I’m on travel today, and will be away from email for quite some time (unless the flight has WiFi).
I’ll be attending both the Cook and the Mann lecture at University of Bristol, along with a couple of other meetings. Thanks sincerely to the WUWT readers that made this trip possible. I look forward to seeing all my UK friends very soon.
If anyone needs to contact me while I’m in the U.K. please use the WUWT contact form int he “About” menu above, which goes to web based mail.
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Have a good trip! There’s nothing like being shoehorned into an airplane seat for hours at a time. 😉
So. What kind of mischief can we cause while the boss is away?
Wish you well on your trip.
I suspect listening to Cook and Mann will be torture for you, but if you classify it under “know your enemy” you should be able to, uh, weather their ramblings.
Penance is good for the soul 🙂
I do hope listening to Cook and Mann is tax-deductible!
Mann’s not having a very good week, is he?
Karma is a real female dog. 😉
Karma will run over dogma.
By Jove, you have found it! The real Hokey stick!!!
I used data from the BP Factbook of World Energy to estimate the amount of humanity could put in the air if ALL the fossil fuel reserves listed in the BP data were used. After I wrote it I received a friend´s request to plot a comparison of the total production showed in the BP book and the refinery inputs. The plot shows something really interesting: refinery inputs are diverging from world liquids production, probably because the liquids being produced are increasingly ethane, propane, butane, and other light hydrocarbons which seem to bypass the refining system or are used in the petrochemical industry.
The work I did seems to show that CO2 concentration will be 627 ppm if we use of the reserves as documented in the BP report.
But what I wish to focus on is the apparent flattening of the liquids production curve once we remove the light hydrocarbons (NGL, the Qatar condensate, and the Bakken Light TIght oil). I realize this information can be criticized, but the trend can´t be ignored….
http://21stcenturysocialcritic.blogspot.com.es/2014/09/burn-baby-burn-co2-atmospheric.html
If something like this is really happening then we just can´t get to those really high CO2 concentrations because we may be running out of oil.
Fernando, reserves are only the measured part of what’s there. It has a strict definition. Companies only measure enough reserves to give them 20 years or so production horizons. There is lots more. The new shale oil and gas resources being developed essentially in North America are very large and most countries have some of these. These resources are even large in Europe. This misconstruing what reserves mean is common in connection with minerals and metals as well – the Club of Rome used “reserves” to show we were going to run out of important metals before the year 2000.
Gary, I´m fully aware of reserve definitions. The BP fact book includes a very heterogeneous family of reserve booking styles, and a lot of it doesn´t conform with SEC guidelines nor are they transparent. Private oil companies book as per SEC guidelines. Other companies book using different methods. As it turns out, the bulk of the world´s oil reserves are owned by companies which don´t allow a full view of their methods.
It is my professional opinion that BP´s data set includes the full proved plus probable volumes. Some may also include volumes which can´t be produced.
However, let´s avoid the argument over the techniques used to estimate the reserves for a bit. The key is to understand that IF those reserves shown in BP´s data book are used (and I include oil, gas, and coal) then the CO2 in the atmosphere would increase to say 620 to 630 ppm.
I also want to point out to the audience an interesting fact: No matter how we cut the numbers refinery inputs are definitely a lot flatter than the worldwide production figures we are being shown. Today´s production includes a significant NGL and super light condensates, and this light fraction is increasing (mostly because worldwide gas production is increasing).
After thinking about this for a while, I have to conclude a significant portion of this production either gets used to make plastics or if burned it generates less CO2 than oil (it has a slightly higher hydrogen content).
Like i wrote in the post I´m not heading anywhere in particular. I guess the main point we can make is that we do seem to be running out of oil, and that the IPCC “Business as usual” case (the RCP8.5) appears to have a very high oil production profile. I don´t think it can be achieved.
As for the new shale resourves, they will help a little bit. But shale resources require high prices. THis is particularly true outside the USA, where the industry isn´t nearly as efficient. Thus I suspect the oil price must rise to make the new slate of development candidates to be viable. The increased oil price in turn leads to less consumption. As far as the Climate Believers are concerned, the world has a self correcting mechanism they haven´t identified. Prices will have to go a lot higher to justify producing those oil and gas streams (and probably coal streams) they say we would be producing. SUch higher prices depress demand.
I think the prudent thing to do is to keep this in mind. Maybe there´s no argument at all, and in 20 to 30 years the main worry will be the high fuel prices and what the heck do we do about it?
Gary, you are correct about proven reserves. The correct reserve estimate for future emission purposes is technically recoverable reserves. That is, by any known means at any cost.
