By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The dwindling number of paid or unpaid trolls commenting here – dwindling because the less dishonest and less lavishly-funded ones realize the game is up – do not like The Pause. They whine that in order to demonstrate a long period without global warming I have cherry-picked my start date.
No, I have calculated it. I have not, as they suggest, naïvely cherry-picked 1998 as my starting-point so as to take unfair advantage of the Great El Niño of that year. I have not picked 1998 at all.
Instead have determined by iterative calculation the earliest month in the record that shows no global warming at all as far as the present. On the RSS dataset, which I shall use for the analysis to follow, that month is September 1996, giving 17 years 6 months without any global warming.
This graph has become famous. Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace (which is now, with frantic mendacity, trying to disown him), displayed it recently on Fox News, followed by weeping and gnashing of Medicaid dentures right across the leftosphere. Marc Morano has the graph as a lead indicator at the inestimable ClimateDepot.com. It is popping up all over the blogs.
The true-believers wring their tentacles and moan about cherry-picking. So let us deal with that allegation, and discover something fascinating on the way.
To put an end to the allegation that we have cherry-picked our start-date, let us start at the beginning of the satellite record. So here you go, from January 1979.
Oo-er! Instead of a zero trend, we now have a terrifying increase in global temperature, at a rate equivalent to a shockingly sizzling – er – 1.24 Cº per century. That is below the 1.7 Cº/century near-term warming predicted in IPeCaC’s 2013 Fifth Assessment Report. Well below the 2 Cº/century predicted in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. Scarcely more than a third of the 3.5 Cº/century mid-range estimate in the 1990 First Assessment Report. A quarter of the 5 Cº/century predicted by the over-excitable James Hansen in front of Congress in 1988.
Evidently, the predictions are becoming less and less extreme as time passes. But they are still well over the top compared with reality. Let us illustrate IPeCaC’s latest version of the “consensus” prediction, comparing it with the RSS real-world observation:
Whichever dataset one chooses, whichever starting point one picks, the rate of global warming predicted by the models has been and remains grossly, flagrantly, egregiously in excess of what is actually happening in the real world. It is this central truth that every attempt to explain away the Pause fails to get to grips with.
One of the slyest ways to pretend the Pause does not exist is offered by “Tamino”, one of the Druids’ white-robed, snaggle-bearded, bushy-eyebrowed archpriests.
“Tamino”, taking time off from his sun-worshiping duties at Stonehenge, invites us to suppose that in 1997 we had predicted that the previously-observed warming rate would either continue as is or turn horizontal. Where would the subsequent annual data points lie?
Tamino’s excited conclusion is that “fourteen of sixteen years were hotter than expected even according to the still-warming prediction, and all sixteen were above the no-warming prediction (although one is just barely so)”.
Phew! Global warming has not Paused after all!! The Earth still has a fever!!! Global temperature is continuing to rise – and at a faster rate than before!!!! What a relief!!!!! We said we were more certain about future global warming than about anything in the whole wide world before, evaah – and we were right!!!!!!
Up to a point, Lord Copper. The truth, if one goes looking for it rather than bashing and mashing the data till they fit the desired outcome, is much more interesting.
First, it is not appropriate to use annual data points when monthly data are available. Using the monthly data multiplies 12-fold the degrees of freedom in the analysis, and makes the picture clearer.
Secondly – and this cannot be said too often – trend lines on observed data, particularly where the data are known to be stochastic and the behavior of the underlying object chaotic, are not, repeat not, repeat not a prediction.
Let us play Tamino’s game of breaking the RSS dataset into pieces. But let us break it into three pieces, not two. Let us look at three periods: January 1979 to January 1993, January 1993 to January 1999, and January 1999 to February 2014.
It was Fred Singer who first pointed out this most startling characteristic of the post-1979 temperature record to me. We were sitting in front of the big computer screen and playing with the temperature datasets using my graphing engine in the library at Rannoch, overlooking the loch and the misty mountains beyond.
An otter was flip-flopping past the window, and the ospreys (a ménage a trois that year, with two adult males, a female and two chicks in the nest) were swooping down to catch the occasional trout.
Fred told me there had been very little trend in global temperature until the Great el Niño of 1998, and very little trend thereafter. But, he said, there had been a remarkable step-change in the data in the short period culminating in the Great el Niño.
The trend till January 1993 and the trend from January 1999 are indeed near-identical at just over a quarter of a Celsius degree per century. Not a lot to worry about there. But the trend over the six years January 1993 to January 1999 was a lulu. It was equivalent to a spectacular 9.4 Cº per century.
So, what caused that sudden upward lurch in global temperature? Since absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation, we know it was not CO2: for CO2 concentration has been rising monotonically, with no sudden leaps and bounds.
Indeed, no phenomenon in the atmosphere could really have caused this lurch. True, there had been a naturally-occurring reduction in cloud cover over the 18 years 1983-2001, and that had caused a forcing of 2.9 Watts per square meter (Pinker et al., 2005), greater by 25% than the entire 2.3 Watts per square meter of manmade forcing from all sources in the 263 years since 1750.
However, as Dr Pinker’s graph shows, the trend in cloud cover forcing was relatively steady, and there was actually a drop in the cloud-cover forcing in 1993-5.
Since solar activity did not change enough over the period to cause the sudden hike in global temperature, there does not appear to have been any external reason why, for six years, temperature should suddenly have risen at a mean rate equivalent to almost 1 Cº per decade.
Nor was there any more land-based volcanic activity than usual: and, if there had been, it would if anything have caused a temporary cooling.
When the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. The culprit is plainly not atmospheric, not extra-terrestrial, not land-based, but oceanic.
To kick atmospheric temperature permanently upward by almost 0.3 Cº, and to boot the centennial trend northward by almost a full Celsius degree, something drastic must have happened beneath the waves.
Perhaps the still poorly-monitored pattern of overturning that takes warmer water from the mixed upper stratum of the ocean to the much colder benthic strata temporarily slowed.
Perhaps we shall never know. Our ability to monitor changes in ocean heat content, negligible today, was non-existent then, for the ARGO buoys were not yet on duty: and even today, as Willis Eschenbach has pointed out, the coverage is so sparse that it is the equivalent of taking a single temperature and salinity profile of the whole of Lake Superior less than once a year.
Perhaps there was massive subsea volcanic activity in the equatorial eastern Pacific, beginning in 1993/4 and peaking in 1998. Again, we shall never know, for we do not monitor the 3.5 million subsea volcanoes on Earth (the largest of which, occupying a footprint greater than any other in the entire solar system, was only discovered last year).
