexico).
Pokerplyer, you are so wrong about sea level it isn't even funny.
This chart from NASA shows the history of sea level since the LGM. Notice the legend on the left? 120 meters is 393 feet, dude.
Frank
You really are foolish in what you write. Try to stop being untruthful. Am I obligated or motivated to take some type of quiz from you? Btw I have used stochastic and turbulence modeling techniques, but I am unfamiliar with chaos modeling.
Regarding climate mitigation actions vs. adaptation actions, it all depends upon the merits of the specific action being considered. Most suggested mitigation actions fail this test of reasonableness. Does it make sense to implement an expensive action that will have a minimal impact? Maybe it does in Frankâs world, but it does not in mine.
Letâs review an example Frank
A recent NASA-GISS paper in Env. Sci. Tech., co-authored by James E. Hansen calls for the shutting down of all coal-fired power plants in the USA by 2030, in order to avoid the global warming caused by the emitted CO2.
What effect would this specific actionable step actually have on global warming?
The paper tells us that 1,994 billion kWh/year were generated from coal in 2009 and that the average CO2 emission is 1,000 tons CO2 per GWh generated.
So by 2030 Hansenâs plan would reduce CO2 emissions by roughly 2 GtCO2 per year.
Roughly half of this âstaysâ in the atmosphere (with the rest disappearing into the ocean, the biosphere or outer space) so the annual reduction after 2030 will be around 1 GtCO2/year and over the period from today to year 2100 the cumulative reduction would be 80.5 GtCO2.
The mass of the atmosphere is 5,140,000 Gt.
So the net reduction in atmospheric CO2 would be around 16 ppm(mass) or 10 ppmv.
If we assume (as IPCC does) that by year 2100 the atmospheric CO2 level (without Hansenâs plan) will be around 600 ppmv (âscenario B1â), this means that with Hansenâs plan it will be 590 ppmv.
Today we have 390 ppmv.
Using IPCCâs 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C we have:
Case 1 â no Hansen plan
600 ppmv CO2
ln(600/390) = 0.431
ln(2) = 0.693
dT (warming from today to 2100) = 3.2 * 0.431 / 0.693 = 1.99
Case 2 â Hansen plan implemented
590 ppmv CO2
ln(590/390) = 0.414
ln(2) = 0.693
dT (warming from today to 2100) = 3.2 * 0.414 / 0.693 = 1.91C
So Hansenâs plan will result in a total reduction of global temperature by year 2100 of 0.08C.
But what will this non-measurable reduction of global temperature cost?
The total, all-in capital cost investment to replace 1,994 billion kWh/year capacity with the least expensive alternate (current nuclear fission technology) is between $4,000 and $8,000 per installed kW (say $6,000 on average). [Note: If we replace it with wind or solar, it will cost several times this amount per generated kWh, due in part to the low on-line factor.]
1,994 billion kWh/year at a 90% on-line factor represents an installed capacity of:
1994 / 8760 * .9 = 0.251 billion kWh
This equals an investment cost of 0.251 * 6,000 = $1.5 trillion
Globally some 6,700 billion kWh/year are generated from coal (around 3.4 times as much as in the USA).
So shutting down all the worldâs coal-fired plants by 2030 would cost $5 trillion and result in 0.27C reduced warming by year 2100.
I think it is pretty obvious why Hansen and his co-authors do not run us through this cost/benefit analysis.
Rattus
You raise a valid point. I am looking at the long term data from the Exxon sea level curve had not looked at what was posted by Nasa. I have to admit that I am skeptical of information posted at the Nasa site since Hansen is behind what they post and my prior comment shows how alarmist and propaganda spreading he is. I will look into the source data for the Nasa curve. Look up the curve I referenced.
porkie plyer:
> You really are foolish in what you write. Try to stop being untruthful.
Projection much?
> Btw I have used stochastic and turbulence modeling techniques, but I am unfamiliar with chaos modeling.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! You're hilarious. Even as you claim to be an "aerospace engineer", our 'understanding' of aerospace engineering is obviously limited to repeating fancy words which you have heard on this thread.