You are wrong about how much TRR remains above proven and probable. EIA has done an analysis of 142 basins in 42 countries. It contains errors, all larger estimates than geologically correct. The present correct TRR for US shale oil is 9-15Bbbl. (Monterey was mostly and correctly re-excluded due to its folding and faulting, meaning horizontal drilling is not feasible.) That is much smaller that you seem to think. Current US consumption is 6.7Bbbl/yr (about 18.5mbpd).
Sort of puts things in perspective, rather than all the MSM misinformation.
The TRR concept is vapor ware because there´s no uniform methodology being used by engineers who are very knowledgeable with the reservoir. This means the TRR numbers are all over the place. Furthermore, who cares if the number is “technically recoverable” at $700 per barrel? When I was asked to prepare a TRR number for a set of properties I suggested they use oil in place and get it over with. After all, if there´s no limit you can afford to go down there and carve out the rock, bring it to the surface, grind it up, and washed the oil out with solvents. See how ridiculous it can get?
As far as I´m concerned we are running out of resources, as oil prices increase so we can access more resources a replacement will kick in. Between the point when prices start their climb and the replacement becomes practical we will be in a world of pain. And this is why the IPCC RCP8.5 doesn´t make any sense.
Fernando, your analysis is correct. All liquids includes a rising proportion of natural gas liquids ethane, propane, and butane. Only propane is sometimes used as a transportation fuel.
The peak in petroleum production (conventional plus unconventional shale and tar sands) will come sometime around 2020. That is because conventional production already peaked in 2008.
But coal, not petroleum,is still a larger overall contributor to CO2 emissions, since oil is a mix of hydrocarbons.
Rud, I´d rather not get into a “Peak Oil” debate in Watt´s place. The post I prepared does show coal as the main contributor. I tried to look at the NGL market, and it seems a lot of it (such as ethane) is either sent to the petrochemical industry, or is currently burned because it lacks a market. This is a really sad state of affairs, because ethane is such a good feedstock for syngas. And if you give me syngas I can make you really nice liquid synfuels.
I do have to study coal a lot more before I get to understand it as much as I do oil and gas.
It has been inevitable that we will run out of oil in a decade since 5 years before someone stuck a straw in the ground in Pennsylvania. I could show you pages of quotes. Dennis Meadows made his predictions ~1975. What were proven and potential reserves then? What are they now?
Peak Oil: Peek and ye shall find.
Recent CSIRO research confirms a ‘gas-washing’ theory of oils: http://pindanpost.com/2014/09/16/gas-washing-of-oils/#more-42177
Alberta has 3 trillion barrels. 400 billion is relatively easily accessible
I think they can get to 10 million barrels a day within 15 years.
Sunshine the 3trillion Alberta tar sands figure is resource in place. The official Canadian Petroleum Association estimate of TRR is 280Bbbl, of which roughly half is economic at $100/bbl. Either via strip mining or SAGD. Remember a barrel of bitumen is only worth about 60% of light sweet crude, because it has to be hydro upgraded at a cost of about $20/bbl, and the resulting syncrude still only produces about 80% the equivalent ‘light’ product stream of gasoline, diesel, jet kerosene, motor oil, heating oil. That’s what happens when you start from tar.
Sunshine, Alberta´s oil in place isn´t really connected to reserves reality. In other words, a lot of that oil can´t be produced. Neither can Alberta reach 10 million barrels per day within 15 years. There´s no viable market for the heavy oil, nor does the industry have infrastructure, such as the vessel fabricators to bulld the upgraders, or whatever you want to use to make the oil come out of the ground and get to market. Trust me, I spent time in Calgary and Edmonton as well.
To Rud and Fernando:
To the layman (that would be me) the cries of “we’re running out of oil” have been echoing around since the early 70’s. Esoteric definitions of what a provable reserve is just confuse the situation. Claims that most unproven reserves would be too costly to recover (which would depress demand) are debunked by the size and success of the Alberta operation today. Those reserves were considered unrecoverable for many years.
Technology will continue to advance to allow us to get at those reserves economically. Deep ocean drilling, fracking and tar sands operations will continue to improve and cover demand.
Autoguy, I didn´t make any claims in the 1970´s (In those days I was a recently graduated engineer). The problem I see is that people who don´t know ask us to peek. ANd those of us who do know what to do to get the oil out don´t know where to peek anymore. Or do you REALLY think it´s an endless resource?
Fernando, are you discussing only oil sands or are you including drill-able oil?
What about wells that refill after time? Lateral flow?
Why is there oil in the bakken deposit? Should that rock contain oil?
How big are the oil sands in Saskatchewan?
