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owl905 at 14:47 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Every once in a while, something comes along that gets the batteries, depleted by frustration and setback, a recharge. This made warm winter day a little easier on the nerves. Thumbs up to the Wall Street Journal for printing it. Maybe some of their constituency in harms way with this pollution can get some attention. I'd go and check up, but the last round of comments there pushed Vogon poetry into fourth place. -
actually thoughtful at 14:09 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Will this "letter" from the experts get equal billing to the shrill denial of the opinion/editorial? Or will it be put down in the letters from mere mortals section? -
MattJ at 13:39 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
@J. Bob, #36: True, but not helpful. Fracking is already under much-deserved harsh criticism for causing earthquakes and poisoning ground water. These are not the products of overactive imaginations of environmentalist, they are real and unacceptable externalities. If the externalities were truly taken into account, the oil from fracking would be considered unacceptably high priced. Also, oil industry apologists have a bad reputation for inflating their estimates of how much oil they can get for how long out of any new reserve or technology. Why would fracking be any exception? I doubt it will be. Finally, storage mechanisms are getting better. We are nowhere near the thermodynamic limits of storage efficiency with today's technologies, a decent new "smart grid" will open up possibilities for much more efficient technologies at much lower costs. -
MattJ at 13:33 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
The authors say, plausibly: "the point needs to be lodged more firmly in the minds of policy makers." But there is an important point they still don't get: it has to start with the voters, since the policy makers are too beholden to monied interests to make such a decision without strong voter support. So first, it is the voters who need to get the point " lodged more firmly in their minds" -
Tom Curtis at 13:13 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Simon Donner, one of the signatories of the above letter, has further commented on the issue here. -
Bob Loblaw at 13:11 PM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Phila @ 29:In articles like these, it's not just acceptable but also beneficial to present a mishmash of contradictory arguments; the more excuses for disbelief you can provide, the more readers you can reassure. Different claims appeal to different readers, so toss 'em all in! It's not like they're gonna compare notes.
Reading this reminds me of something my high school economics teacher said about cigarette brands and marketing. The question was, why do cigarette companies have so many brands? Aren't they competing with themselves? The answer is yes, but the marketing strategy was that many cigarette smokers change brands fairly frequently. If they change brands at random, and you have 20 brands and your competitor has 10, then you have twice the likelihood of having the switched smoker pick up another of your brands. Brand loyalty is a good thing, but this strategy helps keep the non-loyal smoker in the fold, so to speak. Bring that strategy forward 40 years, and the deniers are aided by having a huge stock of talking points (since it doesn't matter if they are incorrect and mutually contradictory), while the poor scientists (bounded by reality) have relatively few. For the mind that wants to glom onto a few points that confirm their bias, they are more likely to glom onto one of the many false denier memes. -
chriskoz at 13:07 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
GreenCooling @3, I don't know whom this Andrew Bolt fellow is affiliated with. But I did find cases of racial discrimination, e.g. here which undermine his quality as journalist and his integrity. Skimming through the claptrap you're pointing at, confirmed my opinion about Andrew. It suffice to quote him as saying "Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007" which is the old monckton myth disproved last year and abandoned by Monckton himself. But Andrew is still clinging to it on February 01, 2012: unbelievable, a rare case of 100% head in sand! What world is Andrew living on? I found that OZ media that are part of Murdoch empire (like Daily Telegraph tabloid we are talking about here) tend to provide a workplace for individuals such as Andrew Bolt. Other media, i.e. smh.com.au or abc.net.au do not. I read/watch the latter regularly and I am confident such incoherent rambling would not be published there. -
From Peru at 12:58 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Oil production since 1970:
[source]
Last time production dropped was after the Iranian Revolution and the following Iran-Iraq War.
