Weekend open thread

This is the first of two excerpts from The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, by Donna Laframboise
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/10/21/book-excerpt-conspiracy-of-silence/

Smokey says:
October 22, 2011 at 1:05 pm
“otter17 still doesn’t get it. We’re not talking about plutonium here.
At current and projected levels CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.”
Latitude says:
October 22, 2011 at 1:11 pm
otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 12:44 pm
“Otter, go all out then. Compare it to arsenic, rat poison, valium….LOL”
_________________
Guys, I repeat: I am not saying that CO2 is an inherently toxic substance and the analogy isn’t meant to convey that meaning. I realize that CO2 is a part of the carbon cycle. The premise is that a release of long-sequestered CO2 changes the balance of the carbon cycle and can change the radiative transfer properties of the atmosphere. All I am saying is that even though it has a small quantity, that doesn’t mean that its properties are negligible.

Juraj V. says:
October 22, 2011 at 12:09 pm
“Coming La Nina seems pretty deep.”
if only they would chamge the scale so as we could see how deep… What’s the point of showing a graph with the interesting bit plotting off scale?

otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Guys, I repeat: I am not saying that CO2 is an inherently toxic substance and the analogy isn’t meant to convey that meaning.
The premise is that a release of long-sequestered CO2 changes the balance of the carbon cycle and can change the radiative transfer properties of the atmosphere.
======================================================
But you set yourself up…..alcohol is toxic
Try another analogy, like food or fertilizer…..that would be a closer analogy to CO2.
Ex: the right amount of fertilizer…..too much kills the plant
CO2 only makes a few people woozie at over 10,000 ppm. Not drunk or toxic……
What I’m trying to get you to think about is……why was CO2 sequestered?
Just like fertilizer…plants, bacteria etc use it up….sequester it
What happens when it becomes limiting?
Some plants shut down completely around 200 ppm……..
Yes, it changes the balance of the carbon cycle….for the better
Levels much lower and we would start seeing certain groups of plants and bacteria going extinct.

@ Gary Hladik
1) I did not ask anyone to accept the premise. It was only posited as a hypothetical situation and there was no mention of last breeding pairs. Nevertheless, thanks for the contributions.
As for items 2) and 3), don’t they conflict? In 2) you say that it is impossible to meet the parameters, but in 3) you indicate that rapid economic growth can reduce CO2 emissions (though I guess not to zero). So, I suppose they don’t conflict if in item 3) the CO2 emissions aren’t reduced to zero.
Ok, so let’s say that you believe that item 2) is unwaveringly true, what would the incentive be to believe in any scientists or scientific bodies that lay out CO2 emissions targets or predicted wide scale harm to the environment? There likely would be a default to adaptation to whatever comes if item 2) is held as absolute truth.

otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 2:04 pm
what would the incentive be to believe in any scientists or scientific bodies that lay out CO2 emissions targets or predicted wide scale harm to the environment?
=========================================================
none what so ever……..
We are below our CO2 target now.
As an example of how close we are to being too low.
If you change that 40% increase, to a 40% decrease….
390 X 40% = 156ppm
390 – 156 = 234ppm
At 234ppm the growth rate of some very large groups of plants and bacteria would be so severely slowed down, they would not be able to compete. Hold those levels long enough, and they would go extinct.
How can we be that close to the edge, and want to limit CO2? Knowing that for no known reasons, CO2 levels have dropped much more than that in the past………….some of the reasons we do know. Evolution of grasses for one……….

Latitude says:
October 22, 2011 at 2:18 pm
“none what so ever……..
We are below our CO2 target now.”
_______________
Do you know of any scientist that indicates what you are saying? I haven’t heard of such a target, though I am curious.
“As an example of how close we are to being too low.
If you change that 40% increase, to a 40% decrease….”
______________
So you are worried about too little carbon dioxide? What would cause the carbon dioxide levels to decrease 40% below pre-industrial levels? Careful to not be too alarmed about the lack of carbon dioxide, haha (I kid).
Anyway, I’m not necessarily here to argue what the best CO2 level is. I’m just trying to see if recommendations for CO2 targets from scientists are realistically do-able and what type of mitigation plans would work as per NAS recommendations.

Hey, otter17,
If you’re really worried about the “GHG” contribution of a couple parts per million of a relatively weak “greenhouse gas” (which is fairly odd to start with, since as others have pointed out, CO2 concentrations have been a lot higher in the past without killing dear mommy Gaia), why not focus on the stronger greenhouse gases?
I propose emergency funding to manufacture giant sponges to sequester the planet’s water. (I also propose emergency funding for me to buy up bottled water stock.)

otter: I’m just trying to see if recommendations for CO2 targets from scientists are realistically do-able and what type of mitigation plans would work as per NAS recommendations.
===============
I don’t think so at all….not when you have Russia, China, India, Japan, etc saying no
When the UN considers countries that have more money than God “developing, like Kuwait, Saudi, etc and developing countries can go for it…..
and the only countries going for it are so small no one would even notice…….
US emissions have been dropping anyway….
Even if the science was rock solid, it’s the politics that makes it a no show……..
….the science being a farce doesn’t help
Biologists will tell you the mitigation plans need to be to increase CO2 levels to at least 1000ppm.

Zero emissions? Assuming “they” will be compassionate and let us breath, and what we’re talking about is “zero emissions from fossil fuels”, easy. Nuke it up. Forget regulations, permits, inspections… just build ’em as fast as we can. I think this would be a horrible idea – exposes our g-g-g-grandchildren to (gradually decreasing) risk for a LONG time after any benefits expire! For an interesting read, go back to the first posts about Fukushima and watch the “experts” assure us it will all be over in 12 – 24 hours.
When I first encountered the “CO2 = catastrophic warming” story, I asked myself “who benefits”? I immediately thought of “Big Nuke”. There really doesn’t seem to be much “Big Nuke” – too much risk to investors, even with Price-Anderson – but I’m still suspicious…
(I’m pretty sure this differs from “Anthony’s opinion” but I’m betting I’ll be allowed to post it anyway – Thanks, Anthony!)
BEST? A big nothing. They’re not really “doing science”, they’re just re-counting the beans. Apparently, they have some worthwhile alternative counting methods. Got about the same count as the last guys who counted. Pity they shot their wad. What difference does peer review make at this point? The fireworks are all shot off. If a reviewer, known or anonymous, points out that tubes three and seven were duds, who cares? Show’s over.
In a reply in the “What I agree with…” thread, Anthony mentions that the Trenbreth Q&A was cancelled. Not much information on it. Can you tell us anything? (when you get caught up with your own work, and hopefully get some R&R – go shoot some skeet!)
(I may have to change my sig)
Best,
Frank