I live in Calgary and what the geologists tell me off the record is completely different than what is being said here. It is something the oil companies don’t want people to know.
David Ball the BP fact book includes the extra heavy oil in Canada and in Venezuela. I’m fairly familiar with both, and I sense a lot of that oil they claim is proved will require higher prices.
How much oil is produced by these well you hear are “refilled”? Such behavior is usually the result of improper well design or operations. The key when discussing the oil needed to increase the co2 atmospheric fraction is to remember that it takes a huge volume to make a difference.
The Bakken has oil because it’s sufficiently porous and permeable. The Bakken isn’t a shale. Why as the question? There are no mysteries in this business to make a difference.
If anybody has doubts about this problem check what is happening to Chevron Texaco. I wrote the analysis and called it We Are Running Out of Oil. Hell, you don’t have to read it. To put it simply the major oil companies are producing less oil. Worldwide: incremental is mostly USA condensate, NGL, and the light tight oil. I prepared several alternate scenarios and I can’t get the CO2 to reach 650 ppm. We require too high a price to produce the marginal crudes. This subject somehow gets lost in the climate wars. I think we are arguing over nothing. In 50 years the big problem is going to be the mother of all energy shortages.
We are hearing that Saskatchewan (the province next door) has more heavy oil than Alberta. It is deeper than Alberta, but basically untouched.
Come on. Don’t confuse energy with hydrocarbons. One ton of ordinary granite, the default stuff continents are made of has the same recoverable free energy content as fifty tons of coal (+133 tons of atmospheric oxygen). With abundant cheap energy one can convert limestone and water into hydrocarbon liquids as needed, it is simple chemistry. We shall not run out of either stone or seawater soon.
The only way to exhaust resources in a short time, no matter what technology you have, is unbounded exponential growth. However, population explosion was already over twenty years ago, number of people below the age of 15 has not increased in the last 2 decades. World population is still increasing, but that’s because of increasing life expectancy, a good thing after all. And it is definitely not explosive, for you can never produce more than one gammer or gaffer by simply getting old.
That’s because women are rational beings. With low enough infant mortality and some education &. freedom they are not hard pressed to spend their entire life in childbearing any more and wonder! they do grab the opportunity.
Berényi Péter , we could try an experiment…see if you can trade one thousand tons of granite for one thousand tons of crude oil.
Mad dog, there are huge hydrocarbon resources in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and also elsewhere. But these resources are too costly to extract. I´d like to maintain in focus my main theme: the problem isn´t really the lack of low quality resources. Those do exist. What we can´t figure out is how to extract them and sell them at a decent price. A decent price means whatever you, our dear market, can pay without going broke. The world doesn´t work very well if all our effort is devoted to producing fossil fuels (and this means energy).
To check whether the current price environment was insufficient to justify PRIVATE oil companies going after enough oil to keep production even (never mind growing) I reviewed the filings by large oil companies. I wrote a piece about Chevron Texaco, because they happen to be very well managed. And Chevron Texaco isn´t keeping up (their oil production is declining).
The OPEC nations do have some room, but I suspect there are two barriers: 1. Their reserves may be overstated, and 2. Their state oil companies don´t have the ability to increase production to cover the future gap. I´m not into giving you peak oil forecasts, nor do I suggest you start panicking. But there are clear signs the oil, gas, and probably coal production can´t increase to satisfy demand forever, and it thefossil fuel price increases too fast the world economy is shot to hell.
As far as global warming is concerned, this means there´s a limit to the amount of CO2 we can put in the air. I already mentioned I estimated 620 to 630 ppm would be the top end taking into account the BP resources. I revised the numbers, added additional light oil and NGL streams, and the end result was nearly identical.This means the focus should be on careful management of the fossil fuel resources.
I´m not into conspiracy theories, but maybe some individuals who see what I´m seeing are peddling global warming to convince people to use less fossil fuels for a completely different reason? Or maybe the two issues converge. The Climate Believers can peddle less use of fossil fuels because they think we are about to bake (I think that´s exaggerated and it´s linked to watermelon politics). And those of us who think we may be getting into a squeeze can suggest rational measures to manage what we have. This means trying to develop an acceptable nuclear power technology, and helping other nations build up their hydropower resources. Things like that.
Fernando Leanme
You present a foolish and pointless question when you write
Nothing can be an “endless resource” because the universe will end eventually, and before that the Earth will be consumed by the expanding Sun becoming a Red Giant. But so what?
For all practical purposes every resource can be considered to be infinite.
I yet again explain this below for any newcomers who do not know.