Because if you had actually understood what "turbulence", "stochasticity", and "chaos" are, you wouldn't have written pig-headed comments such as this:
> Ask Mann why he can trust the output of GCMs that produce significantly different results when they are runs multiple times using the same data.
How about telling us something about aerospace engineering that you actually know? Oh wait, is that too hard for you, porkie teller?
* * *
> I think it is pretty obvious why Hansen and his co-authors do not run us through this cost/benefit analysis.
But didn't you say you're not making this particular argument?
> > [pokerplyer 'argues',] And even if global warming may be catastrophic, climate legislation will not help!
> My response- Actually just another lie since I never wrote that. Do people at this site frequently lie about the comments of others?
Again, the liar is you. Why can't you even own up to your own arguments? Is it because you know full well that you're telling lies?
-- frank
s/our understanding of aerospace/your understanding of aerospace/
I'll give pokerplyer this: it's not like the US, by taking an aggressive lead in reducing emissions, could use its clout (and renewed standing on this issue) to push other countries to do the same or anything...
Oh, wait...
Frank- Since you have demonstrated that you lie and canât have a reasonable exchange there seems to be no point in trying. Grow up and try to address real issues and facts. How many times do you believe each GCM was run to account for the variability you describe? Do 1 to 5 runs account for such variability? Does taking the results form only the 5th run make sense? Does averaging the results of completely different models make sense?
Do you think all mitigation actions make sense?
composer99- the path that you suggest that the US takes seems similar to the one Australia has taken. Pass taxes that will do nothing to impact the climate, but does raise revenue for the government. Seems like a bad plan to me. How is it working for Australia?
If there was a real desire for worldwide action kyoto would have had real limits established for all nations and an agreed upon process for verification. Lack of such a treaty leads to a strong motivation for inaccurate reporting of emissions and results in nations that cheat gaining benefits to their economy.
bill wrote a comment with plenty of substance, that you ignored completely. I also actually read the information at the link you'd posted, which must stand as proxy for what you think. There's no evidence that you have had the courtesy to do the reverse.
Mike G also wrote a comment with plenty of substance; you argued the toss - absurdly - about sea level, and ignored the whole pH/ocean-chemistry thing; then announced that virtually no-one had raised substantive issues. And yet you're still right, apparently!
Oh, and James Hansen is probably causing NASA to lie about sea levels! Did he get them to fake the moon landing, too?
It's very, very hard to believe you're acting in good faith in all this.
And I think we're all entitled to know - what kind of bean-counter/administrative position did you really have as an 'aerospace engineer'? Telling the truth is good for you, you know.
Finally, you really, really don't understand the point Marco was making. Climate/weather trend/noise - what's up with that? That's the reason you wanted to make that ridiculous bet that introduced us to you in the first place.
I mentioned above that pokerplyer is a science free dullard who simply echoes what he reads on denier web sites.
His post at 423 is largely a word for word cut and paste from commenter Rob Starkey's post on this article by Willis Eschenbach at WUWT. This same comment has been also posted at Curry's blog.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/13/how-much-would-you-buy/
The claim is that if the USA closed down its coal fired power stations by 2030 it would have marginal effect on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere - from 600ppm to 590ppm. I have not checked the calculations - but then no one at the denier blogs could be bothered either - for the obvious reason that if the US closes its coal fired powered stations by 2030 you can be absolutely certain that the rest of the world will too.
Pokerplyr cannot argue the science. So he combs denial web sites looking for "gotchas" which he thinks makes him look clever.
In reality he is a clueless cut and paster. How embarrassing.
pokerplyer writes, in the very first sentence of his reply,
> Frank- Since you have demonstrated that you lie
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! pokerplyer tries to divert attention away from his own porkies by claiming -- with zero evidence whatsoever -- that I somehow lie.
pokerplyer, the liar is you, and I think you know that full well. Go spread your "I am an aerospace engineer" lies somewhere else where people are more gullible.
* * *
And I must also point out this:
> No, I wrote that general circulation models were not designed for government policy making
So let's see. Pokerplyer is faced with the incontrovertible conclusion from climate models that we need to stop carbon emissions Real Soon Now.
What can he do to ignore this conclusion?