Otter17, I think that what you need is a proper science education, to correct a deficit of which you are unaware.
Let me explain.You see, you are deeply wrong in your understanding, like the whole AGW “consensus”. You are wrong by so many layers you have no idea, and you will need to check our counter-evidence for each layer before you can believe we’re not just fooling around with you.
You need to chew over a great many pieces of evidence that show that every single piece of AGW scare stuff is bunk. Helluva lot of evidence. Here on the skeptic blogs, “education” means learning to work through, and check, CHECKABLE EVIDENCE to arrive at your own conclusions, as per true science that unfortunately seems to be seldom practiced now, in Climate Science, outside these skeptic networks.
Click my name to read my “Skeptics Climate Science Primer”. I’ve looked at every skeptics issue “Skeptical Science” claims to have “debunked”, and have found evidence to contradict them every single time. I’ve tried to make my work accessible, readable to both scientists and non-scientists. It’s not perfect or guaranteed correct. And don’t think it’s all my work. I’ve simply drawn together the work of experts worldwide. Some of my best critics – and some of my worst – have been warmists.

Read otter17’s answers, and it’s obvious the goal is thread-jacking. In any case, the repetitious appeals to authority are tiresome.
As for scientists disputing the efficacy of CO2, there’s this:

The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration which is another time series shows a smooth accelerating increase ending in a linear trend of about 2ppmv/year over the past decade. This time series does not contain this predominent 65 year period so increase in CO2 concentration cannot be the driver of observed global temperature change; full stop!

R Gates
Very well done with the ink in water. You make an important point, that small quantities can make a huge difference. Skeptics here refer to CO2 as “nothing” far too glibly, and you are right to criticize IMO.
However, in making one essential point, you obscure another equally essential point. In fact your ink analogy will serve very well to demonstrate it. Now at very low levels of ink-in-water, tiny additions change the opacity a lot. But as you add more, you find that tiny additions quickly become completely unnoticeable, and quickly the water becomes opaque. When you’ve reached that level, which is still very dilute, then more ink produces no real increase in opacity.
This is the REAL analogous situation we’ve reached with CO2. It’s already done pretty well all the blocking it can do at its particular wavelength.

Brian H says:
October 22, 2011 at 3:23 pm
“Read otter17′s answers, and it’s obvious the goal is thread-jacking. In any case, the repetitious appeals to authority are tiresome.”
_________
Umm, if I am responding to people and they are responding back, how is that thread jacking? It is a conversation, I believe.
And where specifically do I appeal to authority without good reason? I thought I was providing a variety of sources and yest some expert opinions. I even posted a Youtube video with an experiment, not an appeal to authority.
As far as that quote from the Judith Curry website, has that been published to a peer review paper or does one already exist?

Lucy Skywalker says:
October 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm
“Otter17, I think that what you need is a proper science education, to correct a deficit of which you are unaware.”
____________________
Ok, I’ll take a look at the primer some time. Do you link to peer-reviewed results like Skeptical Science does? Good citations and good sources make for good education, so if you have sources that conflict with Skeptical Science, that would be worth a look for sure.

Smokey says:
October 22, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Yes, and if otter17 makes the effort (as most of the skeptics have HAD to do themselves!) he/she should be encouraged. I don’t mind if someone is still a warmist after doing the research – it’s those that blindly follow the media hyped mantra that are hard to take seriously as they clearly don’t have enough knowledge to back up the ‘settled science’.

You oughta get some sleep Mr. Watts, fighting the MSM alarmist world is tough.

Don B says:
October 22, 2011 at 10:27 am
It truly astonishes me that as the rest of the world pulls back from carbon dioxide control, and while China and India always intended to increase their coal burning, Australia begins a carbon tax. Julia Gillard and her political friends are quite mad.
———-
Not really. You simply don’t understand how international diplomatic negotiations work.
If you do understand then it all becomes very logical and not mad at all.

Kev-in-Uk says:
October 22, 2011 at 4:26 pm
“Yes, and if otter17 makes the effort (as most of the skeptics have HAD to do themselves!) he/she should be encouraged.”
________________________
Ah, thanks. I used to be a climate contrarian of sorts back in high school when I had first heard about the issue mentioned. Without looking at much information, I just assumed that humans were far too small to do anything like global warming. In college, I read quite a bit more on the subject, and even more after getting a job. Also, in college at Ohio State, I recall hearing a bit about Dr. Lonnie Thompson and his work with glaciers. I do like a recent paper of his, which kind of sums up the science and is understandable to me.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/TBA–LTonly.pdf
Anyway, I’m skimming through the primer now to get a grasp of how it is laid out.

otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 10:19 am
Say hypothetically that the CO2 emissions needed to be reduced down to zero by say 2050-2060 roughly. What would be the best policy, technology, and treaty measures to do so such that our livelihood, economy, etc remain productive/happy? Trying to do policy brainstorm, looking forward to suggestions.
Kill off everyone else? How about that? The rest would be happy…
Seriously, there is no way to prevent people using fire. Homo Sapiens is the only fire-tending animal, our very nature, our biology, our anatomy is defined by fire. Our ancestors started using it well before becoming fully human. Our enormous skull (housing a pretty able brain), devoid of powerful muscles and with diminished teeth would be impossible without it. With no fire we would starve to death in several months, because raw food in general is not for human consumption.
The human spirit itself is fire, and this fire is insatiable. It consumes knowledge, experiences and emits light, much light & warmth & love & creativity.
For policing CO₂ emissions is to police fire. Should you be successful in this endeavor, liver of Prometheus is eaten in vain while you are left with zombies, at best. Why to make Zeus happy? An ancient pagan deity of greatly reduced power, his utmost weapon, lightning being tamed and distributed to each and every household to do useful work there, making women free of backbreaking chores.
As for CO₂ levels 5 decades from now, take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Current concentration is somewhat below 400 ppmv, while the stuff is not toxic at all until ten thousand ppmv is exceeded. Quite some safety margin. From the geologic record we do know for sure that life on this globe has prospered tremendously under carbon dioxide concentrations ten times higher than we have today. In fact there is no economic way to pump that much of the substance into the atmosphere, because we are running out of easily accessible carbon based geofuels before that could happen.
At the same time carbon in its elementary form is not only fuel, but the best construction material imaginable. It is not mere happenstance that molecular nanotechnology of life is based on structures having carbon backbone. But we can do much better than that if we learn how to make self replicating programmable nanobots capable to construct diamondoid structures or intricate webs of carbon nanotubes coated with molecular instruments for any purpose according to design. As soon as it happens, a huge demand for carbon will emerge, and as we can learn from plants, the most accessible source is airborne CO₂. That is, in the long run, we are better to worry about CO₂ depletion of the atmosphere: simple economics dictates that it should be that way. We will have to develop procedures to replenish is, possibly using limestone as source. Admittedly, it would yield lime milk as a byproduct, which, if released to the environment in its unaltered form, could cause catastrophic ocean basification. But as I have already mentioned, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
You may also wonder what large scale energy source is available if carbon based geofuels are depleted. But that’s an easy one. We have this huge thermonuclear reactor nearby with its 383 yottawatt output and we don’t even know how to turn it off. It has enough fuel in it for billions of years. The only thing we need is a micron sized solar cell which does not produce electricity directly, but some not flammable, non-toxic energy rich substance like sugar using CO₂ and water and releasing O₂ into the environment, along with a fuel cell of the same size, producing electricity on demand by turning sugar and atmospheric oxygen into vapor and carbon dioxide. Pretty neat closed cycle, eh?
If these molecular machines are designed carefully, their quantum efficiency can be quite high. The only remaining task is to produce them en masse at low cost using self replicating molecular factories. With this technological outlook in mind you can surely see the present (tax payer financed) rush for solar energy is a bit premature.
Of course, we also have nuclear fission at hand. Not the old-fashioned unstable plants primarily designed to provide Plutonium for weapons, but some novel, inherently safe, sub-critical, self-terminating breeder type with passive cooling, possibly utilizing Thorium (which is five times more abundant than Uranium), burning out all the long half life isotopes from the fuel and not generating anything, even as an intermediate product, that could be used as a nuclear explosive. The waste from such a reactor does not have to be sequestered for eternity, just for several centuries before its radioactivity decreases to environmental levels. And, for a given amount of waste, one could extract a hundred times more energy.
It happens to be a fact of thermodynamics, that to enrich a substance which is scarce in nature, the energy needed is proportional to the logarithm of scarcity of that element, provided of course the technology applied operates close to the thermodynamic limit. But with advanced molecular nanotech it should be easy to construct such molecular sorters.
It means that even if all the rich ores containing fissionable material are depleted, we still have a virtually inexhaustible supply from poor sources, if energy is cheap. But the very inexhaustibility of fuel supply makes energy cheap enough to grant it, at least for the next several billion years.
Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

mkurbo says:
October 22, 2011 at 1:00 pm
10 Steps to turning the American economic engine back on…
——
Better yet, stop fighting over the steering wheel.
Business will get moving again if you take away the uncertainty. A bunch of power crazed idealogues with over simplified ideas is doing a lot of damage.

Party! Party! Weekend! Climate! Party!
Put forth the CO2 keg and sniff away.
It’s dangerous stuff right, EPA and climate communist hippies says so, therefor it ought to be really cool to sniff it, right? (Submariners can’t join in the fun, what with they’ve obviously survived too dangerous levels of CO2 them in-pay-of-oil-baron-basterds, and by observations is so terribly old and outdated in climate science any ho’.)
CO2 is dangerous stuff, it makes Coca Cola steal it, mix with cola, and make pure water cold from the poor “boil”.
At least Bud the wiser delivers a buzz. :p

otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 3:49 pm
“No, CO2 isn’t translucent to electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum (light that we see). It does have a property where it “blocks” electromagnetic radiation in some of the infrared spectrum. An object can lose heat via giving off infrared radiation, so if the CO2 blocks the infrared, it traps heat. So the theory goes to the best of my knowledge.”
Otter, CO2 does not only absorb IR but in equal measure re-emits it, see here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/co2-heats-the-atmosphere-a-counter-view/
So it works more like an IR redistributor.
and this; notice the last figure, showing how saturated the CO2 absorption band already is.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/15/9373/
Meaning that it’s a dense IR redistributing fog already (mean path length on the order of 20m on ground level); more CO2 will only shorten this path length slightly.

F. Ross says:
October 22, 2011 at 5:30 pm
“The answers to the questions you ask are there (or in other places you may discover), but you have to put forth the effort to find them. If you are just trolling here to see what a stir you can cause, well don’t bother reading any of the sources cited.”
____________
Generally, I like links to peer-review paper abstracts, but I can dig through the links for info, thanky. And if anything talk to Latitude about trolling. I was trying to calmly/rationally explain an analogy, and he just kept calling it stupid and laughing.

u.k.(us) says:
October 22, 2011 at 5:27 pm
“I assume when you say, “I do like a recent paper of his”, that objectivity has left the realm, along with reason.”
___________________
Have you read the paper? If not, you cannot in good faith just blindly accuse me that my objectivity and/or reason have left me. If so, then ok that is your opinion.

u.k.(us) says:
October 22, 2011 at 3:33 pm
R. Gates says:
October 22, 2011 at 3:15 pm
=======
OMG, does this mean the sun won’t shine anymore.
Or is it just a really bad analogy.
You can do better, I know you can.
I’ve seen it.
———
As CO2 is mostly transparent to the wavelengths of sunlight, no matter how high the CO2 levels go, we would not be in danger of blocking out sunlight. The ink example simple shows visually what we can’t see in term of the effects of something at low ppm. I would of course expect certain skeptics to refuse to grasp this analogy.

Zero emissions? Assuming “they” will be compassionate and let us breath, and what we’re talking about is “zero emissions from fossil fuels”, easy. Nuke it up. Forget regulations, permits, inspections… just build ‘em as fast as we can. I think this would be a horrible idea – exposes our g-g-g-grandchildren to (gradually decreasing) risk for a LONG time after any benefits expire! For an interesting read, go back to the first posts about Fukushima and watch the “experts” assure us it will all be over in 12 – 24 hours.

