I’ll be offline most of this weekend, as I got virtually no work done for myself this week thanks to the BEST “PR before peer review shenanigans” and the compliant cadre of barking media lapdogs that followed with tails-a-wagging looking for a sound bite.
Discuss topics on science, weather climate, etc here quietly amongst yourselves. don’t make me come back here.
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Another Open Thread contribution.
And otter, lighten up. It’s Saturday night. What are you doing still in your mom’s basement??
Excuse me, risk, Fukushima, what, exactly, are you talking about??
Number of people who were killed, or even injured, by Fukushima, still zero.
Fukushima was not even the only nuke plant in the area (for both earthquake and tsunami), danger from others, zero, and Fukushima was a 30 year old plant.
This was with one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, plus a tsunami, and the nuke plants were still completely safe.
I mean, just how much evidence do you need that these plants are safe???
And as for the press, where you know doubt “learned” of all this Fukushima “danger”, they are frankly guilty of bald faced lying. I mean, number of people killed or even injured by radiation, zero, number of people killed outright by earthquake and tsunami, at least 25,000, and that does not even count those seriously injured, maimed, bereaved, and without homes or jobs in winter. And while all those people (those who survived) were suffering all that, what did the press report on day after day after day, Fukushima, where the number of casualties was, and still is, zero. And they are still at it, such as a recent news report of “hot spots” in some city, while admitting that these “hot spots” were, in fact, completely harmless to anyone. Sooo, I guess the phrase “cold spots” just doesn’t sell enough papers, right? Ask yourself, why was this even news? Why are they reporting as “news” something that has absolutely no effect on anyone anywhere? When you can figure that one out, the light will dawn.
Yes, they really did set off a bunch of above-ground nuclear tests. It happened so often that people would gather their lawn chairs just at the edge of Reno (or Las Vegas, I forget which) and have nuclear tailgate parties to watch these things. One fellow was miffed because he missed the first one, reason, he had radiation poisoning (he worked to create it). He died…a couple of years ago…at age 86.
How to get rid of that nuclear waste (that being the excuse to call nuke plants dangerous you will come up with next)? Did you know that the Canadians have invented a nuke plant that can turn nuclear waste into electricity? In fact, it is so good at it it can turn raw uranium ore into electricity. No need to pile it up at places like Fukushima (in steel containers), because stupid nuclear panic has not allowed us to dispose of it safely as we planned. It was this nuclear waste, not the actual nuke plant, which was the source of most of the (too small to be harmful) radiation at Fukushima, or didn’t you know that?
Still afraid of nuclear power? Wanna buy a bridge?
@ur momisugly Smokey
I’m in my apartment icing a sprained knee from basketball earlier. Never had that happen before. Sprained ankle, sure, but this is a bit different. Not too much swelling. Probably ought to hobble off to bed.
John B says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:36 pm
“But the numbers also say that as the teemperature goes up, water vapour increases, which makes the temperature go up some more, giving a total effect of something like 3 degrees C per doubling of CO2, with some degree of uncertainty.”
_____
3C is a very reasonable estimate (always of course with a degree of uncertainty), and it is not just the water vapor feedbacks, but the whole package of fast and slow feedbacks, all of which we don’t fully know of course. Hence, the paleoclimate data becomes useful, to see what the earth was like at the closest historical point in the past when CO2 was doubled from our pre-industrial levels. (Going from 280 to 560 ppm). We need to go back to the mid-Pliocence for this, about 3.3 Million years ago. Looking at this era, we see that global temps were around 3C to 4.5C warmer…which correlates closely with what global climate models are saying. Giving these two independent sources of estimates, it seems 3C of warming is very reasonable with a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels, when one looks at all the feedbacks, both slow and fast.
This chart on this topic makes an interesting read:
http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/prism/products/agu3.pdf
otter17 says:
Otter, knees ARE different. Get it looked at and don’t try to tough it out. If you know any dancers or actors, ask them for a recommendation.
otter17 says (October 22, 2011 at 2:04 pm): “As for items 2) and 3), don’t they conflict?”
