I'm Not Schizophrenic (And Neither Am I)

If both extremes are criticising you, you’re probably doing something right.
But I’m wondering if there’s any hard numbers to back up the “Chinese coal is going to choke us” claim?

Why do I always smile when people claim that there will only by some 9.1 million people because for some magical reasoning at about 2040 world population will start a downwards trend (That would be the UN medium trend).
In 1980 we were about 4.5 billion, today we’re about 6.9 billion, that’s 2.4 billion in 30 years. In 1950 we were about 2.5 billion per estimate. It wouldn’t be unprecedented so to speak if we became 3 billion more people in the next 30 years if the actual trend holds. And the only thing that seem to keep population down is economic progress. War and what not actually only seem to accelerate population growth.

I’ll give you at least some benefit of the doubt for your co-authorship of “The Crutape Letters”, which is great.
Can agree with a fair bit of what you say (and like apple pie and support motherhood, too).
Yes, nuclear is fairly expensive. Not as expensive as laughably inefficient BigWind (which, very curiously indeed, you don’t discuss). Not as expensive as BigSolar, especially for people who live where the sun doesn’t much shine.
But modern technology can burn coal efficiently and cleanly. And gas is extremely plentiful and also reasonably priced.
There are far more risks involved in hugely expanding fuel poverty and by effectively throttling development and alleviating grinding poverty in the third world than there are in risking a fractional increase in “global temperature” (mainly at high latitude in winter) which might be caused by an essential trace gas.
And, if you are happy that the ‘consensus’ view should be taken seriously, how come they feel the need to tell so many bare faced porky pies?
You must have learnt something from the CRU emails? No?

Population
There is no population growth in the west and the rate of growth elsewhere is slowing. This is according to the UN. As the world gets richer and poorer women get educated, less children are born. Of course if the greens get their way, the death rate in the third world will go up for want of electricity.
As to TF’s assertion
“The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.”
Wrong, this is the IPCC’s assertion unsupported by evidence. We know that CO2 absorbs and emits in the IR spectrum although there are enough sceptics who doubt even this effect (although not Jeff Id and a number of regular commenters here). What no one has been able to do is separate this effect from all the other factors that govern weather and climate.
Cheers Paul

Claims that the physics of the atmosphere are known is the same as saying that the science is fixed and we are causing climate change. Atmospheric physics are the very things that we are arguing about. There is no consensus about them by any means. Claims that CO2 store heat to re-radiate it at a later time actually violates the laws of thermodynamics and it is this ‘small’ fact that separates the alarmists from the realists.
It also flies in the face of the facts to claim that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels will lead to a tipping point from which climate would never recover. Past atmospheric CO2 levels were many times higher than today’s and no tipping point was reached.
Climate change is caused by natural inputs and events and not by some trace gas.

“The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. ”
I truly belive that you should take some time to evaluate the physics behind the greenhouse effect and effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.
First the greenhouse effect is just partly a radiation balance effect. Not 100% as in common scientific simplified explanations.
Most of the effect is due to the fact the atmosphere is a gas.
A gas that is heated and cooled from below, the earth surface, will be average warmer than the surface that heat and cool it.
Try to cool a water storage tank from the bottom . Impossible because hot fluid raise.
But to heat the kettle from below is much easier.
That explain most the greenhouse effect! Not radiative transfer inside the atmosphere.

Have I got news for you:
– CO2 is 0,0385% of our atmosphere. It’s a trace gas;
– Watervapor is the most important ‘greenhouse gas’;
– Feedback of clouds is negative;
– CO2-levels follow warming; CO2 doesn’t cause warming;
– There is no such thing as a tipping point. Earth’s history shows that;
– CO2 is plantfood, not a pollutant;
– The sun and cosmic rays determine cloud cover;
and this list goes on and on and on.
In my view, lukewarmers have a problem to accept that warming of the earth is a natural phenomenom. Man MUST have influence. That is the legacy of the green movement in their minds. It’s a religous way of thinking: blame and punishment.
I agree with a commenter some days ago, who did see that little influence of man is becoming the main stream thought. I prefer to stick to the facts: man has no influence.

Good post Thomas, I liked it. You obviously think on a clear lateral taking in all considerations like myself. The problem with China’s coal burning is obviously that it’s not clean, but other factors are afoot remembering the pollution from the last Olympics there [kof].
If prevailing winds manage to take China’s particulate pollution into the Arctic, it may well help form water droplets and more snow. However, other countries will suffer from the haze. When I was in Seymour (Australia), a light southerly would blow all of Melbourne’s morning peak hour filth into our town some 100k (60Mi) away. The prevailing winds are usually SW, so towns NE of Melbourne have to deal with it more often.
I remember Melbourne’s air in the 70’s when I was a kid. It was a lot thicker back then, with far less humanity and machinery. It’s become far cleaner since, and still no coal-fired power factory within its boundaries.
Whenever I pass by the power factories in the East, I can’t see any smoke from the stacks. Frosty mornings show a slight tinge of blue and a very light smell of coal which I find pleasant. However we have greenies in this country that want to shut down Hazelwood – one of our main power sources – for nothing more than their own agenda, forgetting the brownout malaise they’ll have to endure with everyone else.
Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilisation, and they intend to be. Business can only sell what people want, and the vast majority want clean energy, but understand it’s not yet possible. The greenies would prefer sabotage to get us there, and they’ve proven that many times. They spike the very trees they’re trying to save with long metal rods to blunt chainsaws. Hypocrisy is rife eh? How ’bout I stab a greenie chained to a tree to ensure nobody runs a chainsaw through her? Nice.. Count the rings.
They’re all about wind power, but not in THEIR backyards as turbines appear unsightly, and noisy – god forbid they chop up an endangered orange-bellied parrot, which they sought long and hard to find something endangered to protest against the turbines.
They love the trees, but go to extreme lengths to protect them, naturally forgetting their house is held up by their necessary remnants, their hardwood benchtops, cutting boards and ever so expertly lathed and polished fruit bowls. They drive to their eco-mentalist events – PROBABLY car-pooling. Shouldn’t they walk bare-footed instead?
They’ll cover their houses in solar panels, not knowing heat in an electrical circuit increases resistance, consequently a bright sunny day can reduce solar performance to around 60%.
Society will work it out in the long run, but the AGW beast will be around while there’s still some money in it. We’ve got ads on the radio from heating companies bleating about their product’s low emissions. The mainstream media’s no help either, ignorantly coughing up the same alarmist phlegm in bucketfuls hoping to inspire panic so we can somehow force nature to behave through regulations and taxes, which nature cares nothing about going by lengthy interviews. Interestingly, this seems to be having the reverse effect as millions of viewers tire of this constant barrage, which has subsequently quieted recently – apart from the election campaign.
Meanwhile, the greenies blather on about the POSSIBLE extinction of some lesser-spotted weevil, how destructive modern civilisation is, and enjoy all the comforts of that very same modern life.

