Watts Up With That?

And the hits just keep on coming…

646,024 for the Month of July, up from 582,079 in June.

One of the few things that BOTH sides of the Carbon Dioxide and AGW debate seem to be able to agree on is the belief that CO2, as a trace gas, is “well-mixed” in the atmosphere. Keeling’s measurements at Mauna Loa and other locations worldwide rely on this being true, so that “hotspots” aren’t being inadvertently measured.

As support for this, if you do some Google searches for these phrases, you’ll get hundreds of results of the usage together:

CO2 + “well mixed”

“carbon dioxide” + “well mixed”

You’ll find complete opposites using the same “well mixed” phrase, for example:

Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate writes in comment # 162 of this thread on Realclimate.org

“A full doubling of CO2 is 3.7 W/m2, and so by looking at all well-mixed GHGs you get about 70% of the way to a doubling.”

Roger Pielke Sr. writes in April 2008:

“…and thus are not providing quantitatively realistic estimates of how the climate system responds to the increase in atmospheric well mixed greenhouse gases in terms of the water vapor feedback.”

You’ll also find the phrase in use in titles of scientific papers, for example this one published in the AGU:

New Estimates of Radiative Forcing Due to Well Mixed Greenhouse Gases

And you’ll find the phrase used in popular media, such as this article from the BBC:

Carbon dioxide continues its rise

In describing the emasurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory: “The thin Pacific air is ideal for this research since it is “well-mixed”, meaning that there is no obvious nearby source of pollution, such as a heavy industry, or a natural “sink”, such as forest which would absorb CO2.”

Hmm, “no obvious nearby source of pollution” I suppose the volcanic outgassing nearby doesn’t count as “pollution” since it is natural in origin.

So it seems clear that there is a broad agreement on the use of the term. I suppose you’d call that “scientific consensus”.

So it was with some surprise that I viewed this image from NASA JPL, a global CO2 distribution as measured by satellite: Read the rest of this entry »

From this page (h/t Dave Hagen)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is inviting comment from all interested parties on options and questions to be considered for possible greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. EPA is issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) to gather information and determine how to proceed.

The Advance Notice

The ANPR is one of the steps EPA has taken in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. The Court found that the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions if EPA determines they cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. The ANPR reflects the complexity and magnitude of the question of whether and how greenhouse gases could be effectively controlled under the Clean Air Act.

The document summarizes much of EPA’s work and lays out concerns raised by other federal agencies during their review of this work. EPA is publishing this notice at this time because it is impossible to simultaneously address all the agencies’ issues and respond to the agency’s legal obligations in a timely manner.

Key Issues for Discussion and Comment in the ANPR:

• Descriptions of key provisions and programs in the CAA, and advantages and disadvantages of regulating GHGs under those provisions;
• How a decision to regulate GHG emissions under one section of the CAA could or would lead to regulation of GHG emissions under other sections of the Act, including sections establishing permitting requirements for major stationary sources of air pollutants;
• Issues relevant for Congress to consider for possible future climate legislation and the potential for overlap between future legislation and regulation under the existing CAA; and,
• Scientific information relevant to, and the issues raised by, an endangerment analysis.

EPA will accept public comment on the ANPR for 120 days following its publication in the Federal Register.

Background

In April 2007, the Supreme Court concluded that GHGs meet the CAA definition of an air pollutant.  Therefore, EPA has authority under the CAA to regulate GHGs subject to the endangerment test for new motor vehicles – an Agency determination that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.

A decision to regulate GHG emissions for motor vehicles impacts whether other sources of GHG emissions would need to be regulated as well, including establishing permitting requirements for stationary sources of air pollutants.

How to Comment Read the rest of this entry »

Magicians and Illusionists Penn and Teller have a popular TV show on the Showtime channel called, ahem, “Bullshit”. In homage to their debunking mentor, James Randi, they take on a number of subjects they feel could use a little “clarity”.

Click image to watch the video

They recently (last Thursday night) took on Al Gore and carbon credits. The entire 30 minute show is available via the website VREEL (update You Tube has it now, VREEL started installing  Zango a couple of days ago – a spyware)

See YouTube Part1 Part2 Part3

Warning: more than a few obscenities are uttered in the show, but mostly for comic effect.

There was a lot of lobbying going on with this one, I sent a letter myself, listing myself as a former school board member familiar with school curriculum. The real issue is: we currently don’t have a curriculum to teach “managing” other potential disasters, such as an asteroid hit, nuclear war, epidemic, or a worldwide synchronized terrorist strike, so why do we need a specific exception for “global warming”?