Why of course -- claim that the climate models don't fulfill some vague bullshit 'standard' that pokerplyer himself made up just a minute ago! Claim that climate models are inadequate "for government policy making", which can mean whatever pokerplyer wants it to mean.
Yet another hallmark of one who's well aware that he's a lying liar.
-- frank
> Sea level does fluctuate more on a local basis that it does globally.
And this is relevant to your position...how? (How much local variation do you think there is? And it will save Florida...how, precisely? Do you even realise that local variation can *increase* local sea level rises compared to global averages?)
> ...look up the Exxon âVail sea level curve...
That would be a non-peer-reviewed reconstruction over the last 500 MILLION years, right?
So, you're:
> ...skeptical of information posted at the Nasa site since Hansen is behind what they post...
(hey, ad hominem fallacy!)
...but **not skeptical** of non-peer reviewed claims? That might explain a fair swathe of your misconceptions, eh?
And you're an idiot if you think a reconstruction over 500 MILLION years of history is relevant or has the temporal resolution required to inform decisions about human civilisation related to sea levels, given that civilisation only arose over the last several thousand years.
> The alarmist models that predicted a higher rate of rise have been demonstrated to be wrong
Evidence fail - never mind that I posted counter-evidence earlier.
Apparently reiterating unsupported claims and pretending that evidence to the contrary simply does not exist is the best argument you have.
That should give you a hint to re-examine your argument because it may not be as justified as you like to think. But since you're not basing your argument on assessing the totality of evidence, I bet it won't...
> Your argument is based on the idea that India is damaged due to more CO2 and we have nothing to tell us that is true...
Of course, it's easy to tell yourself (and others) that "we have nothing" when you flat-out *deny* that we have something.
You don't even show any knowledge of a bunch of large negative impacts of climate change when you talk about damage being down to poorly planned infrastructure, and you imply that those other negative impacts simply do not exist. Every time you re-assert this argument, especially after others have given you some pointers to investigate, you reveal your determined ignorance.
For example, this is spectacularly wrong:
> The cost of infrastructure that prepares for AGW is very little different from infrastructure that doesnât prepare.
As others have pointed out, how do you prepare infrastructure to handle crops that **won't pollinate**, or to store water that **simply doesn't precipitate** in the first place?
> Regarding climate mitigation actions vs. adaptation actions, it all depends upon the merits of the specific action being considered.
No, it does not *all* depend on that. You are as ignorant of risk mitigation as you are of whole swathes of climate science. For one thing, you have to assess the whole picture - especially when impacts are non-linear and actions have a cumulative effect; for another you can't assess the merits if you deny the impacts in the first place, and for a third you have to account for uncertainty ranges in your assessment - and uncertainty is most definitely *not* friendly to your argument, even though you imply it is.
> Does it make sense to implement an expensive action that will have a minimal impact?
Well, even if you consider that a suitable decision making framework (and your framework implies complete information and zero uncertainty - which you're not going to get for just about *anything* in the real world), you have to accurately assess the impact in order to determine that it's "minimal".
You have demonstrated repeatedly that you are *badly* underestimating the impacts. Your (presumably cut & pasted) assessment of the US shifting away from coal-fired electricity generation is a classic example of this. It does not - for example - even **try** to assess the cost of the impacts avoided; merely tries to paint the avoided impacts as "minimal" by calculating temperature reductions. As the holder of a Finance Masters degree, have you *ever* wondered why the people supplying your "logic" left out this crucial bit? Ever wondered why you position it as a cost-benefit analysis when the **benefit** is not measured? (And that's before we point out the non-linearity of negative impacts and note that the benefit is therefore non-linear too.)
No?
Then perhaps you should consider that despite your Masters degree you don't have - or refuse to apply - the skills to determine when you are being led up the garden path in this particular field.
Hope this isn't too far off-topic, How does one go about checking the impact factor of a journal?
I got an email from a relative about there being no good evidence for flu vaccines (and pushing vitamin D). It mentions peer-reviewed studies in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. What little research I've been able to do leaves me with the feeling that this is the medical version of using E&E for climate research.
Frank-since YOU have been proven that YOU lied regarding statements I have written YOU are a demonstrated liar. That is a simple fact that even you should be able to understand. The fact that I am a degreed engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years is also a fact, whether you like it or not.