But the curious thing about this sudden and remarkable warming over just six years – let us call it the Singer Event – is that so very little consideration is given to it in the ramblings of IPeCaC.
The Singer Event accounts for fully four-fifths of the global warming trend across the entire satellite era. Without it, no one would still be wailing about global warming.
But will you find the Singer Event mentioned or discussed in any of IPeCaC’s Summaries for Policymakers from 2001 onward? Er, no. It doesn’t fit the story-line.
Bluntly, unless and until the cause of the Singer Event is nailed down there is nothing whatsoever in the global temperature record during the satellite era to suggest that CO2 is having any detectable effect on global temperature at all.
Finally, just in case any of the trolls want to whinge about why I have confined the analysis to RSS, I prefer RSS because, alone of the five datasets, it correctly represents the 1998 Great el Niño as being significantly bigger than any other el Niño in the instrumental record.
There have been two previous Great el Niños in the past 300 years. Each of those, like the 1998 event and unlike any other in the global instrumental record, caused corals to bleach worldwide on a large scale. Bleaching is a natural defense mechanism against sudden ocean warming, and the corals have recovered from it just fine, as they have evolved to do.
But the corals are a testament to the fact that the Singer Event is something atypical. And it is the RSS dataset that best reflects how exceptional the Singer Event was.
But here, just to please the trolls, is the entire global temperature record since January 1979, taken as the mean of all five global temperature datasets (it is pardonable to take the mean, because although the coverages and measurement methods vary the discrepancies are small enough that they tend to cancel each other over a long enough period).
The bottom line is that the warming trend since 1979 on the RSS dataset was 0.44 Cº, while on the mean of all the datasets it was not vastly greater at 0.51 Cº. So, when the trolls argue that I am cherry-picking, they are arguing pettily about hundredths of a degree.
The Singer Event is highly visible in the five-datasets graph, and still more so in the earlier RSS graph.
I should be most interested in readers’ comments on the Singer Event, because I have been invited to contribute a paper to the reviewed literature about it. All help, even from the trolls, would be very much appreciated.
The bottom line is that the warming trend since 1979 on the RSS dataset was 0.44 Cº, while on the mean of all the datasets it was not vastly greater at 0.51 Cº. So, when the trolls argue that I am cherry-picking, they are arguing pettily about hundredths of a degree
////////////////////
I have not read all the comments, and I suspect that domeone has pointed out the obvious.
A straightr line fit through this data set from 1979 to 2014 is wholly inappropriate.
The fact is that there are two distinct periods. The first between 1979 through to about 1997, ie., before the 1998 Super El Nino. During this time, temperatures are essentially flat. There is no first order CO2/temperature relationship such that there is no first order signal of CO2 driven increase in temperatures during this period.
The second period is after the Super El Ñino to date. During this period, temperatures are essentially flat. There is no first order CO2/temperature relationship such that there is no first order signal of CO2 driven increase in temperatures during this period.
The RSS data set merely shows a one off and isolated temperature hike occurring in and around the Super El Nino of 1998. The temperature released by that even has not disipated. Unless the 19998 Super El Nino was in some way caused by CO2 levels increasing post the 1950s, then there is quite simply no evidence whatsoever of first order CO2 driven temperature increase. Put simply, no CO2 signal can be seen over the natural variabilty/noise of annual and/or multidecadal changes in temperature.
b fagan says:
March 20, 2014 at 2:15 pm
“Sounds like something that would require some kind of accumulation of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Some measured increases in CO2, methane and fluorocarbons.”
———————
Now just why did you intentionally omit the most potent one of the “greenhouse” gasses from your above statement, …….namely the H2O vapor (humidity) …. which could potentially have accumulated to be as much as 40,000 ppm?
Samuel C Cogar asks why I didn’t include water vapor.
I didn’t because while water vapor is responsible for most of the greenhouse warming, it is considered a feedback – its concentration in the air is completely dependent on temperature.
So, as the temperature goes up each degree C, water vapor increases about 7% (on average). But the reverse is true as well; cold air is dryer than warm air. This means the concentration of water vapor goes down with increasing altitude and also goes down as surface temperatures cool. Get cold enough and the air is completely dry – you’re getting no water vapor warming. It also explains why deserts cool much faster at night than other land – the air lacks the water vapor blanket.
In addition, water vapor only persists for a week or two before raining or snowing out again – a heat supply is needed to constantly evaporate more water. That could be sunlight or it could be the extra IR radiation from the persistent greenhouse gases.
This is a big part of why the top of East Antarctic ice cap is so cold. The top of the icecap is quite high up, so the air is dry from altitude as well as from the cold. It’s a cold, high desert. Any water vapor making it up that high basically immediately crystallizes out of the air – warming effect gone. Add in the reflectivity of the ice, and the low angle of sunlight at the pole, and you have a perfect place to avoid almost all warming effects except for the persistent greenhouse gases that are still mixed at that elevation. When the cooling started there, the decreasing water vapor feedback led to where we are today.
The Arctic is different since it’s at sea level, and surrounded by land. Water vapor can persist longer in the denser sea-level air, there are also more of the persistent greenhouse gases, and there is also the warmth of the ocean itself, and sunlight provides warmth in open water or on any exposed land surfaces around the Arctic Ocean. So, what we’re seeing there now is a set of positive feedback loops – increasing water vapor and decrease ice leads to more warmth, leading to more water vapor and less ice – positive feedback loop.
So yes, water vapor provides most of the greenhouse warmth, but only if it’s already warm enough to let water vapor consistently be replenished. Take away the persistent greenhouse gases and it is easy to freeze the Earth over. As it is, the greenhouse effect keeps Earth about 33C warmer than the average temperature of the moon, which gets the same amount of sunlight.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
March 20, 2014 at 5:18 pm
Mr Fagan should not be so petulant. He is allowing his belief system to stand in the way of rationality. It is not good enough merely to hand-wave about the curious non-linearity of the temperature increase, set against the linearity of the CO2 concentration increase, and then to say that the temperature, having been jolted upward by the Singer Event, stayed at a new, higher level because of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. It is necessary to understand and explain the mechanism, not merely to assume it because of an aprioristic belief that monotonically-increasing CO2 concentration must be the driver of stochastic changes in temperature. He will be able to read my paper on the Singer Event in due course: and it will exhibit greater depth than his pettinesses.