Richard
RESOURCES NEVER EXHAUST
The fallacy of overpopulation derives from the disproved Malthusian idea which wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in in percentage.
Now, the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to the obvious truth that human ingenuity has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
And these benefits also act to prevent overpopulation because population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries. Increased affluence in poor countries can be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase.
All projections and predictions indicate that human population will peak around the middle of this century and decline after that. So, we are confronted by the probability of ‘peak population’ resulting from growth of affluence around the world.
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish. There is no existing or probable problem of overpopulation of the world by humans.
Hmmmm. Thank you for the non-answer. Typical.
My previous post is directed to Fernando Leanme. 50 years is the perfect response as no one here will be able to verify. You are going to have to do better. I remain unconvinced.
Depends on the market. One thousand tons of granite contains about 30 kg fissionable material (mainly Thorium and Uranium). If used efficiently, it can produce as much energy as fifty thousand tons of coal, which costs some 4 million dollars. On the other hand, a thousand tons of crude oil costs substantially less than a million dollars on the current market and produces about 4% of the energy, if burnt.
It all depends on technology and we are talking about a world fifty years into the future. What is more, technology to utilize the full potential of fissionable materials safely was all but ready fifty years ago, it was only dropped for political reasons. There is no such thing as energy shortage and never will be.
Fernando — I am a full blown warmist. Have been since about 1979. But, like many on the American Right, the Green agenda just about as fully creeps me out. My view has been, since Three Mile, that were the Left accepting (accommodative), a shift to nuclear could secure a climatic insurance down payment at very low cost, either in dollars or compulsory restrictions–on the electric side. For mobility, we could well afford the expediency of a wait and see political deferral, primarily because the carbon flows are self-limited, as you point out. Highly reduced hydrocarbons could supply heating requirements for the built environment (here in the US), with maximum utility per combusted carbon for a couple decades.
The technical merits concerning nuclear strike me as overwhelming. The merits, interpreting the physics and thermal record, seem equally overwhelming, at least as concerns handing posterity a world with committed three, four or five Fahrenheit degree transients. Far less so, in our capacity to correctly anticipate, mush less weigh, consequences during the next few decades, be they favorable or deleterious. (I mean here, that we are largely blind, out to 2050, as to what a 5 F. warming world really entail, not that it would manifest by then.)
Politically, the conventional science (the Standard Portrayal) proclaims a three-fold uncertainty, which has proven durable across three and a half decades. The opposition to the Green remedy, is compelled to entrench upon tenuous ground, asserting they are CERTAIN, that sensitivity to exhaust is minimal, and that feedbacks are practically non-existent. (This on a planet that glaciates.) Further, the strident disdain for the medicine gets (unwittingly?) transferred into a misplaced intensification of this entrenchment. Thus, with all these horrific, known non-linear dynamics, the minimalists must assert an unwieldy and to me baseless certitude. NOT TO WORRY! No Republican can even admit there are climatic unknowns.
There are two profoundly dissatisfying aspects to this alignment. Tactically, all of the intellectual effort expended upon the climatic interpretive barricades, foreclose the option of a condominium entailing low cost near term insurance. To the young, this posture, with its inherent passivity, appears heartless and uncaring towards posterity. To the young, the posture’s inherent requirement for certitude, where there is in fact vast and persistent uncertainty, can also often appear fundamentally unscientific. Second, it may prove brittle against specific future excursions. Inundation of the Ninth Ward, or seawater in Manhattan’s subways may not have topped the threshold, but take a look at California’s current drought. That spot of warm water in the NE Pacific appears as menacing as ever. If it is indeed redirecting the Pacific’s moisture, we will see in the coming weeks, that the rains are again gone missing. The wolf is very much at the door, right now, for California’s tens of millions.
.
Try not to laugh too loudly during the presentation.
I know… that’s asking a lot.
Enjoy Britain, Anthony. Say hello for me to Tallbloke, Andrew Montford, Josh, Christopher Monckton and the WUWT cast and crew around those parts.
Regards
ditto
Bob: If that lot are going to be in the audience I do hope we get some kind of video out of it. I would go viral!
Didn’t know that AW was talking to TallBloke as he still describes his blog site as “Transcendent Rant and way out there theory”.
Look forward to seeing you at the Cook bash.
Thanks Anthony! Your tenacious battle for the truth is a model for all. Reality for many of the world’s truly poor will be significantly improved if we can divert the trillions of dollars from the CAGW fraud to clean water, food, medicine and refrigeration- while simultaneously reducing the cost of food and energy.
Safe voyage and the best to your family.
