Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In her always interesting blog, Dr. Judith Curry [and Anthony at WUWT] points to a very well-researched article by Bjorn Lomborg, peer-reviewed, entitled “Impact of Current Climate Proposals” (full text).
He has repeated the work that Tom Wigley did for the previous IPCC report. There is a simplified climate model called “MAGICC” which is used extensively by the IPCC. It can be set up to emulate the results of any of the climate models used by the IPCC, including their average results, by merely changing the MAGICC settings. This lets us figure out how much cooling we can expect from a variety of programs that promise to reduce CO2.
The abstract of the paper says (emphasis and formatting mine):
This article investigates the temperature reduction impact of major climate policy proposals implemented by 2030, using the standard MAGICC climate model. Even optimistically assuming that promised emission cuts are maintained throughout the century, the impacts are generally small.
- The impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100.
- The full US promise for the COP21 climate conference in Paris, its so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) will reduce temperature rise by 0.031°C.
- The EU 20-20 policy has an impact of 0.026°C, the EU INDC 0.053°C, and China INDC 0.048°C.
- All climate policies by the US, China, the EU and the rest of the world, implemented from the early 2000s to 2030 and sustained through the century will likely reduce global temperature rise about 0.17°C in 2100.
These impact estimates are robust to different calibrations of climate sensitivity, carbon cycling and different climate scenarios. Current climate policy promises will do little to stabilize the climate and their impact will be undetectable for many decades.
Note that in all cases, these are the optimistic numbers, in which the supposed reductions in CO2 emissions are assumed to continue after 2030 all the way until 2100.
Of particular interest to me was the impact of the Obama War On Coal, or as it is known, the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP). Even if we can implement it, and then assuming we can follow it until 2100, the total reduction in temperature rise is estimated to be 0.013°C.
Now, that’s a bit over a hundredth of a degree Celsius. The problem is, nobody has a good handle on just how small that reduction in temperature actually is, because we have nothing to compare it to. Even fever thermometers only measure to a tenth of a degree. Casting about to rephrase this number in units that might be more understandable than hundredths of a degree, I remembered the old rule of thumb about how much the air cools off as you climb a mountain. Everyone knows that as you go up a mountain, the air gets cooler. The rate at which non-condensing air cools with increasing altitude is called the “dry adiabatic lapse rate”. The rule of thumb states that for every hundred metres higher that you climb, the temperature drops by 1°C.
Now, a human being is typically around 1.7 metres tall, plus or minus. This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your feet. And recall from above that the “impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100” …
Which means that after spending billions of dollars and destroying valuable power plants and reducing our energy options and making us more dependent on Middle East oil, all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads … I am overcome with gratitude for such a stupendous accomplishment.
Seriously. The sum total of the entire restructuring of the US energy production will be to make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads.
Now, at this point the advocates of the policy often say something like “Yes, but this is just the first step. Wait until the other nations get so amazed at the damage we’re doing to our own economy that they all want to sign on and do the same”. Of course they don’t put it honestly like that, but their belief is that if the US gets stupid, everyone will follow our lead. I don’t believe it for one minute, no matter how much they SAY that they will come to the party, but let’s imagine that fairy tale to be true.
Well, Lomborg calculated that as well. He used MAGICC to compute the combined effect of the CO2 promises of the whole world, and the answer was 0.17°C of cooling by 2100 in the optimistic scenario, where everyone not only meets their promised reductions but holds to them from 2030 to 2100.
And the number for what Lomborg calls the “pessimistic” scenario, but which might more accurately be called the “realistic” scenario, is a reduction in warming of 0.05°C (see his Table 1).
And this in turn is equivalent to the difference in temperature that you’d get from walking five metres higher on the hillside. You know, like when you say “it’s so hot here, I think I’ll walk up the hill the equivalent of two flights of stairs so I’m five metres higher, and I’ll be cooler by five hundredths of a degree” …
In any case, the MAGICC results are what are used by the IPCC, so there you have it. If everything that the politicians in Paris are promising comes to pass, it will make a difference of between five hundredths and seventeen hundredths of a degree by 2100 … at an astronomical price, billions and billions of dollar globally.