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John Hartz at 12:51 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Talk about serendipity! Suggested reading: “Climate scientists not cowed by relentless climate change deniers” by Tony Feder, page 22 of Physics Today, Feb, 2012 To access this timely, in-depth article, click here. -
NewYorkJ at 12:49 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Good letter, but it would be nice if they had extensive references in their discussion, or at least links to them. I understand "skeptics" couldn't care less about supporting their statements, and in their case they're better off without them, but scientists should do better. Is there a WSJ restriction, related to a restriction in the print version? -
scaddenp at 12:25 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Hmm, except that tell story of how many new coal plants are coming on line. Coal is fastest growing fuel worldwide. -
GreenCooling at 12:23 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
It is indeed a remarkable thing that that the WSJ is prepared to publish this letter, and congratulations to all signatories. I just wish the Australian Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun would give Tim Flannery, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Naomi Oreskes and David Marr a similar right of reply to the highly offensive and arguably defamatory claptrap published yesterday by Andrew Bolt. The denier campaign is alive and well here and will only grow louder as the introduction of carbon pricing on 1 July approaches. The efforts and contributions of SkS will play a vital role in this debate, and I'd like to offer my most profound and sincere thanks for all that you do. -
Chappo at 12:22 PM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Nice article. -
muoncounter at 12:15 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
It would be nice to see how many other actual climate scientists could be interested to add their names to a virtual version of this letter. Perhaps hosted here? -
John Hartz at 11:50 AM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Kudos to all of the scientists who signed this letter! -
Pete Dunkelberg at 11:22 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
scaddenp, coal is losing ground too. -
Chris Snow at 07:40 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
I’m not surprised that it’s a small and dwindling number of fake skeptics – if the demographics are anything to go by, they must be dying off. I went through the biographical details as best as I was able to and as far as I can tell, Shaviv is the only one under 60. Are there any psychological studies to show why males of retirement age and beyond find it so hard to accept AGW? This is one reason why I think that climate change skepticism still has a few years run, but in the end it will just die of natural causes. As Max Planck said, “Science advances one funeral at a time.” -
scaddenp at 07:12 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
If the only coal mined was for steel production, then I would doubt it would present much of a threat to climate. Mostly coal is used for fuel. The rising price of coking coal should also surely spur more recycling and substitution. You can use charcoal as a reducing agent but not with current furnace design. you need the coke to be strong enough to support the weight of material above and retain gas flow. The big threat that I can see is that rising oil prices will lead to a shift to coal-powered (via electricity) cars instead with significantly higher emissions. I'm with Hansen - we need a ban on new coal-powered stations and let market force sort out a better energy system. -
dana1981 at 07:08 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Most IPCC scenarios project an acceleration in global warming because unless we take action to prevent it, GHG emissions are expected to accelerate (and aerosol emissions expected to decline). It's very simple, if you want to stay in the IPCC 'low' scenarios, CO2 emissions must be cut in comparison to business as usual. Because right now, the IPCC projections are running almost spot-on, so there's no reason to doubt that global warming will accelerate if we continue with business as usual. -
John Hartz at 06:44 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Twenty-two high level representatives have just released their report – Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing - which sets out specific recommendations to “put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible.” The report reinforces the push to phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, speed up the deployment of renewable energy, and accelerate energy efficiency efforts. When world leaders meet several times this year – culminating at the Earth Summit 2012 in Rio – they must finally follow through on the commitment to phase-down these subsidies and help unleash even greater low-carbon energy action. Source: “UN panel urges phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies” by Jake Schmidt, The energy Collective, Jan 31, 2012 -
John Hartz at 06:33 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Suggested reading: “Scrapping fossil-fuel subsidies would get us halfway there on climate change” by Brad Plumer, Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog, Washington Post, Jan 20, 2012 Click here to access this timely and thought-provoking article. -
Eyal Morag at 06:26 AM on 2 February 20122011 Hottest La Niña Year on Record, 11th-Hottest Overall
Simple "back of the envelope calculation" give 2011 as the ~ 2nd warmest year. 1 I made correction only for ENSO using Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) 2 With Excel I got the best fit linear to 1990-2011 yearly ( GISS ) 3 year tamp' - the correction from the line 4 Average MEI for 14 months Nov Dec Jan-Dec. Because it take some months to the ENSO to spread its influence. 5 Plot a graph Average MEI to the result from 3 6 Take out 4 years 3 after Pinatubo + 1 that looks of line 7 With Excel I got the best fit [PEARSON=0.88] 8 Use the slope* Average MEI to correct the themp 9 plot the result . Red , original blue, top red the same little up for clarity , yellow Average MEI All the data + calculations at this spreadsheet