You have either wrongly analyzed the outputs of GCMs or have read someone elseâs analysis to makes the foolish conclusion that you wrote: âthe incontrovertible conclusion from climate models that we need to stop carbon emissions Real Soon Nowâ
Frank draws conclusions from models that canât reliably determine what nations world will get more or less rainfall much less what the difference might be. A model that was appropriate for government policy making would be able to reliably predict whether a nation would benefit or potentially be harmed by the predicted climate change.
Frank advocates the use of a modeling where the outputs of multiple models (all of unknown accuracy, but they canât all be right, and possibly none are close to right) are averaged and government policy decisions are supposed to be based on this.
TrueSceptic (#371)
I'm a bit concerned that HADCRUT3 might soon be replaced by HADCRUT4, but we agreed on "HADCRUT", didn't we? All the same, I won't take the easy option: will there be a means of estimating what HADCRUT3 would have been once HADCRUT4 takes over?
How about using the following equation:
Equivalent HADCRUT3 annual GMT = (1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT3/1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT4) * HADCRUT4 annual GMT
Where 1880 to 2010 Linear Trend for HADCRUT3 = 0.06 deg C per decade.
I looked it up and while I couldn't find the IF directly (wiki is offline today) the number of cites per article is abysmally low, will under 1.
> You have either wrongly analyzed the outputs of GCMs or have read someone elseâs analysis to makes the foolish conclusion that you wrote: âthe incontrovertible conclusion from climate models that we need to stop carbon emissions Real Soon Nowâ
Unsupported assertion (again).
And as I've already pointed out more than once, the conclusion that one must draw from applying risk mitigation principles in the presence of uncertainty is the **very opposite** of the one you draw. And if we take your unsupported assertion at face value and throw out the models entirely, that increases the uncertainty and makes the conclusion that we must massively slow emissions now **even stronger**.
Lotharsson
You wrote-âFor example, this is spectacularly wrong: The cost of infrastructure that prepares for AGW is very little different from infrastructure that doesnât prepare.â
My response- Please point out examples of infrastructure that you believe becomes significantly more expensive to construct in order to prepare for climate change that could occur over a 25 to 30 years.
You wrote about crops that will not pollinate due to a temperature rise, but that is just silly. The temperature change would be gradual and farmers would adjust what they are growing, as they always have; as conditions change. Some areas would become more productive for certain crops while others become less productive. On balance a warmer climate results in greater plant growth.
Regarding evaluating mitigation actions individually based on the merit of the proposed action, you write about the cost of the harms avoided. I agree with your process. In the specific example I showed about Hansenâs shutting down all US coal fired power plants, the proposed action would have cost a huge sum and would have had virtually no impact on the climate, so no harm was avoided. I agree, letâs evaluate a potential harms that can be avoided and implement only those mitigation actions that seem to make sense.
Lotharsson
The entire case of AGW is built on the outputs of the models. Without the models there is no reason to do anything about CO2 emissions.
Lotharsson:
At least a sizable chunk was lifted from the comments of Diplomacy's Meltdown: Developing Countries Are Not Holding Back Climate Agreements.
Pokerplyer: In academic circles, copying other people's work without attribution, and especially presenting it as though it was your own, is considered to be theft. People have lost their jobs over it. Do not do it again, but either use your own words or clearly show its source.
Richard-What are you referencing of mine?
The entire case of AGW is built on the outputs of the models ... corroborated by multiple lines of evidence happening in the real world.
Corrected/clarified that point for you porkyplayer.
Rice yields in SE Asia have already suffered because of too high temperatures at pollination. There are no crops that come close for yield and usefulness and also tolerate higher temperatures.
There is a free on-line course in understanding global warming. You urgently need to take it to avoid making further ignorant statements.
Last paragraph of #423. Compare to comment #14 by Sisko.
Same me. I have a computer that I use when traveling that has that sign on in memory. I promise not to complain to myself. LOL
Richard
I seriously doubt the claim that
âRice yields in SE Asia have already suffered because of too high temperatures at pollination.â
I tried to look it up but the only reference I could find was Wikipedia and could not read it. I doubt that the real issue was the temperature change to date caused by AGW. It is possible that a hot year reduced yields. Farmers are very practiced in adapting by adjusting when and what they plant.