Excuse me, risk, Fukushima, what, exactly, are you talking about??
Number of people who were killed, or even injured, by Fukushima, still zero.
Fukushima was not even the only nuke plant in the area (for both earthquake and tsunami), danger from others, zero, and Fukushima was a 30 year old plant.
This was with one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, plus a tsunami, and the nuke plants were still completely safe.
I mean, just how much evidence do you need that these plants are safe???
And as for the press, where you know doubt “learned” of all this Fukushima “danger”, they are frankly guilty of bald faced lying. I mean, number of people killed or even injured by radiation, zero, number of people killed outright by earthquake and tsunami, at least 25,000, and that does not even count those seriously injured, maimed, bereaved, and without homes or jobs in winter. And while all those people (those who survived) were suffering all that, what did the press report on day after day after day, Fukushima, where the number of casualties was, and still is, zero. And they are still at it, such as a recent news report of “hot spots” in some city, while admitting that these “hot spots” were, in fact, completely harmless to anyone. Sooo, I guess the phrase “cold spots” just doesn’t sell enough papers, right? Ask yourself, why was this even news? Why are they reporting as “news” something that has absolutely no effect on anyone anywhere? When you can figure that one out, the light will dawn.

Dear news media:
Remember back in ’50s and early ’60s, when we set off something like 900 atomic bombs in
Nevada? And how we just let the fallout blow wherever and it landed all over the
eastern US? And how it wiped out life as we know it and all that was left from
Colorado to the Atlantic were six-legged rats battling two-headed cockroaches in
the glowing ruins?
Yeah. Exactly. So shut up with the panic already

Yes, they really did set off a bunch of above-ground nuclear tests. It happened so often that people would gather their lawn chairs just at the edge of Reno (or Las Vegas, I forget which) and have nuclear tailgate parties to watch these things. One fellow was miffed because he missed the first one, reason, he had radiation poisoning (he worked to create it). He died…a couple of years ago…at age 86.
How to get rid of that nuclear waste (that being the excuse to call nuke plants dangerous you will come up with next)? Did you know that the Canadians have invented a nuke plant that can turn nuclear waste into electricity? In fact, it is so good at it it can turn raw uranium ore into electricity. No need to pile it up at places like Fukushima (in steel containers), because stupid nuclear panic has not allowed us to dispose of it safely as we planned. It was this nuclear waste, not the actual nuke plant, which was the source of most of the (too small to be harmful) radiation at Fukushima, or didn’t you know that?
Still afraid of nuclear power? Wanna buy a bridge?

John B says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:36 pm
“But the numbers also say that as the teemperature goes up, water vapour increases, which makes the temperature go up some more, giving a total effect of something like 3 degrees C per doubling of CO2, with some degree of uncertainty.”
_____
3C is a very reasonable estimate (always of course with a degree of uncertainty), and it is not just the water vapor feedbacks, but the whole package of fast and slow feedbacks, all of which we don’t fully know of course. Hence, the paleoclimate data becomes useful, to see what the earth was like at the closest historical point in the past when CO2 was doubled from our pre-industrial levels. (Going from 280 to 560 ppm). We need to go back to the mid-Pliocence for this, about 3.3 Million years ago. Looking at this era, we see that global temps were around 3C to 4.5C warmer…which correlates closely with what global climate models are saying. Giving these two independent sources of estimates, it seems 3C of warming is very reasonable with a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels, when one looks at all the feedbacks, both slow and fast.
This chart on this topic makes an interesting read:
http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/prism/products/agu3.pdf

otter17 says (October 22, 2011 at 2:04 pm): “As for items 2) and 3), don’t they conflict?”
Not sure what you’re asking. I thought I was quite consistent that you could achieve zero emissions by 2060 OR maintain/improve human welfare but not both. If you emphasize human welfare, the emissions reduction is a side effect, but not intentionally, not so soon, and probably not as much. No conflict there.
“Ok, so let’s say that you believe that item 2) is unwaveringly true, what would the incentive be to believe in any scientists or scientific bodies that lay out CO2 emissions targets or predicted wide scale harm to the environment?”
None. I can live with that. We have bigger problems.
“There likely would be a default to adaptation to whatever comes if item 2) is held as absolute truth.”
Fine. Note that wealth and technology improve adaptation, so economic growth is win-win-win-win-win, whatever the climate.
BTW, I guaran-damn-tee that China & India aren’t buying into this CO2 hysteria, so the question of mitigation is moot. We’re going to have a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere whatever the rest of the world does. I would prefer that “Western” civilization leads the way to wealth, but if not, I take comfort that at least some societies have their economic priorities straight.

otter17 says (October 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm): “Ah, thank you R. Gates. That is the type of analogy I was looking for.”
Yes, because ink is just like CO2, and a cylinder of water is just like the earth’s atmosphere. You know, just like Al Gore’s heat lamp/cookie jar/toy globe demonstration is just like our planet’s climate system.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/replicating-al-gores-climate-101-video-experiment-shows-that-his-high-school-physics-could-never-work-as-advertised/
Do I really need the /sarc?

