climate science
stoat | April 30, 2016 Moyhu wins the prize for actually bothering to track the GWPF and its waste-of-time "inquiry". That's about all there is to say, really. I could take the piss out of them a bit more I suppose but it hardly seems worth the effort. Terence Kealey (chairman) ends up looking like an idiot, which in GW terms he probably is; rapidly heading Emeritus I'd guess.
I must remember to add it to WATN in 2016; speaking of which, has anyone seen any life out of AW's poor stillborn paper?
NS must be an elephant: he can also remember the OAS.
Refs
* Moyhu: apparently RP Sr may be writing the report.
*…
stoat | April 26, 2016 TL;DR: nothing new to see here.
Anyway, I was pushing my favourite theme, How to decarbonize? More free market! and to my absolute astonishment it didn't go down terribly well. A number of questions in the comments were re-hashing stuff from Carbon tax now but no-one ever re-reads old blog posts just because I link to then, so I'll repeat myself.
When I say, or rather imply, that everyone hated it I'm not being accurate. Eli offered The goal is a system which can minimize gaming. Trading schemes maximize gaming, A broad tax does does a much better job of minimizing it which is a pretty good…
stoat | April 18, 2016mt has a nice post pointing at an article by Ray Pierrehumbert, How to decarbonize? Look to Sweden. mt and I both like the article, though we choose to emphasise slightly different aspects of it. I offer you:
In my experience, inaction on restraining carbon dioxide emissions does not stem from insufficient understanding of the science or insufficient fear of the consequences of warming. Instead, it is more due to excessive fear of the nature of the solutions... The problem is not too much capitalism, but rather too little, and even a lack of faith in the power of the ingenuity unleashed by…
stoat | April 16, 2016Time for some re-posting of everyone else's news, just to reassure regular readers after the Exxon stuff that I haven't gone over to the dork side. First though a link to more of the bleedin' obvious, Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming by Bart Verheggen, or Devastating Reply To Richard Tol’s Nonsensus In Peer-Reviewed Journal by Collin Maessen.
Anyway, enough of that, on to the recent run of hot months. This pic shamelessly ripped from HotWhopper but you can find similar at Moyhu or Open Mind. Gavin, perhaps only slightly recklessly, is…
stoat | April 14, 2016 The drive to distract us from reality continues. Quite why otherwise sensible people are so keen on stuff like Pressure on Exxon Over Climate Change Intensifies With New Documents - I saw it via Stefan Rahmstorf's fb feed - I don't know, because it is utter drivel. To let Exxon have their rebuttal first, because they are right,
Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, called the new allegations absurd. "To suggest that we had definitive knowledge about human-induced climate change before the world’s scientists is not a credible thesis," he said.
And now to quote the other side talking…
stoat | April 11, 2016Disentangling greenhouse warming and aerosol cooling to reveal Earth’s climate sensitivity (T. Storelvmo, T. Leirvik, U. Lohmann, P. C. B. Phillips & M. Wild; Nature Geoscience 9, 286–289 (2016) doi:10.1038/ngeo2670) doesn't seem to have garnered much attention. I glanced at it, I think, thought "that told me what I thought I knew already", and thought no more. Life is so much simpler when you need think no more. But then a correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous (and before you start guessing, no, it isn't JA, he is quite forthright) offered me some thoughts, and I thought I'd share…
stoat | April 8, 2016I don't think I've insulted the ETS recently but the Tata Steel brouhaha provides yet another excuse.
Emil Dimantchev, also a climate policy analyst with Thomson Reuters, said membership of the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) had delivered Tata Steel’s European operations a £780m windfall through the over-allocation of carbon credits between 2008 and 2014. In estimates that Dimantchev considers conservative, the Port Talbot works alone received more than £239m over that period.
Source: Graun. And that's the ETS for you: a scheme so badly designed that something that should have helped…
stoat | March 28, 2016 Hansen's paper, of course. Tee hee. So all you po-faced people who want to be Terribly Serious can go off and put really really silly comments over at ATTP's (gloss: too many people who haven't even read the paper are simply pushing their own views via the paper; much in the same way that too many people that want fewer CO2 emissions manage to convince themselves that suing Exxon makes sense1). Peter Thorne has already said almost everything that needs to be said, although since he is a nice chap writing within the scientific style, much of what he said was too subtle for many people; but I'…
stoat | March 13, 2016But it still tastes sour. Perhaps it needs more time to mature? Rushing half-fermented stuff out is not good. What's in, what's out? Well, who can possibly be bothered to read and compare them line by line? Certainly not me. Certainly not any of the commentators at Eli's. Prove me wrong if you like: new and old. If I'd actually bothered to review this I'd be p*ss*d off with the journal.
For example, compare:
we posit that ice sheet mass loss can be approximated by a doubling time up to sea level rise of at least several meters. Doubling times of 10, 20 or 40 years yield sea level rise of…
stoat | March 8, 2016 Climate change critic Murry Salby loses case against university1. Tee hee. Thrust, ah-ha, king of the impossible. Or, perhaps not.
O/T, but those interested in the fate of the US coal companies should read Bronte Capital on the puzzling disparity between the price of Peabody debt, and their shares. As an incentive, there's a huge finanical reward for anyone who can solve the mystery.