Australia’s northern half has a dry season in winter, and a wet season in summer. Much the same as similar latitudes worldwide, with some 20C temperature swing. I can’t see 2C doing much at all really. But for a country that normally succumbs to wet and dry seasons, a little warming may be of benefit due to increased rainfall in the winter – becoming more tropical, diverse in wildlife etc. AGW increasing the size of the tropics? Nice. It seems to be where we go on holiday most of the time anyway.
However, the PDO shift into cool, a weak sun and possibly at the 100,000 year end point of all major ice-age/interglacials, we may yet end up colder, hungrier and fighting off plagues yet again. No doubt some enterprising dolts at NASA or IPCC will blame it on a gas of some sort which needs to be taxed heavily, possibly water vapour, and everyone in their blind panic will forget exactly what that is, where it comes from and how it naturally occurs, much like basic photosynthesis and CO2 now.
In the near future, humanity’s panic regarding carbon will be too incredible to be believed. Lucky we have it all on hardcopy.
Once again Thomas, nice post.. 🙂

Mike Haseler: I’m intruiged, please tell me more.

“… the physics of climate change are not by themselves controversial, but … the sensitivity of the earth’s atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is not yet known, but is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.”
I get really fed up by all these stupid labels. I’d always thought I was a climate sceptic because I understand the claims of the activists, the Guardian, the Royal Society etc to be unjustified and dishonest. But now it seems the only way to be a true sceptic is to reject the basic physics. And how can I do that? – I’m trained in physics. The basic physics is underpinned by both classical and modern physical theories, as well as numerous real world measurements, and is extremely unlikely to be wrong. And why would anyone need to reject it? This “grain of truth” certainly doesn’t support the activist’s claims – read SoD if you disagree. I’m on your side, Thomas, about this…
“…I believe that if there are ‘no regrets’ options…”
“We also need to push piecemeal solutions…”
“I do not want Maurice Strong to control our approach to the world’s environmental issues.”
“If a panel composed of both Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen and a few others were to work on proposed solution, I’d be pretty happy. I might be alone in my joy, I realize.”
… and all of this as well. You would not be alone, I promise you.

You refer to yourself as a ‘luke warmer’ which puts you in the middle of the road.
People who stand in the ‘middle of the road’ are referred to as ‘targets of opportunity.’
It is illogical and a non sequitur to declare that you believe both ways.
Otherwise, I fully concur with Mike Haseler’s posted remark (September 17, 2010 at 12:29 am).
You said:
“The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics.”
And he replied:
Greenhouses work by preventing convective air currents. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas!!!
Moreover, CO2 is also a cooling gas – it bats both ways, if it is cooler it absorbs radiation from the surface, if it is warmer than the prevailing environment (like space) it helps to emit IR.
Amost everything in that sentence is wrong except “CO2 is … a gas”.

It’s because I am a ‘lukewarmer,’ one who believes that the physics of climate change are not by theselves controversial, but who believes that the sensitivity of the earth’s atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is not yet known, but is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.

If you want to be a scientist, you’ll better remove the ‘belief’ verb from your vocabulary. Whether the sensitivity of earth’s atmosphere to varying concentrations of CO2 is known or not is not a matter of belief. It is an empirical problem that has to be solved by experimentation, and no computer is going to give you the answer. You need to make real experiments in real world.
And, by the way, we don’t know either if that sensitivity ‘constant’ is actually a constant or not. You might prove that in a confined space that the radiation some gases adsorb is proportional to the (log) of their concentrations, but this doesn’t mean they are going to behave the same way in an open atmosphere.
Think about gravity. We know that any object falls in vacuum at a constant acceleration (g) but that doesn’t mean that any object falls in an atmosphere at a constant acceleration. There is a negative feedback (air resistance) that prevents the object from falling at constant acceleration. That’s the starting point of aerodynamics.
If we don’t know how much the sensibility is at the current CO2 concentration, or at any concentration for that matter, little can we say about this parameter being constant or not.