It seems that the Foster & Rahmstorf and the Kosaka & Xie papers have provided a hypothesized mechanism for the temperature vs CO2 concentration records that is considerably more rigorous than “hand waving” using independent techniques with mutually consistent results. It’s not clear whether you’re proposing a plausible alternative explanation, you’re unfamiliar with that work, or if you’re simply playing with an empty deck.
Samuel C Cogar says:
March 20, 2014 at 7:25 am
I totally agree with you. Water [in all its forms] is such a dominant influence on climate that any lack of knowledge on all its effects can be misinterpreted as something else. For example a year or two ago it was discovered that low level clouds absorb more sunlight than thought which caused warming. That warming had been ascribed to GHGs – and still is! We ARE talking about pseudo-science here!
To demonstrate the effect of water versus GHGs then it is best to look at an area which has little or no water and one which has a lot. I chose the Sahara desert and the Amazon rain forest.
The daily temperature in the Sahara can vary by up to 35C in less than 18 hours – baking hot in the day and freezing overnight. This also a good way to demonstrate the effect of GHGs – pretty much zero! GHGs will be much the same over the Sahara as the rest of the world. All one can say about GHGs is that they may make the hottest part of the day slightly hotter, but the effect will soon disappear once the sun is lower in the sky.
If Earth had no water then one can infer that the daily temperature ranges over the whole Earth would be far more extreme. It also demonstrates that the effects of GHGs are lost overnight so any warming must be started fresh EVERY DAY.
Now take a hot place with a lot of water – say the Brazilian rain forest. Here the daily temperature range is 2C to 5C, with an average temperature of 25C. The effect of water vapour has a dramatic effect on the climate. Note that the water slows down warming during the day and slows down cooling during the night. By definition this means it is not a GHG. It acts more like an insulator – call it ‘the Thermos Effect’! [If Thermos is not an international brand name then I mean a Dewar flask]
This is further demonstrated by looking at the annual change in temperature. The rain forest varies by only 2C over the year but the Sahara goes from daily maximums of 40C to 15C, further showing the lack of effect of GHGs.
Finally – whatever happened to the 60 year cycle of warming and cooling – has it ceased to exist?! Although the ‘pause’ shouts out to me that it due to this cycle it never seems to be mentioned! It is critical as it is the main indicator between CAGW and effects of the Sun and water.
Comparisons of the heating from 1910-1940 and 1970-2000 AND the pause from 1940-1970 and 2000-2030 are key indicators as to any effects from CAGW. If CO2 and other GHGs had any significant effect then I would have expected the current ‘pause’ to show SOME increase in temperature. It doesn’t. This suggests the influence of GHGs are FAR lower than even skeptics think.
An especially good reason to believe RSS over all other data sets is that all those other data sets initially had 1998 as the warmest year, and then, slowly but surely, by the successive rounds of data up-justiments they ended up in downgrading 1998. RSS is the only major data set that had not gone undergone any significant adjustments in the previous years. and that’s a very good prima faciae reason to prefer it over all others (including UAH which has been many times adjusted)
b fagan says:
March 20, 2014 at 11:38 pm
Much of the most active parts of the Mid-Ocean Ridge are shallower than its average depth of 2000m. Consider the Galapagos region, with its complex of shallow ridges, such as the Cocos, stretches of which are above 1000m. This hotspot lies athwart the waters affected by the ENSO.
There is also important submarine volcanic activity away from the MOR network, such as the Hawaiian chain.
Hi, milodonharlani.
Rather than try to locate every volcano that might contribute to Monckton’s fantasy heat source, first read this very brief bit about the “thermocline”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline
The reason I used “teleport” when describing what would have to happen to the heat, if somehow millions of undersea volcanoes lost it all at the same time, is that the heat would have to have disrupted the thermocline across all the oceans – which would be very much a known, detected event (by various navies at a minimum).
Notice a few things about insulation, too. The bottom water of the abyssal plains is very cold, just a few degrees above freezing, even though most of the active volcanoes in the world are spreading lava on the seafloor. Divers in Hawaii can swim very close to active lava flows without burning up. Animals live on thermal vents, within feet of the opening which might be spilling water that’s over 300 C.
That’s because of two things:
1 – rock is a good insulator, so when the cold water freezes the skin of fresh lava, much of the heat is trapped inside. That’s why you can also watch researchers walking on top of fresh, still active lava flows in Hawaii without bursting into flame.
2 – water can absorb an awful lot of heat, and the oceans have a tremendous amount of cold water. I’m not going to waste time trying to calculate required energy, but as a small experiment just think about how long it would take to heat the air above a billion-gallon tank of water that’s just above freezing. In a regular cook pot, you get convection cells from the warmed layer at the bottom rising and colder water falling to the bottom. In an ocean, you’d have literally miles of cold water that would be waiting to fall to the bottom before any appreciable heat could reach the surface.
So, my only conclusion about Monckton’s sly mention of 3.5 million undersea volcanoes is that he is pulling our leg. There’s no way to get them all to go off at once, and if they did go off at once, we’d have noticed long before the heat somehow made it all the way up to the level of the air.
anticlimactic says:
March 21, 2014 at 11:28 am
“I totally agree with you. Water [in all its forms] is such a dominant influence on climate that any lack of knowledge on all its effects can be misinterpreted as something else.”
——————
WOWEEEE, ….. I was thinking that I was reading my own thoughts as I was reading your commentary. Which just goes to show you that “great minds think alike” and via their use of intelligent reasoning and logical deductions they are far, far less likely to misinterpret the great expanse of growing timber as not being the forest they have avidly been searching for.
And I thank you, anticlimactic, for posting your commentary because just about everything you stated therein is the same or similar to what I have been “preaching” for the past 15+ years but which has always fallen on deaf ears and/or averted eyes and minds.
I truly believe their “blind” problem is “rooted” in the fact that most people have never been nurtured to “think for themselves” and to believe only what they are told by a “higher authority” and the fact that they have also been nurtured to believe that anyone who lacks a Degree(s), notoriety, work experience, peer approval and/or published literature in the science being discussed then said person can’t possibly know anything factual or relevant about the subject and should just be ignored.
Cheers, … now I gotta explain to b Fagan … the err of his thinking.
b fagan says:
March 21, 2014 at 10:35 am
“Samuel C Cogar asks why I didn’t include water vapor. I didn’t because while water vapor is responsible for most of the greenhouse warming, ………. it is considered a feedback – its concentration in the air is completely dependent on temperature. ”
——————
b Fagan, …. honestly, ……. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And I say that because there are surely million of individuals that believe the same thing.
