Travel today. So by request, here is a Weekend Open Thread on Thatcher, who did much to kick off the CO2 global warming saga but later on became a sceptic and regretted her actions. My favorite quote (supposedly attributed to her) from Thatcher is about consensus:
“consensus is an absence of leadership”
So true.
Along the same lines, it is such a shame that the left treats her service so poorly by making an artificial push in song popularity, a false consensus if you will, to make “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” #1 in Britain so that the BBC will have to play it on BBC Radio1. Such cheap shots speak to the integrity of their political convictions. Fortunately, the BBC decided that they had a shred of integrity left and chose not to play the clip in full. Still, it is a cheap shot.
Plus, discuss anything else within the limits of blog policy.
re: Zeke says April 13, 2013 at 7:14 pm
Do you think we ought to end the Fed’s “QE4EVA” policy Zeke?
Why isn’t JPM making any loans to the business community? Are they possibly addicted to the free money handed out by the fed? (*Better* returns are to be had in commodities rather than making perceived ‘risky’ loans to businesses?)
Might cutting off this Quantitative Easing-Forever policy of the Fed reduce the amount of money sloshing around in the JPM’s, Goldman Sachs and Citi et al’s hands looking for a place to make *assured* (‘sure thing’) returns?
Is it possible there’s a bigger root problem at issue here?
.
Oops – mods, one stuck in the spam filt again! TIA _Jim
Microsoft has some Geo-Spatial tools for Excel that might be useful to the WUWT community :
GeoFlow – 4D geo-spatial-temporal data visualization from Excel!
h/t http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/GeoFlow-4D-geo-spatial-temporal-data-visualization-from-Excel
Mark Bofill;
Are you sure about this? From Roy Spencer’s book
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No I am not sure. I’ve gone into detail on this issue with at least 12 physicists who between them have provided 15 answers. The problem is that the IPCC definition is vague and subject to a lot of interpretation:
The definition of RF from the TAR and earlier IPCC assessment reports is retained. Ramaswamy et al. (2001) define it as ‘the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus longwave; in W m–2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values’.
So, for starters, they are talking about the tropopause, not the TOA. Second, actually measuring what they are talking about is pretty much impossible, Willis Eschenbach wrote a whole post on it some time back. Then you have the issue of the change in net (down minus up) which yields different values at different altitudes, but if you go back to the TAR and to Ramaswamy, you’ll see that those descriptions (sorry, I don’t have the links handy) are not quite the same either, but it is clear that there is no additional energy added to the system except during the change between equilibrium states. Oh, and the TAR for certain (Ramaswamy too if I recall correctly) calculates the sensitivity against the effective black body temperature of earth which is about -18C. (That’s why they get 1 degree for 3.7 w/m2 while your calcs are done at surface temps of about +15 and so yield only 0.6).
All that said, the physics doesn’t support a change in net energy flux across the system as a whole except when there is a change in CO2 concentration that yields a transition to a new equilibrium state, but this is temporary. So before CO2 doubles, insolation is 240 w/m2 and equilibrium temp is -18C. After CO2 doubles, insolation is still 240 w/m2 and equilibrium temp is still -18C. At what altitude -18C occurs at however does change to a higher altitude, and then assuming some sort of lapse rate roughly the same as before, you get higher temps below that altitude and lower ones above that altitude, but the effective black body temp stays exactly the same at equilibrium. The average across the atmospheric column remains the same, and the RF doesn’t directly correlate to surface forcing (per the IPCC) which is why I call it an effect that is smeared across the atmospheric column rather than a net new energy input at any given altitude.
mods ~ another down the hidey hole. I think it has taken a special interest in me today 😉
TIA
_Jim;
They do, and they recommend gazoos of RAM* … What I would like to know is: can a Dell C1100 class pizza-box “perform” like a normal PC.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The short answer is yes. The long answer is really complicated, the summary of which is that unless you have the expertise to be self sufficient technically, I’d recommend staying away from used gear entirely, but doubly so for servers. PC’s are designed and configured to run reasonably well with little expertise. Servers (pizza boxes) are 99% the same technology, but they are designed and configured on the assumption that someone with the requisite expertise is going to load specific firmware patches, specific operating systems with specific settings and so on. If you don’t have a sys admin background, you’ll be looking for someone who does to help you in short order.
Mark Bofill;
Let’s summarize: If we assumed that the Earth was initially in energy balance, and then instantly doubled the atmospheric concentration of CO2, there would then be an energy imbalance of 3.7 watts per square meter less than the amount of sunlight being absorbed by the Earth.