Richard- The entire case foundation of AGW IS built on the outputs of the models. It is the models that have described the âfearedâ potential future conditions.
@Mike H,
HA! I thought that looked familiar. On Scientific American I called out Poker Player on this last year, comment #50. Also, there was another "person" who once to went by the name of Sisko on Scientific American who would copy and paste the same exact thing. So I have to wonder if Rob Starkey is Sisko, who also is Poker Player and who may also be a character named Postman. Postman once made tried to make that idiot bet with me too.
porkieplyer probably wants information about sea level from a science denial website before he thinks it's not a scam. OK, here it is:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/01/sea-level-rise-jumpy-after-last-i…
sam:
This is an outbreak of Girma, an incurable disease.
A quick search on Google Scholar found this
and I saw other likely papers that I did not bother to check.
Is 'models' a dirty word, then? Data on temperatures from ground-based weather stations, satellite data showing changes in temperature and a disparity between incoming and outgoing radiation, data on ice sheets, glaciers, the polewards spread of over 250 organisms, dates of river and lake freeze-up and thawing, flowering dates, sea level change and borehole data all indicate that Earth is warming. There are also several different lines of evidence that clearly show that the increase in atmospheric CO2 comes from human activity, and the link between CO2 and the greenhouse effect has been established for over 100 years. To summarily dismiss all of this shows massive ignorance. Sign up for the course.
Trent--Yes at Judith's site I post using my name. Feel free to comment on what I wrote. No I am not Willis. No I did not copy something of his. I would guess I 1st posted the cost benefit analysis sometime in 2010. Who knows, maybe he read it.
So what is your point? You have posted dumb, inaccurate things at SA and I have pointed that out. I generally perfer Judith Curry's site since the people there discuss the topic more fully and you can learn if you are willing.
From NASA - [Climate change: How do we know](http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/) and not a model to be seen.
> Please point out examples of infrastructure that you believe becomes significantly more expensive to construct in order to prepare for climate change that could occur over a 25 to 30 years.
So, you appear to be making an argument from personal ignorance.
I already gave you some pointers - some of which it is difficult to *imagine* infrastructure for. AYou seem ignorant of the range of services that humans rely on the ecosystem to provide (ask Jeff Harvey, for example - or Google him on Deltoid as he's explained this many times in the past). And if not merely ignorant of those services, then you assume they will not be significantly impacted and/or will be easy and cheap to replace.
And it's not just "25 to 30 years" we need to worry about. Artificially limiting it to that period is an attempt to bias the equation.
And on the topic of the kinds of infrastructure you *can* imagine, feel free to figure out what it would cost to provide additional supplemental fresh water supplies to (say) Texas - you think large scale desalination and long pipelines are going to be cheap - and provide multi-meter high sea walls to (say) Florida and the entire coastline of Bangladesh?
> You wrote about crops that will not pollinate due to a temperature rise, but that is just silly.
It is only silly when you are pig ignorant about the science, which you apparently are.
There are crops - including some widely use in the subcontinent - which fail to pollinate if the night time temperature doesn't drop sufficiently low during the critical period (which is only a few days long). These types of failures will - which you could ascertain for yourself, if you would bother to apply basic engineering analysis skills - occur more frequently if the climate warms because weather is (to a first order approximation, which engineers can certainly understand) stochastic noise on top of a climate signal. Instead of asserting that this is "silly", go do some research and see if you can find out whether this has already happened or not.
And if you get that far, instead of arguing from personal ignorance, sketch out how the "gradual shift in crops" you hypothesise will work out. Your working should show and what impact the loss of knowledge about how to get the best yields out of known crops under known local conditions will have when you change both of those variables - plus the cost of developing and/or buying new crops, plus the opportunity cost if no suitable direct replacement is available. Since you're so sure these concerns are "silly", I take it you **have costed these impacts** and are prepared to share the figures? Right?
Then there are potential collapses of various links in the ecosystem due to climate change, and we cannot rule out that these do not massively reduce pollinating species for various important crops.