Not sure what you’re asking. I thought I was quite consistent that you could achieve zero emissions by 2060 OR maintain/improve human welfare but not both. If you emphasize human welfare, the emissions reduction is a side effect, but not intentionally, not so soon, and probably not as much. No conflict there.
“Ok, so let’s say that you believe that item 2) is unwaveringly true, what would the incentive be to believe in any scientists or scientific bodies that lay out CO2 emissions targets or predicted wide scale harm to the environment?”
None. I can live with that. We have bigger problems.
“There likely would be a default to adaptation to whatever comes if item 2) is held as absolute truth.”
Fine. Note that wealth and technology improve adaptation, so economic growth is win-win-win-win-win, whatever the climate.
BTW, I guaran-damn-tee that China & India aren’t buying into this CO2 hysteria, so the question of mitigation is moot. We’re going to have a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere whatever the rest of the world does. I would prefer that “Western” civilization leads the way to wealth, but if not, I take comfort that at least some societies have their economic priorities straight.
Carl Bussjaeger says, leaping into the troll fest, “Ah… You do realize that humans exhale CO2? Even ignoring that minor difficulty… Zero emissions would mean forsaking luxuries like cooking meat on a stick over a primitive fire, or agriculture (slash&burn would be all that was left, and those fires release CO2 as well).”
That is all true and good, but there are a couple of things nobody much covers. One is that warm is good, Warmer is better. Throughout history, cold has been associated with misery and famine and despair. Warm, plenty and good and prosperous.
The other is that not cooking food sounds pretty bad to some, but that is a secondary or tertiary problem, Primary is that it does not matter whether you consider vegetables to be food (I do, and in general prefer them un- or lightly-cooked) or food that food eats (I’m in that camp as well), without carbon dioxide, there is no food.
otter17 says (October 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm): “Ah, thank you R. Gates. That is the type of analogy I was looking for.”
Yes, because ink is just like CO2, and a cylinder of water is just like the earth’s atmosphere. You know, just like Al Gore’s heat lamp/cookie jar/toy globe demonstration is just like our planet’s climate system.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/replicating-al-gores-climate-101-video-experiment-shows-that-his-high-school-physics-could-never-work-as-advertised/
Do I really need the /sarc?
Well, lets try a hypothetical then, lets say you want to reduce CO2 down to zero in just one country, and lets say it is China, since as of now, China is by far the greatest emitter of CO2, and their emissions are growing. However they have admitted that they are not going to reduce their emissions, or even try to. So, exactly how are you going to get them to start? What would be the result if they did? Do you think China’s 1.5 billion people can even survive on zero emissions? The answer is, no. So, how many of them have to die? Do you think they will just voluntarily do so? Would you? They will do what any country would do if a foreign country shows up and asks them (however nicely) to just die, and I can explain it in just one word:
WAR
The simple fact is that no people can survive on zero emissions. There is simply no technological way to do it. If you ask any people to do it, or any country, you are asking them to die. They will resist that idea by any means necessary. Therefore even suggesting it is to ask for war.
You would hope that, would you? You would hope that people would just impose abject poverty on themselves, and then starve to death in the cold and dark, would you? Would you do it? Would you allow anyone else to do it to you? What about to your family, friends, neighbors, city, state, country?
Here is what you do if you really believe we need to reach zero CO2 emissions.
Go kill yourself.
That is what you are asking me to do.
(Note, I do not suggest you actually try that)
(This post is for educational purposes only)
(These are veteran suicide squads, do not attempt)
otter17,
OK, you get a pass for this Saturday night.
JohnB says:
“…as the teemperature goes up, water vapour increases, which makes the temperature go up some more…”
So what happens to the temperature when the moisture precipitates out? Sorry to deconstruct your alarmist belief system, but there it is.
Smokey says:
October 22, 2011 at 8:41 pm
“So what happens to the temperature when the moisture precipitates out?”