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Hopefully the mods will rescue my more detailed response from the spam bin. On this particular comment by Roy Spencer, I believe he is referring to the condition that would exist between equilibrium states. You start at equilibrium which is 240 w/m2 and an effective black body temperature of -18C. CO2 doubles. That establishes a substantive change in energy balance until equilibrium is once again established. At that point…. 240 w/m2 and an effective black body temp of -18C. In between stuff is messed up.
I lived in Suffolk, UK, from 1970 to 1975. Under Wilson, the UK would have achieved third-world status except for its savior, North Sea natural gas. When i returned for a long visit in 1988, I could not believe the transformation. England was prosperous and entrepreneurial, not as it was in 1975. I remember a British friend demonstrating poor British products from their nationalized industries, in this case motorcycles. He did a pantomime; “Japanese motorcycle,” he said, and then simulated turning a key and it starting smoothly. “British motorcycle,” he then said, and began jumping up and down on a simulated foot pedal starter. I had a 1974 Jaguar XJ6 then, a fine motorcar if you overlooked the gaps around the doors and the electrical components provided by Lucas Electrics, known to British as “The Prince of Darkness.” http://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html
Margaret Thatcher changed all that for the better, which is why the unions still can;t stand her. She changed England so much that when Labour came back to power, the were led by Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher “Lite.”
I don’t know why the Arkansas oil spill isn’t getting wide coverage. Or why Canada would send the oil to our refineries. Looks like they’d just build their own refineries. That’s where the most value is added. They’re just sending money and jobs for Canada down the tubes.
Noelene says:
April 13, 2013 at 7:02 pm
Gareth Phillips
How did hospitals fare under the three day working work imposed by the Labour government in response to the hardship imposed on the people by the militant unions?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gallery/2009/apr/16/past-conservatives#/?picture=346055042&index=1
Hi Neoline, as far as I recall, very badly. Things had got out of control and I do not seek to justify that. But remember, just as Thatcher was elected North sea oil flowed in at such a rate that the UK became a member of OPEC. Most countries in similar situations invested this bounty in modernising industry and setting up a solid economic basis. Thatcher wasted huge amounts on maintaining high unemployment due to allowing business and manufacturing to die off instead of investing, on maintaining the resultant massive unemployment and at the same time cutting taxes. Most countries did not do this, which is why Norway who had exactly the same opportunities benefitted in the long run, while we did not. The British motorcycle industry is a classic example. We now have a re-born Triumph, one of the largest selling motorcycles in the world. At the time it was allowed to die along with much of our manufacturing base. We could have invested, Thatcher blew it all on political goals. She did some things that had to be done, but she was no Churchill and did not benefit the majority of UK citizens.
Actually the Canadians have refineries they were going to expand before the great recession 2008. Plans got scrapped and I guess forgotten.
Federal Study Reveals Global Warming Not To Blame For Crippling Drought…
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/04/12/study-reveals-global-warming-not-to-blame-for-last-years-crippling-drought/
ST. LOUIS (CBS St. Louis/AP) – A new federal study reveals that global warming is not to blame for last year’s extreme drought that crippled the central Great Plains.
The study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Drought Task Force places the blame on natural variations in weather patterns that caused the “flash drought.”
The Plains saw very little rain last summer due to two key meteorological processes which NOAA states was a “sequence of unfortunate events.” First, the Plains states saw very little rain in May and June because low pressure systems that brought storms were shunted northward into Canada. Second, thunderstorms were infrequent in July and August and produced little precipitation.
The report states that there were “no strong indicators” a drought of this magnitude would have struck the Midwest last year.
It seems the CSIRO have taken pocket lining, bribery, corruption and even swindling to a new level. (from several sources including Greenie Watch) Time to lock the doors, throw them out and start again: http://pindanpost.com/2013/04/14/shocking-corruption-in-csiro-doesnt-surprise/
“_Jim says:
April 13, 2013 at 11:40 am”
I don’t think more RAM will sure your swapping problem as Windows is architected to do exactly that, swap to virtual memory. What you might be able to do is tune you disk cluster size on the virtual swap disk to the size of a page of RAM. I raised disk/server performance issues with my former employer. Their “standard” server build image configured a 2K cluster size on the swap disk, when they were running a 32bit O/S and applications I was able to demonstrate the performance gain using virtual machines and a disk utility to change the cluster size. They weren’t interested.
