New Survey: Less Than Half Of Climate Scientists Agree With The IPCC’s Key Claim
At the very moment President Obama has decided to shutter America’s coal industry in favor of much more expensive and less efficient “renewable energy,” coal use is surging across the globe. A new study by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences detects an unmistakable “coal renaissance” under way that shows this mineral of fossilized carbon has again become “the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale.” Coal is expanding rapidly “not only in China and India but also across a broad range of developing countries — especially poor, fast-growing countries mainly in Asia,” the study finds. Why is coal such a popular energy source now? The NAS study explains that many nations are attracted to “(relatively) low coal prices . .. to satisfy their energy needs.” It also finds “the share of coal in the energy mix indeed has grown faster for countries with higher economic growth.” –Stephan Moore, Investor’s Business Daily, 7 August 2015
As the oceans’ chemistry is altered by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the response of sea-dwellers such as fish, shellfish and corals is a huge unknown that has implications for fisheries and conservationists alike. But the researchers attempting to find an answer are often failing to properly design and report their experiments, according to an analysis of two decades of literature. The past decade has seen accelerated attempts to predict what these changes in pH will mean for the oceans’ denizens — in particular, through experiments that place organisms in water tanks that mimic future ocean-chemistry scenarios. Yet according to a survey published last month by marine scientist Christopher Cornwall, who studies ocean acidification at the University of Western Australia in Crawley, and ecologist Catriona Hurd of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, most reports of such laboratory experiments either used inappropriate methods or did not report their methods properly. –Daniel Cressey, Nature, 5 August 2015
I used to think there was a consensus among government-funded certified climate scientists, but a new study by Strengers, Verheegen, and Vringer shows even that is not true. The “97% consensus” is now 43%. —Jo Nova, 30 July 2015
Labour would start buying up shares in the “big six” energy companies under a Jeremy Corbyn government until it owned a controlling stake, the party’s leftwing leadership contender has said. Mr Corbyn, whose support has surged during the campaign and is now narrowly the second favourite to win, wants to nationalise British Gas, SSE, Eon, RWE Npower, Scottish Power and EDF, as well as the National Grid. –Kiran Stacey, Financial Times, 7 August 2015
BBC journalists are meant to be impartial, but climate change hack Roger Harrabin is whipping up criticism online among Greens of a programme made by his own employer. Radio 4’s What’s The Point Of… ?, looked at alleged politicisation of the Met Office. The show was made by the Mail’s Quentin Letts. ‘From what I can gather, Comrade Harrabin has blown his top,’ Letts says. ‘All the hot gas he is producing may rupture the ozone layer.’ –Sebastian Shakespeare, Daily Mail 7 August 2015
Climate change is the subject of a complex debate in which, increasingly, experts disagree with each other. So you’d expect the BBC’s ‘Environment and Energy Analyst’, Roger Harrabin, to proceed with caution. Not so. Harrabin is paid by the licence payers. Yet, judging by his Twitter feed, his views are even more partisan than those of Richard Black. When he’s not plugging a Guardian conspiracy theory involving US Republican sceptics and BP, he’s wringing his hands at the cut to wind subsidies or lamenting the lack of civil servants to enforce ‘smarter’ environmental laws. –Damian Thompson, The Spectator, 6 August 2015
Very surprisingly and somewhat boldly, on Wednesday morning Radio 4 put out a programme by the Mail’s Quentin Letts which ran flatly counter to the BBC’s normal party line on one of its very favourite subjects, global warming. Under the title What’s The Point Of The Met Office?, Mr Letts focused on the way our national weather service has long been known to share with the BBC an obsession with climate change. Indeed, the way this has in recent years tended to skew so much of its forecasting has made it something of a national joke. After the programme was broadcast, the heresy of it having included such a dissenting voice as this, speaking in a manner the BBC would never normally dream of allowing on its airwaves, provoked the BBC’s own climate activists to rage in print and on Twitter. –Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, 7 August 2015
1) Global Coal Boom Accelerating Despite Obama’s Green Posturing
Investor’s Business Daily, 7 August 2015
Stephan Moore
At the very moment President Obama has decided to shutter America’s coal industry in favor of much more expensive and less efficient “renewable energy,” coal use is surging across the globe.
A new study by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences detects an unmistakable “coal renaissance” under way that shows this mineral of fossilized carbon has again become “the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale.”
Coal is expanding rapidly “not only in China and India but also across a broad range of developing countries — especially poor, fast-growing countries mainly in Asia,” the study finds.
Why is coal such a popular energy source now? The NAS study explains that many nations are attracted to “(relatively) low coal prices . .. to satisfy their energy needs.” It also finds “the share of coal in the energy mix indeed has grown faster for countries with higher economic growth.”
In sum, using coal is a stepping stone to prosperity. So much for it being a satanic energy source.
Hardly a day passes without evidence that coal is making a major comeback:
• Some 1,200 coal plants are planned across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India, according to the World Resources Institute.
• Coal use around the world has grown about four times faster than renewables, according to the global energy monitoring publication BP Review of World Energy 2015.
• German coal “will remain a major, and probably the largest, fuel source for power generation for another decade and perhaps longer,” the Financial Times concludes.
• “The U.S. is dropping coal plants at an unprecedented rate, but still nowhere near as quickly as India is adding them,” Bloomberg Business reckons.
“By the end of this year, some 7.5% of the U.S. coal fleet will have disappeared … . But by 2020 India may have built about 2.5 times as much capacity as the U.S. is about to lose.”
Then, of course, there’s the world’s biggest coal addict by far — the People’s Republic of China. According to a 2014 report from Eric Lawson of Princeton University, a leading climate change apocalyptic on the left:
“The reality is that fossil fuels dominate China’s energy landscape, as they do in virtually every other country. And the focus on renewables also hides the fact that China’s reliance upon coal is predicted to keep growing.”
Lawson’s calculations of how coal use is growing in China are jaw-dropping. “From 2010 through 2013, (China) added half the coal generation of the entire U.S. At the peak, from 2005 through 2011, China added roughly two 600-megawatt coal plants a week for seven straight years.
“And according to U.S. government projections, China will add yet another U.S. worth of coal plants over the next 10 years, or the equivalent of a new 600-megawatt plant every 10 days for 10 years.”
All this underscores the foolishness and futility of the Obama climate-change regulations designed to drastically reduce coal production in the U.S. As we use less and the rest of the world uses more, the impact on global temperatures will be very close to zero.
Coal production in the U.S. is much safer and less carbon-intensive (clean coal technologies have reduced pollutants by 30%) than coal from other nations. So Obama’s war on coal may make global warming worse.
Some might say this gesture by the Obama administration to cut off coal production in the U.S. is a useful first step to save the planet. Except this isn’t just a cheap sign of goodwill.
It’s a tremendously expensive gesture that will cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs, raise utility prices by as much as $1,000 per family and reduce GDP by as much half a percentage point a year when we are already barely growing. The poor will be hurt most.
What makes the Obama administration regulations doubly destructive is that the U.S. has more coal than any other nation.
With at least 300 years of supply at a value of trillions of dollars, we are truly the Saudi Arabia of coal. To leave it in the ground would be like Obama telling Nebraska to stop growing corn, Idaho to stop growing potatoes and Silicon Valley to give up on the digital age.
2) Chemical Errors: Crucial Ocean-Acidification Models Come Up Short
Daniel Cressey
As the oceans’ chemistry is altered by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the response of sea-dwellers such as fish, shellfish and corals is a huge unknown that has implications for fisheries and conservationists alike. But the researchers attempting to find an answer are often failing to properly design and report their experiments, according to an analysis of two decades of literature.
Oceans absorb much of the CO2 emitted by human activities such as coal burning. This leads to a variety of chemical changes, such as making waters more acidic, which are referred to as ocean acidification.
The United Nations has warned that ocean acidification could cost the global economy US$1 trillion per year by the end of the century, owing to losses in industries such as fisheries and tourism. Oyster fisheries in the United States are estimated to have already lost millions of dollars as a result of poor harvests, which can be partly blamed on ocean acidification.
The past decade has seen accelerated attempts to predict what these changes in pH will mean for the oceans’ denizens — in particular, through experiments that place organisms in water tanks that mimic future ocean-chemistry scenarios.
Yet according to a survey published last month by marine scientist Christopher Cornwall, who studies ocean acidification at the University of Western Australia in Crawley, and ecologist Catriona Hurd of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, most reports of such laboratory experiments either used inappropriate methods or did not report their methods properly (C. E. Cornwall and C. L. HurdICES J. Mar. Sci. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsv118; 2015 ).
Cornwall says that the “overwhelming evidence” from such studies of the negative effects of ocean acidification still stands. For example, more-acidic waters slow the growth and worsen the health of many species that build structures such as shells from calcium carbonate. But the pair’s discovery that many of the experiments are problematic makes it difficult to assess accurately the magnitude of effects of ocean acidification, and to combine results from individual experiments to build overall predictions for how the ecosystem as a whole will behave, he says.