And we haven't even got to cost of dealing with the pests that do *really* well in warmer climates. Pine beetles in the North American continent, perhaps? You **have** costed their rising impact due to climate change, and projected it forward due to further climate change, right?
Or to climatic zones shifting polewards ... which you cannot guarantee will end up in places suitable for agriculture as the original geographical location. If a significant part of the wheat belt moves to locations that aren't suitable for wheat production, what do you want to do about it? You have costed mitigation strategies for this too, right?
I mean...you assert the cost of mitigation isn't worth it, so you **MUST** have totted up ALL of the impacts including many I haven't listed here, right? Right?
> On balance a warmer climate results in greater plant growth.
(A) Not necessarily, for the crops we care about when both the planet warms AND CO2 increases.
(B) Many crops we care about change their composition, reducing average nutritional value and increasing their proportion of compounds that humans find difficult to digest. They may also require a lot more water, which isn't necessarily going to be in overabundance in many regions of the world.
(C) It can also promote weed growth, and the costs of dealing with them.
Anyone telling you more CO2 and warmth brings unmitigated agricultural good is uninformed or misleading and is *avoiding the kind of cost-benefit analysis you are avoiding*.
> In the specific example I showed about Hansenâs shutting down all US coal fired power plants, the proposed action would have cost a huge sum and would have had virtually no impact on the climate, so no harm was avoided.
EPIC FAIL!
A quarter of a degree is far from "virtually no impact on climate". And that goes double if it's the **marginal** quarter of a degree (I'm sure you understand the concept of "marginal" tax or "marginal" earnings from your Masters degree), in part due to the non-linearity of the negative impacts.
And I note and reiterate that you **refuse** to do a cost-benefit analysis by refusing to **cost** the impacts. Shouldn't you be embarrassed to claim a Masters in Finance/Economics with this kind of faulty economic "reasoning"? What part of "you have to cost the benefit to do cost-benefit analysis" do you not understand? Did you even notice that you have refused to cost the impact of a marginal quarter of a degree rise, but are *still* asserting that the cost of mitigation isn't worth it?
Or how about we use that "logic" in an aerospace analogy?
Ground control: "How much fuel do you need to cross the ocean?"
Pilot: "What are the wind forecasts for the flight path?"
Ground control: "We don't have a good forecast today due to data collection failure, but most likely between 95 and 205% of the typical headwinds, and we cannot rule out 280%."
Pilot: "That's too uncertain for decision making and putting in even an extra 20% fuel will cost too much. Screw it, just give me the amount we use for typical headwinds."
> I agree with your process.
Bullshit. You are so completely unwilling to analyse your own argument that you don't realise that the rest of that paragraph **completely goes against "my process"**.
The pilot's "logic" is essentially what you are arguing for here. "Screw it - don't worry about either the cost of impacts or any sort of risk analysis, just assert that the cost of mitigation is too high." Any engineering degree holder can understand how deeply stupid that is.
> The entire case foundation of AGW IS built on the outputs of the models.
Pig ignorant bullshit!
It's amazing how much you rely on it - and how little intellectual integrity you show, and how little you care about your lack of it.
I just want to say that Scientific American has for the past couple of years been putting out at least one daily story on climate change and sometimes it will publish three or four on the same day. The reporting does not for the vast majority of the stories indulge in the false balance narrative. This has been increasingly enraging the deniers.
Most of those stories do not make the front page or stay for only a day or so. By my reckoning Scientific American still has some prestige among layman. The deniers definitely know this and always appear with a stupidity or two in the comments section. If anyone is interested in the stories and countering the morons I suggest getting the RSS for the site.
Thanks
Pokerplyer writes this:
The fact that I am a degreed engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years is also a fact,
but he could have fooled me.
He then goes on to continue to assert of frank:
You have either wrongly analyzed the outputs of GCMs or have read someone elseâs analysis to makes the foolish conclusion that you wrote - without ever having demonstrated any expertise at using or interpreting GCMs apart from his abysmal and unsupported claims on this thread.
And then we have what can only be called in this day and age an outright lie, as demonstrated with astonishing ease by several other commenters, including [Richard Simons here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/01/january_2012_open_thread.php?ut…):
The entire case of AGW is built on the outputs of the models
porkieplyer:
Lotharson:
There are actually Exxon-Vail curves that show much lower sea levels in the past as well as the "first order" curve that doesn't.