Legatus says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:54 pm
[Nuke, as a method of “decarbonizing”]
“”I think this would be a horrible idea – exposes our g-g-g-grandchildren to (gradually decreasing) risk for a LONG time after any benefits expire!””
Hi Legatus,
I’m not sure this is the right place to get into this, but since it’s an “open thread”…
“”For an interesting read, go back to the first posts about Fukushima and watch the “experts” assure us it will all be over in 12 – 24 hours.””
I should have made clear that this (Fukushima “experts” in the first day or two) is a slightly different topic than the generic “long term risk, short term benefit” that makes me oppose Nuclear power.
“Excuse me, risk, Fukushima, what, exactly, are you talking about?? Number of people who were killed, or even injured, by Fukushima, still zero.”
Number of people evicted from their homes: 80,000. Date when they may return: uncertain.
“Fukushima was not even the only nuke plant in the area (for both earthquake and tsunami), danger from others, zero, and Fukushima was a 30 year old plant. This was with one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, plus a tsunami, and the nuke plants were still completely safe.”
Perhaps we have a different definition of “completely safe”…
“I mean, just how much evidence do you need that these plants are safe???”
Ummm… lack of evacuation? Workers allowed to work as near to the plants as they like, for as long as they like?
You are correct, of course, that if the tragic event happened at a coal mine, it probably would have caved in. If it had been a hydro-power dam, it probably would have burst. Nothing is risk-free. My point is that the risk from nuclear goes on for an awfully long time.
“And as for the press, where you know doubt “learned” of all this Fukushima “danger”, they are frankly guilty of bald faced lying.”
Ah, okay. Correct number of evacuees is? And I would find the correct information where? My point in mentioning the “experts” on the early threads here was this: If you ask the typical schoolkid, they’ll tell you AGW is real and dangerous. That’s what they learned in school. If you ask a typical nuclear engineer, they’ll tell you nuclear power is safe. Same reason?
…
“Why are they reporting as “news” something that has absolutely no effect on anyone anywhere?”
Have you asked the evacuees about this?
“When you can figure that one out, the light will dawn.”
If you can show me where the “off” switch is on a nuke, I will be greatly enlightened. A coal-fired plant has many disadvantages, but when you stop shovelling coal into it, it stops.
…
” Yeah. Exactly. So shut up with the panic already”
Sorry if I gave you the impression I was “panicing”. Otter17(?) asked how we could reduce CO2 emissions to zero. That’s how. I think it’s a terrible idea.
…
“Yes, they really did set off a bunch of above-ground nuclear tests.”
I know. We used to use them as a “reason” for “oddball” weather (which is actually quite common). Lot of rain? It’s those A-bomb tests! Been dry? It’s those A-bomb tests! Much like some people blame CO2 for extremes of weather these days.
…
“How to get rid of that nuclear waste (that being the excuse to call nuke plants dangerous you will come up with next)?”
Psychic too, are ye? 🙂 That’s easy: put it someplace, build a fence around it to keep the kiddies out, and put armed guards around it to keep terrorists out. Then keep the fence and armed guards maintained for a really long time!
…
“It was this nuclear waste, not the actual nuke plant, which was the source of most of the (too small to be harmful) radiation at Fukushima, or didn’t you know that?”
Actually, no I didn’t know that. I was under the impression that radiation was escaping from several sources. How much is “too small to be harmful”, Legatus? A very large amount of radiation will kill you PDQ. (dispute?) A lesser amount will increase your risk of cancer by a measureable amount. (dispute?) There is some evidence that a very small amount (above background) is actually good for ya – Ann Coulter is not completely insane to observe this. (note: “completely” 🙂 ) Since you seem to know a lot about this, perhaps you can tell us exactly where the dividing line is between “completely safe” and “some risk”?
“Still afraid of nuclear power?”
I’m not particularly “afraid” of nuclear power. I observe that the risks (small as you may think they are) go on for a long time. The indisputable benefits last a short time. I think such a “long term contract” is a bad deal. (I think that nuke power – fission – may well be our punishment for not thinking up anything better, actually. I still think it’s a bad idea!)
“Wanna buy a bridge?”
Nope. Wanna buy a nuclear waste repository? They’re looking for a site, I hear!
Best,
Frank

“10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change” at http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-on-Climate-Change.html claims to list 10 items of empirical evidence that supports AGW.
Where may I find specific scientific refutations of the link between those ten items and AGW theory? (Not just a general blast at http://www.skepticalscience.com, please) Another way to put it is: Can anyone direct me to a scientific explanation of how a non-AGW theory explains those ten items as well or better than AGW?
In particular, can anyone direct me to a scientific refutation of the claim that the Evans 2006 results (http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm) demonstrate that there is a direct connection between anthropogenic greenhouse gases and global warming?

R. Gates says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:21 pm
As CO2 is mostly transparent to the wavelengths of sunlight, no matter how high the CO2 levels go, we would not be in danger of blocking out sunlight. The ink example simple shows visually what we can’t see in term of the effects of something at low ppm. I would of course expect certain skeptics to refuse to grasp this analogy.
Doesn’t show that at all. All it shows is that certain liquids mix. Use a drop of oil instead, what do you get?
So, it stands, the analogy is stupid for a variety of reasons and that is what sceptics grasp.
Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, it therefore displaces air and sinks unless work is done to move or mix it, it will not, as your analogy extrapolates to and which is the implied message in this junk analogy, mix thoroughly into the fluid gaseous ocean of air of our atmosphere as does the ink. What is the temperature of each in your analogy? Use a drop of something with the same relative weight to water as carbon dioxide to air. Tell us what happens.

otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 10:19 am
“Say hypothetically that the CO2 emissions needed to be reduced down to zero by say 2050-2060 roughly. What would be the best policy, technology, and treaty measures to do so such that our livelihood, economy, etc remain productive/happy? Trying to do policy brainstorm, looking forward to suggestions.”
Trying to do a policy brainstorm for a solution to a non-existent problem? Why?

Myrrh says:
October 23, 2011 at 1:08 am
Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, it therefore displaces air and sinks unless work is done to move or mix it, it will not, as your analogy extrapolates to and which is the implied message in this junk analogy, mix thoroughly into the fluid gaseous ocean of air of our atmosphere as does the ink. What is the temperature of each in your analogy? Use a drop of something with the same relative weight to water as carbon dioxide to air. Tell us what happens.
——-
All of this is wrong. Its true that CO2 is heavier than air and if you pour pure CO2 out into a room full of air it will sink immediately. But this is temporary.
There is a process called diffusion that will distribute the CO2 throughout the entire volume of the room eventually. Bulk mixing of the gas via a fan simply hastens this process.
There is some segregation of CO2 from the bottom to the top of the atmosphere, but the degree of this effect is dictated by the weight of CO2 relative to the atmospheric temperature. The effect is very small and is typically ignored.
The same effect applies in water. The dye molecules are much heavier than water molecules, but as long as the dye molecules are soluble in water or otherwise dispersible they will spread evenly throughout the liquid.
The same applies to suspensions of clay in water. In effect the thermal jiggling of the clay particles by water molecules prevents them from settling due to gravity. Therefore for settling to happen the partakes must be large enough for gravity to overcome thermal motions.
Hope that’s clear.
And Myrrh just because you don’t understand it does not mean that it’s stupid. A bit more humility will lead to less humiliation.

Latitude says:
October 22, 2011 at 2:20
You can’t “acid” something until you run out of buffer…
…C(arbon)O2
———
True. But titration curves of buffers are not perfectly horizontal lines and the buffer capacity of sea water is small.
Maybe to stop the hand waving we need to see the actual titration curve of actual seawater when titrated with actual CO2.

Latitude says:
October 22, 2011 at 4:04 pm
You shouldn’t be…
What CO2 levels are optimum for growing plants in a greenhouse? What should CO2 levels be in a phytoplankton culture? an algae culture, some Pseudomona culture, etc etc
———-
I don’t believe that green house CO2 concentrations are a good indicator for what happens in the wild.
For a start in a green house humidity is controlled allowing the stomata to fully open. .
Second there are no mineral nutient limitations thus allowing the plant to maximize CO2 uptake.