The survey, published in the journal ICES Journal of Marine Science, was based on a search of the Scopus database of research papers. Cornwall and Hurd analysed 465 studies published between 1993 and 2014 that manipulated seawater chemistry and found that experiments often failed to implement widely accepted measures to ensure quality.
For instance, to ensure robustness, manipulation studies should use multiple arrays of independent ocean-mimicking tanks. And in experiments that compare sea animals under acidified conditions with controls, these tanks should be randomized to remove bias. But the pair found that in several papers, researchers used one main seawater tank to supply multiple, supposedly independent smaller tanks.
Chemical errors
The researchers also found mistakes in basic chemistry: some authors simply added acid to a tank and ignored other chemical changes that result from the absorption of CO2, such as increased levels of carbonates. Although the frequency of these chemistry errors has dropped since the 2010 publication of an international ‘best practice’ guide for ocean-acidification experiments (seego.nature.com/sp5kgn), the researchers found no evidence for improvements in the design of tank arrays.
3) New Survey: Less Than Half Of Climate Scientists Agree With The IPCC’s Key Claim
I used to think there was a consensus among government-funded certified climate scientists, but a new study by Strengers, Verheegen, and Vringer shows even that is not true.[1] The “97% consensus” is now 43%.
Finally there is a decent survey on the topic, and it shows that less than half of what we would call “climate scientists” who research the topic and for the most part, publish in the peer reviewed literature, would agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions. Only 43% of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “95%” certainty.
More than 1800 international scientists studying various aspects of climate change (including climate physics, climate impacts, and mitigation) responded to the questionnaire. Some 6550 people were invited to participate in this survey, which took place in March and April 2012. Respondents were picked because they had authored articles with the key words ‘global warming’ and/or ‘global climate change’, covering the 1991–2011 period, via the Web of Science, or were included the climate scientist database assembled by Jim Prall, or just by a survey of peer reviewed climate science articles. Prall’s database includes some 200 names that have criticized mainstream science and about half had only published in “gray literature”. (But hey, the IPCC quoted rather a lot of gray literature itself. Donna LaFramboise found 5,587 non peer reviewed articles in AR4.)
Fabius Maximus deserves credit for finding and analyzing the study. He notes that only 64% agreed that man-made CO2 was the main or dominant driver controlling more than half of the temperature rise. But of this group (1,222 scientists), only 797 said it was “virtually certain” or “extremely likely”. That’s just 43% of climate scientists who fully agree with the IPCC statement. This survey directly asks climate scientists, unlike the clumsy versions by John Cook, William Anderegg, or Naomi Oreskes that do keyword surveys of abstracts in papers and try to “guess”.
Fabius Maximus suggests we exclude the “I don’t knows” which brings up the number to 47%. Since these are “climate scientists” I don’t see why those responses should be excluded. An expert saying “I don’t know” on the certainty question is an emphatic disagreement with the IPCC 95% certainty.
The IPCC AR5 Statement:
“It is extremely likely {95%+ certainty} that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. ”
— Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC’s AR5 Working Group I.
…
The researchers acknowledge that skeptics may be slightly over-represented, “it is likely that viewpoints that run counter to the prevailing consensus are somewhat (i.e. by a few percentage points) magnified in our results.” I say, given that skeptics get sacked, rarely get grants to research, and find it harder to get published, they are underrepresented in every way in the “certified” pool of publishing climate scientists. Skeptical scientists, I daresay, would be much less likely to use the keyword phrase “global warming” in the papers they do publish. I imagine it’s easier to get papers published that don’t specifically poke the mainstream buttons.
4) A Labour Government Under Corbyn Would Nationalise Energy Industry
Financial Times, 7 August 2015
Kiran Stacey
Labour would start buying up shares in the “big six” energy companies under a Jeremy Corbyn government until it owned a controlling stake, the party’s leftwing leadership contender has said.
Mr Corbyn, whose support has surged during the campaign and is now narrowly the second favourite to win, wants to nationalise British Gas, SSE, Eon, RWE Npower, Scottish Power and EDF, as well as the National Grid.
Speaking to the charity Greenpeace, he said: “I would want the public ownership of the gas and the National Grid . . . [and] I would personally wish that the big six were under public control, or public ownership in some form.”
Going into detail about how this could be achieved, he said: “You can do it by majority shareholding; you can do it by increased share sales, which are then bought by the government in order to give a controlling interest.”
He admitted the policy would be expensive, but said: “Does it cost? Yes. Is there a return? Yes.” He did not say how this might be achieved with the four suppliers that are owned by larger overseas conglomerates — EDF, Npower, Eon and Scottish Power.
Separately, he told the Financial Times that he did not want national government to control the entire British power supply. But he said: “With a national investment bank, new infrastructure — like energy — should be publicly owned, whether that’s at community, municipal or national level.”
5) Harrabin Explodes As BBC Presenter Mocks Met Office’s Failed Climate Prophecies
Damian Thompson
Climate change is the subject of a complex debate in which, increasingly, experts disagree with each other. Nearly all of them believe in man-made global warming, but they’re not sure how bad the problem is or how to tackle it. Meanwhile, the ‘sceptics’ are no longer dominated by scientifically illiterate amateurs. Many of them believe in anthropogenic global warming, though they don’t think it’s happening today.
So you’d expect the BBC’s ‘Environment and Energy Analyst’, Roger Harrabin, to proceed with caution. Not so. Here are two tweets he sent out yesterday (links here and here):
Quentin Letts is the Daily Mail‘s parliamentary sketchwriter and theatre critic, celebrated for his sometimes caustic but more often gentle wit. He also presents a Radio 4 slot called What’s the Point of…? in which – says the Beeb – he ‘casts a critical but amicable eye across institutions at the heart of British life’. His targets, if you can call them that, have included the National Trust, the Methodists and the great British pub. Yesterday he chuckled his way through an episode about the Met Office.
‘Amicable’ is just the right word. Letts spoke to an old farmer with an accent straight out of the Archers who prefers to look at the sky rather than trust the wireless; to Angus MacNeil MP, the SNP chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, whose seafaring constituents would drown if the Met Office gave them bad advice (which it doesn’t); and to retired BBC weatherman John Kettley about the knitted sweaters he was sent by fans.
Letts paid tribute to the secret work the Met Office does in advising the Armed Forces and told us that, whatever you may think, its short-term forecastinghas got better. But he didn’t like its ‘sexed-up press releases’ or nannyish advice to carry an umbrella in case of rain. Still less did he appreciate the apocalyptic warnings to jump into the nearest Ark in the event of flooding.
‘With trepidation’, he tackled the subject of climate change – unavoidably, given the way the Met Office bangs on about it. First he spoke to Labour MP Graham Stringer, a former analytical chemist who sat on the Commons Science and Technology Committee until May and is standing for re-election. Stringer told him that the Met Office’s short-term forecasting was reliable but that its medium- and long-term projections were ‘pretty random’.
The point was reinforced by Peter Lilley MP, a physics graduate who describes himself as a ‘lukewarmist’ – i.e., he thinks CO2 emissions can warm the planet but not by very much. Lilley recalled the 2004 Met Office prediction that temperatures would rise by a catastrophic 0.3°C by 2014. The actual increase? ‘Zilch’, said Lilley. So he’s fed up with Met office lobbyists demanding ‘even more money for even bigger computers so that they can be even more precisely wrong in future’.
Letts asked Helen Chivers, Met Office head of news, about the 2004 global warming prediction. She said that knowledge of earth systems was still evolving ‘and things change over time’. There was no attempt to defend the 0.3 °C prophecy – and Chivers even seemed to agree that the Met Office can be a bit alarmist at times.
The programme’s conclusion was that the Met Office is jolly good at short-term forecasts, saving lives in the process, but that its comically inaccurate attempts to predict climate change are dangerously close to political lobbying. Letts didn’t advocate privatising the outfit, but he didn’t see why the option shouldn’t be discussed. A final trademark chuckle and that was that.
Cue an entirely predictable outburst from The Guardian. Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and former BBC science correspondent, observed that both Stringer and Lilley are trustees of Lord Lawson’s moderately sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation. Fair point; perhaps Letts should have made it. But Black’s argument that Radio 4 breached BBC editorial guidelines by interviewing one climate change sceptic (Stringer), one ‘lukewarmist’ (Lilley) and one believer (MacNeil) was a bit rich. Not so long ago the Beeb spewed out ‘warmist’ propaganda as news and treated any dissident as a Right-wing nutjob (unfairly – only some of them were). Still, that’s what you pay for when you buy The Guardian.
Harrabin, on the other hand, is paid by us – the licence payers. And he’s employed by the corporation that made What’s the Point of the Met Office?Yet, judging by his Twitter feed, his views are even more partisan than those of Black. When he’s not plugging a Guardian conspiracy theory involving US Republican sceptics and BP, he’s wringing his hands at the cut to wind subsidies or lamenting the lack of civil servants to enforce ‘smarter’ environmental laws. Also, he feels the need to add ‘@GeorgeMonbiot’ to many of his tweets, so the great man doesn’t miss them.