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scaddenp at 06:22 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Adam, CAGW is a very poorly defined term. If you mean, "climate sensitivity is lower than current IPCC predictions", then please present some science to support that. (and in an appropriate thread). If you mean, "wont personally effect me, so I dont care" then dont expect respect. Since you seem to be against any legislation that would mitigate emissions, perhaps then you could take the hypothetical challenge here to assure us that your skepticism is based on informed evaluation of the science and not simply ideology-driven. -
funglestrumpet at 05:54 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
It is amazing just how many comments show surprise at this issue. Peak Oil has been around as a topic in the public domain for years. I think I first read about it some 15 years ago at least. While it is quite possible that alternatives can substitute for fossil fuels, it is going to take years to convert the current infrastructure. For instance it has to be remembered that there are a lot of people who might love to have a new electric car, but will have to make do with their old fossil fuel banger until it eventually collapses and even then second hand electric cars might still be too expensive. Peak oil might be a very good thing as far as climate change is concerned as it is generally agreed that post peak oil means very limited growth at best and probably economic decline will be more the order of the day. This will obviously lead to reduced production and thus reduced emissions. It won't be a particularly nice experience and could easily lead to many countries going into depression with the attendant danger of public unrest. I recommend Oil, Smoke and Mirrors (Full length) on YouTube (beware the credits roll while there is still half of it left to watch). -
Esop at 05:28 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
A large portion of the "missing" heat is kicking around in the Arctic, as evidenced by the extremely rapid loss of Arctic sea ice volume. Conveniently for the deniers, large portions of the Arctic are still being ignored by the datasets. Over the past few years, we have seen cold Arctic air spill onto the continents where its effect on temperature is being measured. However, at the same time there is warm air going the opposite direction, to where its effect on the temperature is not being measured. The result is a cool bias in the global average temperature measurements. Most visible in the HadCRUT data. -
Paul D at 05:22 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I think many have responded to elsa. But an obvious point is that temperature is a measurement of energy, as has been pointed out, measuring it in one place may not account for all the energy, which is why cherry picking is so, so wrong. An example analogy. You have a machine that has to locations that produce heat (it may have a transformer in one location and a motor in another), if you only measure the temperature at the motor, then you will not account for the total heat losses of the machine which must include the transformer and other components. Elsa stated "If we are looking for evidence of temperature changes then surely it is temperature that we should look at." But the point Mark has made is that the 'temperature' measurements must include as many places as is practical to assess where energy is going or leaving. -
Biophilia at 04:46 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
@elsa, How appalling that people still don't realize temperature is a measure of energy within a given system or defined space. "Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold." Also, if you're going to insult scientists, I wouldn't recommend accusing them of "judicious use of maths" Judicious: Having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense. -
chudiburg at 04:22 AM on 2 February 2012It's cooling
Climate Change Theory...There is an evident 1000 year cycle in glacial advance and retreat in the data from several locations around the world. This data also shows a net positive trend in glacial mass (two steps forward and one step back sort-of)over the last 8000 years or so. However, most of the 8000 years worth of slow glacial advance that has occurred has been erased in just a few decades. Something (aka anthropogenic CO2) is working against the natural forcing and winning. It appears that your 1000 year cycle has been supercharged. I would post charts and links, but I am not sure how to do this with my limited computer skills. -
MarkR at 04:13 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
#15 Hi elsa, there're plenty of reasons why I think that looking at all the available data, rather than a small portion, is a better way of telling whether global warming is going on or not. Global warming is caused by energy building up. Natural cycles constantly move heat between the elements (and can affect energy balance), but ultimately all parts of climate have to respond to the heating. By cherry picking dates and data you can make convincing-sounding (but wrong) arguments easily. The atmosphere has, for the past 15 years, had a warming trend below the average of IPCC models, but any claims that the trend is flat is mathematically not true for the most common meaning of 'trend'. Also, the Santer paper shows that statistically it's not outside expectations whilst the Foster paper shows that natural cycles have been acting to try and cool the atmosphere. But the trend is still positive - pretty much impossible to explain without a background warming. Is there an energy imbalance? Well, sea level rise + buoy data shows there is. Sea level rise comes from water expanding as it warms up and from adding water. Added water comes from melted ice, and the latent heat of ice is pretty hefty. Sea levels have risen 40 mm since the journalist tells people global warming 'stopped'. If that was from melting ice, then the heat required would be enough to warm the atmosphere by 1 C. If it came from thermal expansion, then we're talking over 10 C of atmosphere warming worth of energy. So the energy imbalance is clearly there, Earth's building up heat as the theory predicts. This is what think tanks and journalists have to try and hide, and that's why they only use 15 years of one type of observations. -