Smokey says:
October 22, 2011 at 5:52 pm
I think this qualifies for an Open Thread. And this is related.
The UN/IPCC is fabricating history, just like programmer Harry fabricated many years of temperature records, and like Hansen’s GISS routinely alters the past temperature record – always in a manner that is the most alarming to the public.
———-
Sure Smokey. Let’s assume for the moment that your friend Harry was not simply confused by the principles behind a perfectly valid infilling procedure and as a result started making arrogant and cynical comments.
What kind of fabrication did he do? Random values, values biassed to make trends look cooler, values biassed to make things warmer? I don’t think you can answer that question
Considering that Harry’s output produced the temperature series with the lowest upward trend over the last 10 years, making it the darling dataset of many skeptics, maybe it is faked to favor your position. Just speculating wildly.

@Smokey
And you, sir, are a conspiracy theorist. The UN/IPCC don’t have the temperature data to themselves to adjust. And even if Harry did fabricate temperatures, to what effect? And even if it increased the apparent waming trend, how come other datasets agree?
And what about BEST? The darling of the skeptics, until they produced results in line with the mainstream.
There is no conspiracy, only reality. Accept it and join the real debate about what, if anything, should be done about it.

Jesse Fell says:
October 23, 2011 at 12:58 am
“The effect of water vapor is far less problematic. It is a potent greenhouse gas that will lead to further warming, which will enable the atmosphere to hold more moisture which will lead to further warming . .. and so on.”
Why hasn’t this happened in the past?

lucy, I don’t get one of your points. In the past, the sun was colder than nowadays. The AGW “alarmists” explain that despite this, it was warm because the CO2 level were higher. In fact this is how the theory was started in the beginning of the XX century. How do you explain the earth temperatures in the past, without taking CO2 into the account?

🙂 I will repeat it here:
nikki says:
October 22, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Mr. Watts, is respected dr Kenji Watts aware of important work of scientist H.A.M.S. ter Tisha co-author of Nobel laureat Andre Geim?
see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921452600007535

Richard B. Woods says:
October 23, 2011 at 12:16 am
““10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change” at http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-on-Climate-Change.html claims to list 10 items of empirical evidence that supports AGW.”
“With the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) warming and the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere) cooling, another consequence is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, otherwise known as the tropopause, should rise as a consequence of greenhouse warming. This has been observed (Santer 2003). ”
The tropospheric hot spot, that’s a critical one. Santer tricked around a lot to “find” that; Jo Nova has written a lot about that; see
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/this-is-90-certainty-really-yet-another-paper-shows-the-hot-spot-is-missing/comment-page-1/#comment-561555
and see also this comment
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/12/our-sustainable-mirth/#comment-765890
“when even Dr.Syukuro Manabe, the godfather of climate modeling, now agrees with Fred Singer that it’s
not there (see Fu, 2011) and that climate models overstate the warming by 2 to 4 times.
“

This is about the experiment on how ink has the potential of being a major pollutant. I tried putting 10 drops of Coke in a 2 liter bottle of Sprite. I didn’t get the same result as the ink in water experiment, so I tried 100 drops of Coke in a 2 liter bottle of Sprite. My results are not as dramatic as the ink in water solution. Is my math wrong, or should I try putting apple juice in orange juice for the comparison? How about putting 560 ppm of scotch in the coke, then add 40% more scotch? I wonder how many of those I need to drink before I feel my globe warming?

lgl says:
October 23, 2011 at 6:21 am
R. Gates
it seems 3C of warming is very reasonable with a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels
or… it seems a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels is very reasonable with a 3C warming.
———
Then you’d better have a forcing that can explain that warming. Either way, a 3C warmer Earth is a very different Earth than we have seen during the Holocene. Does that mean “catastrophically” different? I’m not convinced, but it would be prudent to at least consider the full range of potential changes and how we might need to adapt.

Jesse Fell says:
October 23, 2011 at 8:38 am
“From what I’ve read, we haven’t seen this happen in the past ( i.e., a runaway feedback loop involving increasing atmospheric temperature and increasing water vapor in the atmosphere ) because of various negative feedbacks, and because a constant positive forcing of sufficient strength (such as increasing amounts of atmospheric CO2) were lacking. As the Earth warms because of increasing CO2, the increasing atmospheric water vapor will have a multiplier effect, causing extra warming.”
Water vapour content is highly variable. Shouldn’t the conditions for this runaway feedback already be met at some places, some time of the year? Whether the temperature comes about due to CO2 or due to normal solar forcing doesn’t matter.

@jesse, greenhouse gas is physical nonsense since real greenhouse and supposed scattered radiation are totally different things. It is like marking someone “enemy of the workers and peasants” in Soviet Russia. Second, there is no increase, rather decrease of water vapor in stratosphere, totally in contrary with models, so the real world is again more complicated than “high school physics”. Third, nobody yet proved that the back scattered radiation from molecules has some substantial effect on the surface temperature, since per each “anthropogenic” CO2 molecule there are ten thousand N2/O2 molecules radiating IR downwards as well, according to their temperature. IR is more sign that the atmosphere has some above zero temperature. Subtract the heat capacity of oceans and bulk atmosphere and you get Mars – with 6,000ppm of CO2 and theoretical and practical temperature is the same, 210K.

Not sure I buy these Las Vegas tail-gate parties where people watch the nuclear bombs going off from a safe distance. Or that these detonations explain the strange weather in Nevada.
In the late 1980s a group of us were invited to the Nevada Test Site to see the area where the underground testing was taking place. They did have two detonations where the surface material was ejected during the explosion (even though these were both underground as well). We spent 20 minutes near the edge of one crater, enough for a year’s radiation exposure. The tests were attempted to demonstrate atomic bombs as a means for large excavations. Very effective with the exception of the radioactive material left behind which would preclude human use for several thousand years. Dang.
Tail-gate parties watching above ground atomic detonations? This would explain most of the warming in the latter part of the past century. If it were only true.
And now we are told that America, Australia, Britain and New Zealand are embracing the carbon tax or cap and trade, not because their elected leaders are smart like hammers, but because it is a concerted effort to address the uncontrolled growth of China and India. Apparently, if you don’t believe this then you don’t know much about international diplomatic negotiations. Just so I get this right, the US is giving up producing oil, mining minerals, manufacturing etc all to China as part of a carefully planned international diplomatic negotiations to get China to reduce its CO2 emissions? And Australia, an exporting juggernaut which sends massive quantities of coal and iron ore to Asian countries and has recently introduced a carbon tax on its own people, has done this because it is engaging in international diplomatic negotiations with the US and other countries in an attempt to convince the emerging countries including China and India to reduce their CO2 emissions?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