Sigh … an astronomically large price for an unmeasurably small cooling. Freakin’ brilliant. This is what passes for the peak of “responsible” scientific thought these days about the climate, but to me, it’s just the height of temperature folly.
Best of the autumn days to everyone,
w.
AS USUAL: If you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words you disagree with. This lets everyone understand exactly what you are objecting to.
Note: Willis was apparently reading Curry’s article while the WUWT article from Lomborg posted, so I added a link in the first paragraph -Anthony
Now that’s amazing…if we keep burning coal the planet will heat up until we all fry
..but if we stop….it does nothing
Thankfully we live in a free country so people that don’t like it…can freely leave and go somewhere they do like
…and I wish they would
The treaty of Versailles, almost 100 years ago demanded reparations be paid for damages of the WW1. Many consider this the precursor to WW2. The likelihood of the Paris Treaty aspirations seriously destabilizing the politics of the entire globe is, in my view, much greater than many perceived benefits.
What is the warning due to WW3? You don’t need a computer model.
What are the motives of these fools?
Typos:
many s/b any,
warning S/b warming.
Sorry.
Actually, the only way that CO2 emissions can be reduced is to create WW3. Decimate the world population, and eliminate all technologies developed in the last 250 years starting with the steam engine. Life expectancy for the remaining folks would be pretty low. Any plan that does not approximate this won’t do anything significant to change the climate — even if you believe that global warming exists and is caused by CO2. Why do people want to destroy the world in the name of saving it?
Their motives are clearly to give the UN a toehold into controlling the world economy by regulating the most fundamental part of the economy: energy. This is clearly their motive because their proposals achieve this, but achieve almost nothing with regard to the climate. This toehold would be a giant step toward turning the UN into a world wide government. Unfortunately, there is a large cadre of fools who think that somehow a world wide government would solve all of our problems. Of course, everything in history suggests just the opposite, but how can you let those ugly facts interfere with their beautiful vision?
if we keep burning coal the planet will heat up until we all fry
===============
are you sure it isn’t God’s punishment for the sin of using fossil fuel? or maybe it is witches. or the boogeyman under the bed.
the problem with averages is they are misleading. global warming mostly warms cold places, not warm places. the poles get warmer while the tropics remain the same. the nights get warmer while the days stay the same.
so all that happens when CO2 increases is that it becomes more comfortable to live on planet earth. and since governments rarely are happy when the citizens are happy, this cannot be allowed.
Well put Ferd. A pity more people cannot be made to understand this simple truth. Unfortunately, it does not make a good headline for the nightly news, so gets absolutely no coverage.
Are you guys taking those funny pills again?
funny pills
=========
lat, one thing I learned from 20 years sailing the high seas. if you sit outside in the tropics on the ocean, at night, naked, and there is the slightest breeze, you will be cold. and this is the tropics. Everywhere else you risk death from exposure.
so when someone tells me there is global warming, I say “about friggin’ time”.
Humans are specifically adapted to warm climates. Everything about us. We cannot survive in temperatures less than 27C without technology. We die of exposure almost everywhere on earth, where the average temperature is 15C. A death sentence for any human removed from technology.
So when someone says we will fry, I know they lack experience. With water and shade a human can survive the hottest climates on earth, much better than almost any other species.
What’s the difference?
“are you sure it isn’t God’s punishment..”
More likely God has put fossil fuels here to get us out of our wattle-and-daub huts and set us toward some higher purpose of His.
That witch turned me into a CO2 (newt), but I got better.
To ferd berple on November 10, 2015 at 2:49 pm
Excellent observations. Please see our article on Excess Winter Mortality at
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
Excerpt”
“Contrary to popular belief, Earth is colder-than-optimum for human survival. A warmer world, such as was experienced during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, is expected to lower winter deaths and a colder world like the Little Ice Age will increase winter mortality, absent adaptive measures. These conclusions have been known for many decades, based on national mortality statistics.