____
Temperature should not be the focus, but energy, as it is the energy balance that is altered with the alteration of the atmospheric greenhouse gas components. When moisture precipitates, no energy is lost of course, but rather, it is turned into the latent heat of condensation. The same thing happens of course when snow forms from liquid and we get the latent heat of freezing. Here’s a nice chart for you to remember this Smokey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phase_change_-_en.svg
@otter17
“It has an example quote from the BBC at the top and some links to peer-reviewed papers scattered throughout the body text (from journals like Science, Journal of Climate, etc).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-advanced.htm”
SkS? Oh no… that fudging site?
Sorry, looking only at the last 3 cycles does not visualize anything.
There are good historical reconstructions, i.e. Solanki et al. (2004)
http://www.umweltluege.de/images/sun_solanki.jpg
Fig. 1 shows the TSI reconstruction, Fig. 2 the MUV <300nm part.
Ask yourself:
Doesn't that look more like Earth's temperature gradient, with all it's Minima (Maunder, Dalton, 1900, 1965)?
Now ask yourself another question:
How has the Sun imitated Earth's temperature?
Doh!
You see daylight now?
Ok I’m a simpleton, if CO2 causes 1C in warming and 2C additional warming from water vapour than those 2C from water vapour should produce another 4C and those 4C another 8C another 16C another 32C.
Is the warming produced by CO2 somehow different from the warming from water vapour?
If there is a positive feedback how come it didn’t take effect in the last 4.5 billion years at times with much more CO2 in the air?
Me thinks the positive water vapour feedback hypothesis doesn’t hold water.
Climate change deniers thought they had an ally in Richard Muller, a popular physics professor at UC Berkeley.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/climate-change-deniers-abandon-befuddled-warmist-physicist-who-came-around-on-global-warming.php
Richard Muller, a noted Berkeley physicist who’s been a strident critic of climate campaigners,
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/skeptic-talking-point-melts-away-as-an-inconvenient-physicist-confirms-warming/
Back in 2010, Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist and self-proclaimed climate skeptic,
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/10/21/349860/clean-start-october-21-2011/
A skeptical physicist ends up confirming climate data
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/a-skeptical-physicist-ends-up-confirming-climate-data/2011/10/20/gIQA6viC1L_blog.html
. . .
2006:
Although Muller estimates 2 in 3 odds that humans are causing global warming,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0623-03.htm
The common dreams article also says:
A more sardonic view was taken by prominent Bay Area physicist Richard Muller of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who served as a peer reviewer for the academy’s report. In 2004, he publicly criticized the Mann team’s work, calling it “an artifact of poor mathematics … when applied to the (temperature records of the) last millennium,” he recalled in an e-mail Thursday.
If I’m reading the article right, it sounds like Mueller was critical of the hockey stick math.
M.A.Vukcevic ou said on October 22, 2011 at 10:22 am
QUOTE
Here is the latest from ‘vukcevic graphs workshop’.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NA-SST.htm
Article is being assembled currently.
UNQUOTE
I look forward to reading your article.
Your chart is tantalising, but I can’t quite grasp your meaning.
Regards
Legatus says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:54 pm
[Nuke, as a method of “decarbonizing”]
“”I think this would be a horrible idea – exposes our g-g-g-grandchildren to (gradually decreasing) risk for a LONG time after any benefits expire!””
Hi Legatus,
I’m not sure this is the right place to get into this, but since it’s an “open thread”…
“”For an interesting read, go back to the first posts about Fukushima and watch the “experts” assure us it will all be over in 12 – 24 hours.””
I should have made clear that this (Fukushima “experts” in the first day or two) is a slightly different topic than the generic “long term risk, short term benefit” that makes me oppose Nuclear power.
“Excuse me, risk, Fukushima, what, exactly, are you talking about?? Number of people who were killed, or even injured, by Fukushima, still zero.”
Number of people evicted from their homes: 80,000. Date when they may return: uncertain.
“Fukushima was not even the only nuke plant in the area (for both earthquake and tsunami), danger from others, zero, and Fukushima was a 30 year old plant. This was with one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, plus a tsunami, and the nuke plants were still completely safe.”
Perhaps we have a different definition of “completely safe”…
“I mean, just how much evidence do you need that these plants are safe???”