The article and several commentators appear fixated on CO2 apparently because of the constant propaganda. Yet the IPCC has made some serious scientific mistakes.
1. The models assume imaginary [an error in the physics, see later] ‘cloud albedo effect’ cooling. Taking average figures in AR4 [Figure 2.4], it’s 44% of AGW.
2. Real radiative greenhouse heating is c. 60 K: you lose 27 K by convection so you should scale radiative temperature rise to 60 K, not 33 K.
3. Since 1970, possibly 60% of temperature rise has been astrophysical.
So, the IPCC’s predicted 3 K central temperature rise for 2xCO2 may be c. 0.4 K.
You may ask “Where’s the missing AGW?”. The models assume as CO2 increases, so does the main greenhouse gas, water. But the evidence increasingly points the other way: upper troposphere water has been falling and that’s where radiation matters.
An ex-NASA physicist [Miskolczi] calculates this natural control system, which already stops us frying, exactly compensates for CO2 rise. So, why do I think there’s still AGW?
I have little doubt that pollution gives a heating ‘cloud albedo effect’. You get at it from physics ignored in the past. It’s in addition to the diffuse albedo and strongly dependent on droplet diameter. Because pollution reduces that diameter, the albedo of polluted clouds is significantly lower, so more solar energy reaches the Earth.
OK, it’s the reverse of what is assumed by the IPCC. But, look at NASA websites, e.g.: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Aerosols/. That ‘science’ is totally wrong, incompetence or deception. So there’s no cooling ‘cloud albedo effect’ for thick clouds. It’s the other way around and indistinguishable from CO2 warming.

I don’t agree that there is a case to move away from fossil fuels without global warming. Government has a responsibility for regulating emissions (non c02 – real pollutants) but it also has a responsibility for energy supply. We have lots of coal and it only really makes sense for electricity generation. At some point there will be a replacement, but it isn’t now. Can you think of nothing better to use tax dollars on than an arbitrary attempt to choose fuel sources?

As a Buddhist I see many virtues in the middle path, and I believe we can indeed take many “no regret” actions, even if not motivated by deep believe in Global Climatic Disruption.
Micro generation is one way to go that I believe has a lot of potential. I have installed solar panels to heat water that heats my house when it is cold an sunny, and electricity warms that water when it is raining. I am highly skeptical of CAGW, but I think oil & coal is not the best way to have energy.
If I could generate 4 Mega Watts at home for my home I would be energy independent. One option are solar panels, but they are still to expensive and only work 100% during daytime and when it is sunny, wind power is a nice complement and many of my neighbours have installed 1-2 MW wind turbines, but they are a bit noisy. Where I live, Portugal, it is now cheaper to go energy independent than to connect a remote home to the power grid or water grid, many farmers are installing wind turbines and solar panels (thermal and photovoltaic) as a way to go independent. Also small water turbines can be installed in small rivers, with very litle impact in the river itself,
This means that the power grid is alliviated from a lot of stress, less coal is burned, and less governmental investment is needed to build big scale power sources. So micro-generation of energy may be a way to smoothly divert power sources from coal & oil to renewable sources. The main obstacle seems to be financial, because most investment would be done by individuals.

Despite debate about the details of his post, Thomas Fuller raises some important points. The world population is growing and energy use is growing faster. Coal and oil may currently be the most economical energy sources but there are alternative sources that are not pie in the sky or windmills in the sea.
His “panel of experts” and his list of alternative energy sources seem to me to be pretty good places to start. I’ll admit to being a skeptic. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about a future dependent on coal and oil. Let us not bankrupt our current economy with fanciful fixes. Let us instead reduce regulatory burdens on the pursuit of alternative energy sources (such as nuclear) and give incentives (such as prizes) for R&D on practical and economic ways to reduce dependence on coal and oil.
I would hate to interfere with the debate about CO2. It is a lot of fun. But it should not be a distraction from the effort to find and exploit better ways to deliver energy to the world’s population.

“But the real problem is counting to 3,000. Because a straight line extension of energy consumption gets us to 3,000 quads (quadrillion BTUs) by 2075, with 9.1 billion people developing at present trends and GDP growing at 3% per year.”
Is it not obvious that the technology then will be vastly superiour to the technology now? I find it incredible that anybody can think that 65 years from now the human race is going to be worrying about power unless we do something now. I also find it incredible that anybody can think that governments are capable of identifying the technology that we will want to use 65 years from now and will be effective at giving them a push – which will still give them an advantage 65 years from now. 5 years maybe, 10 unlikely, 65? The energy landscape will be unrecognisable by then.
Solar has had a huge push in the last 10 years from governments around the globe. Have you noticed an increase in the rate of increase of efficiency of solar panels – or a surge on the path to cost effectiveness? I think the market is big enough that it will increase at a natural pace, and you may as well flush your investment money down the toilet – except it isn’t your money it is taxpayers money. It used to be that the first rule of the precautionalry principle was to do no harm, now it seems the precautionary principle is to spend as much taxpayer money as possible – just in case.

You write “The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.”
I am not sure if I qualify as a “skeptical scientist”, but I do not accept this. I have two objections. On a general principle basis, I do not believe that you can assess the effect of doubling CO2, without looking at all four ways that energy is transferred in the atmosphere. Radiative forcing is estimated from radiative transfer models. The estimation of 1.2 C is based on the change in radiative forcing, and the use of the Stefan Boltzmann 4th Power law (SB). This strikes me as nonsense.
From what I can see, the use of SB assumes that all the energy that is radiated into space comes directly from the surface of the earth. If so, then this is just plain wrong. What you need to do is to use SB to estimate the change in temperature from those places where energy is being radiated into space – eg the TOA -, and then estimate how much difference this makes to the temperature at the surface. No one knows how to do this.
Just my 10 cents. I would be delighted if someone could tell me where my reasoning is wrong.

Welcome to the club

Rob Vermeulen says:
September 17, 2010 at 12:34 am
Mmm I think you mean “dissociative identity disorder” and not “schizophrenia”.
Love that term!!!
Hi, I suffer from “DID”, the world is wrong and I am right.

Mmmpf. Coal has three real problems, none of which have anything to do with CO2:
* Mining safety;
* Environmental degradation by mining; and
* Air pollution with sulfur and nitrogen compounds.
The third is pretty much resolved in the developed world. The first two remain problems in the US and are horrendous in the Third World.
Coal is not going away, particularly if the masses of Africa are to be lifted from their poverty. Can you imagine what progress might have been made in these areas if $100 billion had been spent addressing these issues over the last two decades instead of delusionally chasing the Global Warming Fairy?