,,,
In Europe, where green energy schemes have been widely implemented, the result is higher energy costs that are unaffordable for the elderly and the poor, and increased winter deaths. European politicians are retreating from highly-subsidized green energy schemes and returning to fossil fuels. When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.”
Given that this climate insanity is just one aspect of the political insanity ruining this nation, well, I would love to leave. Unfortunately the current level of this pandemic has infected the world. Please, just give me one sane place to go…………
Cuba? Or North Korea
Never before in history of mankind have we spent so much for so little?
This is not about climate change. This is cultural Marxism and It’s about radical change of Weatern society.
Western
So when someone says we will fry,…..and you don’t get the joke!
and I do live outside, in the tropics….out on a island in the middle of the ocean
is it expensive? private?
“This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your head.”
This would make a little more sense if the second head would be feet.
Fixed, thanks.
w.
Willis, aren’t the MAGICC results using RCP8.5 for “business as usual” (that’s how they get to 4-5 degrees C of warming) when observations show a more rational “business as usual” would be RCP4.5 or RCP6? That would almost halve the potential worst case warming, so the more apt comparison might be “the air at your waist” compared to the “air at your feet”.
Ooops…..”This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your head.”
Considering what I think of liberals, insinuating that they might be two headed is probably a compliment !!!!
That would be the air “in” their head.
Multifaced for sure
The second “head” should read “feet”
Willis, excellent analysis as always, but they’re model is called “MAGICC”? LOL. Seriously? You just can’t make this sh!t up.
http://www.magicc.org/
I sincerely disagree with this comment :
“And the number for what Lomborg calls the “pessimistic” scenario, but which might more accurately be called the “realistic” scenario, is a reduction in warming of 0.08°C”
There actually has to be some man made warming before you can reduce it !!!!
This just in: climate change will make your genitals disappear.
So that’s what happened..glad I can blame it on something !!!!
Oh! I’ve been blaming ageing for that.
“It’s twuuue, it’s twuuue!”
Just ask Bruce Jenner.
No. It was the food. He ate his Wheaties.
It took me about 15 minutes before I noticed the Vitruvian man without his nuts.
Leonardo drew better.
Hugs November 10, 2015 at 11:23 am
Thanks, Hugs. I wondered when someone would notice. Yeah, I gotta confess that I gelded the poor guy in the name of being a family-friendly website. Not that I care in the slightest, but I know that there are folks that do.
w.
Catastrophic climate change strikes again!
Maybe he’s the running man. My grandfather was a race horse trainer and said some horses ran faster when gelded.
Willis- “I gelded the poor guy..” So you were just illustrating the typical alarmist, no problem.
How is gelding him family friendly? Now he can’t have a family… having said that, this is what the Greens want, yes?
I think you spoil people by providing them a tuned reality. From the biblical point of view, I’d say it is not the problem what you hear or see, it is what you say and how you look. People put trousers on *other* people because they can’t stop thinking about sex, right?
“some horses ran faster when gelded”
Unfortunately for them it was too late, as it will likely be for all of us too.
only if it gets really really cold!
“…than the air at your …(feet?)”
Willis, the only issue that I take with your analysis, and Lomborg’s is accepting the Magicc results despite clear evidence (plentiful in both your writings) that they are oversensitive and significantly overestimate the warming due to CO2. While there are no really had numbers, I have heard factors suggested somewhere between 2 and 10. Now, I understand your rationale. Using the IPCC’s own data against them and not wanting to cloud the debate with complexities, and I would probably do the same in your shoes.
However, it does need to be pointed out that these miniscule numbers are demonstratably OVERESTIMATED. It’s not the difference between your head and your feet, but your feet and your waist, or perhaps your knee, and the effect of the whole world’s efforts aren’t like going up a small hill, but going up one floor in your house.
It simply serves to make even more of a mockery of this whole effort.
benofhouston November 10, 2015 at 10:00 am
Thanks, Ben. You’ll notice in the Lomborg paper that he set the climate sensitivity to 3°C / 2XCO2 for the same reason, so that nobody could whine about minimizing the results. So yes, the “optimistic” scenario is most definitely a MAXIMUM possible value given the most optimistic assumptions (including that the reduction is carried on until the year 2100). So yes, the values are overestimated … and even then they are minuscule.
w.