6) Christopher Booker: The More Money The Met Office Gets, The More Inaccurate Its Doom-Mongering
The performance of the Met Office for which we pay £220 million a year is not just a joke, but a major scandal. And well done the BBC for allowing Quentin Letts, for once, to point this out.
Very surprisingly and somewhat boldly, on Wednesday morning Radio 4 put out a programme by the Mail’s Quentin Letts which ran flatly counter to the BBC’s normal party line on one of its very favourite subjects, global warming.
Under the title What’s The Point Of The Met Office?, Mr Letts focused on the way our national weather service has long been known to share with the BBC an obsession with climate change.
Indeed, the way this has in recent years tended to skew so much of its forecasting —remember the infamous promise of a ‘barbecue summer’ in 2009 just when the rain was set to fall for weeks? — has made it something of a national joke.
One of the guests interviewed by Mr Letts was the veteran Tory politician and climate-change sceptic Peter Lilley, who proceeded to poke fun about how Met Office officials would lobby for ‘more money for bigger computers to be more precisely wrong in future’.
The programme went on to target a particularly scary prediction, first announced by the Met Office in 2007, that the world’s temperature was set to rise from 2004 to 2014 by 0.3c.
That may not sound a lot, but in climate terms it’s a hugely significant increase: in fact, nearly half as much again as had been recorded in the preceding century.
The Met Office was so convinced of its research it produced a glossy brochure — with pictures of black clouds and people in masks (for no apparent reason) — with the portentous title Informing Government Policy Into The Future.
Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s head of climate predictions, said these were ‘very strong statements’ about what would happen in the next ten years.
‘And what happened?’ Mr Letts asked. ‘Zilch,’ said Mr Lilley. ‘Nothing. There was no global warming over the ensuing decade.’ And, indeed, when 2014 arrived, we could see that far from this forecast coming to pass, the temperature trend had not, in fact, risen since 1998.
After the programme was broadcast, the heresy of it having included such a dissenting voice as this, speaking in a manner the BBC would never normally dream of allowing on its airwaves, provoked the BBC’s own climate activists to rage in print and on Twitter.
Hilariously, the BBC’s former environment correspondent Richard Black protested that Mr Letts’s show had breached the BBC’s editorial rules by being so biased — when Mr Black’s own reporting on climate change could scarcely have been more shameless in breaking those same rules for years on end.
We may recall Black’s prediction in 2011 that Arctic ice was vanishing so fast that by the end of this decade it would all be gone, when two years later its volume went back up by 33 per cent in a single bound.
Or how, in 2009, he seemed almost moved to tears as he wrote up a piece on the BBC’s website over the failure of a UN conference to produce the global ‘climate treaty’ he had been promoting for so long.
So was Mr Lilley unfair to the much-vaunted Met Office report? It’s worth having a closer look at the other global-warming predictions made by those wizard computer models — for their claim about the 0.3c temperature rise was just one of a raft of doom-mongering forecasts. CLAIM: At least three of the years after 2009 would be hotter than 1998.
REALITY: Though the Met Office would eventually claim that two of those years, 2010 and 2014, were warmer than 1998, independent experts soon demonstrated how they could only make such claims by continually ‘adjusting’ their more recent figures upwards from those originally published.
This practice, which has been widely criticised, sees the Met Office revisiting published temperatures without justifying why it is scientifically appropriate. The Met Office uses what are called ‘surface temperatures’, measured by weather stations on land and sea. Those measured much more comprehensively by satellites still show that 1998 was easily the hottest year on record. Neither 2010 nor 2014 got anywhere near it.
CLAIM: We could look forward to many more extreme heatwaves, like that which had killed ’15,000 people’ across Europe in 2003, just before the Met Office study began.
REALITY: We have yet to see any repetition of that 2003 heatwave, which even at the time other meteorologists said was nothing to do with global warming. It was a natural event caused by an unusual influx of hot air from the Sahara.
CLAIM: We could expect many more ‘extreme weather events’, such as abnormal rainfall.
REALITY: This simply hasn’t happened. Even though the Met Office did all it could to claim the rain that caused last year’s exceptional flooding, particularly in Somerset, was the worst ever recorded, its own records show that far more rain fell between November 1928 and January 1929.
CLAIM: All that mass of ice in Greenland would some time in the future melt, meaning sea levels would rise by more than 20ft and engulf major cities.
REALITY: A recent study of temperatures recorded in Greenland reveals no sign of this happening any time soon. In fact, going way back to 1900, there has been no upward rise in the trend of Greenland’s temperatures at all.
Away from the 2004-14 research, the Met Office gets its forecasts wrong with quite comical consistency.
In 2007, its computer predicted it would be the ‘hottest year ever’, just before global temperatures plummeted by 0.7c. That summer in the UK, it told us, would be ‘drier than average’, just before we experienced some of the worst floods.
Between 2008 and 2010, the computer models repeatedly predicted ‘warmer than average’ winters and ‘hotter and drier summers’ — three years when we had summers that were wetter and cooler than normal, including the ‘barbecue summer’ of 2009.
In October 2010, they predicted our winter would be up to ‘two degrees warmer than average’, just before snow blanketed us in the coldest December since records began in 1659.
In November 2011, the Met Office computer forecast global temperatures rising by 2017 by as much as a staggering 0.5c, a prediction so embarrassingly off-beam that, a year later, it was removed from their website.
In March 2012, it predicted that spring would, yet again, be ‘drier than average’, just before the wettest April on record. In November 2013, the computer predicted Britain’s winter would be ‘drier than usual’ — just before three of the wettest months we have known.
Of course, the main reason the Met Office’s record has been so relentlessly dismal is that, as its 2004 report made clear, its computer models are programmed according to its conviction that the chief factor driving our climate is the steady rise in carbon dioxide (CO2).
Certainly, CO2 levels have continued to rise.
But for 18 years, despite the Met Office’s increasingly desperate attempts to claim otherwise, those cussed temp-eratures have simply refused to rise in tandem, as their computer models predicted they should have done.
What makes this of far more than just academic interest is that the politicians who rule over us not only continue to believe what the Met Office tells them, but rely on it to justify our increasingly catastrophic energy policy.
Remember that Met Office brochure, Informing Government Policy? That is precisely why we are committed to closing all the CO2-emitting coal and gas-fired power stations which supply two-thirds of all our electricity; and to spending billions on windmills and solar panels, which, when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun shine, will not keep our lights on.
Despite all of that CO2 no warming; warming is good, ergo: burn more coal.
Vuk
Sure warming is good – modestly.
The Corollary – Cooling s not good; may I introduce the Little Ice Age . . . . .
About says it
Auto
“What if it got colder
And we had more ice and more snow,
And because of the cold
Food crops wouldn’t grow,
And we needed more energy
To keep us all warm
As there was no global warming,
Mother Nature wouldn’t conform?…”
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/what-if-it-got-colder/
If the (semi) credible increase in atmospheric CO2 since the IGY of 1957 / 58 is about 27% as recorded since then in the (semi) credible Mauna Loa data; ( 315 > 400), and the totally speculative (unmeasured) total increase since the dawn of the industrial age is 42%, ( 280 ?? > 400) ; then what caused the equally prominent (if not more so) temperature increases when Man Made Anthropogenic Carbon pollution was near zero by today’s standards.
For the pre-ML rise the log ratio is 0.1178 , while for the change since then it is 0.2389 which is almost exactly double; yet the claimed Temperature changes are pretty much the same.
While the earlier ” data ” is largely from proxies both as to Temperatures and atmospheric CO2 abundance; the modern ” data ” suffers from eternal fidgeting with at least the Temperatures , which seem to be continuously altered, as if public records have no sanctity al all.
So far, what I have seen from the new CO2 satellite, it simply isn’t true that atmospheric CO2 is a global constant (well mixed) yet there isn’t good correlation between local Temperatures and local CO2 discrepancies.
I’m happy to concede what the quantum mechanics claim is the real physics of CO2 interaction with LWIR radiation, although I can claim NO first hand understanding of that.
I’m confident that I understand why the earth travels around the sun in a pseudo ellipse; but I have to take the Molecular Absorption Physics of LWIR radiation to be what ” they ” claim happens.
Mind you, I do have suspicions.
I see the beautiful plots given by the MODTRAN (??) program; but I’ve never seen a comparable actually measured absorption spectrum, that looks even vaguely like the same thing.
In any case, I can’t say the evidence shouts at me, that anything we are doing regarding CO2 emissions (not carbon) is related at all to what measured Temperature records claim.
And then there is that most recognizable cartoon model of earth’s climate as regards radiation budgeting, from Trenberth et al.
Frankly I can place no credibility in a model that views the earth as an isotropic black body radiator, having infinite thermal conductivity, so that input EM radiant energy incident on one half of the planet continuously 24 hours per day, and 365 1/4 days per year, establishes a uniform 288 K Temperature at all points whether currently being irradiated or not.