Andrew Harding says:
October 23, 2011 at 3:51 am
“Otter17: You seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest with what I think is a sensible question.”
____________
Hey, thanks Andrew. Sensible questions that get one’s intellect jostled a bit are excellent exercises once in a while. It was a bit hairy responding to so many, but I had time to kill with my sprained knee, haha.

otter17 says:
October 23, 2011 at 9:51 am
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 23, 2011 at 9:09 am
“Well well well. Nice typical alarmist behaviour John B. Ruffians’ ploy. Gagging. Denial of Witness. “The Debate Is Over”. “I’ve looked and you don’t even need to look. Believe me.””
________________
I’m sure John B isn’t saying that he is 100% sure that everything in your website is wrong or that he wants to gag, deny witness or otherwise stifle inquiry. What he is getting at is that peer-reviewed scientific results are an important part of the modern scientific process, and that having evidence that is based in the modern scientific process is important. He is skeptical of your website because of that. Slap me if I am wrong on any of this, John B.
I think, what some would call for is an overhaul or an improvement of your argument in your website. Do an exhaustive search for all the peer-reviewed papers that you feel best represent the science; maybe put them in a list. Get rid of any accusations or statements that don’t have a good piece of evidence associated with them. This may be another task to do, but science does not reward inaction. Also, my comment would be to get rid of that picture with the “Daily Express” tabloid headline. Not too many people put faith in what tabloids say, haha.
————–
That’s about right. But the reason you will never see a fully peer-review supported “skeptic” site is that the peer-reviewed literature overwhelmingly supports the mainstream view. Hence, “skeptics” invoke conspiracy theories and talk about “pal review”, except when applied to the handful of papers that support their personal views, in which case peer review is taken to mean that those papers are unassailable.

From my past brief perusal, I think Lucy’s site is OK and a good effort to bring some general points to bear. Certainly, if we consider that the single solitary basis for good science is skepticism before acceptance – then the questioning/querying type presentation is entirely appropriate. It’s not right ’til it’s proven – and until that point everyone (who is a scientist) should be skeptical and keep questioning – science is not done by concensus.
As for the r’equirement’ for peer reviewed references – I’d ask the doubters to comment on how many NON peer reviewed stuff was included in IPCC’s AR4 !!! But of course, Lucys site is just for casual observers and is Sooooo important that it must be above reproach! However, by contrast the IPCC machinations – which are purported to be ‘required’ reading for the ENTIRE fecking world are perfectly at liberty to use non peer reviewed and other NGO type references!! I’d suggest you start to look at the so called ‘settled science’ first!…..

otter17 says: —
Otter you post the REALLY MISLEADING CO2 “abosorption experiment, which I’ve commented on before.
If you check, you will find a pronounced CO2 absorption peak at 900 nanometers. This compares with the 6000 nanometer peaks and 12000 nanometer peaks which are the IMPORTANT RADIATIVE EXCHANGE PEAKS for atmospheric physics. THE FLAME in the demonstration you post generates a emission peak at 900 nanometers, because IT IS EXCITED CO2. Bully for you, you’ve intented an IR Spectrometer. The “infra red camera” is actually sensitive to only NEAR infra-red, NOT “far infra red”. What I would be fascinated by would be to find the RE-EMISSION (which happens!) in this system in the 6000 and 12000 nanometer range. (And the fact that, NO, not all of said far IR is contained in this system.)
Now, since I’ve given you the PRECISE DETAILS TO SHOW THAT THIS DEMONSTRATION IS MEANINGLESS…what part of “intellectual dishonesty” do you file this under? Not QUITE as deliberately devious as Al Gore’s demo, but really on the same level.
Better luck next time. FAIL.
Max

Interesting post from Judy Curry’s site: (by me:)
There is a common narrative in the breathless, orchestrated press accounts of the BEST results: Climate skeptics do not believe that the World has been warming. The BEST results confirm what everybody else (the smart people) already knew; the World has been warming. The Global Warming debate that was over, is over once again. The science that was settled, is settled again. The team has a new convert and hero, Dr. Richard Muller.
But this media blitz is hyperventilating BS propaganda. Most climate skeptics know that the World has warmed in recent history. And most of those who agree that there has been warming believe that some of that warming is the result of radiative forcing from anthropogenic CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.
Richard Muller, the orchestra leader/former skeptic, sets up the straw man:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html#printMode
“The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism
There were good reasons for doubt, until now.”
Dr. Muller goes on to lay out the straw man version of the significant objections of the skeptics, which were the basis for their erroneous disbelief of the team’s story on AGW. Bad surface stations, and UHI effect. Well, he promptly lays those issues to rest with his as yet non-peer-reviewed study results. The problem is, those aren’t really the most significant objections of the skeptics, and he really did not lay them to rest. See Anthony Watts on the surface stations issue:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/21/best-what-i-agree-with-and-what-i-disagree-with-plus-a-call-for-additional-transparency-to-preven-pal-review/#more-49721
See William Briggs reaction:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/
Briggs sums it up succinctly:
“His conclusion is that “Global warming is real.” He hopes that “Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate.”
But this blog, and all of the scientists who are critics, have agreed with this conclusion since this beginning. There simply is no debate on this question. There are no tempers to cool.
There has been, and still is, a vigorous disputation on the size of the warming and our confidence on this magnitude of warming. And Muller forgets that there has been a much more contentious argumentation about why the temperature has increased (in some places and cooled in others).
Just one thing about the first point of contention. If you look, say, at the year 1945 and compare it to the year 2010, you find warming of a certain size. But if you begin at 1940, just five years earlier, you find much less warming. Temperature increases (or decreases) are always relative to something (this is a point of logic, not physics). The choice of the comparator is arbitrary and subjective. Because of this, it is possible, and it has oft occurred, that someone wanting to stress the size of the increase will choose a comparator that best makes his case. Muller doesn’t state in his editorial what his comparator is; or why he has chosen just one.
However, we can afford to be as generous as Muller when he invited skepticism and allow that his statistical results are far more certain than any prior analysis. This merely brings us to the big question. As to that, Muller admits:
How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
From that he insists, “you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.” Somebody has to remind Mr Muller that skeptics aren’t skeptical of that some warming (and some cooling) has occurred. We are skeptics about our ability to explain this warming (and cooling), and to predict skillfully future warming (and cooling).
The fallacy—and it is a fallacy Mr Muller commits—is to suppose that because many climatologists have offered one theory for the observed warming (and cooling), and that, at least for the moment, they cannot think of one better, that therefore their theory is true. Thus, I remain skeptical.”