Of course, porkieplyer is in denial of reality, and cannot see the evidence that confronts his denial.
Some considerations on [cost-benefit analysis of emissions reductions and mitigation strategies](http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-limits-economy.htm).
Speaking of certain studies that certain parties like to tout:
> The analyses evaluate the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but do not measure the resulting payoff â the benefits of averting dangerous climate change. Nor do they consider the ancillary benefits, such as the improved local air quality and reduced ocean acidification.
Sound familiar? (They also tend to assume that climate won't impact economy, which is foolish.)
Then keep reading until you get to the "Cost-Benefit Analysis" section which looks at a study that *actually* attempts to assess the benefit side of the equation. Yes, there's a fair bit of uncertainty on the benefit side - but given the cumulative benefits over time it's very difficult to argue that the uncertainty is large enough so that it's plausible that the benefits won't heavily outweigh the costs in the long run.
Then continue on in that section to see other studies that attempt to actually assess both costs and benefits. Guess what they show?
If you don't have a cost-benefit study of your own that assesses *both* cost and benefit, you can't claim that the benefit isn't worth the cost. And if you do one that shows that, you need to argue why it's more representative of reality than the ones that have already been done.
Especially given that the article cites claims that certain US States that have imposed carbon costs have *already* reaped more benefits than the costs imposed.
Snort.
The awful ethical position that pp takes about the risks of global warming are taken up in the following worthwhile read:
Ethical Analysis of the Climate Change Disinformation Campaign: Introduction to A Series.
By DONALD A BROWN http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/
To quote:
Climate change must be understood to be at its core an ethical problem because : (a) it is a problem caused by some people in one part of the world who are threatening poor people who are often far away in time and space, (b) the harms to these victims are potentially catastrophic, and (c) the victims can't protect themselves by petitioning their governments who have no jurisdiction over those causing the problem. The victims must hope that those causing the problem will see that their ethical duties to the vulnerable require them to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
Because climate change is an ethical problem, those causing the problem may not use self-interest alone as justification for policy responses; they must fulfill responsibilities, obligations and duties to others. Because climate change is a moral problem, those who are putting others at risk through no fault of their own have a special duty to be precautious about scientific uncertainty. If anything, the need for care in considering harms from powerful technology recognized by Jonas is even more salient in the case of a problem like climate change because it is a problem that is caused by some that are putting others at great risk.that have not consented to be threatened.
> satellite data
Which require models (a dirty word, apparently) to transform into temperature.
Mind you, you need a model (thermal expansion of solids and liquids) to turn a mercury/alcohol thermometer reading into temperature.
>Please point out examples of infrastructure that you believe becomes significantly more expensive to construct in order to prepare for climate change ...
Perhaps if pokerplyer had studied civil engineering he wouldn't have to ask such a facile question. Let's just consider three aspects of floods. Below I refer to 1-in-x years events, which is the familiar terminology, but just to be clear a 1-in-100 year event is actually an event with an annual probability of 1%, a 1-in-20 year event is one with an annual probability of 5% etc.
Good infrastructure - the kind that gets built in relatively corruption-free, rich, first world countries - is not built to deal with every possible contingency as it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. Rather, drainage systems are constructed to deal with reasonable contingencies, typically 1-in-50 year events, but sometimes 1-in-100 (or more).
Climate change is making such events more common - we have observations that show that, not just models. Assuming the observed increase in frequency continues, even if only for pokerplyers tendentious timeframe, there are going to be areas where what was a 1-in-100 year rainfall event a century ago becomes a 1-in-20 year event.
So, three aspects I said:
1. Rainfall intensity for a 1-in-100 year event is roughly 30% to 50% that of a 1-in-20 year event for any given time / location (of course it varies, but its a reasonable guide). That means every new stormwater drain that is laid has to have 30-50% greater cross sectional area to deal (actually its more than that because the pipe itself acts as a buffer at peak intensity). Outflow drainage / holding will need greater capacity. Flood mitigation dams etc will need greater capacity.
Result: ALL new infrastructure will be more expensive.