First of all your above statement is illogical. It’s illogical and ignorant to firstly claim that H2O vapor (humidity) is responsible for most of the “greenhouse” warming of the atmosphere … and then to completely ignore said H2O vapor (humidity) when trying to determine the cause of atmospheric warming. You threw the baby out with the bathwater and now you can’t find the baby.
And secondly, just what the ell does “considered a feedback” have to do with science, any science? Did anyone tell the H2O molecules that that is their function when in vapor form in the atmosphere?
And thirdly, so what if the H2O vapor in the atmosphere is completely dependent on temperature? Is not the CO2 in the atmosphere completely dependent on temperature? It sure as ell is. And if it gets cold enough it will precipitate out and fall to earth just like snow.
Now, lets clear up that “thingy” about H2O vapor being “considered a feedback” because I know where it originated ….. and I also know why most people use/apply it wrongly and thus come up FUBAR results that they actually believe are true and factual.
There are four (4) physical forms of H2O vapor in the atmosphere …. and said “feedback” thingy only applies to three (3) of them like maybe 50% of the time. And those four physical forms are referred to as humidity, ….. clouds, …. fogs ….. and mists ….. and said “feedback” thingy does not apply to the humidity (H2O vapor) in the atmosphere.
In essence, clouds, fogs and mists are bi-directional thermal (heat) energy buffers that function differently depending on the time of day. They will per se “feedback” heat energy to the surface at night time and will per se “feedback” heat energy to space during daytime …. with their mass density determining the amount of said buffering.
The earth’s atmosphere from the tropics to the northern temperate zone is “loaded” with humidity (H2O vapor) at all times, averaging between 1% (10,000 ppm) and 4% (40,000 ppm). and >1% in desert areas …….. and with the current 400 ppm of CO2 intermixed with it
Thus, at 1% humidity there are 9,600 H2O molecules that are absorbing and emitting up to 2X times the thermal energy for every 400 molecules of CO2.
And ya’ll actually believe that CO2 has a measurable affect on air temperatures.
FORGET it, the effect is so minimal that it should not even be considered.
Sam, let’s clear some of your stuff – and tell me where you got your ideas about greenhouse gases. I’m betting you are wrong about where I got mine.
1 – The only water vapor in the atmosphere is water vapor. Fogs/mists are condensed water droplets – clouds are water droplets and/or ice crystals. One thing water vapor does quite rapidly is condense into tiny droplets or ice crystals, leading to the fogs, mists, clouds you mentioned.
2 – I hadn’t realized you were from Mars until you mentioned CO2 precipitates out on your planet. My comments have been about climate on Earth, where CO2 does not exist at high enough partial pressure to precipitate out, even at the coldest points of winter on top of East Antarctica.
3 – “then to completely ignore said H2O vapor (humidity) when trying to determine the cause of atmospheric warming.” No, water vapor is a very powerful greenhouse gas, true. But because warming from it is a feedback to other sources of warming, it is a large part of atmospheric warming overall, but requires other forces to keep the atmosphere and surface warm enough to continue evaporation. So, the overall greenhouse warming on Earth is from IR trapped and re-emitted from H20, CO2, methane and the other trace gases.
So, as I’d already said about feedback loops, once something (either increased solar or increased persistent greenhouse gas concentrations) starts evaporating water, that evaporated vapor then starts adding its own warming – positive feedback. But take away the heat sources, and water vapor is replenished less and less as the atmosphere cools, then snow forms, reducing solar warming further, then you get a negative feedback which pulls water vapor ever faster from the air, reducing its warming effect… Eventually it’s so cold that the air would be extremely dry – that’s why wind-blown dust deposits are thicker during ice ages.
At our distance from the sun, water vapor alone can’t keep the planet above the freezing point of H2O. Persistent greenhouse gases are required, and the combination keeps the planet above freezing. In a billion years or so as the sun gets hotter, that will no longer be true, but we won’t be here then.
4 – down near the surface, there’s a lot of water vapor and less CO2, methane, whatever. But as I’ve been saying, water vapor condenses and precipitates out, so the higher you go the less of it there is, while the other gases stay well mixed throughout the troposphere and up into the stratosphere. And that means that the atoms that are actually radiating their IR out to space tend to the the high (and cold) greenhouse gases – since the water vapor is still far below where it keeps bouncing heat around in the denser atmosphere. That is what leads to warming – the higher (colder) it is where the IR finally escapes, the warmer it gets below.
Anyway, I first learned about the greenhouse effect back in high-school physics, many years before the IPCC was first formed. I’ve never watched Al Gore’s movies, since watching him talk is just so annoying (sorry, Al). When I read the different IPCC reports I already knew about the greenhouse effect.
But here’s a good, recent paper about the greenhouse effect that might benefit you – (it even discusses the greenhouse effect on Mars). Read and learn. “Infrared radiation and planetary temperature” by Ray Pierrehumbert — http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Or you could pick up “Atmosphere, Clouds, and Climate” by David Randall – part of the “Princeton Primers on Climate” series of books that started coming out about three years ago. Chapter 5 covers feedbacks, but overall the book covers what the title says.
Samuel C. Cogar: Is not the CO2 in the atmosphere completely dependent on temperature? It sure as ell is. And if it gets cold enough it will precipitate out and fall to earth just like snow.
I see that b fagan responded to that. I shall be interested to read your response. Where on Earth do you think that CO2 precipitates out and falls to Earth just like snow?
Antarctica, but I don’t think it makes it to the ground.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/13/results-lab-experiment-regarding-co2-snow-in-antarctica-at-113°f-80-5°c-not-possible/
b fagan says:
March 21, 2014 at 9:47 pm
“1 – The only water vapor in the atmosphere is water vapor. Fogs/mists are condensed water droplets – clouds are water droplets and/or ice crystals.”
——————–
No feces!!! And just where did you get your 1st clue? But more importantly, just where in hell did the water droplets come from, …… the Flying Spaghetti Monster maybe?
Now, …. try to ignore your mis-nurtured belief that you are the “sharpest pencil in the box” …… and read my statement again, to wit:
SamC said: “There are four (4) physical forms of H2O vapor in the atmosphere”.
That was a factually accurate statement because “the source” for all said four (4) forms ….. is H2O vapor …… and that statement was offered as a preface to the discussion that was to follow. (Because you seem to be inclined to “read-into-thing” to say what you want them to say …… and then you critique what you say they said. That is deviousness at its worst.)