This proposal was pure social agenda, nothing else. Thank goodness Ahnold had the good sense to listen and veto this attempt to co-opt our children into an agenda. – Anthony

Stock photo: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signing unrelated papers

Governor vetoes climate change curriculum

By John Boudreau

from the Mercury News

Article Launched: 07/26/2008 09:57:45 PM PDT

California public students will stick to reading, writing and arithmetic, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided as he vetoed a bill late Friday that would have required climate change be added to schools’ curriculum.The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would have required future science textbooks to include climate change as a subject.In January, the state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, by a 26-13 vote.

Only two Republicans supported the proposal.In his veto statement, Schwarzenegger said he supported education that spotlights the dangers of climate change. However, the Republican governor said he was opposed to educational mandates from Sacramento.”I continue to believe that the state should refrain from being overly prescriptive in specific school curriculum, beyond establishing rigorous academic standards,” he said.

Schwarzenegger added that the state’s Integrated Waste Management Board’s Office of Education and Environment, along with California’s Environmental Protection Agency, are creating an environmental curriculum for K-12 students that includes climate change issues.Simitian had said his bill wouldn’t dictate what to teach; rather, it would require the state Board of Education and state Department of Education to decide how the topic would be covered and which grades would study it.

While global warming is included in high school classes as it pertains to weather, the subject is not required to be covered in all textbooks, according to the California Science Teachers Association.

This is a request for some help to anyone in the Los Angeles area to get a weather station surveyed in the hills east of Altadena, near the Mount Wilson Observatory.

Can anyone help out?

Requirements: regular car/truck, digital camera, GPS (optional), ability to follow some simple directions.

Leave a comment if you can. Thanks, Anthony

UPDATE: Looks like I have two takers, working it out now.

NOTE: For those of you who don’t know, Rachel Carson has often been hailed as the “mother of the environmental movement” due to her book, Silent Spring.  Before that book, she wrote another, The Sea Around Us, in which she proposes mechanisms for climate change.

The mechanisms she proposes are all natural, all cyclic variation. No human created chemical influence (CO2) is mentioned. I wonder what she’d say today? Would she flip-flop and go with the flow of the current CO2 movement?

From Ed Sanders website, with some slight editing for readability and removal of the maddening glowing red background. (h/t to Steve McIntyre for the link) – Anthony

UPDATE: I removed a sentence above, because it was spawning debate in an off-topic area that I don’t wish to go into. – Anthony

Copyright 1950, 1951, by Rachel Carson.

Reprinted by permission of Oxford- University Press, Inc.

The old-timers are right–winters aren’t what they were. And the reason may be gigantic tides deep under the sea that apparently change the climate of the whole earth.

The ocean comes alive in one of this year’s most fascinating books. This article is condensed from The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson.  A lilelong student of nature, Miss Carson is editor-in-chief of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Day by day and season by season, the ocean dominates the world’s climate. Can it also be an agent in bringing about the long-period swings of climatic change that we know have occurred throughout the long history of the earth-the alternating periods of heat and cold, of drought and flood? There is a fascinating theory that it can.

This theory links events in the deep, hidden places of the ocean with the cyclic changes of eliminate and their effects on human history. It was developed by the distinguished Swedish oceanographer, Otto Pettersson, whose almost century-long life closed in 1941. Read the rest of this entry »

Illustration only: not part of the paper

This paper has been out for a few days, and several people have alerted me to it. This new paper by Compo,G.P., and P.D. Sardeshmukh, 2008: Oceanic influences on recent continental warming. in the journal Climate Dynamics, is now in press. See the PDF here

This paper makes some significant claims regarding what is driving the observed climate changes. The emphasis is on the ocean as the main driving component, and the authors recognize that “a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences” may be at work. While they point to the oceans as a significant driver, they don’t offer much to explain what is driving the oceanic change.

Even so, this is a significant work, and I urge my visitors to read it, because it shows that GHG forcing is not the only occupant of the drivers seat. It also clearly illustrates the need to examine such cyclic ocean influences as the PDO and AMO more closely, and to consider them in projections of temperature.

Abstract:

“Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Atmospheric model simulations of the last half-century with prescribed observed ocean temperature changes, but without prescribed GHG changes, account for most of the land warming. The oceanic influence has occurred through hydrodynamic-radiative teleconnections, primarily by moistening and warming the air over land and increasing the downward longwave radiation at the surface. The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.”

Conclusion: Read the rest of this entry »