Ummm… lack of evacuation? Workers allowed to work as near to the plants as they like, for as long as they like?
You are correct, of course, that if the tragic event happened at a coal mine, it probably would have caved in. If it had been a hydro-power dam, it probably would have burst. Nothing is risk-free. My point is that the risk from nuclear goes on for an awfully long time.
“And as for the press, where you know doubt “learned” of all this Fukushima “danger”, they are frankly guilty of bald faced lying.”
Ah, okay. Correct number of evacuees is? And I would find the correct information where? My point in mentioning the “experts” on the early threads here was this: If you ask the typical schoolkid, they’ll tell you AGW is real and dangerous. That’s what they learned in school. If you ask a typical nuclear engineer, they’ll tell you nuclear power is safe. Same reason?
…
“Why are they reporting as “news” something that has absolutely no effect on anyone anywhere?”
Have you asked the evacuees about this?
“When you can figure that one out, the light will dawn.”
If you can show me where the “off” switch is on a nuke, I will be greatly enlightened. A coal-fired plant has many disadvantages, but when you stop shovelling coal into it, it stops.
…
” Yeah. Exactly. So shut up with the panic already”
Sorry if I gave you the impression I was “panicing”. Otter17(?) asked how we could reduce CO2 emissions to zero. That’s how. I think it’s a terrible idea.
…
“Yes, they really did set off a bunch of above-ground nuclear tests.”
I know. We used to use them as a “reason” for “oddball” weather (which is actually quite common). Lot of rain? It’s those A-bomb tests! Been dry? It’s those A-bomb tests! Much like some people blame CO2 for extremes of weather these days.
…
“How to get rid of that nuclear waste (that being the excuse to call nuke plants dangerous you will come up with next)?”
Psychic too, are ye? 🙂 That’s easy: put it someplace, build a fence around it to keep the kiddies out, and put armed guards around it to keep terrorists out. Then keep the fence and armed guards maintained for a really long time!
…
“It was this nuclear waste, not the actual nuke plant, which was the source of most of the (too small to be harmful) radiation at Fukushima, or didn’t you know that?”
Actually, no I didn’t know that. I was under the impression that radiation was escaping from several sources. How much is “too small to be harmful”, Legatus? A very large amount of radiation will kill you PDQ. (dispute?) A lesser amount will increase your risk of cancer by a measureable amount. (dispute?) There is some evidence that a very small amount (above background) is actually good for ya – Ann Coulter is not completely insane to observe this. (note: “completely” 🙂 ) Since you seem to know a lot about this, perhaps you can tell us exactly where the dividing line is between “completely safe” and “some risk”?
“Still afraid of nuclear power?”
I’m not particularly “afraid” of nuclear power. I observe that the risks (small as you may think they are) go on for a long time. The indisputable benefits last a short time. I think such a “long term contract” is a bad deal. (I think that nuke power – fission – may well be our punishment for not thinking up anything better, actually. I still think it’s a bad idea!)
“Wanna buy a bridge?”
Nope. Wanna buy a nuclear waste repository? They’re looking for a site, I hear!
Best,
Frank
Well, I think this is a reasonable thought, and it’s one of those “gotcha” kinds of things. I hope someone will think about this, and tell me what’s wrong with this simple idea.
Let’s grant Michael Mann he was correct in his backcast. Let’s grant that C02 increases temperature exactly as stated (what is it, 3.0 degrees C per doubling, or so)? Given this, current temperatures should be 1.1 degrees C greater than they otherwise would have been. Looking at Mann’s seminal paper, the backcasts estimate that little ice age temperatures should be from .6 to 1.2 degrees C lower than they are today. That means if we give the modellers all their assumptions, today’s temperatures would be LIA temperatures, with all the implications.
“10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change” at http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-on-Climate-Change.html claims to list 10 items of empirical evidence that supports AGW.
Where may I find specific scientific refutations of the link between those ten items and AGW theory? (Not just a general blast at http://www.skepticalscience.com, please) Another way to put it is: Can anyone direct me to a scientific explanation of how a non-AGW theory explains those ten items as well or better than AGW?