Such an object envisaged by Trenberth, can’t possibly emulate what earth does, when there can be no heat flows from point to point, such as we know do happen on earth, and that contribute to the climate changing dramatically from place to place on earth, rather than being the same everywhere.
It’s no wonder that such a model doesn’t come close to replicating any of the recognized measured data sets; even the good ones.
If I was actually being paid to study earth’s climate variables; I would be embarrassed to cash my pay check each month.
Fortunately I’m not getting paid for that.
g > > G
I know what Santa is putting in Obama’s stocking this Christmas!
A solar panel?
I vote for a lump of Anthracite.
And ocean chemistry remains as it has been for 500Ga.
johnm
Apologies – I missed that class, I think.
Ocean chemistry might change – I sail ships through it, not analyse it – or, as you suggest, the basics remain unaltered over v e r y long timespans.
Ahhh- but: 500 Ga . . .
G = Giga = 10E9 = 1,000,000,000 [I thought]
Five hundred of those is rather a lot, I suggest.
Tens of times the life of the universe?
Or might I have misunderstood?
Please help me
Auto
Mebbe it’s 500 Gaias, which is probably a long time.
===============
The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.
================
From Question 1a
“What fraction of global warming can be attributed….?” and 17.1% answered “More than 100%”
WTF????
This is “Science”??????
It was a trick question,they should have answered in fractions.
97.9564847874267fhg5w568990% is what the models determined, so that’s the correct and final answer. Discussion over.
They are stating that we would be cooling if it weren’t for the anthropogenic emissions. It would be interesting to see their calculations for such considering the trend present prior to industrialization while coming out of the LIA. Embellishment without substantiation is the smell coming from those 17.1%
More than 100% just means that the world would be cooling due to a new ice age, if it weren’t for CO2.
It’s possible.
And it mean we should definitely increase emissions.
Yes, but the question asked was about human induced increase in greenhouse gases,not just CO2.
Human induced greenhouse gases are impossible to quantify,they are only ‘at best’ guesstimates.
I think the honest scientists would go with “I don’t know” or “Unknown”.
Save a little reserve. May need to kickstart a deglaciation one day.
=============
Suppose the current CO2 level caused warming of 1.0° and that aerosols caused cooling of 0.1°C. The overall warming would be 0.9°C, and CO2’s share would be 1.0/0.9 = 111%.
No need to write ??????.
Ric,
We know what they mean, but splicing a hypothetical temperature change onto an observed temperature change smells Mannian.
Doncha think ?????
Well…
They are paid advocates for global warming.
From what I can tell about 1/3 (1.05 W/m2) of warming is due to CO2.
About 1 W/m2 (roughly equal to the CO2 forcing) is due to other anthropogenic activities – mostly UHI.
About 1 W/m2 is natural forcing.
Reducing CO2 will have zero effect on 2/3rds of the warming. And there is likely to be future warming. The likely peak CO2 level is in the 460-480 range. So there is another 0.64 W/m2 in the pipeline for this century. It sort of is what it is.
From what I can tell it wouldn’t hurt to keep CO2 emissions in the 10-12 GT/Y range. In fact in that range of emission we could burn fossil fuel forever.
Current environmental absorption is about 6 GT/Y and increasing with the CO2 concentration. By 460-480 PPM the absorption should balance 10 GT/Y of emission.
Ken Med
Surely the 17.1% believe in the global cooling that is natural – and, crucially, would have resulted in a – note – decrease – in global temperature (however mis-measured . . .).
BUT – the temperature has risen ( a micro-smidgen)
And – without SUVs etc. it would have fallen. . . .
So the smidgen-micro it has risen is MMGW [= 100% (that’s all there is, 0.023456 degrees per decade or whatever over twenty years (rounded up))].
And the bit it would have gone down without coal-burning megalomaniacs is NOTE – also MMGW [so this is the >100 %]
QED
Even if I think it is more likely that some of the responders are innumerate, the above is a method of justifying the answer given.
No – not illegitimate – innumerate . . . .
You pays your money, and the one-world-government folk give you their choice . . . .
Auto
excellent compilation, Anthony! We need to get a billboard campaign together for the skeptic view and OAS as the Paris conference nears. (If skeptics were really funded by industry there would be billboards and commercial ads everywhere.)
Yes, that’s part of what’s so absurd about the carbon climate cult claims – one of which is that the “opposition” (evil oil, coal, etc.) has so much power, money and influence yet 97% of all ads, articles, TV specials, you name it are sympathetic or outright supportive of the CAGW hypothesis.
that paper on the new NO consensus should be the focus of a 30 second TV spot that should be hammering all 3 US networks now. The crime is that it is NOT happening .
I think they need a theme song for the Paris fear fest I submit this.
James Bull
A study that extends a trend line that is already trending down is what we expect from our ‘prestiguos’ institutions now..
The Chinese Electricity Council actually published their power plan out to 2030. No need to speculate based on past trend lines…
http://english.cec.org.cn/No.105.1541.htm
Wow! The headline says no coal after 2030, which coincides with the end of their extension before taking action in the climate agreement with Obama. They are making their strategy public.
That’s no NEW coal after 2030. They’re keeping what they got.
Yes and sorry for leaving out “new”. That will give them enough reasonably new coal plants to track peak load with regionally, as they increase their base load with nuclear. As someone who worked in the industry, the plan make perfect sense to me. They can promise to eventually phase out coal as their reduction if indeed this nonsense still exists by 2030.
@D.J, Wow! “The headline says no coal after 2030”. Could that maybe just mean, no more “new” US coal and then they then start digging up their own and leaving us even further in the (coal) dust?
” The capacity of clean energy generation, including hydropower, wind power, nuclear power, solar power and natural gas generation reached 461GW, accounting for 37% of the total capacity; and the electricity generation from clean energy reached 1400TWh, 26% of the total generation.”
It takes 37% of the total capacity to generate only 26% of the power? That’s a loser, boss! I bet nuclear accounts for >20% of the total generation right now and will replace coal after 2030.
Dawtgtomis, not as fast as you may think. From 2014 report
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/11/non-fossil-fuel-sources-provide-25-chinas-electricity/
According to the latest round of statistical data issued by CEC, China’s nation-wide electricity generation reached 5550TW hours in 2014, for year-on-year growth of 3.6%.
In 2014, nationwide hydropower generation breached the 1000 TW hour threshold for the first time in history to reach 1070TW hours,
1070 TW / 5550 TW = 19.23 %
Despite China’s ongoing push for expanded wind power capacity, usage hours for wind power installations fell by 120 hours last year to 1905 hours. Nationwide grid-connected wind power generation nonetheless posted a year-on-year gain of 12.2%, to reach 156.3 TW hours.
156.3 TW / 5550 TW = 02.82 %
China’s grid-connected solar power capacity also posted an impressive increase in 2014, rising by 67.0% year-on-year to reach 26.52GW by the end of December 2014. Nationwide grid-connected solar power generation reached 23.11 TW hours in 2014, for a year-on-year increase of 170.8%.
23.11 TW / 5550 TW = 00.42%
Nationwide nuclear power generation in 2014 was 126.2 TW hours, for a year-on-year increase of 13.2% Usage times fell 385 hours year-on-year to 7489 hours on average.
126.2 TW/ 5550 TW = 02.28 %
China still is a Water Republic.
There are a lot of people who have honestly fallen for the lies, hook line and sinker.
WAPO article about the debates, comments section, poster asserts Miami sinking beneath the waves as an established fact. That is what the lies have wrought…people are in possession of a vast amount of fake knowledge.
Thanks, I’m here to learn. Very much appreciate the reality check.
These countries with higher economic growth are primarily in Asia where they also have inexpensive labor.
Hmmm, cheaper energy on top of cheaper labor in Asian countries – what could go wrong with Western European and American economies and their middle-class workforce with President Hopey-changey on your side?
In addition to the price being the dominant factor for attracting nations to coal, another 2 important factors are that coal generated plants have a more stable output which is vital for stable grid applications and the coal plants have double the useful life over wind
Geothermal in my opinion will be fuel of the future instead of wind and solar
Verse 25 of the Impeachment song: Climate change and the end of Capitalism. (As if sung by Obama to the tune of “Please release me, let me go”).
Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, recently made a devastating admission… the goal of environmental activism is not to save the world from terrifying environmental calamity, but to end capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
Climate change our biggest threat,
If worse, I will break out a sweat.
Global Governance, you bet!
My war on King Coal not over yet.
The whole Obama Impeachment song: http://lenbilen.com/2015/02/25/the-complete-obama-impeachment-song/
“Christiana Figueres…but to end capitalism.”
Even in that, she is wrong. It is not the captalists who are suffering at the hands of the greens, but rather the common man.
Indeed, the big crony capitalists are making out like bandits, what with their offshore tax shelters, uncanny ability to sell weapons & military hardware to countries like Greece, which couldn’t afford them, but which apparently feels so threatened by Turkey to wreck its own economy. Some might say that was the plan all along.