DSL at 04:10 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Elsa, not again . . . please, please have some perspective. You are capable of thinking for yourself, right? You cherry-picked the "2008 is not higher than ten years earlier." Are you simply blind to the fact that 1998 was extraordinarily warm, even within the context of global warming? If 2008 was as warm as 1998, and no unusual conditions existed for 2008 as they did in 1998, wouldn't you agree that the trend for the decade was realistically positive (it's positive from 1998 to 2011 anyway, according to two and soon to be three temp records)? If three of the next five years are warmer than the extraordinary 1998, will you finally spit the cherry stem out of your mouth? -
Phila at 04:09 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Adam S. It will be very hard to convince a mostly scientifically-challenged public, who have become accustomed to an energy rich lifestyle, to give it up. Attempt to take it away and they will rebel (politically). The key phrase here, of course, is "scientifically challenged." That's exactly why the denial industry works so hard to keep them misinformed. Thanks for conceding this point, if only by accident. It's a common right-wing meme that people don't care about the environment and are unwilling to make personal sacrifices for its sake. But that claim isn't really supported by history, which is why a major climate disinformation campaign is necessary. It's also a common right-wing meme that all mitigation efforts involve loss and lack; they're careful to ignore or sneer at gains in efficiency, the advent of interesting new technology and the personal satisfactions of making a difference, for the precise reason that they know these things appeal strongly to people pretty much across the board. You often see the same argument in regard to the Third World, where populations are supposedly clamoring for the exact model of development favored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In the real world, opinion is not quite so monolithic, to say the least. Also, I spend enough time on right-wing sites to know that a lot of people are doing their best to get off the grid, purge unnecessary technology, grow their own food and so forth. They're not doing this for the sake of the environment, granted, but it still gives the lie to the denialist meme that people won't voluntarily give up a convenient, "energy-rich" lifestyle that they feel is unsustainable, dangerous or spiritually empty. In short, the smug vision of American consumers as invincibly self-centered, careless and reactionary is an important one for "skeptics" like yourself to promote precisely to the extent that its a grossly misleading oversimplification. as the Yale study concluded, the more educated one is, the more skeptical he/she is of CAGW. The people who are most educated on climate are climatologists, who overwhelmingly accept AGW. I assume you're referring to The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change. If so, that paper is a lot more nuanced than you seem to realize. You might try reading it sometime. The paper attributes the very slightly higher degree of skepticism among the educated to "the reliable capacity of individuals to conform their personal beliefs to those that predominate within their respective cultural groups," and points out that "cultural worldview variables predict...risk perceptions independently of science literacy and numeracy." Significantly, it adds, "This conflict between individual and collective rationality is not inevitable. It occurs only because of contingent, mutable, and fortunately rare conditions that make one set of beliefs about risk congenial to one cultural group and an opposing set congenial to another." In short, the study doesn't really say what you claim and its authors directly contradict the conclusions you've drawn. Meanwhile, here are some conclusions from another Yale study: "In a national survey completed in November 2011, we found that a large majority of Americans (66%) support signing an international treaty requiring the US to cut emissions 90% by 2050. Breaking the result down by political party (among registered voters), we found that large majorities of Democrats (81%) and Independents support such a treaty (61%), while almost half of Republicans support such a treaty (49%)." -
Michael.M at 03:52 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
As the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency IEA, Faith Birol, has put it, some time ago: "We have to leave oil before it leaves us." This is the opion of an agency that directly advises the members of the OECD. So this opinion should not be easily dismissed by the polluters. -
Tom Curtis at 03:33 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
J. Bob @36, I'm sure what you meant to say is without good energy storage like batteries, hydro-power, hot rock thermal storage, liquid salt thermal storage etc., and without extended long range electricity transmission, and without smart grids all the solar and wind won't provide power in the period of the night when electricity companies already offer discount rates because they are currently over generating for that period because conventional power stations are not responsive to demand. You may be right. That might mean in a renewable energy based grid, power companies may offer discounts to use power during day light hours rather than offering discounts to use electricity after dark as they currently do. How could we possibly cope. Heating our water during the day instead of at night? It's the end of civilization as we know it! /sarc -
JohnMashey at 03:27 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Scott Armstrong: Heartland ICCC-1, Manhattan Declaration 2008, ICCC-2, NIPCC, ICCC-4. Science advisory board for ICSC... -
Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa - The issue highlighted in this post is the tendency for 'skeptic' commentators to focus on short term temperature. Which, in the noisy climate, has little statistical significance over short stretches - it's hidden in the weather, the short term variance, much as the difference between winter and summer is much higher than the clearly identified climate changes. The various ice measures, ocean heat content (which, not incidentally, is a temperature measure), sea level rise (thermal expansion and added water from ice melt), and most importantly of all checks on air temperature trends over statistically significant intervals: these all show something important. And that is the climate is warming. Add to that the understanding developed over the last 100-150 years in spectroscopy, known emissions of various greenhouse gases, and recent declines in solar and volcanic forcing - and the conclusion is we're doing it. --- That's what folks focusing on short term (10 year) temperature variations are trying to ignore, or, perhaps, to distract people from recognizing. -