There are four (4) more physical forms of H2O vapor in the atmosphere (snow, sleet, ice crystals and hail) which I made no mention of because they are irrelevant to this discussion.
=================
“2 – I hadn’t realized you were from Mars until you mentioned CO2 precipitates out on your planet.”
——————–
You sir, are a liar. I made no such statement.
==================
“No, water vapor is a very powerful greenhouse gas, true. But because warming from it is a feedback to other sources of warming, it is a large part of atmospheric warming overall, but requires other forces to keep the atmosphere and surface warm enough to continue evaporation.”
——————–
Lettme tell you again. Your above comment is not only delusional, but also illogical, as well as contrary to factual science. No one should be so arrogant as to think they can mandate what the physical properties of thermal energy transfers are for a specific molecule type. And it matters naught what their “mandate” refers to, be it feedback, backfeed, frontfeed, horsefeed or chickenfeed.
Thermal (heat) energy is transferred through the atmosphere via convection, conduction and radiation. Any molecule in the atmosphere can transfer thermal energy to any other molecule in the atmosphere via conduction. Air molecules that are capable of absorbing thermal energy via radiation ……. are also capable of emitting thermal energy via radiation ….. and depending upon the frequency of said radiation the aforesaid molecules can transfer thermal (heat) energy between one another. Thermal (heat) energy always transfers from hot to cold. (And if there is a mistake in my aforesaid, please point it out.)
===================
“So, as I’d already said about feedback loops, once something (either increased solar or increased persistent greenhouse gas concentrations) starts evaporating water, ”
——————–
Please cite me a specific “natural” example of … “greenhouse gas concentrations” …. causing liquid water to evaporate without the aid of an additional energy source? Surprise me, tell me something new I should learn today. And no included N2 or O2 gas in your example … or volcanic gases, ya hear.
=====================
“At our distance from the sun, water vapor alone can’t keep the planet above the freezing point of H2O. Persistent greenhouse gases are required, and …. yada, yada, yada ”
——————–
PHOOEY, …. miseducated commentary such as that was, ……. is utterly silly.
First of all, there is no such thing as a “greenhouse” gas ……. simply because the functioning of a “greenhouse” is in no way dependent upon the “type” of gas(es) that is/are confined within the physical structure of a “greenhouse” …… but is solely dependent upon the confinement of the gases within said structure.
The only place on earth that your per se “greenhouse” gases have any real effect on keeping the planet above the freezing point of H2O is the area from the Equator to and including the northern and southern Temperate Zones. The Pole Zones are immaterial because they never receive sufficient Solar irradiance to make any difference and besides, they receive none at all 6 months out of each year.
And here is a clue, … for you, …. there is pretty much persistent H2O vapor in the air from Pole Zone to Pole Zone …… and which averages from 1% to 2% in northern latitudes to 4+% in the Tropical Zones. And even if the atmospheric H2O vapor was only at 1/4% …… there would still be 3,600 ppm more H2O vapor in the air than all the other “greenhouse” gas ppm’s added together.
I don’t care if the atmospheric CO2 increases by 200 ppm ,,,, tomorrow, ……cause it don’t/won’t make no difference in the surface temperature.
Quit touting silly claims about CO2 …… and just “prove it”, …… prove it via an actual, measurable, verifiable experimental result(s).
Hi, Sam.
When you said “There are four (4) physical forms of H2O vapor in the atmosphere ” it took it to mean what you said. Sorry for taking you at your word.
As a hint, if you took the word “vapor” out of that statement, I’d have agreed with you completely. I was just pointing out that ice, water and water vapor are different phase states of H2O, and since that’s extremely important in Earth climate I felt it was important to set you straight. Try to, at least, but you double your mistake by saying “There are four (4) more physical forms of H2O vapor in the atmosphere (snow, sleet, ice crystals and hail) ” in your latest reply. Again, vapor is not liquid or solid or supercritical fluid or any other thing than a gas. So H2O can be all of the above things, but “H2O vapor” can only be a gas. Read up on phase change.
Regarding your living on Mars, you are right. You didn’t say CO2 precipitates here. You said this:
“Is not the CO2 in the atmosphere completely dependent on temperature? It sure as ell is. And if it gets cold enough it will precipitate out and fall to earth just like snow.”
Apologies for assuming you lived on Mars, since I did take your comments about CO2 precipitation to mean you thought it was possible here on Earth, since it never gets cold enough for CO2 to precipitate out and fall to earth just like snow. My bad.
Since you seem to think my closely reading what you actually write is “deviousness at its worst” I’ll stop reading what you write. Once I got to your un-clever attempt to redefine the term “greenhouse gas” I realized it’s very clear you didn’t even bother trying to read the Pierrehumbert paper I’d suggested to you.
I know I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box by a long shot – that’s why I read what the sharp pencils are writing, and I tried recommending some of that to you.
Here are a few sources that go over the real science, and they include references to lots of real papers by real scientists. I’ve read them all and recommend them if you are willing to learn rather than just seek confirmation for your existing view.
“Climate Change Evidence & Causes” from the US National Academy of Science and the Royal Society gives nice short descriptions of aspects of climate.
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/exec-office-other/climate-change-full.pdf
The Discovery of Global Warming – A History – http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm
(The bibliography is huge and goes back to Ben Franklin and Joseph Fourier – Fourier was the first to discuss the greenhouse effect, back in the 1820s. This isn’t new science).
The “Princeton Primers in Climate” series. http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/ppic.html
(I’ve only read five of this series so far).
And of course, there are the IPCC Working Group 1 reports at ipcc.ch. They also provide extensive bibliographies to document their conclusions.
Reply if you wish – after reading the above.
Matthew R Marler says:
March 22, 2014 at 7:59 am
“I see that b fagan responded to that. I shall be interested to read your response. ”
———————
b fagan responded with a lie about my person ……. and then critiqued the lie he told.
In reference to Monckton’s “heat source” being undersea volcanoes, to wit:
The thermohaline circulation is a “real life” example of fluid logics or fluidics.
Read more here about fluidics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics
And remember this, to wit:
“It takes almost 1,000 years for the (thermohaline) conveyor belt to complete one ‘cycle’”.
Ref: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/conveyor.html
So, the question are ……
Was there “hot water” in the conveyor?
And if so, when did it get there?
And if it did, would it disrupt the flow of the conveyor?
Cheers
b fagan says:
March 22, 2014 at 11:09 am
Hi, B Fagan:
IMO the viscount isn’t pulling our leg, but merely suggesting an area of investigation, in which present knowledge is limited.