Our own MIC crams down the throat of Uncle Sam gold plated hanger queens like the F-22, and costly turkeys like the F-35, spreading the contracting work around in many districts, so that politicians may effectively bribe their constituencies with some trickle down pork, making it virtually impossible to get these flawed weapons programs cancelled.
And it’s much the same trick with the whirlygigs and solar panels. Some people make a living installing solar panels, erecting turbine towers, or sitting in an office somewhere shuffling papers, and warmng seats. Nice work, as long as somebody else pays for it
And friends, it’s a done deal, a fait accompli. They’ll be milking us all with the wind turbines, solar panels, and Teslas for a long time to come, untill the middle class is wrecked, many driven from their homes, and out onto the streets, while those with the scratch swoop in to harvest the debris of ruined lives for pennies on the dollar.
@ SteveP “Our own MIC crams down the throat of Uncle Sam gold plated hanger queens like the F-22, and costly turkeys like the F-35, spreading the contracting work around in many districts, so that politicians may effectively bribe their constituencies with some trickle down pork, making it virtually impossible to get these flawed weapons programs cancelled’
Add in the fact the Chinese/ Indians/ Russia stole the tech, are building them basically with people being paid pennies and you can see why the Chinese/Indians/Russia will be the power in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Then add in the current WH and all the other stuff like the Climate Change, the current divide between the races in the West ( immigration etc) and the terrorist threat to Western Nations and you can see the downfall of the “Roman Empire” all over again . Seems to be that silly thing called “History repeating itself”.
“Some might say this gesture by the Obama administration to cut off coal production in the U.S. is a useful first step to save the planet.”
No – it is purposely done to de-industrialize the U.S. and to make the so-called renewables competitive with fossil fuels.
It isn’t possible for current wind and solar power to be competitive with fossil fuels in a free market, since their Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is too small to power a modern economy. And since primitive economies can’t support modern technologies, there aren’t any economies that would benefit. Instead, wind and solar power can only exist as parasites on any economy, and will survive only as long as their political patrons mandate and subsidize them.
Aptly and succinctly written.
Wait. Cowtan and Way swore that the arctic was warming at 8 time the rate of the rest of the world. How could they make such a claim if they knew that Greenland hasn’t warmed at all? I guess 8 times a warming rate of 0 does equal 0.
Give China a break….they are a developing country
(take the blue pill)
We did Lat. They have until 2030 to do whatever they want. Barry drew another line in the sand, no?
hey oss….we should have been more corrupt and kept more of our population poor…then we could get “developing” status too
One of those “Red” lines? I am sorry the cr.p that is coming out of these people is making me sick. I don’t know how long Fiorina and Trump are going to last but for the time being it is nice to hear something else than the usual BS from these cookie cutter career people that have sucking us dry
But to me biggest never mentioned people are the career bureaucrats that run the show behind the curtains.
If you leave a big enough manure pile in the sun for long enough, it starts to heat. 😉
China’s coal consumption is declining, not increasing:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/china-coal-idUSL3N0WL32720150326
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coal-consumption-and-output-fell-last-year-1424956878
Yeah, their soft economy means shut-ins.
China consumption 2013 = 1961.2 Mt
China consumption 2014 = 1962.4 Mt
from BP Statistical review of world energy June 2015.
oh and 2012 = 1922.5 Mt
India 2013 = 324 Mt
India 2104 = 360 Mt… and accelerating !
Keep that CO2 flowing guys, the world’s plant life needs it ! 🙂
Whether it is flat or slightly declining, both are very different from the author’s implication that “Coal is expanding rapidly “not only in China and India but also across a broad range of developing countries — especially poor, fast-growing countries mainly in Asia,”.
His statement is clearly false about China, who consume far more than India or any other country in Asia.
There are several points that should be made:
1. The cost of coal is 50% to 95% transportation cost. Burning large quantities of coal is basically only an option if there are large indigenous supplies. This is also partly why suspected large coal resources in places like Alaska are resources and not reserves.
2. The Dutch “CLIMATE SCIENCE SURVEY Questions and Responses”
http://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2015-climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses_01731.pdf
How did they locate the participants:
“Approximately 6550 people were invited to participate in this survey, which took place in March and April 2012. Question 1 was answered by 1868 respondents; the subsequent questions by progressively fewer people. Respondents were selected on the basis of a few criteria. The first criterion was having authored articles with the key words ‘global warming’ and/or ‘global climate change’, covering the 1991–2011 period, via the Web of Science (~6000 names). Another criterion was the inclusion in the climate scientist database assembled by Jim Prall (~2000 names). Names were also derived from surveying the recent climate science literature (~500 names). Prall’s database includes signatories to public statements disapproving of mainstream climate science (~200 names). They were included in our survey to ensure that the main criticisms of climate science would be included. This last group amounted to almost 5% of the total number of respondents, about half of whom only published in the gray literature on climate change…
More than 1800 international scientists studying various aspects of climate change, including e.g. climate physics, climate impacts and mitigation, responded to the questionnaire.”
They looked for articles with “Global Warming” and “Global Climate Change”.
The combination of Climategate noted gatekeeping, the search criterion, and the less than 1/3 participation (favoring inclusion of more activist scientists) would bias the survey. Further they included researchers in mitigation and impacts. A biologist’s view on whether over 1/2 of warming is due to CO2 is of limited value, (as opposed to a atmospheric scientist). Further the impacts and mitigation people contain a larger percentage of rabid activists.
Less than 1% of scientists publish every year, 1% of scientists account for 41% of papers.. The 0-3 publication group represents perhaps 95-98% of scientists. Given the 0-3 publication group is affected by the biases listed above, represents 95-98% of scientists, and only 58% believe more than 50% of warming is due to CO2….
It is very likely that less than 1/2 of scientists believe that CO2 has caused over 1/2 of the warming.
The energy companies are overly powerful subjects. They are a drain on the UK and are clearly not restrained by competition.
So they should be constrained.
The State buying the shares still respects the right to private property. It’s a good policy from Corbyn.
According to the media Corbyn also wants to open up the Welsh coal mines . I have wondered why this has not been proposed before . We know that germany is now a market, and since the closure of the mines the Welsh valley towns have reportedly become ghost towns. The future for the young men in particular , if they do not move away , is a life of welfare and petty crime , only alleviated by drugs and alcohol.
New , safe , mining technology would give them a future, earn money for the Valleys and reduce the welfare bill. Gains all round and the Germans can burn good welsh anthracite instead of that dirty lignite.
Lets get some perspective.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/07/spot-the-vested-interest-the-1-5-trillion-climate-change-industry/
Global Warming is a $1.5 trillion industry.
Energy (electricity) in Britain is a $30 billion industry. SSE has gross revenues of about $30 billion and it sells natural gas as well as power. So “overly powerful” is a relative term.
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/UK_electricity_2.png
I guess the government could buy shares in them and gain a controlling interest. But deregulation cut UK energy prices and requirements to “go green” are driving them skyward. Effective renationalization will just add another premium for government stupidity on top of the premium for green waste/fraud.
I guess Britains don’t have anything better to spend their money on than electric power. Too many free pounds burning a hole in their wallets.
Very good article.
My computer must be off. Thought I came to Anthony’s site, but the Loony Toons appear to have taken over! .Good grief. If you don’t know by now to do the exact opposite of the Zero and the UN…..wellllll….can’t fix stupid.
Sheep in the Deep
1962
As posted elsewhere here is the link to the BBC programme. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5
Not a problem, Obama or Hillary will simply decrease the acceptable level of emissions from coal, add NatGas, Diesel and even gasoline powered devices. Thus the EPA levels, that are already LESS than the air that the power plants and automobiles will have to filter out even more of the pollutants that China is releasing, making it even safer here in the USA. And your energy cost 10 times as much. (And I am NOT being sarcastic.)
Apparently the average UK temperature for July was 0.7 Celsius below average.
Brilliant! Thank you, sir, for your enlightenng comment. So global warming has stopped, eh? Is that your point??
I’m surprised the Mods didn’t censor your comment for being totally irrelevant, and adding absolutely nothing of value. but then you are totally ‘on message’ here in the Village
It’s quite relevant if CO2 is the source of more than 100% of the warming.
WUWT is fairly tolerant of stray information. While a reference would be nice, it’s your comment that is devoid of value.
Village Idiot, is that you David Appel?
Village, please tell us, just how scared are believers of global warming right now ? Does it keep them from sleeping at night ? Does it cause anxiety and depression ? How does a GW believer cheer up ? Do GW believers hold meetings where they can vent their frustrations and hold hands praying that the UN takes over the world to force renewables down our collective throats ? What do GW believers tell their kids ? Isn’t the future so bleak that it is pointless for kids to attend school ? In fact, should GW believers even have kids lest they be labelled hypocrites ?
It must be awful. Seriously, belief in CGW must result only in sadness and despair.
I’ll buy you a beer if that will cheer you up.
Village Idiot:
andrewmharding wrote saying in full
His clear and factual statement says that in the recent month of July in the UK there was no experience of global warming from any source.