dana1981 at 03:20 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Eli @39 - indeed interesting that several of these 'signatories' would 'sign' a letter which did not even get their professional/academic affiliations correct. It certainly suggests they didn't read it very carefully, at least. -
Daniel Bailey at 03:12 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
The 2nd generation eyecrometer, Eyecrometer Mk 2.0TM is somewhat superior in that the operator uses both eyes instead of just one... -
Composer99 at 03:04 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa: Your comment is abject nonsense and is a textbook case of denialism: instead of referring to basic physics and the scientific literature you are trying to dispute the reality of human-induced rapid global overheating by reference solely to a few graphs on a website. The eyecrometer (kudos to whomever at this site coined this term) is a very poor scientific instrument, and I heartily recommend you avoid relying on it to perform statistical or empirical analysis. -
CBDunkerson at 03:01 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa wrote: "ice cover (all needless to say in the northern hemisphere)" Actually, the pie chart is global... the Arctic and Greenland ice graphs are indeed 'limited' to those portions of the Arctic and Greenland in the northern hemisphere. Maybe we should add in the Antarctica ice mass chart to show it is declining too? also: "sea level (which presumably you think is moved by temperature alone)" Are they making more water out of thin air in 'elsa reality'? Damn! Why do I always get stuck with the boring worlds with silly things like the 'law of conservation of matter'? :[ also: "something that you call 'heat content'" Yes, what an absolutely impenetrable term. Well, clearly this 'heat' stuff has nothing to do with temperature. >plonk< -
actually thoughtful at 02:59 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
I have no problem with the overall direction of this post - (ie peak oil) - but I think it is premature to call it at 2005. Although supply was inelastic in 2005, we have had 7 years to expand capacity, even while demand has shuffled along sideways. So I suspect human ingenuity will create an "overclocking" type blip, where we pull out more oil for a very short time (less than a decade from the next time the global economy is firing on all cylinders). In a way, we should thank the Bush-era policy makers for this 5-10 year time period when we are not experiencing the economic disruption of peak oil. I very much would prefer that the human ingenuity I spoke of where unleashed on the problem of renewable energy (ie a carbon tax). PS - Tom Curtis - your post #28 could be the core of a fascinating main article. -
J. Bob at 02:51 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
If one reads the ref., it seems with fracking, there will be considerable time left from the following site: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-01/fracking-boom-could-finally-cap-myth-of-peak-oil-peter-orszag.html Like it or not, without good energy storage like batteries, all the solar & wind is worth squat, in the middle of a still, -20 deg. night. -
Jim Eager at 02:49 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Re Daneel Olivaw @4: "Why is not valid to say that "global warming has stopped" based on 15 years of data but it's ok to conclude that "oil production has stopped" with just 5 years?" Every physical system time series has it's own period required to separate any underlying trend from the "noise" of natural variability, and that period is determined from the data set itself. See Robert Grumbine's explanation of determining the period for the climate system here: http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/results-on-deciding-trends.html Petroleum reserves and production are a completely different system from climate, and are not entirely a physical system as consumption is based on human behavior rather than physics, so therefore it is entirely reasonable to expect a completely different time period. That said, I don't know if 5 years is the correct period or not. Perhaps someone else can address that question. -
CBDunkerson at 02:40 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
"political think tank" It has reached the point that 'think tank' is usually little more than a euphemism for 'propaganda unit'. Most of them conduct little or no actual research and instead are just 'cardboard cut outs' to help hide who is paying to deceive people. -
elsa at 02:40 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I find it rather difficult to see why you think your own approach is in any way superior to the cherrypicking that you highlight. If we are looking for evidence of temperature changes then surely it is temperature that we should look at. The graphs that you point to your opponents as having ignored relate to the extent of ice cover (all needless to say in the northern hemisphere) sea level (which presumably you think is moved by temperature alone) and something that you call "heat content". How appalling of your opponents to have ignored these and used the only graph that you show in that section which actually relates to the subject under discussion, temperature. You put a red line through the bit of this graph that has not been used by your opponenents, although when I try to look through the crossing out it seems that for much of that period there is no great evidence of warming. You then go on to show us a graph which includes satellite readings. Any normal human being would be hard pressed to see an increasing temperature in this, but helpfully you have inserted a trend line to ensure that the reader, who might otherwise be forgiven for wondering if there is any evidence of warming in it at all, is given the impression by your judicious use of maths that there is some warming going on. Yet we can see that in 2008 the temperature was no higher than it had been 10 years earlier. Even if your trend line is in any way representative it would appera that such warming as is taking place is about 0.1 degrees every 15 years or perhaps .7 degrees in 100 years, (-snip-).Response:[DB] Ideology snipped.