In the past 25 years or so understanding of tectonic activity has grown. There do appear to be superplume cycles at various time scales associated with supercontinent formation & break up, so shorter, even decadal, fluctuations in submarine & subaerial volcanism cannot be ruled out. Indeed, such variation is IMO more likely than not. As per Samuel C. Cogar’s comment above, there is however liable to be a lag in the effects of any such heating or cooling of seawater.
As but one example, the high sea levels of the Cretaceous owed more to thermal expansion of the oceans from active seafloor spreading than from lack of ice during that balmy Period. As with climatic fluctuations, superplume variation may well occur on short as well as long term time frames.
Some argue that the under air eruptions of Tambora, Krakatoa, Pinatubo, et al, have a short term cooling effect on climate (or weather, since brief), but under sea eruptions arguably might lead to warming locally & farther afield later. IMO the possibility merits study, preferably with measurement rather than just modeling with assumptions not in evidence, as in CACA.
Hi, milodonharlani.
Remember that in this whole discussion there is no need to even suggest this “Singer Event”. The two real events that did happen (Mt. Pinatubo, El Niño), the order they happened (cooling followed by warming) and the six-year spread are enough to explain the dramatic temperature swing.
Consider this – if Mt. Pinatubo erupted just as the El Niño was getting started, the cooling and warming effects – both natural events – would have partly cancelled each other out, and depending on which had the bigger impact, there’d have just been a much smaller warming or cooling.
So the six year swing was just an example of natural variability that, in this case, placed a cooling event 6 years before a warming event.
To use a weather example instead, if a cold front moves comes in on Monday and is followed by a warm front Monday night, I don’t try to invent, oh, a “Monckton Event” to explain why Tuesday is warmer than Monday. The existing knowledge about how warm and cold fronts move already explains what happened.
b fagan says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:17 pm
Please state the evidence which you believe exists for the proposition that the majority (51 to 90% or more) of climate change since 1950, 1900 or whenever is due to man-made carbon dioxide or some other human activity or product. Thanks, since I have not been able to find any such evidence, least of all in IPCC publications.
b fagan says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:52 pm
I don’t know if the RSS data are robust enough to support trend lines of two or three years, but it does appear from Viscount Monckton’s 1993-99 & prior chart that from late 1992 to late 1995 global T recovered from Pinatubo-induced cooling (but without regaining the 1983, 1987-88 or 1990-91 highs), then went sideways until the start of the El Niño spike in late ’97.
I would be interested in your reasons for adhering to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism, if indeed you do ascribe to this hypothesis, IMO repeatedly falsified in both senses of the term. I see no credible evidence to the effect that humans are primarily responsible for whatever changes have actually occurred in global climate during the past century or so.
Hi, milodonharlini.
You asked me about some kind of belief system I didn’t quite understand. I believe that the science of greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect is real. I base this on several years of reading dry text-book information and dry peer-reviewed papers, some dating back over 150 years. It’s only my opinion, but I’ve been reading as much as possible (from non-blog sources of any flavor – I read the real science).
Question for you at the bottom, but here’s what I understand.
1 – the greenhouse gas effect is real, as demonstrated by the non-frozen planet we live on, and also observed on Venus, Mars, and the moon Titan.
2 – greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere, and the declining pH in the oceans make it clear that the CO2 isn’t coming out of ocean water, that the ocean instead is absorbing CO2 from the air.
3 – burning materials like wood, coal, oil or natural gas produces gaseous CO2 at a specific ratio per weight of burned fuel
4 – the measured change in carbon isotope ratios in atmospheric CO2 indicate most of the increase is coming from ancient carbon sources.
5 – the measured increase in atmospheric CO2 and measured decrease in ocean water pH is consistent with the amount of low-14C carbon being burned – less a 10% or so amount taken up in increased plant growth. Energy companies and governments do a great job of documenting what is being produced and consumed.
6 – Physics shows that more greenhouse gas = more greenhouse effect. A sudden increase in greenhouse gas increases planetary temperature to the point where outgoing radiation can again match incoming solar radiation. Temperatures only drop when the GHG levels drop.
NOTE: This would all be true regardless of how the fossil carbon is released. There are indications that the Siberian Traps volcanic event actually ignited some coal seams, adding to airborne CO2 during that event.
SO – I’ve explained that I understand that the greenhouse effect is natural, regardless of what factor changes the levels of the greenhouse gases.
Please return the favor.
Can you explain why so many people appear to believe that a sharp increase in greenhouse gases will somehow not produce the natural increase in warming just because the release happens to be due to human activity this time?
I ask because I’ve repeatedly asked people for robust evidence that the greenhouse effect isn’t real, but never get any response.
Regards.
Oh – and you cannot derive robust climate trends from any three year period – natural variability, signal-to-noise and all that. One of the basics of climatology.
b fagan says:
March 22, 2014 at 4:53 pm
Very few climate skeptics deny that the greenhouse effect is real. You are missing the point & didn’t reply to the question I respectfully asked.
Rising CO2 since 1850 from whatever source (“natural” or anthropogenic) has so far been enormously beneficial to humans & other living things. Since the GHG effect is logarithmic, even a further increase from 400 to 600 ppm over the next 100 years (at present alleged rate of growth, if that happens) would also still be beneficial. Without the feedback assumptions in climate models, which assumptions are not based upon actual evidence from observation of the climate system, the effect of raising CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm would be a negligible & beneficial 1.2 degrees C, if the gas behaves in complex nature as it does in a lab. Much or most of this theoretical increase has already happened at present 400 ppm, since the effect is logarithmic.
So there can be no catastrophic global warming without the water vapor & other feedback assumptions in the models, which assumptions are not in evidence. The models have been shown laughably faulty, so CACA is a baseless scam. No surprise, since CO2 has been 17.5 or more times higher than now during the Phanerozoic Eon without catastrophic results. Causes of the Permian mass extinction remain conjectural.
Nor is a dangerous change in oceanic pH in evidence. The climatic effect of CO2 without improperly assumed feedbacks is insignificant. I might get concerned at real greenhouse levels of 1000 ppm, but that’s very unlikely to occur in the next 300 years.
But please state why you think that an increase in man-made CO2 is responsible for 90% of whatever climate change has been observed since 1950, or whenever you want to start the final countdown, & why this is a problem if true.
“Very few climate skeptics deny that the greenhouse effect is real”. Well, in a very brief statistical sample (the comments on this thread) I’ve been conversing with exhibit ‘A’ and he’s got at least one fellow thinker here..