JRP
Just thought that I would put this here to brighten everyone’s day.
http://www.steynonline.com/6566/the-barbra-streisand-effect-on-steroids
It WILL bring a smile to your face.
I have a twitter question. When I go to follow Dr Mann, it doesn’t say I’ve been blocked, but it still won’t let me follow? Is following the good Doctor by invitation only?
A ‘surprise’ late spring frost in Oz damaged broad areas of crops. Today, Antarctic ice reached a new high of near 16.5Msqkm. I think someone should tell Cook and friends that Oz may be the first to show serious global cooling. Any Ozzie farmers reading this, take note, you won’t hear it from your met office of dept of ag.
Looking at the Sea Ice Reference Page, and specifically the NRL products, it looks like there’s a pretty substantial storm blowing pretty close to the North Pole. I’d guess that since mean temperature above 80 degrees north is well below 271 K, we’re not going to see a repeat of 2012’s late melt season storm… but I wonder what effect a potential large heat extraction will have on the onset of Arctic freeze-over?
A bit tangential – this website allows you to click on a bunch of sites just inside the Arctic Circle and see a recent weather update:
http://www.athropolis.com/map.htm
Inspecting the NANSEN and JAXA products on WUWT Arctic Sea Ice page, it looks like today, September 18, 2014, will be the day of minima. Almost identical or slightly above 2013.
All in all, the Arctic ice sheet is recovering. With the solar minimum coming and the PDO and AMO in or near entering negative phases, the ice sheet is likely to dramatically accelerate the build-up of multi-year ice in the next 5-6 years.
The Arctic is warming at the rate of around 1°C every 20 years and the sea ice is declining by 300km³ per year on average. With global warming accelerating in recent years and global CO₂ emissions continuing unabated, any talk of Arctic ice ‘recovering’ is sheer fantasy.
icarus62 writes, “With global warming accelerating in recent years…”.
Your statement is clearly and demonstrably false. Either you are (1) ignorant of “the Pause”, or (2) you are aware, but like foisting lies on the uninformed. I suspect (2) is more likely explanation.
@icarus62 You haven’t looked at the sea ice page have you. Your “averages”, are taken from oscillating values and thus meaningless. What is the source of your temperature data? A handful of thermometers averaged over the entire arctic region using pairwise homogenization? There is no proven mechanism controlling the arctic ice. “CO2 driven climate via positive feedbacks” is a fantastical hypotheses that as of now still lacks *any* physical evidence. On the other hand, the PDO, the AMO, soot, icebreaker activity, storms, clouds, and the sun aren’t fantastical at all.
It’s important to take a step back and look at the big picture:
1: The anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which are the primary cause of today’s rapid global warming aren’t going to stop any time soon – in fact they’re going faster than ever;
2: The planet still has to warm up considerably more before it can once again radiate enough to balance incoming solar radiation even at today’s level of greenhouse gases;
3: Climate impacts have only partially responded to today’s level of global warming, let alone future warming we’re already committed to from today’s level of emissions, and future warming we’re committed to from future emissions;
4: Long term climate feedbacks are waiting in the wings to amplify our warming even more – the fact that we don’t know for sure when they will all kick in, is not a good reason to be complacent. It’s more a reason to be very concerned and very cautious. What we really want to avoid is getting to the point where the feedbacks are self-sustaining and continue to warm the planet without needing any further input from us, until they’re exhausted – that would lead to a very different planet from the one we’re familiar with. At least one study (MacDougall 2012) found that the self-sustaining permafrost carbon feedback was *already* inevitable by 2013.
The bottom line is that there is a lot of lag in the system, and very basic physics dictates that we’re going to see a lot more impacts in coming years, decades and centuries. What we’re seeing now, with the accelerating disappearance of Arctic sea ice as one example, is just the beginning.
@icarus62 September 18, 2014 at 3:56 pm
#1. fantasy.
#2. Sure, if #1 were true.
#3. fantasy.
#4. fantasy.
Do you have a link to any study not based on a computer model that backs up anything you are saying?
It’s just the basic physics of how the planet’s energy balance works. You can’t have an argument with the laws of physics and expect to win, you know.
@icarus62 says “It’s just the basic physics of how the planet’s energy balance works. You can’t have an argument with the laws of physics and expect to win, you know.”
I’m beginning to suspect you are are troll.
Clearly no one on this site denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. However, in order for your AGW theory to work, you require an additional theoretical positive feedback in addition to the “single law of physics” you claim to understand so much about. The earth has an active hydrosphere, a biosphere, and a sun that follow many laws of physics, but you choose to ignore all those laws in favor of a mythical positive feedback based on no physics at all.