On Thatcher. I recall the UK from the ’70’s, living on large council estate. I recall the winter of discontent, the miners strike, the car worker strikes, the power worker strikes, the poll tax riots and the Falklands war (Two of my mates fought in it too). It wasn’t pretty. Like all leaders, sometimes they do things that are popular, and sometimes not so. Either way she was the Churchill of her time which Britain desperately needed.
“Mike Haseler says:
April 13, 2013 at 2:54 pm”
Except that Britain was the called the “Dirty man Europe” causing forests in the rest of Europe to die due to acid rain as a result of industry, coal mining and coal use. The UEA CRU was setup, in part, to demonstrate “coal” was bad for the environment. It was quickly seen to be a rather powerful tool in the rapidly growing “green movement”. I do agree with comments along the lines of “destroying” industry (When at the same time MT was also “choosing winners”, Nissan for instance would not have made cars in the UK if it were not for subsidies) and moving to “services”, as others have pointed out, she put most of our eggs “in one basket”.
“R Taylor says:
April 13, 2013 at 12:49 pm”
And now there is the strong possibility of large oil reserves in the Falklands. Expect some trouble there in the not too distant future.
When historians look back on the last century, there will be two UK prime ministers who stand out from the rest. Churchill for his wartime leadership, and Margaret Thatcher for her resolute stand against those who would subvert democracy. Rampant unions who despised their membership, military juntas bent on subjugation, Soviet war mongerers, and European bureaucratisation, were all targets who she had been told were untameable, and it was better that we simply lay down and do what they want. She faced up to them and won.
There were detractors, in a very small and vociferous minority. It is not surprising that this minority protested loudly, for they were those whose unwarranted power, special privileges, and belief in perpetual state funded lucrative sinecures, were under threat. For the majority, the prospect of the end of industrial strife, the unswerving opposition to Soviet hegemony, the chance to own our homes, and the freedom from state monopolies, was the reason for electing our first female prime minister, three times.
It is ironic that the Labour party only made itself electable when they adopted her policies. They have neither repealed nor amended any of her key policies in their thirteen year tenure. It is further ironic that the issue which most vexed the Labour party in the nineteen eighties, tbe closure of some of the coal mines under a Conservative government, is going to be overshadowed this century by the closure of all of the coal mines by the Labour government’s Climate Change Act, and by the minister responsible, Ed Miliband.
Steven
Totally agree! Formidable person – Thatcherism lives on forever!
The decline in industry started long before the nineteen eighties. I briefly worked in the motorcycle industry in 1972-73. At the beginning of the sixties the UK motorcycle industry was the largest in the world. However, by the time I got involved there it was obvious that it could not compete with its old products and chronic labour problems. I left for other opportunities. This was the right decision as by the end of the decade, UK motorcycle production and its industry had gone.
It is striking how much traction the myth that Thatcher caused industrial decline has had. Yet a simple look at British industry from the postwar period to 1979 does not make good reading. From a position of a wealth of higher tech leads and opportunities, radar, computers, electronics, aviation, medicine, machine tools, and chemicals, the postwar governments favoured the manual labour union dominated industries. If you wanted a job, it was most likely to be found in shipbuilding, steelworks, coalmining, dockyards, steam railways, and the utilities. The automotive industry, which could have offered both mass employment and higher quality engineering, was hobbled by government restrictions on raw materials and a preference for meeting the simpler needs of the export market.
It is no surprise that when Margaret Thatcher came to power she faced a formidable task in halting the decline and putting Britain back on the road to recovery.
As for the trivial matter of school milk, it was the Labour government who first abolished it for secondary schools, in about 1967.
“Edward Bancroft says:
April 14, 2013 at 4:26 am
As for the trivial matter of school milk, it was the Labour government who first abolished it for secondary schools, in about 1967.”
How true. And yet all you heard after her, landslide, election was the chant “Thatcher Thatcher, the milk snatcher!”
With regards to “the unions” etc, you should watch the film by Peter Sellers called “I’m alright Jack!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_All_Right_Jack
_Jim
What is the app??
DirkH says:
April 13, 2013 at 5:01 pm
That’s what I thought too until a Python newbie showed up on the New Hampshire Linux Python group wanting to write Python code for automotive radar collision detection or something like that.
Using the numpy and scipy packages he got an interface into gobs of standard supercomputing number crunching C++ code from Python. We (and he) were all suitably amazed with what he managed to do with it.
However, the situation at hand is using an existing commercial application, so Python and distributed computing on Raspberry Pi may be fun but not a solution.
On the lighter side
http://www.stupidvideos.com/video/all/I_Ship_My_Pants/#430771
Ansoft HFSS