A reasonable course of action would be to put money into research for alternative energy sources and data collection. There is a no regrets policy to increasing knowledge. To tax our carbon use so we can send our jobs to China while at the same time borrowing money from China to send to China because elements of the population think we owe them for one reason or another, that is just pure insanity. Paleo data is an interesting argument but it isn’t a logical one. If you are failing to accurately explain what is happening in the present what makes you believe you are accurately explaining the past?

In Texas, wind power in reality deliver about 8% of its rated capacity.
Nuclear and coal deliver about 90%.
Let that sink in, and let rational people hold a brief period of mourning for the yet another alternative energy dream dying off.
Solar will never reach more than 50% under ideal circumstances for the obvious reason.
Geothermal could be a great source, but why has it not done so yet?
Nuclear has been crippled in the US and elsewhere by fanatical extremists who have high jacked the public policy on energy.
In the normal course of events. like in France, coal is a passing technology of development.
In developed countries where so-called greens dominate, the technologies are stuck on coal.
While I disagree with Tom, I would like to offer a possible clarification to settle the claim that CO2 is not a ghg due to a garden green house operating by trapping air under a roof: The term ‘green house’ is a loosely applied term. A green house, at its heart, is increasing temperatures higher than they would otherwise be. CO2 has the impact, all other things being equal, of increasing the amount of energy kept in the atmosphere.
The term ‘green house gas’ was in use long before promoters of climate catastrophe high jacked the public square.

ADD droughts, floods and heatwaves?!? I thought we/they had them already.

Fuller:
If you believe that about 2 degrees of warming is headed our way this century, it will be a problem–probably not for those reading this, because of our fortunate geography, but for those in the developing world, who will have to add droughts, floods and heatwaves to their current long list of miseries.
________________________________________________________
And don’t forget, that two degrees may well be mostly warmer nights. That is unlikely to add droughts and floods and …” Interesting that two opposite effects frequently get mentioned in people’s concern with global warming. I understand but somehow it always makes me chuckle.
But the way, could you send some to that two degree, probably night time temperature increase my way. I just came in from outside from doing some chores (it is 5 am here) and it is a nippy minus 5 Celsius. I wouldn’t mind a couple of those warmist degrees up here right now. http://www.theweathernetwork.com/index.php?product=hourlyfx&hourlytype=hourlytable&interval=1&placecode=caab0005&ref=widgetwxhourlyv2&var1=0

Lukewarmer is a bad choice of an epithet:
King James Bible, <>
“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Middle of the road is better. Or the camel’s way: They asked the camel,” would you rather ride uphill or downhill”, and she replied: “what is wrong with the level road”?
I am all for supporting changes that in any case, irrespective of the CO2 specter, clean the air, conserve energy and resources and are good “housekeeping”.
Unfortunately with the CO2 banner wavers, instead of persuading/helping China to clean up its coal factories they want China to commit energy harakiri on flimsy nonexistent evidence of the dangers of CO2.
BTW, what is so bad if the temperatures at night instead of being -10C are -8C or even -4C? Last winter the arctic went from -45 to -30C and that huge anomaly was counted in the warming .

All the value I find in this post is from the comments.

Just realised I posted this on an old article by mistake. Sorry to duplicate it. It is more suitable here as in this post TF deals with criticism
Thomas Fuller
Thank you for answering my previous questions. However, I would like to question you further on a couple of points.
“Philip Thomas says:
September 13, 2010 at 6:09 am
‘[Major media campaigns] ignore IPCC scientists so they could insist that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.’
I was under the impression that this claim was made by the scientists in the IPCC report. These facts were reiterated on numerous occasions by Rajendra Pauchari.
Here is the IPCC’s statement on the matter.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/himalaya-statement-20january2010.pdf
Unless I have greatly misunderstood what you have said, it seems completely incorrect to say that the media pushed these errors in the face of IPCC protest.”
You answered:
“Mr. Thomas: An IPCC scientist brought the news of the IPCC’s error to Mr. Pachauri’s attention in (I believe) 2004, but Mr. Pachauri paid no heed and in fact was rather dismissive of it all. But the scientist was from IPCC.”
It was well reported that the Himalayan claim was questioned by scientists outside of the IPCC before the report was published and long before they claimed the mistake had been brought to their attention by IPCC scientists. I believe the internal revelation was damage limitation on the part of the IPCC.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/himalayan-glaciers-melt-claims-false-ipcc
Your answer does not support the direction of your original article that the IPCC and its scientists are innocent and the media is to blame for excessive AGW claims. Pauchari does not fall into the media category by a long stretch.
Secondly:
“On Googling your name I was led to a testimonial you gave: http://www.pep-partnership.co.uk/testimonials.asp
‘Bill understands how business happens in the governmental sector, especially the European Commission. He’s a hard worker and next time I need a big proposal for an E.C. tender, there’s no doubt that he’s the guy to go to.
Tom Fuller, Managing Director, nQuire Services Ltd’
[Edit: PEP partnership specialise in EC grants]
Can you elaborate on your business interests with the EC? Do you worry that the tenders would be less forthcoming if you were critical of the accepted climate science consensus?”
You answered:
“..and if you found my recommendation for Bill Blakemore, how is it you could find so little about me? My tracks are much easier to trace. I have no current interests with the EC, btw.”
Your on-line biographies suggest you have worked in market research and marketing for most of your life but nothing jumps out as an obvious link to ‘a big proposal for an E.C. tender’ unless you were you offering marketing products/services to the E.C.
You have previously stated that you are not a scientist (it seems that you are a journalist and market analyst/salesman), which begs the question, why were you a green technology consultant to the UK Government? Was this in a capacity as a market research or salesman capacity?
This piece you have written today recommends our heavy investment in green technologies. Do you see a need to make your interests in green technologies, if you have any, explicit?
Please excuse my hard interview.