That means – among other things – that in the recent month of July the people of the UK obtained no experience of global warming to induce them to fear global warming.
But factual reality does not assist you in your promotion of the untrue man-made global warming scare, so you asked
No, that was not his point. Your question is additional evidence of your self-admitted idiocy. And you have waved your idiotic red-herring because you want to deflect attention from his point; viz.
In the recent month of July the people of the UK obtained no experience of global warming to induce them to fear global warming.
Richard
Brings me to a point.. Does anyone have the RSS July figure yet ?
in the US, ClimDiv was actually NEGATIVE !!!
It’s getting coaled out there.
We’re in a faddish world, where spin and face time and posturing are king; responsibility for self clearly is not. How do the greenies reckon their tons-of-carbon footprint when they trek across continents and oceans to hop in boats to travel to Greenland, then hike a few miles inland (or just be flown by those even-so-inefficient helicopters) to take selfies of them and little blue-green glacial run-off creeks?
Answer? They don’t. They’re researching, so all that carbon spew is absolutely justified. But not the carbon spew from Lulu McGillacuddy’s vanload of kids being driven every day to soccer.Because she’s republican and voted for Bush.Or something. Or has kids.Or something.
I’m getting old, and old-is-getting-tired of the drama, fanfare, hubris and mendacity of the whole world’s opposing armies of goody-two-shoes activists.
This is NOT to say that I “approve” of unabashed and mendacious polluters. We just need to keep in mind that CO₂ isn’t pollution any more than exhaling is. Enriching, yes. Polluting, no.
THING is, that the coal burning sots of the world very often are terrible polluters. They can help it, but that costs money. In the 1960s, we didn’t really give a gôddâmned what happend to the output of our thousands and thousands of coal-fired industries (generators, etc.) We didn’t. The net result was noxious plumes downwind of power plants that when combined with clouds resulted in rain so acidic that it gradually killed off huge swathes of conifer (and even deciduous) forest. The fly ash problem was first attacked by installing relatively efficient big ol’ fiberglass bags and electrostatic preciptators. They didn’t impact power generation all that much: less than 1% lost to fly-ash extraction.
And the “industry” figured out a few decent uses for the less noxious kinds of fly ash: make cinder blocks out of them. (But they had to be careful, for some coal just has a LOT of radioactive thorium, uranium and other bad stuff in its ash.)
It was the absolutely transparent plumes of SO₂ sulfur dioxide gas that was causing the acid-rain problem … and the EPA determined after some gnashing of teeth and soul-searching that they couldn’t look the other way. So … another scrubber technology was developed to handle the SO₂. Cost another 2% or so of energy output, but now at least the acid rain problem could be solved.
_______
My point? Its that in the United States of America, we have engineered and have auto-mandated that the main pollutants generated by the burning-of-coal for power and industry can be remediated. Efficiently, and cost effectively. Nominally. And so we have.
The contrary point though is: there are countries that simply cheat and don’t actually remediate unless being scrutinized by watchdogs… which are very frequently bribed to look the other way. 98% of the ARCTIC particulate pollution (which includes SO₃ / sulfur trioxide aerosols), heavy metals, black carbon, uranyl and thoria … come from … … … (drumroll) … … … China.
So, the United States, in its infinite hug-a-tree / eat-a-beaver sensibilities engages in Jihad Against Coal. JAC. Because the muffin heads that posture and tweet selfies of their erstwhile associations with the Kardashians (Mizz Clinton), aim to get elected on the equally soft-headed greenie-is-about-youth ticket. Which our Dear Leader is prepping dutifully enough, 12 months before the election, for Mizz Clinton to parlay into a wave of popular outrage.
The United States and Europe lead the world in competently and responsibly mining, stockpiling, transporting, grading and burning coal for power and industry. Except for the admittedly … less than photogenic (or hygienic!) fly-ash ponds, which are around in abundance, we’re doing a darn clean job of making use of this natural resource. The CO₂ is most decidedly (and provable by science) enriching the entire biosphere of the planet. The Sahara continues to diminish in southern extent due to encroachment of CO₂ fertilized savannah. Same for 9 out of 10 of the rest of the world’s deserts. Same for bio-creep from wetter regions to dryer. Phytometabolic processes simply conserve water better (and thus transpire less of it) when there’s more CO₂.
_______
So who’s going to finally get the guts to Sit on the 600 lb Gorilla of bad behavior and mendacious state marketing? China needs sittin’ on. For us, for the planet, and … for us.
And that’s about all – after reading this site for the last 7 years – that I can conclude.
COAL is bad, but can be made OK-to-GOOD. But it requires public mandates, international sanctions, tariffs and freedom from corruption.
GoatGuy
Very well said Mr. Lynch.
Perfect.
Not only SPOT ON m’dear chap but a superbly written post Mr. Lynch; I applaud it !
I shall let you know the moment our (British) government is toppled by a rather special person and his associates. Oh, it will happen, make no mistake. The “clue” will be when we take to the streets and demand our money back.
Meanwhile, I’m doin’ mi best. I burn as much coal and wood as possible.
This summer (if you can call it that) the temperatures ain’t what they ought to be, so with a bit of luck I’ll try and start a fire by rubbing two politicians together … hmmm, now which ones shall I choose ?
Regards,
WL
Hey! 68.3% of the observable universe is apparently dark energy. Who are we to argue with the natural order of things? Cue ‘Black Energy’
“Dark energy can have such a profound effect on [our] universe, because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
ok……..your point is village?
I’m sure the 97% also believe in this dark energy/matter baloney to patch up an enshrined theory of gravity.
+1
“because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space”
Darn, have you been visiting SkS and RealClimate again ? !!
There’s a coal wind ablowing across the shrivelling green landscape …
Pointman
One of the guests interviewed by Mr Letts was the veteran Tory politician and climate-change sceptic Peter Lilley, who proceeded to poke fun about how Met Office officials would lobby for ‘more money for bigger computers to be more precisely wrong in future’.
But when the Met Office unveiled their latest update:[Even Newer Dynamics for General atmospheric modelling of the environment (ENDGame)] they mistakenly made this comment.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/s/h/ENDGameGOVSci_v2.0.pdf
New Dynamics has served us well over more than a decade: not only have we continued to improve the skill of our large scale forecasts at the rate of 1 day lead time per decade (so for example today’s 3 day forecast is as accurate as the 2 day forecast was 10 years ago) but we have seen the introduction of a very high resolution (1-1/2 km) model over the UK which provides unprecedented levels of detail to our forecasters.
So at this rate they will be able to get a 7 day forecast just a accurate at the 2 day forecast in only 40 more years. Now if they could just get an accurate 2 day forecast they might have something to sell.
‘CLAIM: All that mass of ice in Greenland would some time in the future melt, meaning sea levels would rise by more than 20ft and engulf major cities …’.
=========================================
“… So far the ice cores can only provide us a glimpse into the Eemian warm period. But we can already tell that Eemian climate was significantly warmer than the climate of the current Holocene interglacial – probably about 5°C warmer. As ice from the Eemian period (albeit disturbed) has been found at all drill sites, we also know that the Greenland ice sheet did not melt away entirely during the warmth of the Eemian. Close analysis of δ18O values in the Eemian ice does indeed suggest that the Eemian Greenland ice sheet was not dramatically smaller than today …”.
http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/climatechange/glacial_interglacial/eemian/
Well, Greenland didn’t have a mass loss last year.
This year it doesn’t look like there will be much mass loss (if any).
0 GT / 320 GT/mm = 0 mm. 2.8 million GT / 0 GT/Y = a lot longer than we care to worry about.
Since the fall of 2013 Greenland has gained ice mass (at worst it has broke even):
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/pre0082-cazenavea-150721134037-lva1-app6891/95/presentday-sea-level-rise-20-638.jpg
The same site has this chart:
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/pre0082-cazenavea-150721134037-lva1-app6891/95/presentday-sea-level-rise-21-638.jpg
The first chart basically invalidates the second chart, since the melting increase was obviously a short term trend.
http://beta.dmi.dk/uploads/tx_dmidatastore/webservice/b/m/s/d/e/accumulatedsmb.png
Greenland Ice mass loss is on track for another zero loss year. 2013, 2014, 2015 = 0.
2012 had an impressive melt as did 2011. What isn’t clear is why it stopped suddenly.
Of course there are the “greenland ice melt underestimated” articles now. I guess that means 2011 and 2012 were overestimated. Why all the estimation? Why don’t they just measure it and be done with it?
The low greenland glaciers are are around 1/30th of the mass of the ice sheet. They are what is melting. The center of the ice sheet is land locked and not melting. It is the low land Himalayan glacers that are melting – the upland glaciers are expanding.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/23/global-ice-volume_n_2005861.html
If all the glaciers on the planet melted it would raise the sea level 17 inches (43 centimeters). There are 170,000 km3 of glacial ice.