2. We already have a massive amount of infrastructure built to tolerances that are no longer realistic. That means we either wear the cost of upgrading every foot of drainpipe in the world, or we wear the cost of upgrading the infrastructure that is now vulnerable, or we wear the cost of having infrastructure made unavailable, damaged or destroyed by more frequent floods. On top of the examples in 1, flood diversion schemes will need greater capacity - typically, that means more deliberate flooding of farmland, with attendant costs.
Result: MOST existing infrastructure will require expensive upgrade or event-by-event repair. Economic losses per year from flooding events will increase, even with all other factors held constant
3. Finally, as I mentioned above, 1-in-100 year events are considered for flood planning necessarily, but 1-in-20 year events are. That means that there is a lot of infrastructure (even in countries where "massive corruption" isn't "the culture") has no meaningful protection from events that are moving from 1-in-100 year events to 1-in-20 year frequency.
Result: On top of upgrades referred to in 2, a lot of infrasastucture will require protection from events that have not previously been catered for because they were not in the design life of the item.
That's a few aspects of floods, and not all by any means. What about drought? Heat events? Secondary effects (eg reduced or failed harvests)?
Pokerplyer seems to have a very limited imagination, if his manifold arguments from personal incredulity are anything to go by. :-(
@ 436 jerryg
Blazingly off-topic. :)
For an answer to your question and for more information on vaccines and vaccine deniers etc. have a look at http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/
People there routinely check impact figures and I am sure would be happy to help you.
P.S. Your relation is probably being conned.
And just to add to Frank's exposition, consider that the Cumbria (UK) flooding in November 2009 has been assessed as having been caused by a 1:1,800yr rainfall event (i.e. a 0.0556% chance per year). Whilst such an extreme will always need to be understood in terms of natural variability and residual risk, if the probability of extremes such as these is shifting against us ... I'll leave that as a thought experiment.
Thanks Composer99.
> Pokerplyer writes this:
> > The fact that I am a degreed engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry for over 25 years is also a fact,
> but he could have fooled me.
Hahah. :) Indeed, if "pokerplyer" didn't explicitly state "I am an aerospace engineer", then given the 'wisdom' he's shown to us, we could've easily mistaken him for a generic blathering idiot... :-B
-- frank
[GISS LOTI](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt) data for calendar year 2011 is now complete.
How did John McLean's prediction of "coldest year since 1956" fare if we take Jan-Dec averages rather than Dec-Nov? The Jan-Dec anomaly was +0.52 degrees C, compared to -0.19 degrees C in 1956 - and despite 2011 being a La Nina year, the ONLY year prior to 2001 that exceeded it was the huge El Nino year of 1998.
What if we use [GISS dTs](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts.txt) instead?
Well, the 2011 Jan-Dec average was +0.72 degrees C - only exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2007 and 2010, and a looooong way off -0.22 degrees C in 1956. And the 2011 Dec-Nov average was +0.71 degrees C compared to -0.22 degrees C in 1956, and only exceeded by those same years plus 2002.)
Hmmmm...John McLean's forthcoming post on 2011 temperatures should prove fascinating!
Meanwhile, maybe someone with a SkS account can add a comment to [their page](http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=1&t=61&&n=665) on the prediction?
One also wonders if all of those 'skeptics' who [touted](http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/03/its-not-warming-…) the [prediction](http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7349) will do follow-up posts?
Nah, there's little point wondering. Especially when the same blog that hosted McLean's prediction posted yesterday an article proclaiming ["Global temps in a crash..."](http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8994):
> When the PDO turned cold, most of the meteorological and climate community understood that the pattern was turning very similar the last time of the PDO reversal, the 1950s, and it was a matter of time before the global temperatures, which have leveled off, would start falling in the same herby jerky fashion they had risen when the PDO turned warm at the end of the 1970s. I am not going to rehash the sordid details of how the AGW crowd simply ignores the major drivers of a cyclical nature. We all know that. Nor am I going to question them as to why they believe a trace gas like CO2 (needed for life on the planet) with a specific gravity of 1.5 as compared to the atmospheres 1.0, was going to mix with air in a way to affect the earthâs temperatures.