And the pollution and soot that is caused by China’s coal travels–to the Arctic, hastening ice melt and over the rest of the world, as small particulates and just general haze.
Would you provide the evidence for why you believe this is true?

Thomas Fuller
You were once MD of Interactive Prospect Targeting that does market research and supplies sales leads for green technology companies. This particular propaganda website they run pretends to be an environmental help site but is infact just a fishing tool for green companies to sell their wares.
http://www.ipt-ltd.co.uk/howgreenareyou
http://www.howgreenisyourhome.co.uk/
Did you begin your green interests through your marketing employment? Are you today heavily invested financially in the sale of green technology to the public.
How can you satisfy me that your series of articles are not part of a new marketing campaign?

Tom, I don’t think they have the science right.

Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen
John Christy on fossil fuels

Lee Kington
A major news story for many days
I knew about the traffic jam. I did not know it “was composed primarily of small trucks bringing coal into China’s capital”. This is what I want proof of.

Bart Verheggen says:
September 17, 2010 at 3:04 am
RW makes a cogent argument: “No-one has ever produced a model with a sensitivity of 1°C or less that can reproduce the recent rise in global temperatures as well as reproducing historical and geological temperatures to a tolerable accuracy.”
This statement does not reflect an understanding of how models cited by the IPCC achieve a high degree of model fit to estimations of past temperatures. Such an achievement would not be possible without the use of dummy variables. These variables are values for aerosols, and the introduction of these variables — whose values tend to be conveniently and arbitrarily chosen — enable model fit.
Actually, I have seen much better fit by use of AMO and PDO as drivers rather than Greenhouse gases without aerosols.

As a, what some people may call “warmist”, I find myself actually agreeing with much of this article. I think many “warmists” will agree that, although” the physics of climate change are not by themselves controversial,”, there is much uncertainty in climate sensitivity. As Tom Fuller states it here however, it looks to me to be much whishfull thinking: “sensitivity…is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.” Which activists? Or does he actually mean scientists? I don’t care what activists claim, but there are very good reasons to believe that climate sensitivity is quite high (otherwise we would not have experienced ice ages for example). But indeed, the truth is: we don’t know for sure.
So the question then becomes: Given the uncertainty in climate sensitivity, what will we do? Only going for “no regret” options, as Fuller wants, can surely lead to much regret if climate sensivity is indeed as high as most scientists believe. This arguing for “no regret” policy is really just like continuing smoking when your doctor says you have a strongly increased risk for lung cancer. What a regret it would be if I didn’t die from long cancer and I gave up smoking for nothing. The reason that Fuller is by some AGW proponents referred to as a “troll” is, I believe, his refusal to admit that climate sensitivity could very well be high.

The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.
I have seen calculations by credible experts that the temperature rise (based on radiation physics) would likely be in the range of only 0.3°C. And don’t forget that radiation is not the only way in which energy is transported up from the earth’s surface. Evaporation of water and subsequent convection to high altitude has been attributed (by some) for 60-80% of the heat transfer.
Don’t get caught in the trap of attributing everything to radiation, as El Gordo seems to.
IanM

A perceptive man, Mr. Fuller, would not have committed the faux pas of assuming that either the internet, or WUWT, has some sort of geographic periphery.
Those of us who come here regularly have probably made a greater investigation of physics than since they last took any interest in the subject in High School. The trouble with that is that the physics give one the barest glimmer of what the feed backs might be and without positive feedbacks there seems to be nothing to worry about.
The biology gets much less attention. Every ounce of that coal, not only the nasty dirty variety in China, but also the nice clean stuff in the U.S., originated from biological activity which took vast amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere. When we burn it, we return it, at least temporarily, to the atmosphere. Over time, that CO2 will again be sequestered. Down on the seashore, we can see evidence of the same process when we look at the shells and the shingle. One can argue that the process will be slow, too slow perhaps, but no one has yet tried to predict timings to me. Surely this must come since the long suit of climatologists seems to be extrapolation.

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
September 17, 2010 at 6:34 am
“I knew about the traffic jam. I did not know it “was composed primarily of small trucks bringing coal into China’s capital”. This is what I want proof of.”
Just going by the news: http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Beijing+%22traffic+jam%22+trucks+coal&FORM=BNFD

May I join Mike in noting how polite all the comments have been. Long may it continue. Let us discuss physics; not have ad hominem attacks. I see Ian McQueen posting here. If I may make a suggestion to you, Thomas Fuller, if you are really interested in what real skeptics think. Find your way the the Yahoo group climatesceptics, and post your ideas there. I am sure people will be as polite as they have been here, but, IMHO, that is where you will get comments from the real climate skeptics.

With due respect: That’s what all schizophrenics say when admitted at the asylum. 🙂