Miniscule indeed. Note that NOAA (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201509) show the global temperature as ± 0.10 °C. They can’t even measure the change that they claim they can make over nearly a century!
I think you are mistaking the political argument for science. Since the numbers are completely manufactured from whole cloth, they can declare improvement or even victory simply by manufacturing new numbers that say so. honestly, there seems to be no accountability left that makes a dent. There is no real consequence for fabricating, as they control the “peer review” and the power and money now drives the science, discussion and debate.The actual science is indisputable, and yet they remain to all appearances not just unsullied but as strong as ever? I do not see how this ever ends well.
Well, when we take their numbers and point out how ludicrous it is, then we undermine their power base. They can’t claim victory if the people they are talking to understand that the gains are meaningless.
Satire and ridicule has always been the strongest weapon of the weak against the powerful
I think it gives too much credit to even call it a political argument. What it resembles is a theological argument based on magic in a new religion.
For the sake of others. Have someone proof read “the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your head.”
And here we all thought that hot flashes and flushed faces were due to hormones, but now it’s due to the microclimatology of global warming.
it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and seventeen hundredths of a degree by 2100
===================
yet this is exactly what the mainstream climate scientists are proposing as a solution. is it any wonder that climate models do such a poor job of forecasting the future that they no longer call the results predictions. Rather, they call them projections, which implies they have no predictive skill.
Right you are. Most importantly, from a legal point of view, a projection means nothing. They are not risking anything, not even their grant money, if they are shown wrong. To bolster their defenses even further, their projections are for year 2100, when their grant money will be safely used for the benefit of their gifted heirs.
Shouldn’t that .17C already be adjusted to .29C Willis? Karl Et al added .12 just a few months ago alone.
What is the actual cumulative effect of the temperature dataset adjustments anyhow if we baseline at 1880? I can’t find a definitive answer anywhere.
Go to Steven Goddard’s site (tony heller)
I have yet to see anyone quantify, in total, the impact of adjustments made to the terrestrial temperature datasets starting from the 1880’s forward. That includes Tony.
It is not possible, as you would have to carry 1880 methods and stations forward to now with no variance.
Might be interesting to try though.
Wikipedia gives the lapse rate as 0.64degC per 100m rather than 1.00. This means that the projected saving in warming corresponds to one and a half human’s height instead of 1!
BTW note that the figure in Lomberg’s posting shows 4degC of warming by 2100, which also isn’t credible given recent lower estimates of climate sensitivity.
Rich.
Not this Wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
According to the Wiki entry: “Although the actual atmospheric lapse rate varies, under normal atmospheric conditions the average atmospheric lapse rate results in a temperature decrease of 6.4 °C/km (3.5 °F or 1.95 °C/1,000 ft) of altitude above ground level.”… is 0.64 C/100 m… which is about 1 deg F/100m. But 0.17 C anywhere but a specialized lab is exactly nothing and 0.08 C is exactly nothing more precisely.
>>Wikipedia gives the lapse rate as 0.64degC per 100m rather than 1.00.
That is the saturated adiabatic lapse rate. In aviation terms it is:
Dry adiabatic: 3ºc per 1000′.
Wet adiabatic: 2ºc per 1000′.
Note that aviation has metrological schizophrenia.
Ralph
+20.
Aviation probably doesn’t care about temperature scales, but it cares massively about height scales because of the safety implications. And since the Americans and British led aviation (I’ll chauvinistically ignore Bleriot, but good to use a French word whilst doing so), and because a thousand feet is actually a convenient height difference to separate planes, “thou” or “thousand” is still the universal metric, um, I meant yardscale.
Rich.
But where people live, is not dry. It is somewhere in between.
But of course, it would not matter whether the optimistic reduction were not 0.5 or 0.17, or 0.1degC, it is clearly not worth spending such money (and reaping such havoc on our way of life) for so little return.
And of course, this does not take into account the fact that CO2 may at today’s level do nothing, nor that a warming world would be a net benefit. We might be committed to spending all this money so as not to reap the benefits that a warmer (and CO2 richer)world would bring to us.