Refs
* The peer review of Ollila (2016) - RT
Notes
1. Now subs-only, it appears. Never mind; you can read the court judgement instead (thanks CH//JM). Summary: "Murry Salby, you are a waste of time". Also, ES at…
stoat | March 8, 2016 Old news now, of course, but there's a blog post by Carl Mears with nice pix and explanation. Notice this is TMT, not TLT, but at this point we're largely arguing about the differences between the different groups, and its fine for that. It is, of course, all nicely published in proper style. By contrast, UAH version 6.0 (ahem, beta) was announced most of a year ago and is still not actually a paper, as far as I know. It would be hard for it to be; they're now on beta 5. Don't miss me snarking about how crap their code is. Reading the "beta 5" I'm struck by how ad-hoc the changes seem to be…
stoat | March 4, 2016Alas. But it was a good week. this, for my own records, and possibly for you interest if that's the kind of thing you're interested in.
Summary:
Men: Caius serene, Downing troubled a little by Pembroke charging at them, but not past the Plough. Christ's up one, Kings spoons.
Women: Jesus up two (Emma, Christ's) to head; Downing had their chance on Saturday but weren't up to it; indeed, they crabbed at the Plough and were nearly caught by Christ's, who alas were caught be Newnham - who I quite like - instead.
Here's a pic from Wednesday and - breaking the habit of a lifetime - I've embedded if…
stoat | February 28, 2016Before laying into Hansen's latest, I feel a need to re-establish my taking-the-piss-out-of-the-wackos credentials. And here is a perfect opportunity:
Even Sou struggles to cover this; I think we need Inferno. Or RS. Amusingly, not one of the comments at WUWT so far has dared to mention the V-word.
[Update: There's yet more of this drivel.]
Refs
* Finnish Man Uses Easy Open-Access Journals to Publish Junk Climate Science - Jeffrey Beall; h/t John Mashey.
* VVattsup is more enlightening.
* Number three for Watts.
stoat | February 25, 2016 Says HuffoPo. It is bullshit, of course, but lots of people seem to have fallen for it. I found the HuffPo link because mt posted it; and DA quotes FOE saying Trade agreement trumps climate accord: WTO rules against India solar program. As usual, the usual suspects are so busy being outraged they barely tell you what the actual issue is.
The WTO ruling is here. There's some lawyerly blather, but not much of it, and its not too hard to read. Skip to the "Summary of key findings" which starts:
The claims brought by the United States concern domestic content requirements (DCR measures) imposed…
stoat | February 24, 2016Before I go any further, here's some hot bummping action from today:
Right, I'm glad I've got that out of my system. It was a glorious afternoon for it. And there will be more tomorrow; Christ's get a shot at Kings, Pembroke get their's at Jesus which could be exciting; and in the women's world Jesus probably take the headship from Christ's. I'd put money on that, if anyone cares to bet.
* No, Terence Mills does not believe his “forecast” says James. Where do these idiots come from? Essex it appears - say no more. ATTP was there first (but RT wins. No, not that RT, the other one:-). Thanks…
stoat | February 22, 2016 The Heartland Institute is sad. Because, like the Watties, they don't like their wiki page (ar). But they aren't going to take it lying down, oh no:
In recent months, left-wing activists have hijacked The Heartland Institute’s profile at Wikipedia, removing objective descriptions of our programs and publications and replacing them with lies, errors, and outright libelous claims. Our efforts to correct the site have been rejected by the editors of the self-described “free encyclopedia.” Can you help?
(my bold). Weirdly, although that was posted on "February 19, 2016" not a simple wacko…
stoat | February 20, 2016mt notes that "Kiribati Bails Out":
The low-lying island nation of Kiribati (formerly "Christmas Island") is buying real estate on the larger Fiji Island and planning to move everybody out, on account of, well, you know, water.
The usual story of atolls being submerged by global warming. Or not; but that's not the point here, so I won't go into that. My response was
Could be a sensible solution. How does it stack up, cost-wise?
That wasn't the reply that mt was looking for, of course, for he replied The point is not how individuals or particular groups cope so much as that the problems are…
stoat | February 13, 2016 Hobbes, of course. Occasioned by the death of Scalia; it wasn't the bit I was seeking for, but it was too beautiful to overlook, and almost relevant. And who could resist The Fourth Law Of Nature, Gratitude. But I must stop, and come to my point.
Which was: Hobbes insists on undivided power - he explicitly rejects the separation of powers the USAnians are so keen on. And in case of Justice, he argues that the Sovereign must inevitably have The Right Of All Judicature; And Decision Of Controversies because without the decision of Controversies, there is no protection of one Subject, against…
stoat | February 13, 2016Early global warming says VV at VV. It is an interesting idea; if you haven't read his post you should. The AR5 radiative forcing graph he includes is interesting too:
I hadn't realised the forcing had grown much more strongly after 1950.
stoat | February 10, 2016Much fuss about the cuts at CSIRO climate research. This reminds me of a less serious situation 10, or perhaps 15 years ago, when cuts were proposed - I can't recall if they actually happened - due to a conversation somewhat like:
Scientists: Global Warming is Real!
Government: OK, we believe you're, we going to stop funding you looking for it.
Scientists: Oh wait, we didn't quite mean it that way.
Cue today: as the Graun puts it In the email to staff on Thursday, Marshall said that since climate change was proven to be real, CSIRO could shift its focus.
Before I go further, to avoid…