In particular, can anyone direct me to a scientific refutation of the claim that the Evans 2006 results (http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm) demonstrate that there is a direct connection between anthropogenic greenhouse gases and global warming?
Smokey writes: “So what happens to the temperature when the moisture precipitates out?”
What happens immediately is that the condensation releases heat into the atmosphere.
Over the long term, as the atmosphere grows warmer (never mind the cause for the moment), the more moisture it can hold. The moisture (clouds, water vapor) are greenhouse gases.
The effect of clouds of global temperature is still problematic, but most scientists seem to think that their albedo effect slightly outweighs their effect as greenhouse gas, and that thus they have a slight cooling effect overall. The effect of water vapor is far less problematic. It is a potent greenhouse gas that will lead to further warming, which will enable the atmosphere to hold more moisture which will lead to further warming . .. and so on.
And now for something completely different – Blackberrys!
Sorry wrong link.
Blackberrys:
R. Gates says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:21 pm
As CO2 is mostly transparent to the wavelengths of sunlight, no matter how high the CO2 levels go, we would not be in danger of blocking out sunlight. The ink example simple shows visually what we can’t see in term of the effects of something at low ppm. I would of course expect certain skeptics to refuse to grasp this analogy.
Doesn’t show that at all. All it shows is that certain liquids mix. Use a drop of oil instead, what do you get?
So, it stands, the analogy is stupid for a variety of reasons and that is what sceptics grasp.
Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, it therefore displaces air and sinks unless work is done to move or mix it, it will not, as your analogy extrapolates to and which is the implied message in this junk analogy, mix thoroughly into the fluid gaseous ocean of air of our atmosphere as does the ink. What is the temperature of each in your analogy? Use a drop of something with the same relative weight to water as carbon dioxide to air. Tell us what happens.
Say hypothetically that the CO2 emissions needed to be reduced down to zero by say 2050-2060 roughly. What would be the best policy, technology, and treaty measures to do so such that our livelihood, economy, etc remain productive/happy? Trying to do policy brainstorm, looking forward to suggestions.”
An aggression space policy.
But 2050-2060 is pretty tough target to meet. But by the 2050-2060 timeframe, you could the option to shade the sun or reflect more sunlight on earth [and wherever you wanted the extra sunlight. Therefore one could control global temperatures if there was any need.
So purpose of the space policy would not be to build a sun shade. But rather the near term purpose of space policy is to develop a robust market for rocket fuel. And other markets in space.
And after decades of such policy, the option of making a sun shade could have a fairly low cost.
otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 10:19 am
“Say hypothetically that the CO2 emissions needed to be reduced down to zero by say 2050-2060 roughly. What would be the best policy, technology, and treaty measures to do so such that our livelihood, economy, etc remain productive/happy? Trying to do policy brainstorm, looking forward to suggestions.”
Trying to do a policy brainstorm for a solution to a non-existent problem? Why?
“There is a lot of speculation about comets and meteors striking the earth. To some extent ( I consider substantially) the Earth has been protected by the Moon which has intercepted many such objects. This is evidenced by the cratering of the far side of the moon. Any of those impacts could have forestalled the development of life on Earth.”
The Moon doesn’t intercept any significant amount comets and asteroids from hitting earth.
The Moon has so many craters because it surface isn’t remade with plate tectonics as earth is.
So the Moon is permanent record of it’s impact history.
Earth has been hit with as impactors as the Moon- the earth has merely erased them by plate diving under plates. And it worn them down with erosion- wind, rain, glacial movement, etc. Plus vegetation can obscure them from sight and people can think an impact crater was caused by some other natural event.
In addition the smaller impactor explode in our atmosphere rather hit the ground.
“As a speculative thought, imagine an Earth-like planet where the moon orbits at a much lower distance and tidal ranges are 500 – 600 feet. Would life evolve quicker? How much evaporation would develop with huge beaches?”
Few theories about the Moon suggest the Moon orbited much closer than it does today, and currently the Moon is getting further from Earth at 3 cm per year.