Careful. Tony Heller’s DMI charts are surface ice, not mass ice. Go look up the difference. He is misrepresenting a bit. Now, the good news is that those DMI charts do also imply total Greenland mass loss was about zero in 2014, and is probably gaining mass in 2015. But not nearly as simple as you think, or Heller misrepresents.
I have been engaging David Appell off line on this topic since he inquired on my formal response to the Hansen APCD preacceptance paper. What have you all contributed?
And, if Greenland ever (it won’t ) melted, it would contribute 6.7 meters to SLR. Get your facts right, rather than discredit the rest of us lukewarmer skeptics.
The first ice mass charts were off a warmer site, they had nothing to do with Tony Heller. The GRACE and DMI stuff is all mass (GT) and clearly refers to “ice sheet”. I don’t understand the objection.
The bulk of the Greenland ice sheet is landlocked and is too high to melt – it isn’t going anywhere. The majority of Greenland ice loss is glacial calving which doesn’t apply to the core ice sheet. The Archimedes principle applies to much of the Antarctic ice sheet that can melt.
What is melting (mostly) are low land glaciers.
In theory with modern technology we should have more accurate information on ice mass loss – unfortunately it is too tiny a fraction of too big a mountain.
The Greenland Ice Sheet would raise the sea level some amount – but with isostatic adjustment it is going to be considerably less than 6 meters and the time frame will be long enough that IA will be a consideration.
Claiming that the sea level will rise 6 meters if all the Greenland Ice Sheet melts tomorrow is like saying the earth will be warmer if a Mars sized impactor strikes us. Sure – it is true – but discussing things that are about as likely as winning the lottery is a fundamental waste of time.
The climate change people need to focus on real problems, they clearly have too much time on their hands and a lousy sense of priorities. That they overestimate CO2 forcing by a factor of 3 (22 PPM = 0.2 W/m2 is 1.05 W/m2 since 1900), isn’t the biggest problem that they have – but it is a problem.
Planet Earth is a water world inhabited by carbon life forms, the plant species of which lives off photosynthesising CO2..
The main by products of burning coal is CO2 and water. What is there not to like about that? After all, it supplies the two most essential ingredients for life on this planet of ours!
Coal is truly a marvel, and the developed world and the life style of those lucky enough to live in developed countries which life style is taken for granted has been built on the back of coal.
Yeah and coal came out of the atmosphere this way.
Well…
The precambian CO2 level was 30,000 PPM. And was in equilibrium for 4 billion years (and that doesn’t include the CO or the methane).
http://deforestation.geologist-1011.net
The 280 PPM CO2 level had the plants choking to death and running scared. That is why there has been 55% more plant growth since 1900. The rainforest destruction released about 180 GT of carbon and destroyed about 40 GT/Y of carbon sinking.
So… most of the CO2 in the atmosphere is due to rainforest destruction and warming, not emissions. It sort of is what it is. We would have more impact sniping the rainforest burners than reducing carbon emissions. Burning rainforest is a double whammy – it emits carbon and destroys sinking at the same time.
I am not sure that CO2 was that high.
Obviously with proxy evidence there are large error bounds, and the estimates I have seen are more in the range of 8,000 to 10,000 ppm, although I do recall seeing estimates as high as 14,000ppm.
If CO2 was about 260ppm, prior to industrialisation, then CO2 was critically low. If it fell much lower, it would have had serious consequences for all land based life on this planet of ours. Our forefathers did us a favour in digging up coal and burning it.
As you say, due to the increase in CO2, the planet is greening and greening at a rate faster than man de-forests. This was not expected and the size of the CO2 global sink is expanding.
Deforestation and slash and burning is probably a greater factor than burning coal, gas and oil. Unfortunately, the point you make about double whammy applies to the drive towards biomass since we are cutting down virgin forest and not replanting to supply some of the biomass.
Biomass (because of its lower calorific value) produces more CO2 per unit of electricity when compared to coal and by cutting down virgin forest, we are reducing the carbon sink. Unfortunately the ‘greens’ fail to properly understand the travesty of the drive towards biomass.
“then CO2 was critically low. If it fell much lower, it would have had serious consequences for all land based life on this planet of ours.”
If you look at those saw-tooth diagrams you will see it that it did drop lower.. then plant life dies, and released some CO2 for the next peak. Classic “short food supply” or “predator/prey” response.
The world’s plant life has been on a knife edge of survival for hundreds of thousands of years.
Mankind’s release of sequester carbon, back into the shorter term carbon cycle, has literally SAVED THE PLANET !!!
richard verney August 8, 2015 at 1:56 am
I am not sure that CO2 was that high.
All the charts start with the Cambrian (about 550 million years ago) and are just about recent history.
http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C01/E4-03-08-02.pdf
“Two billion years ago, the Earth’s atmosphere consisted of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonium, with little or no free oxygen…
It is suggested that in the early Precambrian time, atmospheric carbon dioxide cycle was analogous to the modern one with CO2 mass 100 or more times exceeding the modern.”
For 80% of the planets history the atmosphere was more than 30,000 PPM of CO2. There wasn’t any nitrogen or oxygen (over 99% of the modern atmosphere didn’t exist), yet the atmospheric pressure was substantially the same.
The switch to ‘renewable’ energy does not reduce CO2 emissions. How is that possible?
How is it possible that the US Democratic party does not understand that it is fact that the switch to ‘renewable’ energy does not reduce CO2 emissions and that the switch to green scams will waste an immense amount of money that the US does not have to waste.
Bill Gates cares about facts and cares about people, unlike the US Democrat party and the green scam pushers. Why does Bill (Bill Gates is a good guy) make the below statement?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-renewable-energy-fantasy-1436104555
1) Starting point:
Coal burning power plants
2) Forced moves and expenditures to implement green scams
A) Destroy coal burning power plant which are located near power demand locations.
B) Install single pass natural gas power plants to meet complete system needs (note single pass natural gas power plants are 20% less efficient than combined cycle natural gas plants however combined cycle natural power plants require 10 hours to start and hence cannot be operated on/off/on/off/on/off/on/off and must be left on.)
C) Install wind turbines and solar power to meet 100% of system needs for 20% of the time. As the sun does not shine at night and the wind does not always blow this will based on Germany’s experience provide 20% of the continuous energy needs on an average basis. Note five times more installed green scam kit is required to produce 20% of the electrical grid energy and 100% natural gas power is required for backup.
Due to the above engineering reality there is twice as much kit to provide electrical needs, not including the new super high voltage DC power lines and AC to DC and DC to AC conversion center and the new natural gas pipelines.
Wind power varies as the cube of wind speed so a wind farm output can and does vary 30% in hour and varies from 0 to 100%. Single pass natural gas power plants are will need to be turned on/off/off/on/off/on/off and so on which results in roughly an additional 10% energy loss and results in reduced life of the gas turbines.
Install new super high DC voltage power lines to transport wind and solar power to the regions that require it. Long distance electrical transport results in roughly 30% energy losses.
Install gas pipelines to power natural gas power plants. Note in Europe due to the extremely long distances the energy to transport the natural gas is more than 30% of the delivered energy. It would hence make no CO2 difference to burn coal rather than natural gas in Europe. Liquefying natural gas also requires roughly 30% of the delivered energy to liquefy and evaporate the liquid for transport.
If the energy to construct and to run the above is include there is no CO2 benefit to use green scams.
As the green scam energy increases beyond around 10% to 15% average of nameplate it is no longer possible to use combined cycle gas power plants in the grid. The combine cycle power plants are 20% more efficient than single cycle gas power plants but require 10 hours to start and must hence be left on for weeks. The 20% less efficient single cycle gas power plants can be shut on/off/on/off/off although there is a loss in efficiency for the roughly hour as they come up to temperature.
The wind power scam propaganda notes the wind power nameplate power which is the maximum output of the wind farm. Germany average wind power output is less than 20% of nameplate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/
Since this was all done non-legislatively by the present US president, It just takes ONE Republican president to reverse course on all of this. And since many of the changes are likely to be tied up in court (except for the agreeing greenie states), the odds of getting that Republican president in time to prevent much of the incurred economic hardship are quite good.
The problem, and the Watermelons and their EPA co-conspirators know this, is that energy companies must make long-range plans 20 years out to bringing a new large coal fired plant on line.
Even in a permissive environment, the regulatory permitting process at the local, state, federal level begins 5-7 years before a shovel is turned. Rail lines must be built to bring coal from colliery/port delivery point. Water access for cooling must be obtained/permitted. Safe disposal of fly ash is huge concern.
And if they can bankrupt the coal producers today. It would take a generation to restart mines.
Well, it would be helpful to have accurate information on the pollution and energy cost of creating renewable energy hardware.
The energy from renewables is only available about 1/4 of the time and is only worth 1/2 as much because it is available at the wrong time (nondispatchable). Anyone familiar with supply and demand knows that when there is a supply and no demand – the item isn’t worth much.
So – take the cost and pollution per KWh, multiply by 8, and compare to fossil fuel. The reality is there isn’t a lot of difference in pollution and the cost is much higher. Which raises the question of why people are so hot for renewables – unless they have lots of green investments in their portfolio..