Johnny,
There is no use arguing with someone who continues to makes demonstrably false statements such as “accelerating global warming,” when the evidence for their inspection is in front of them. Even the “mainstream” warmists like Trenberth have openly admitted the earth has stopped getting warmer since at least 2001.
No, you can only conclude icarus62 is a troll who will believe and say what he wants regardless of data to the contrary.
icarus62, “1: The anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which are the primary cause of today’s rapid global warming…”
There’s zero evidence (2MB pdf) that’s true.
Given your first statement is scientifically indefensible, your deductions are without foundation.
If you want to avoid the 2 MB download, the short of it is that your #1 AGW claim rests entirely on the reliability of climate model air temperature projections. Their 100-year CI is about (+/-)15 C. They have no predictive value at all.
Icarus62
But it’s disappearance is not accelerating. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Pat Frank: The PDF you cited is obviously nonsense. Global temperature does not randomly change by ± 15C in the space of a few decades. Without the necessary tying of hypothesis to physical reality, the PDF is nothing but mathturbation. See the literature for more realistic values for natural unforced variability. Hansen’s 1981 paper would be a good place to start (Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide – Hansen et al 1981).
icarus62
You suggest that Pat Frank read
I beg to differ because if Pat Frank is to enjoy classic science fiction then I suggest starting with the ‘Invisible Man’ by H. G. Wells that was first published in 1897.
Hansen’s 1981 paper contains more laughs but is less thought-provoking than Well’s ‘Invisible Man’. They each utilise physically impossible effects to generate a frightening but impossible fantasy.
Richard
Hansen has had his predictions of the course of global warming proven quantitatively correct by observations for well over 30 years now, and predictions from other scientists go much further back still (Revelle, Callendar etc.). Pat Frank has already been comprehensively proven wrong by scientists.
Name one. West side Highway? See any submarines on it yet?
Any truth to the oft repeated alarmist explanation that Antarctic sea ice extent is due to fresh meltwater due to a warm West peninsula due to windier winds?
And then by my simple mind shouldn’t/wouldn’t freshwater river discharge in the Arctic be making more ice?
Or the lack of freshwater river discharge into the Arctic due to diversion to agriculture in Asia for the last 150 years. In climate science you CAN have it both ways.
No rivers of any importance anywhere in Antarctica, not enough water because of the cold. The longest river in Antarctica is Onyx River in the Dry Valleys, it is 30 kilometers long and doesn’t even reach the sea. It ends up in the eternally frozen hypersaline Lake Wanda.
FerdinandAkin September 18, 2014 at 7:20 am
“Or the lack of freshwater river discharge into the Arctic due to diversion to agriculture in Asia for the last 150 years. In climate science you CAN have it both ways.”
I am not aware of any decrease in freshwater river discharge into the Arctic. I don’t think that rivers above 60N that run away from population or Ag centers are being diverted much? In fact, NOAA has this factoid about an INCREASE in Asian river discharge into the Arctic.
” The Arctic Ocean receives a large amount of fresh water from river runoff relative to its area, compared to other oceans. There are five major rivers that flow into the Arctic, the Mackenzie and Yukon in North America, and the three largest in Asia, the Ob, Yenisey and Lena Rivers. The Ob and Yenisey Rivers show an increase since the 1980s. Discharge from the six largest Asian rivers increased by 7% from 1936 to 1999. [Peterson, et. al., 2002, Science].
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/land-river.shtml
I do not know what your quote ” in climate science you can have it both ways” means? Does that mean that the increased freshwater at the bottom of the world has physical characteristics that are different from freshwater at the top of the world? Is it the whole toilet flushing spin thing that makes it different?
No
1) It’s winter down there now. Temp are -60° and below. Nothing is melting right now.
2) If melting land ice is causing the record sea ice, then how come they same isn’t happening in the Arctic? We are always hearing about how Greenland & Alaska Glaciers are melting aren’t we? So shouldn’t there be record sea ice around them and the Arctic as a whole?
But I guess to the Fraudsters Physics work differently depending on which Hemisphere you are in, remember the Fraudsters are the same people who think Heat from Global Warming can sink below cold and “hide” in the deep ocean
3) From 2000 – 2007 Antarctica was losing sea ice, albeit less than the Arctic. This prompted the 2007 IPCC report to predict that Antarctic sea ice would continue to decline and maybe soon accelerate to match the Arctic.
So if Global Warming / Melting Freshwater is causing increase in sea ice now, what caused the decrease in 2000 – 2007? And why were scientist predicting the Antarctic would continue to decline back then?
What “windier winds”?