Thomas, some of your post is reasoned. I concur with some of your conclusions. But you seem to agree with much of the “consensus AGW view” concerning the magnitude that CO2 is contributing to warming. I am not so convinced. The magnitude of concentrations of CO2 vs water vapor alone convinces me that water has a far, far greater effect than the miniscule role of CO2. And the beneficial effects that the increase in CO2 has had on plant growth and the further “greening” of the planet is far more beneficial than any adverse miniscule average temperature change.
I have a few questions for other WUWT commenters (and lurkers like me):
1) Why is it that in order for us to arrive at a number for the average change in the “temperature” of the earth we have to measure it at thousands of locations ALL over the planet (but more in the US than anywhere else), homogenize it, average it, adjust it, and then statistically masticate all of this data in order to spit out an official “global temperature anomaly”, ie a “significant number” that we should believe (sarc/on With all that “science” it must reflect the actual TRUTH after all sarc/off), while the official (ie. believed to reflect truth) CO2 value for the whole world is measured at just one location on a mountain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Is it not true that the value of the concentration of CO2 changes from location to location? and from month to month in even one location? and from lattitude to lattitude and altitude to altitude depending on the weather? just as much as the temperature does, and influenced just as much maybe even more by urban effects as temperature? How can either sets of data (temp and CO2) actually have any degree of credibility when the degree of certainty of any measured value has so much uncertainty when compared to the supposed change that is reported?
2) Suspected “greenhouse” gasses have known spectra: They have well characterized peak absorbing wavelengths, and wavelengths where they are relatively transparent to IR. Water vapor has many more absorbing peaks than CO2, and they are at different wavelengths. To get to an answer about the question of forcing and the magnitude of the “greenhouse” effect that any given gas plays in the retention of heat on the planet, has anyone ever “looked” at the planet from space with the appropriate set of filters on the camera to see what the IR picture looks like at gas specific (ie. relavent) wavelengths? In other words, has anyone looked at the IR signature of the earth at a group of IR wavelengths that are relatively transparent to CO2, Water vapor, (and other relavent “greenhouse” gasses) during times of high incident solar radiation (day time), and low incident solar radiation (night time), to get a baseline; then looked at these same locations with a set of “CO2” filter lenses, and then a set of “Water vapor” filter lenses to get a picture of just how much heating, and reradiating, and reabsorbing, and reradiating and cooling, and concentration changing is going on all over the earth in any given day? I’m sure that if a hurricane can take a huge amount of energy from the surface of the ocean, sweep across the planet and effectively “cool” large swaths of the ocean as it moves, that as it is redistributing energy by evaporating, moving, then condensing water, it must also be redistributing large quantities of CO2 and other “greenhouse” gases along with the water vapor. Just as a picture of the planet from outer space at IR wavelengths transparent to “greenhouse” gases will show the redistribution of energy by showing significant radiative temperature changes from the surface, so too should pictures that correspond to the peak absorbing wavelengths for each suspected “greenhouse” gas.
3) Has anyone ever launched an IR laser beams of known intensity and predetermined wavelengths to correspond to peak absorbing and maximum transparency to assumed “greenhouse” gas spectra, at a satelite with the appropriate CO2, water vapor, etc filter sets to measure just how much absorbtion and reradiation is occurring? For that matter, has anyone done the same experiement, by launching this same laser at a balloon as it is ascending on a clear day, a foggy day, a cloudy day, and measured not only the amount of light that is transmitted up, but also the amount that is reflected, and the amount that is absorbed and reradiated at different altitudes?
If either of these experiments have been conducted, can anyone please point me to the website where I might see the pictures or point me to the article so that I can be better educated about the magnitude of CO2’s effects vs water vapor?

To Tom Fuller and also to Lachlan at 12:19 am, who said:
“But I’m wondering if there’s any hard numbers to back up the “Chinese coal is going to choke us” claim?”
China actually has nine times the coal electricity generation capacity than does the US. WHOA! That is the main reason they now surpass the US in CO2 emissions. But what about black carbon and the nasty emissions Tom Fuller notes?
I think Tom Fuller is wrong when he implies that Chinese electric generation plants put out a lot of black carbon that gets to us and to the Arctic when he says this:
“Our coal plants are dramatically cleaner than they used to be. China’s are not. If we don’t want the air we breathe to taste of China’s coal, we need to work on better solutions.”
Chinese burning of coal is very dirty when used in industrial applications, and when burned in residences. However, since most of their electric generation with coal is in modern plants, like the US they burn the coal efficiently, meaning they utilize virtually all the carbon as fuel. My reference for this is T Bond et al., 2004, “A technology-based global inventory of black and organic carbon emissions from combustion” J Geophysical Research.
Table 15 in Bond et al. shows that worldwide, black carbon emissions from electric generation is about 7 parts per 7,950. Industrial use of coal is responsible for 642 parts per 7,950. Residential coal use is 480 parts per 7,950. On-road diesel is 792 parts per 7,950. Off-road diesel is 579 parts per 7,950. It is these sources which contribute the emissions that most harm human health, AND which contribute to global warming by warming the atmosphere and melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice when they land on it and decrease the reflecticity of ice and snow.
There’s more, but I’ll stop here.

In my post anna v says:
September 17, 2010 at 5:05 am
the chapter and verse were lost due to html mixup
here it is
King James Bible,
“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Revelation chapter 3 verse 16

What about Thorium reactors?

Tom Fuller says:
September 17, 2010 at 8:20 am
The problem with Anthony’s publishing schedule is that this post has attracted close to a hundred comments before I have finished my first cup of coffee. So I don’t know where to start.
Try with another cup of coffee !
BTW, It’s cool buddy!(*)
(*) just to avoid any possible retaliation 🙂

Elizabeth says:
September 17, 2010 at 9:04 am
A need to be precise: You are right, these are common fools, not real crazy ones as we 🙂