Well, naturally, other countries are going to take advantage of affordable power. Just because we hamstring ourselves, and throw away every possible advantage, we can’t expect others to be as stupid.
Please be aware that the Brits know exactly how to translate the Met Office forecasts – if its a long range forecast it will be the opposite of what they say . Imagine how confusing it would be if we had to change this ‘secret’ method of forecasting which was developed during WW 2 to confuse the Germans – its always worked perfectly so absolutely no need to change it now . lol !
As far as I am concerned the Met office can close tomorrow. I use the Norwegian met office app, ‘YR’. It is more accurate at the local level in the UK than the BBC app run by the Met office, especially on hourly rainfall and wind strength – both of critical importance to fair weather golfers like me.
Somehow, we have to help the countries like Australia, Canada, India, Japan keep up their courageous resistance until sanity can be restored. These countries are facing mountains of criticism and risk, through WTO and other international roadblocks to trade. Tried and true anti-dumping provisions will most certainly be applied to such countries calling a sane energy technology a ‘subsidy’. China has a get out of jail free card until 2030, but new 600MW coal plant additions every 10 days until 2030 will probably pretty much use up their best coal reserves anyway. You can be sure they negotiated with a witless US pres with the background knowledge of their cheaply exploitable coal reserves. China is making no concessions whatsoever and the US knows it. The Dem/zoshulists don’t really care. They make everything win win by spin spin.
I have an idea.
Australia has vast amounts of unused land , mainly due to a lack of water.
I propose a solution to world carbon dioxide storage using this resource.
Step one involves desalinating sea water and pumping it inland .
Step two , we use the water and available land to grow plantations of trees.
Step three is havesting and using the trees for construction.
But here is the cleaver bit.
Australia convinces the rest of the world to pay for all the infrastructure and construction costs.
At least this way the world will have some trees to look at for all the money they spend , intead of the rusting hulks of windturbines.
And the birds and bats don’t need to get diced in the process..
An analogy would include those other criminals, the USSA Federal Reserve pumping trillions of $$ into the economy for no discernible improvement. And we humans emitting plant food by the billions of tonnes for no discernible warming. Gradually the mainstream media are waking up to both.
From that lover of all things Alamist (The Gruniad) come this nugget:
Obama wants to permanently cripple the US economy for what??? His promised transformation, of course.
Somebody should tell this to the New Zealand government, which has just announced the closure of the last 2 coal-fired power plants on the basis that coal mining as an industry cannot survive due to falling world prices. I’d suggest we mothball them, to await the inevitable demand from China, etc.
Meanwhile, 1200 new coal-fired power plants are on the drawing board so other more knowledgeable nations are moving away from heavily-subsidised solar and wind power. Even Europe has realised the stupidity of their recent developments, and are removing subsidies as fast as they dare. I just hope, when the time comes, those bird-choppers are removed at the expense of those promoting them in order to receive subsidies.
Some of the new coal plants in China are intended as replacements for existing dirty/inefficient coal plants.
riveting review of Radio 4’s “What’s the point of… the Met Office?” by William Connolley! lol.
ScienceBlogs: Is Quentin Letts a tosser?
Posted by William M. Connolley on August 7, 2015
And QL’s offence is What’s the point of… the Met Office?…
…and makes the usual tedious jokes about forecasting…
I started skipping a bit cos it got boring…
It got somewhat boring after that and I stopped listening carefully…
Speaking of which, what the question, again? Oh yes: QL: tosser or not? Pffft, who cares? R4 abandoned its cultural mission years ago in favour of entertainment; if you want climate science do what everyone else ought to and read the IPCC, or wiki, or RC.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/08/07/is-quentin-letts-a-tosser/
When did surveys become significant data points in real science?
When real science was supplanted by unfathomably power (yet utterly simple) psychological warfare.
As we all know from systems theory, to control something, one must get in the loop.
Surveys (and polls) equal getting in the loop.
Psychological warfare is used to directly attack our central nervous system.
While I’ve posted this video before, I find it to be very profound (but a bit challenging to follow because it is very rich), so I offer it again:
Tavistock Agenda
Max Photon
That video is not “profound”: it is ludicrous paranoid delusion.
In this thread, only the post from Village Idiot is more ridiculous.
Richard
Hey, if I’m a runner up to Village Idiot, all it means is that I have more work to do.
Thanks for you love and support!
BREAKING NEWS.
In light of the new survey, the IPCC has requested that the term “the science is settled” not be used anymore and that it should be replaced by “Science of Climate Almost Mastered” but have requested not to use it as an acronym.
Old King Coal
Was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
His main aim in life
Was to relieve poor people’s strife,
And provide them
With cheap energy.
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/enrichment-through-environmental-stealth/
I have problems with the whole “CO2 causes problems for shellfish” idea. When CO2 was 4,000 ppm the sea was simply full of gigantic shellfish.
Cameroceras comes to mind for a start. Or am I missing something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroceras
is that Piers Corbyn in that picture ??
?w=1200&h=858
And wait until the Africa nations realise that they are being glossed over and conned..
It will be a coal free-for-all !! 🙂
They won’t be looking to the world bank for funds, China will be more than happy to accommodate them. 🙂
Another winter with temps below 10C here in tropical Australia, despite a continuing el nino. When the next little ice age finally gets a grip, I’ll be laughing, but I’ll also pity all those who are suffering and cannot afford electricity to heat their homes.
There are rumblings that “climate change” is going to be made a key issue by the Dems during this election. This, despite the fact that polls show few people really care about it, so that could blow up in their faces. I just hope the Repubs are willing and able to push back, hard, on that. The two Big Lies they’ll use is that “the science” is behind them, and that even if it wasn’t, “green” energy will be good for the economy, and for the country.
In 2007 only 2 pct of India homes had air conditioning. What could it be now ? Maybe 4 pct. There will be massive demand of ac in emerging economies. Where is energy going to come from ? Not only is ac consumer driven but business productivity needs ac. Workers don’t work as well in 100 degree temp.
What if Australia, usa , Germany etc ban export of coal ?
Indonesia has plenty ! 🙂
In fact , they overtook Australia in 2013 to now be the third biggest coal producer.
Reblogged this on Daily Browse and commented:
EPA-Obama’s meaningless war CO2 will hurt the poor more than anyone else. When energy costs go up something else has to go down, usually it’s wages (fewer workers or no raises). If cuts are not possible then prices go up. Either way the poor, working poor and middle class suffer the most.
Whenever large industrial sites shut down there is usually a buyer for key equipment. Where will the equipment from shuttered U.S. coal power plants go? And I assume no one wants the overpriced scrubbers.
Well…. I say, this is an absolutely terrific work of fiction, particularly regarding point 3 by JoNova. The way that the original data release has been re-written and mis-represented here is really quite astounding.
If you refer to the original document, then it is clear that the results of the survey have been mis-reported here. In fact, Bart Verheggen, who happens to be the second author on the original document, has written a post on his blog, describing the actual results of the survey:
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/pbl-survey-shows-strong-scientific-consensus-that-global-warming-is-largely-driven-by-greenhouse-gases/
In Bart’s words:
“…our survey results show a strong scientific consensus that global warming is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases”.
“This consensus strengthens with increased expertise, as defined by the number of self-reported articles in the peer-reviewed literature.”
And why on earth are the results of the survey, which was conducted in 2012, being compared to a statement from AR5, which was not published until 2013?
JoNova is trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and it would seem as though she is being quite successful. I encourage everyone to not read this article blindly, but to refer to the source document and draw your own conclusions from the data.
Heh, ‘largely’ writ large, ’til you read the fine print. Neither you, nor any one, climate scientist or not, knows what the sensitivity is, and thus the contribution of man.
And you want to talk about wool being pulled over eyes. In the land of unknown sensitivity, the one-minded IPCC is King. Nekkid, yeah, but King.
Comes the revolution.
===============
Thousands of climate scientists contribute to the IPCC reports. The IPCC is intergovernmental, and is therefore not policy prescriptive. It does not carry out it’s own research or collect any climate data, but bases it’s reports on the peer reviewed published literature. The reports are largely written by volunteers from the climate science community, who do not get paid extra for their efforts. The IPCC is completely open about it’s sources of funding, which comes from the United Nations, the World Meteorological Organization, and from national governments.
There have been numerous independent investigations into the IPCC reports, some of which have found issues with the IPCC process, but all have found the overall underlying science to be robust.
The IPCC is endorsed by numerous science academies and institutions, including NOAA, the UK Met Office, the Royal Met Society and EGU.
Therefore, I find your conclusion that the IPCC is a ‘one-minded Nekkid King’ rather amusing!
The higher the sensitivity, the colder we would now be without man’s efforts. I see goosebumps on the King’s bare ass.
======================
Note the bizarre one-mindedness of increased confidence in attribution despite no such evidence. Quite mad, that King.
========================
You, full of unnecessary and destructive alarum, have nothing but mistaken authority.
Hey, the theatre is crowded; stop yelling ‘FIRE’!
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