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muoncounter at 02:35 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
There are some other forecasts of a low cycle 25 reviewed here. From this article's summary of Penn and Livingston 2010, there's a basis for this in the decline of sunspot magnetic field strength: ... since about 2000, the average field strength has declined from 2,500 or 3,000 gauss to about 2,000 gauss now. They expected Cycle 24's spots to appear with rejuvenated field strength, but they didn't. The average magnetic field in the centers of sunspots has continued a more or less unbroken decline, as shown here.
Forty five years of satellite measurements of solar mag field flux shows this decline over a longer period. (See Its the sun).
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DSL at 01:02 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Owl@5: I thought I knew what "eminent" meant. If that's what it actually means, I've been dissing good people for years. ("eminence front" more likely) -
citizenschallenge at 00:42 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Regarding Nordhaus Please note this from the conclusion of his recent New York Book Review: “Energy: Friend or Enemy?” by William D. Nordhaus, October 27, 2011 In his summation the professor writes: ~ ~ ~ "The conclusion is that oil policy should focus on world production and consumption and not on the portion we import, and should focus as well on the externalities from our consumption in the form of pollution and global warming. This means primarily that oil consumption should face its full social cost. The major external cost that remains to be addressed is climate change. Until countries put an appropriate price on carbon emissions for oil and other fossil fuels, energy policy will be incoherent, and energy and environmental policies will be working at cross-purposes. The National Research Council estimates cited above used a damage cost of $30 per ton of CO2 emissions. This is somewhat higher than estimates from my own work but is a reasonable target for a US carbon price over the next decade or so. If phased in gradually through a cap-and-trade or carbon tax, such a price would help promote both fiscal and environmental goals." ~ ~ ~ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/27/energy-friend-or-enemy/?pagination=false =============== Chris Mooney has also weighted in: http://www.desmogblog.com/which-climate-skeptics-drop-lysenko-bomb-no-i-m-not-kidding ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cheers, Peter M. http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2012/01/wsj-claims-theres-no-need-to-panic.html#more -
EliRabett at 00:27 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Interestingly the WSJ letter had a number of other bad affiliations besides McGrath, which, in the course of events is not terribly important but implies that the letter was perhaps not seen by all the signatories and it would be interesting to know if it came out of some PR shop or Murdoch international -
Tom Curtis at 00:27 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Tealy @32, you can reduce iron with charcoal. Indeed, that is the first way it was done. As the carbon in the trees used to produce the charcoal comes from the atmosphere, the process is carbon neutral. You can also directly reduce iron using hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide can, again, be produced from charcoal. No useful purpose would be served by a steel tax. A carbon tax would cover all the costs of carbon production both in processing iron, and in the production of energy needed. Ergo if your purpose is to reduce GHG emissions, the steel tax adds nothing to the carbon tax, and merely distorts the market. -
Bernard J. at 00:20 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
In addition to folke_kelm's reference to Bartlett (a favourite seeming-curmudgeon of mine), it's also worth pointing folk to Joseph Tainter's written work and presentations on societal collapse. As an ecologist I have been preoccupied for years by carrying capacities and system asymptotes. Tainter's explanations of societal collapse are very good, although I think that he could possibly and usefully emphasise the laws of thermodynamics a little more, and perhaps stick his neck out more about steady-state systems, especially separated from hangings-over of the old (failed) economic paradigm. If there is any deficiency in his analyses it would be in referencing complex, dynamic equilibrium states in ecological and thermodynamic contexts: by doing so, using a compare-and-contrast with various civilisatons' economic models, he could very effectively demonstrate what will and what will not work over the long-term in human societies. As to achieving a maximum atmospheric CO2 (equivalent or otherwise) concentration of 450 ppm, I have for several years now been convinced that 2017 is a pie-in-the-sky landmark. Barring extreme intervention on the scale of global warfare or ('flu?) pandemic (neither unlikely, by the way), I'd say the cut-off date for Peak-Opportunity-for-keeping-mean-global-temperature-to-less-than-2C-abov-the-pre-Industrial-Revolution-value occurred at around the same time as Peak Oil... 2005.
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