Over at Climate Etc. P.E. | October 19, 2011 at 2:46 pm | linked to this video. Many here will accept that acceleration & deceleration alter perception in that context. Earth samples temporally nonstationary solar cycles quasi-discretely via summers of opposite poles & hemispheres. Are participants willing to recognize aliasing in the latter context [ http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/vaughn4.png ]? The spatial aggregation kernel in that context is asymmetric (distribution of continents) & nonlinear [T(K)^4, ocean-continent contrast, thermal wind] and thus subject to differential leverage (spatiotemporal version of Simpson’s Paradox). Rough sketch volunteered here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/15/shifting-sun-earth-moon-harmonies-beats-biases/ . Acceleration & deceleration of the solar drive-wheel is modulating the fractal dimension of northern hemisphere westerly flow (& thus diurnal venting). This multidecadal variation rides on top of global climate changes manifested as latitudinal jet shifts that I speculate relate to the integral of solar activity (one clue being 30S-90S SST, which falls in the band where fractal dimension is much closer to 1 due to the circumpolar Southern Ocean, which is relatively free of deflecting obstacles & zonally differentially-leveraging physical contrasts). Please take some time to think about this carefully.

Sorry – broken link. This was the Climate Etc. thread I was linking to:
Does the Aliasing Beast Feed the Uncertainty Monster?
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/18/does-the-aliasing-beast-feed-the-uncertainty-monster/

John B
Since Arctic is just as “warm” as it was 70 years ago, Arctic ice was probably the same.
http://oi56.tinypic.com/vfv70g.jpg
Wanking on that trivial post-1990 trend will change nothing on facts that the allegedly most sensitive (polar) areas show just cyclic ups and downs related to AMO (Arctic) or nothing at all, even cooling (Antarctic).

Lucy Skywalker: “I’ve written primarily from my own internalized understanding of Climate Science as a whole, though the references and leads to peer-reviewed material are there too.”
Well, we all have our own “internalized understanding” of climate science, or any other items of knowledge for that matter. The issue, Lucy, is the justification for one’s knowledge.
By implication, you are claiming that your own understanding of climate is superior to that of the scientists who have spent their working lives studying the subject, and you claim a “higher authority”: “Nullius in verba”, “take nobody’s word for it”.
But of course the motto also applies to you, in which case your higher authority is moot.
In that case, you still need to supply a justification that supports your claim that you have discovered a “wholistic understanding that’s missing” from climate science. What is your justification for your claimed superior understanding?

@jesse, my fault – troposphere is correct.
If there is the same physics on Mars, we would see the pure greenhouse effect caused by 6,000 ppm of CO2 in its atmosphere warming the surface. There is nothing.
If CO2 is the reason of warming here, we would see its pronounced effect in Antarctic, where cold air holds almost no water vapor and CO2 creates relative portion of so called “greenhouse effect”. There is nothing observed like this.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20ArcticAndAntarctic%20MonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
If CO2 has warmed Arctic, temperature could not be on the 1940s level, never.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MAAT%2070-90N%20HadCRUT3%20Since1900.gif
Arctic is governed by North Atlantic oscillations, which is finally admitted even in BEST – “err the human fingerprint in recent warming somewhat overstated”.
Incorrectly assigning wrongly calculated 33K effect to only back-radiation is just nonsense. Simple heat retention of atmosphere and oceans can not be ignored. This is a main mistake of the whole radiative pseudoscience and does not matter how thick arrow has Trenberth painted in his funkey school diagrams.

Oops, forgot to put in my link in the last post.
http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2004/2003GL018765.shtml

@frank Kotler
Wanna buy a nuclear waste repository?
Actually I don’t want the repository, I want to buy what you would refer to as ‘waste’.

For those who’d like to read a very interesting scientific paper on ice sheets, Milankovitch cycles, CO2, and feedbacks versus forcings, I’d highly recommend this:
http://www.clim-past.net/2/43/2006/cp-2-43-2006.pdf
Really gets into the nitty-gritty as to why CO2, glacial, and interglacial cycles are so closely (though not precisely) in sync. There is something here for skeptic and warmist alike. Get a big bowl of popcorn for this one, and there’s lots to chew on here…

Jesse Fell says:
October 23, 2011 at 12:58 am
“The effect of water vapor is far less problematic. It is a potent greenhouse gas that will lead to further warming, which will enable the atmosphere to hold more moisture which will lead to further warming . .. and so on.”
More moisture equals more rain equals more snow on mountains equals advancing glaciers – little ice age? – big ice age?

You’re simply the BEST – cobbled from all the rest
Better than GISS – or even the British Met
I’m stuck on your heat, I hang on every word you say
Urban heat island, no baby, no f**kin way!
(With apologies to Tina Turner)

John B says:
October 23, 2011 at 12:13 pm
how can 10 years or so of relatively flat temperatures be “refuting the CAGW nonsense” when 30+ years of declining Arctic sea ice is regularly cited here as being far too short a time span to be significant?

Easy. It’s the AGW crowd that claim our CO2 emissions are the dominant factor in global temperature change. This has to be true in every instance to come close to validating the theory. It only takes one piece of contradictory evidence to falsify it.
30 years of averaged ARCTIC sea ice decline doesn’t verify AGW.
Does a similar period of averaged ANTARCTIC sea ice INcrease validate AGW?
Does the lack of an upper tropospheric hotspot validate AGW?
Does a lack of warming for half of a ‘standard’ climate base period validate AGW?
Does a slowing of sea level rise validate AGW?
Does an r-squared correlation value between CO2 and global temperatures of WAAAAAY below 0.5 validate AGW?

John B says:
October 23, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I don’t need to do likewise because I am happy that the scientists who have devoted their lives to working on this stuff have done and continue to do a fine job. And those scientists largely agree that the null hypothesis has been falsified, as summarised in IPCC AR4,
___________________________________
You really need to see the review by Judith Carry of the great IPCC. She was a member of this most “impressive group”. I cant even type that with a straight face.. http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/19/laframboise-on-the-ipcc/
If the review isn’t enough let me know i will send you the $5 for the book she reviews explaining these scientists who have devoted their lives. Just a guess, but you watched and believed Big Al’s last movie ?