Not wanting to make my posts too long, I omitted the following on my post of 9:20 AM:
Thomas Fuller, I liked the core message you have put forward. It is time for folks in the middle of the road to defend their “lukewarmer” positions as being where we think the science actually is. People on both extremes have grabbed all the air time, but they frequently (not always) appear to be more political than scientific, meaning that they seem to me to be strongly defending one extreme or the other, rather than trying to get to what is the actual state of play.
For me, rather than try to decipher climate models or predict climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2, all I can do is look at the satellite record, which seems more reliable that the land based record, and look at the linear trend.
That trend about 1.4 degrees per century, give or take. It includes the slight downturn of the last 10 years, which may be the PDO downtrend, a bit less than halfway through. There are many factors which influence this trend, whether it is different aerosols or natural oscillations or GHGs or solar, and I can’t parse them all out. So when I look at the trend, it seems to me that for a doubling of CO2, we will likely be toward the bottom of the IPCC range of temperature increase. And that puts me in Roger Pielke Jr.’s camp, that it is better to wait until the alternatives are cheaper before we start large scale programs to replace today’s cheap energy sources.
One caveat: we haven’t heard much discussion of “peak oil” in these blogs. But suppose that the output of rapidly depleting older oil wells — the ones that where oil was easy and quick and inexpensive to find and produce — can barely be replaced by the much more expensive and time-consuming new sources, such as ultradeep offshore and tar sands. In this case, just to keep pace with today’s demands, we will have to have continually high oil prices to justify the costs of tar sands and ultradeep offshore, AND we will see higher prices to balance supply and demand as rapidly growing Chinese and Indian demand for oil put increasing pressure on supply and thus on price.
If “peak oil” comes to pass in the next five or so years, we may well see a drop in the CO2 growth rate, as countries like the US actually cut further back on gasoline use because of the cost of, say, $4 and then $5 per gallon gasoline.
There’s lots of stuff that don’t make it into the models that turn out to be quite important….”peak oil” could be one of them.

I would take the typical “warmers” much more seriously if it weren’t for their obsession with unworkable energy solutions. That for me is the touch-stone.
A large majority of the green movement rejects nuclear power and advocates “alternative” solutions that can never be used to power an industrial society.
Wind power for example in the form of windmills and sail for propelling ships has been known since the old egyptians.
They have been immediately replaced when more controllable solutions like steam engines and internal combustion engines became available.
And now they are considered “new”?
What none of these people accept is that especially electricity has to be produced exactly at the moment of consumption and precicesly match the consumption rate.
This just cannot be done with energy sources over which we don’t have control like wind and solar.
Trying to run a modern society with them is like trying to drive a car with no brakes and an accelerator pedal controlled by a frightened squirrel. The crash will not be far off. Basically suicide by stupidity.
I am personally against coal. Not because of CO2, but because of all the other nasty materials coal plants release in their ashes like mercury and heavy metals.
But the green movement has stopped the ONLY long term alternative, the development of nuclear energy, basically in its infancy.
The nuclear reactors we use today are expensive only because they are held at 1950s technology level and because of the large regulatory burden forced on them. If we compare the technology steps that happened for example in cell-phones, nuclear energy technology is artificially held at the level of WWII field radios, albeit with far far greater reliability (lower number of deaths/injuries per GWhr by far than any other known energy source).
But what we know in nuclear engineering today would allow us to build reactors that can utilize 100% of the uranium we have instead of 0.7%. We could build nuclear systems that use also Thorium instead of uranium. That that is 4 time more common in the earths crust than uranium.
And all that with “waste” that decays to harmlessness in a less than 300 years instead of millenia, and while doing that produce rare elements as decay products that are difficult to mine and find.
Even with todays technology know-how (not even counting on technical progress) we could supply an earth population of 9 billion with a larger energy supply than a typical American today enjoys for as long as the sun doesn’t go nova.
The FUD about nuclear power, produced by the same alarmists that want to shut western society down today, has held us back.
Instead we are wasting the world supply of rare and needed elements like Indium and Neodymium on unworkable “alternative” energy generators.
Indium is needed for transparent electrodes for solar panels, but also needed for displays.
Neodymium is needed for strong magnets, used in quantity in windmill generators, but is also needed for strong light magnets for electric car motors.

Thomas Fuller
Thank you, once again, for your courteous response to my questions, which I hope do not come across as rude because, as you can tell, I am not much of a journalist. I am asking these questions because I honestly have suspicions about the recent lukewarm push on climate change and you are the only person who is open enough to be pressed on the matter.
If I may press further, I asked what your capacity was as a green technology advisor and generally about your financial interests in promoting green technologies, having pointed out that you have previously worked in that area.
“You have previously stated that you are not a scientist (it seems that you are a journalist and market analyst/salesman), which begs the question, why were you a green technology consultant to the UK Government? Was this in a capacity as a market research or salesman capacity?
This piece you have written today recommends our heavy investment in green technologies. Do you see a need to make your interests in green technologies, if you have any, explicit?”
You replied:
“My consulting with UK government was while I was with another company altogether. I have no ties with any government at all, have no business with any government currently (although I have one proposal outstanding with the public sector–but in an unrelated field).”
Was this another marketing company? Did your consulting involve marketing Climate Change or marketing green technology?
You did not comment on your financial interests in promoting green technology.
Your CV and past employment suggests work in the promotion of private green technology companies. Do you benefit financially from marketing green technology? Can I again raise my last question.
“How can you satisfy me that your series of articles are not part of a new marketing campaign?”

Martin C says:
September 17, 2010 at 9:49 am
Mikael (post at 9:23 am)
You are wrong when you say rice yields are decreasing. See the below post for more on this
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/12/bbc-to-issue-correction-on-rice-yields-story/
———————
Thanks. You are right as far as the press release and BBC rendition
of it goes. But both are vague; I checked the article (abstract below),
it is in fact direct yield they are discussing; minus 300-350 kg/ha due
to Tmin, balanced by plus a 200 kg/ha due to Tmax., derived from a
multiple regression model of farm data (below).
So by sheer luck I was right, which is unsignificant. But, the implications
for SE Asia in a warming climate are not unsignificant.
ABSTRACT
Welch et al.: Rice yields in tropical/subtropical Asia exhibit large but opposing sensitivities to minimum and maximum temperatures).
Data from farmer-managed fields have not been used previously to disentangle
the impacts of daily minimum and maximum temperatures and solar radiation
on rice yields in tropical/subtropical Asia. We used a multiple regression model
to analyze data from 227 intensively managed irrigated rice farms in six
important rice-producing countries. The farm-level detail, observed over
multiple growing seasons, enabled us to construct farm-specific weather
variables, control for unobserved factors that either were unique to each
farm but did not vary over time or were common to all farms at a given site
but varied by season and year, and obtain more precise estimates by
including farm- and site-specific economic variables. Temperature and
radiation had statistically significant impacts during both the vegetative
and ripening phases of the rice plant. Higher minimum temperature reduced
yield, whereas higher maximum temperature raised it; radiation impact
varied by growth phase. Combined, these effects imply that yield at most
sites would have grown more rapidly during the high-yielding season but
less rapidly during the low-yielding season if observed temperature and
radiation trends at the end of the 20th century had not occurred, with
temperature trends being more influential. Looking ahead, they imply a
net negative impact on yield from moderate warming in coming decades.
Beyond that, the impact would likely become more negative, because
prior research indicates that the impact of maximum temperature
becomes negative at higher levels. Diurnal temperature variation
must be considered when investigating the impacts of climate change
on irrigated rice in Asia.