“the question I respectfully asked”.
Well, I was responding to your question ” I would be interested in your reasons for adhering to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism, if indeed you do ascribe to this hypothesis. ”
That wasn’t respectful, and there is no scientific hypothesis like what you named. It’s a term that someone (not you, I’m sure) came up with so they can use a potty mouth acronym to label people they disagree with. About the level of maturity in Monckton’s “clever” trick with spelling IPCC. I haven’t called you names. I do question your sanguine interpretation of the science.
I don’t care too much about attribution of x% of changes in recent years. I agree with the broad statement that our impact is beginning to rise above the noise level of natural variability. So, here’s why I want us to increase energy efficiency and end use of fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.
Part of my job over the last 25-30 years is systems analysis, identifying risks and benefits in major IT application rollouts or changes, and advising clients on whether they should eliminate risks, allow them but plan disaster response, or a mix of both. You have to learn what you can and make plans knowing you never have all the data. Some risks are so clearly destructive that the money goes up front to eliminate them. Some are so minimal that you just document a cleanup process for when they happen.
There’s a big middle ground where risks are harder to quantify but potential damages are large. For those, it makes it worth spending some extra money up front to reduce the risk somewhat AND do the disaster recovery plan. Focus on the factors that present the greatest risk or tie to several risks. Sometimes customers ignore the advice or don’t want to spend the money. In some situations, it’s just not possible to get the project done and treat all risks – money is a finite quantity.
In all cases, taking the time to study, and plan, and then act is much less expensive and disruptive than waiting until the last minute. Studying and then doing nothing is also a path to sudden (expensive) disaster.
For reasons below, I think we’ve gathered enough evidence to move into the planning and acting phase. It’s not important to say “50% of this” or “climate event X is due to”. The basic greenhouse effect hypothesis is nearing 200 years old, and the estimated sensitivity range of doubling CO2 hasn’t changed all that much for a hundred years or so, and physics makes it clear that more energy will change the existing patterns of climate.
So –look at population growth, the projected energy demands from the developing world, global political instability, the increased demand for water, agricultural land, food (and increased meat/fish consumption) and the various potential risks from warming and from ocean chemistry changes.
One common factor is associated with a lot of the problems: fossil fuels. They were a great start-up for industrial society, but now we have real alternatives and fossil fuels are more trouble than they’re worth.
– Better-than-even odds that warming will be globally damaging by 2070s (note, we all know people who will be alive then).
– Political instability (Putin vs. Europe, all the fun that the Middle East has been just because of oil, Venezuela, etc) Nobody can stop sunlight or wind due to political disputes, and decentralized power generation even protects locals from internal disputes, so a solar-powered village in N Africa could get electified without worrying about some rebel or terror group cutting the power line miles away.
– Energy price shocks – the sooner we get away from energy that requires constant purchase the sooner we get away from the power of resource-rich nations to twist markets around their finger. Build a windmill and you are done spending money except for maintenance. And fossil prices will keep going up – it’s what happens in a market as demand increases. Canadian tar sands weren’t worth exploiting until oil reached a higher price level.
– Pollution (China admitted last April that pollution is now killing 1.2 million a year. Any developing nation getting into heavy use of fossil fuel now will NOT be implementing expensive emissions controls – I don’t want 3 or 4 billion people repeating the health damage/acid rain/water and air pollution that the developed world is still recovering from. The developing nations aren’t exactly flush with funds to care for people with chronic heart or respiratory diseases, either.
– Water – mining/extracting fuels from underground leads to direct pollution on-site, ocean pollution from spills or rig accidents, and to pollution events like the recent coal-related spills in West Virginia and North Carolina. Fracking out in the dry Southwest would stress limited water supplies even more. Increasing demand for agricultural and drinking water doesn’t need pollution plus unknown changes in precipitation patterns to contend with.
I think that climate change and ocean acidification are serious issues that we have to act on right now – in large part because the cause of both issues is a energy supply chain that is hugely damaging in other ways as well, and because we have many alternatives that will not only address the climate risks, but will address the other known problems at the same time.
Climate’s just part of it. If there were no alternatives to fossil fuel, we’d be screwed. But since there are lots of alternatives, and since fossil fuels create so many other problems, it’s time they go into history.
I’m done. Have a good week.
b fagan says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:17 pm
“As a hint, if you took the word “vapor” out of that statement, I’d have agreed with you completely. I was just pointing out that ice, water and water vapor are different phase states of H2O, and since that’s extremely important in Earth climate I felt it was important to set you straight.”
———————
b Fagan,
Getta clue, ….. I was not writing an abstract for your ….. pal approval.
Even if I had I’m sure you would have found reason(s) to reject it …. along with the inclusion of your disingenuous snide comments in your attempt to make me “look the fool”.
There are surely hundreds of other viewers of these posted commentaries, not all of which are as learned in the Science as you think you are. And thus the reason I use verbiage in my commentary that can be understood by all, Especially the less knowledgeable persons because if they can not “relate” to the verbiage being used ….. they sure as hell are not going to keep an open dictionary in their lap or a 2nd window “open” to Google for easy look-up of words and phrases so they can follow the conversation.
The #1 factor as to why the populace quickly accepted and believed the “junk science” of CAGW was the use of the term “greenhouse gas” because people the world over can “relate to” greenhouses as being “warm” when it is cool or cold outside …… and the fact that they are also known by the majority of the population as being “hothouses”. And thus their thinking was ….. iffen that CO2 is what is keeping those “hothouses” HOT …. then by damn we don’t want any more of it in our atmosphere.
And thus the #1 big arsed mistake that was made by the opponents of CAGW was letting the “flim-flammers” get by with using that utterly false term ….. and the #2 big arsed mistake being made by the opponents of CAGW is the fact they themselves use that utterly false term as much or more often than the “flim-flammers” do …… which only serves to re-enforce the publics belief in/of CAGW.
And you wonder why they won’t believe you when you talk factual science.
“Dat CO2 makes those hothouses HOTTER, ya know, cause everyone says so”.
Read my writing again, to wit:
There is no such thing as a “greenhouse” gas ……. simply because the functioning of a “greenhouse” is in no way dependent upon the “type” of gas(es) that is/are confined within the physical structure of a “greenhouse” …… but is solely dependent upon the confinement of the gases within said structure. Greenhouses are “closed systems” …. the earth’s atmosphere is an “open system”, …. thus it is asinine and idiotic to associate the two as being the same or equivalent.