Agreed. Here are some attempts to blame windier winds :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2756554/Antarctic-sea-ice-INCREASING-Big-freeze-breaks-records-scientists-claim-rise-caused-global-warming.html
Antarctic sea ice is INCREASING: Big freeze breaks records – but scientists claim the rise is caused by global warming
Images suggest there is 7.7 million square miles of sea around continent
This is double size of the Antarctic and three times the size of Australia
Fast westerly winds, which go around Antarctica, are now moving south
This is linked to an increase in greenhouse gases and increase in sea ice
Separate study found region’s glaciers are melting faster than ever before
By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:16 EST, 15 September 2014 | UPDATED: 10:16 EST, 15 September 2014
Or, Tom Moran, it could be this, which was not widely reported:
Researchers find major West Antarctic glacier melting from geothermal sources, June 2014.
That West Antarctic melting couldn’t be caused by volcanoes could it?
Giant Undersea Volcanoes Found Off Antarctica. These aren’t the volcanoes under the western edge of the shelf, but they are on the western side.
Subglacial volcanoes
While we’re at it:
Volcanoes exploding under water at North Pole
What timing you have!
There is an article over at Government Executive Magazine on this very subject.
Antarctic Sea Ice Hits a Record Max, and That’s Not Good
http://www.govexec.com/management/2014/09/antarctic-sea-ice-hits-record-max-and-s-not-good/94469/?oref=river
Yes there is record extent but the yearly increases are tiny. Please don’t tell the Planet Savers though, such fun to watch them explaining it.
I have read the article provided in the link above “Antarctic Sea Ice Hits a Record Max, and That’s Not Good” and the phrases “We suspect” and “The melting of ice on the Antarctic mainland may” give it away as hyperbole.
Having traveled extensively in the arctic and being familiar with the literature on sea ice at both poles I can assure readers that the percentage of glacial ice in sea ice is a very tiny fraction of 1%. Their suggestion that calving glaciers (i.e. ice bergs) are measurably contributing to global sea coverage is just plain wrong.
The article you reference and the sources that author used sites three reasons why they believe Antarctic sea ice is increasing. 1) the Peninsula region warming in the winter by 5.8 degrees over the last 50 years http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007JC004269/full#jgrc10734-bib-0077 2) calving glaciers creating sea going icebergs and, 3) more wind blowing more southerly.
1)Assume the warming in winter is true, would the new warm be warm enough to melt ice? Unlikely. Moreover, if it is the greenhouse effect, why is it warming the floor but not the roof as lower tropospheric temps are declining there over decadal timescales.
2)yesterday, sea ice extent there increased by 27,000 km2, roughly the size of Israel. Are there icebergs the size of Israel calving daily?
3) Antarctica is the windiest place on Earth, how has this changed in the last 300 years?
I will also be attending the talks.
I have sent an email via the contact form with details of who I am and how to contact me and am posting here to make you aware of that email [as I’m sure many get lost in the torrent]. I live in Bath, near Bristol, and will be at Bristol during your trip. I would be very interested in helping you in any way I can during your stay [or at the least buying you a drink].
Whilst I will see you at the talks, I would be enormously honored if I could meet you outside of the talks also.
Do get in touch.
Kindest regards,
Matt@Bristol
Matt: some of us are meeting at the Channings Hotel at 5pm which is 5 mins away from the Vic Rooms, to fortify us for the evening ahead, do feel free to join us.
I wonder if Mann has a rider (like pop-stars and actors) when he’s on these speaking gigs – maybe he demands green M&M’s or diffuse lighting to reduce reflections – that sort of thing.
Absolutely no direct overhead lighting.
But that is for the audience’s comfort…I know, bald jokes are in bad taste….
Dr. Mann is in bad taste.
Mr Mann’s rider probably stipulates, ‘warm drinks only and they should get warmer as the night progresses.’
You’ll love this Anthony. So I guess if a movie about “Climate Change” doesn’t get the results the alarmist want, let’s get nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money & do a MUSICAL! That will surely get the message out. NOT!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/17/curtain-reviews-come-down-on-taxpayer-funded-climate-change-musical/
“The Great Immensity…”
Even the title promises that the work will be an abomination.
“…focuses on a woman named Phyllis…”
Phyllis Upwith Propaganda, no doubt.
Didactic theatre? Spare us. Didactic works seldom have anything much to say besides “ME TOO!” Predictably, a total waste of money to feed the narcissism of a few dozen gullible artistes.
Antarctica Sea Ice Extent.