If all the energy devoted to climate change were devoted to reducing world populations, then it might achieve something really positive for the world. A population of say 3 billion would not need the energy that is required now and could probably be well fed when cooling comes along, either a mini ice age or the inevitiable return to the full ice age conditions.
The problem is that there are already far too many people on the Earth. The choice is between a good quality of life for humans or an exercise in how many people can the earth support before some natural event causes mass stavation with the deaths of billions.

Phil:
“But that’s okay because nobody has ever produced a model with a sensitivity of more than 1°C which has proved capable of forecasting future temperatures to a tolerable accuracy either.”
In fact, they have. Qualitatively and quantitatively, model predictions have been validated. They predicted stratospheric cooling, arctic amplification, faster warming night, and faster warming winters in response to greenhouse gas forcing, among many other things. They predicted the magnitude and duration of the post-Pinatubo cooling successfully. What’s the basis of your claim that they didn’t?
““We can’t make our models track historical temperatures without adding this CO2 fudge factor” does not constitute proof that it was CO2 what dunnit. Only that we really don’t understand climate at all.”
Fudge factor! Ha ha ha, that’s a good one. I suppose you could also say that no model can reproduce anything like our observed climate unless they include this “Sun” fudge factor. Greenhouse gases are as real as the Sun.
I see many, many people using this bizarre royal “we”, like you did in your last sentence. You meant “I”.

…Blame Hanna-Barbera for creating “The Flintstones”, greenees took it as real…

They took it for more real than you think.
Seriously.
See this:
http://humancar.com/
US$15,500 for a prettied up toy. Something my kids got bored with when they were 5 or 6 years old. Only a greenee can think this is a good idea.
It shows that greens have brains like cheap denim jeans. Repeated (brain)washing shrinks them to uselessness.

No Regrets policy — I can live with that. I wonder how many remember that George Bush (the first) advocated that policy over twenty years ago. If you do remember, then you may recall how he was demonized for it — by the press, by activists, and by so-called scientists.
Some features of a no-regrets policy:
1. Fewer hurdles for nuclear power.
2. Allow new coal plants — they are less polluting than the ones they replace.
3. Conservation programs — especially where we can reduce the energy usage of welfare recipients for whom taxpayers pay the energy bills.
4. Support R&D for better efficiency in electric transmission.
A very short list, but these actions would increase standards of living, decrease pollution and decrease dependence on foreign oil. Most initiatives in the name of global warming have done the opposite so far.

Being a father of a son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is being successfully treated, I have to echo what Elizabeth (September 17, 2010 at 9:04 am) has stated. I do that in the strongest terms possible.
While what Richard Halle (September 17, 2010 at 11:42 a.m.) states may be true in the country which he lives, it certainly can’t be said to be the case for my son.
Only those who lives have been “touched” by schizophrena can truly understand how devastating, frustrating, and mis-represented this mental disease is.
I suspect that many of you have had interactions with people who have schizophrenia but are successfully being treated without you even knowing it.
I ask for greater sensitivity to the use of the words schizophrena and schizophrenic.

Your 1 to 2 degree warming supposedly accepted by all is a lot closer to 1 and only if net feedback is not negative.
Here is a real question though: Why would anyone presume that 1 or 2 or even several degrees of warming would be a net negative thing? That supposition certainly is not supported by anything we know about the history of life on Earth. Looking at the how much argument is almost missing the main point. Isn’t warmer better for any rationally believable amount of warmer?

An Inquirer.
yup. Instead of taking action on matters in the US, people have chased the dream of a global treaty. To what end?
policy based on adaptive management would dictate that the US do the best it can to prevent,mitigate and adapt to the specific risks faced by the US. not spend over 20 years chasing a global solution.
The solution ( a global prevention of C02 emissions) has been chased long enough.

China is going Nuclear and Solar in a big way. Retiring old and inefficient power plants.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/biggest-solar-power-plant-set-china
They realize that the basis of “the good life” is cheap plentiful electricity.
Used to be like that in the U.S. in the old days. The lack of planning forsight is sad.

Fuller wishes to engage the debate on the argument that CO2 level is a red herring on the larger question of energy demands going forward. That is, let’s not let CO2 levels drive the debate on the following premises: 1) The global population will increase; 2) Along with it demand for energy will increase. I think his premises are grounded in some solid empirical evidence.
Those of you who are nitpicking at the CO2 question are validating his argument and if you can’t get your minds to where he wants to have the debate then you open yourselves to well-deserved ridicule by those who understand where the debate needs to be.

As someone else commented – when you stand in the middle of the road, you are liable to get hit from both sides!
I appreciate your articles and comments. While I do not totally agree with you, that is more because my mind is not made up on the issue. I guess my brains are going to fall out since I am searching for the answers, and refuse to believe that we have them all already.