Reply above was to milodonharlani @ur momisugly March 22, 2014 at 5:14 pm
b fagan says:
March 23, 2014 at 2:06 pm
The hypothesis I stated was that of IPCC & all climate alarmists. To wit: that the world is in danger of catastrophic consequences from global warming primarily caused by humanity. IPCC rates the manmade contribution to supposed warming since 1950 at an absurd 90%, despite a complete lack of evidence to that effect.
No surprise that you couldn’t adduce any such evidence, since no one else has either.
milodonharlani says:
March 23, 2014 at 2:27 pm
“No surprise that you (b fagan) couldn’t adduce any such evidence, since no one else has either.”
———————
Right you are, and thus no surprise that he/she refuses to address any factual statements that discredits, disproves and/or negates his/her mimicked and/or paraphrased commentary.
A gossiper is incapable of proving, disproving, attesting to or explaining that which he/she gossips about other than to say ….. “That’s what I was told” ….. and no one is going to admit to their “gossip” source on a public web site after they have falsely inferred their “expertise” on the subject being discussed.
And this says it all, to wit:
b fagan says:
March 23, 2014 at 2:06 pm
“Part of my job over the last 25-30 years is systems analysis, identifying risks and benefits in major IT application rollouts or changes, and advising clients on whether they should eliminate risks, allow them but plan disaster response, or a mix of both.”
—————–
Shur nuff, ….. just accumulate a list of “fear factors” …… then mimic them when and/or where appropriate.
milo . “No surprise that you couldn’t adduce any such evidence, since no one else has either.” Well, I said my piece and gave you my considered opinions, since it’s not my job to also educate you about the ongoing science. But I’ve had needy clients in the past, so you get this one break. After all, you seem to get your information from an echo chamber, so I’ll give you this one last tip.
The terrible IPCC did this terrible thing and actually produced a separate chapter in their 5th “The Physical Science Basis” report. Yup, Chapter 10 – “Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional”.
Here’s the link. http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
I know you probably haven’t sullied yourself by reading it, but they give you an out: Skip all the pages and pages where they detail all the different changes in climate, and how much they think we are or aren’t contributing. AFTER those pages (and the charts) they 12-1/2 pages of references to the 600+ published papers and reports they reviewed for this single chapter.
So, rather than believe the IPCC, you can steal their work and look up the hundreds of papers yourself – they’re putting ammunition in your hand. Go to it.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
March 20, 2014 at 1:45 am
…..until the mechanism that caused the Singer Event is understood it cannot safely be blamed on CO2. We can, however, rule out the kind of naive, linear relationship between CO2 concentration change and 21st century temperature change that the IPCC posits, for there was no step-change in CO2 concentration to match the step-change in temperature during the Singer Event.”
I would carry this linear relationship discussion further. It seems that if T {temperature time series] is linearly related to C [CO2 time series] and if C oscillates; then T should also oscillate and at the same frequency. Since there is a readily seen annual oscillation in the CO2 concentration, why has no one commented on the apparent lack of an annual oscillation in any of the temperature time series, If the answer is that the T is linearly related to C with some lags — that doesn’t change the frequency just introduces a phase delay. Where is that C wiggle in the T?
b fagan says:
March 23, 2014 at 2:06 pm
……I think that climate change and ocean acidification are serious issues that we have to act on right now – in large part because the cause of both issues is a energy supply chain that is hugely damaging in other ways as well, and because we have many alternatives that will not only address the climate risks, but will address the other known problems at the same time.
Climate’s just part of it. If there were no alternatives to fossil fuel, we’d be screwed. But since there are lots of alternatives, and since fossil fuels create so many other problems, it’s time they go into history.
Its instructive that the one proven “clean energy technology” which you don’t happen to mention is Nuclear. Your preferred solution — Wind and Solar have failed to overcome the same fundamental limitation on their use which has beset them for thousands of years. They can not be counted on to deliver when there is a need. Unless and until energy storage is efficient, reliable and cost competitive with fossil fuels — well the wold will prefer fossil fuels.
By the way — the use of fossil fuels has improved the human condition by a greater amount than anything since the advent of agriculture — perhaps you would prefer that we go back to being hunters and gatherers?
westhighlander – you ask the typical straw man question: “the use of fossil fuels has improved the human condition by a greater amount than anything since the advent of agriculture — perhaps you would prefer that we go back to being hunters and gatherers?”. I answered that before you asked it – “fossil fuels. They were a great start-up for industrial society, but now we have real alternatives and fossil fuels are more trouble than they’re worth.”
I like nuclear, I didn’t mention it specifically, but I didn’t mention geothermal or hydro or biogas either. I think Germany made a really stupid decision to shut down their plants – France (and Illinois, where I live) get a lot of power from nuclear and haven’t been harmed by it. France’s electricity cost is in the lower half (or third, not sure) of prices in Europe. But I don’t like nuclear as the long-term solution since we still haven’t figured out the waste storage issue, or the fact that the fuel can also potentially be misused – as our current standoff with Iran demonstrates. I’d be in favor of allowing nuclear plants to get price protection while they supply baseline to solar and wind generation sites, so the percentage of renewables increases while grid stability is preserved. The other problem with nuclear is if something goes wrong, it can go really wrong. Latest estimates I’ve seen for cleaning up the Fukushima site are well over $200 billion US. I mention solar and wind because they’re both going to be available as long as people are around, and they don’t leave residues like coal ash or radioactives.
By the way, your “Unless and until energy storage is efficient, reliable and cost competitive with fossil fuels” is the kind of chicken-and-egg thinking that I advise against. Efficiency comes through deployment and improvement. The sooner we make a concerted effort, the faster it drops in cost – and in many locations storage using compressed air or pumped water is already pretty inexpensive. On the grid, storage isn’t critical until intermittant renewables provide ~15% of the supply, but we should be pushing storage solutions out as we ramp up – to keep the grid stable as we go beyond 15%. Changing existing energy infrastructure takes decades, so the goal isn’t “wait until unused technology is perfect” – it is the realistic “perfect the technology as we increase use of it”.
And remember, fossil fuel prices are only going to rise. That’s what happens to limited commodities as demand increases – which is happening as China, India, the Middle East, Africa all become much greater consumers of energy – and as we expect several billion more people in the next 50 years. The gunk we get from Alberta’s tar sand isn’t oil, they mine it and refine it and it only became worth doing when the cost of real crude stabilized at a new, higher level.