20 million sq km.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/antarctic-sea-ice-extent-sept-18-2014-20-million-sq-km/
Sunshinehours1 – so the true believers are saying that global warming is causing record sea ice down south. They are quoting fresh-water run-off increasing the freezing temperature of salt water (by making it more fresh). I would LOVE to see some systematic refutation, with references, of their reasons why global warming is causing Antarctica sea-ice records.
How far out from the shore does the ice extend? What is the trend in salinity at THAT distance? What happens close to shore is irrelevant. You can’t “add ice extent” close to shore. This is all happening hundreds of miles or more from shore. What is the salinity trend there?
MattN, the ice extends over 1500 km from shore i many locations.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/images/antarctic_min_max_map.png
I agree. Additionally, up North, what impact is 2,310 cubic kilometers of freshwater river discharge having on Arctic Sea ice extent? What about all that glacial melt from Greenland? http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/land-river-acia-image.shtml
2,310 cubic kilometers per year of freshwater flows into the Arctic Ocean just from the referenced rivers above
This is kind of funny: comedian Michael Loftus of “The Flipside” (a cable comedy show), did a bit about global warming, which now has a youtube version
“Michael Lotus on the lies behind the global warming scare industry” in which my blog gets a mention!
“polarbearscience dot com – it’s a real website and it’s owned and run by
polar bears”
That was the response to the name of my site getting a laugh – but they remembered it, as evidenced by the huge surge in views I’m getting.
Have a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tvpaD4oatk
Susan Crockford, PolarBearScience
Admit it… there’s some dark corner of your mind that has considered organizing ‘Meet the Polar Bears’ adventures for concerned environmentalists. So they can get a first-hand look at how cute and cuddly they are.
I believe “concerned environmentalists” are considered a delicacy by Polar Bears.
/grin
Then let us take down the signs at Yellowstone that read Don’t Feed the Bears.
Haven’t yet seen a polar bear at Yellowstone. But if the Laurentide Ice Sheet returns, that may change.
Then the population of grolars will really accelerate! And it will be blamed on global warming (just like now).
Susan…congrats!!! I love your site, tho don’t visit as often as I should 🙂
As we say in Maine…Good on ya.
Is it really hard for you to type, Susan?
Seriously, congratulation on the surge; I hope a lot of it sticks around.
““polarbearscience dot com – it’s a real website and it’s owned and run by
polar bears””
Can Polar Bears lobbying Congress be far behind?
Otherwise, more traffic to your site is a good thing. Congrats.
I saw that video and that line causes coffee to spray on keyboards, just sayin
Hi Anthony,
Enjoy your stay in the UK, whatever size country that is come Friday. I’ve just thought, if the Scots do vote for independence does that mean the UK government can claim they have substantially reduced their CO2 emissions?
And a strong move away from fossil fuel production too…
Still no article on the enormous Antarctic record /upswing???
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
It’s probably due to a big run off of fresh water due to the ice melting at the Antarctic’s coldest time of the year.
nice /sarc. +1
Lol +2
Please don’t forget to distribute membership application forms for the OAS. Mann and his men will, hopefully, boil with rage, thus contributing to at least some local anthropogenic warming…
I am starting a new podcast about effective debate. Who would you suggest I have on the show to debate climate change from your perspective?
Dr Easterbrook is a good start and if it is effective debating you can’t beat Lord Monckton
Do you know anyone that can give me a personal introduction?
The Arctic/Antarctic Mirror Graph
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/arcticantarctic-mirror-graph-day-260/
Do a daily graph sometime to see some daily opposing symmetry.
Hi Anthony,
Have a good trip to Bristol – its a great city. My hometown, although I live in darkest Hampshire now. Hope you enjoy the visit, wish I could be there. Look forward to your reporting on it.
Best wishes,
ThinkingScientist
Every morning when I get up I hear the local radio say “and the Lake Michigan temperature is 67F” but when I walk the shoreline or go fishing out in the lake its like 10 to 15F degrees colder (fishfinder reports accurate surface temperature). The evening TV local weather reports about the same temperatures. And when they report it, it never changes, it’s always steadily rising to September then steadily falling into fall, it never changes more than 1 degree in any given day, when I know the lake surface temperatures can vary wildly. It’s like they are reporting some sort of average temperature as the current temperature. I finally realized they aren’t really reporting the actual temperatures, they are just reporting the historical temperatures like they are actual temperatures. I guess I can understand why they don’t want to bother with figuring out the lake temperature every day, but it is annoying like they report it as fact when it is not. Their little scam sort of got exposed this year with cold lake temperatures but no one seems to have noticed, the water temperature reports are still on auto pilot.
They may be reporting lake temperatures at some depth. Those don’t change much from day to day.