However, one looks at it, it is pure madness.
>>Wikipedia gives the lapse rate as 0.64degC per 100m rather than 1.00.
Amendment…
Dry adiabatic: 3ºc per 1000′.
Mean adiabatic: 2ºc per 1000′.
Wet adiabatic: 1.5ºc per 1000′.
Ralph
Besides going up in altitude to achieve a lower temperature, we could also move North. If the tropics are at, say 30 C and the Arctic is 0 C, then dividing by about 6000 miles gives us a temperature drop of 0.005 C per mile. So moving North about 3.4 miles will have the same effect by 2100 as the gigaton decreases in CO2. Or anyone in California could move to San Francisco and REALLY cool off!
Thanks. That’s a meaningful (yet meaningless,) comparison to which people can actually relate.
Sorry, the comparison isn’t meaningless, just the concept of CAGW is meaningless.
In same fashion, Winter snow lines advance in Fall and retreat in Spring at rate of ~15 miles per day.
If we save our $Trillions and do absolutely nothing, we’ll end up with almost eleven hours less of Winter each year.
2(3.4/15miles)x24 hrs.=10.88 hrs.
There’s a scariness factor for you.
I do like the plan of measuring the change as to how far north you’d have to move. Here are some firmer numbers. The CERES data says that the average temperature change with latitude equator to pole in the Northern Hemisphere is about 0.5°C per degree of latitude.
A degree of latitude is exactly 60 nautical miles, or about 111 km. This gives us a temperature drop of 0.0045°C per km. The “optimistic” temperature drop from Obama’s War On Coal is .017°C, which equates to moving 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north.
Of course, this is latitude-dependent. Where I live, at 38°N, the temperature is dropping faster. It’s falling at about 0.75°C per degree of latitude. So that means I’d only have to move 2.5 km (a mile and a half) north to get the full effect of the temperature change from the War On Coal.
Best regards,
w.
Let’s move Hollywood north! Or simply away!
I calculate it as the same as an 80kg human drinking 68ml of iced beer (1/7 of a pint)
@Curious George,
Actually, Hollywood and in fact most of LA is moving NNW, just vary slowly. In a million years or so, Hollywood will be a suburb of Anchorage. 🙂
Willis – Thanks for another great post.
I agree it’s good to express the projected avoided warming in terms of how far north you’d have to go to get the same effect. There are different ways to calculate that. The way I did it, the cumulative projected effect of the Clean Power Plan is equivalent to going north less than a mile.
To translate the 0.017 degrees Celsius of the Clean Power Plan into miles, I compared Oklahoma City (average temp 61.4 degrees F) and Omaha (average temp 51.05 degrees F, which becomes 50.66 after adjusting for the 111 foot difference in elevation at 3.5 degrees F per 1000 feet). Omaha is 347 miles further north than Oklahoma City which suggests 347/(61.4-50.66) = 32.3 miles per degree F. 0.017 degrees C is 0.0306 degrees F, leading to a 0.988 mile move north for the equivalent effect of the Clean Power Plan (using highly optimistic alarmist assumptions).
Of course, the coal mines are unlikely to leave the coal in the ground (they’ll probably sell it to the Chinese who will burn more fuel shipping it and burn it less cleanly). And, the alarmist assumptions include exaggerated warming amplification by positive feedback.
A little thought experiment on the “the consequences of the beyond-two-degree inferno.”
Sioux Falls, SD Annual Average Temperature: 45.6°F or 7.6 °C
Lincoln, NE Annual Average Temperature: 51.5°F or 10.8 °C
Iowa City, IA Annual Average Temperature: 51.2°F or 10.7 °C
Sioux Falls to Lincoln is 236 miles by road.
Sorry to hear everyone has died there with this 3 degree average increase.
Although I have heard there may still be people living in KC, but we know Alarmist must be lying at +6 degrees
Kansas City, MO Annual Average temperature: 56.7°F or 13.7 °C
And the devil must now be mayor in the hell town.
San Antonio, TX Annual Average temperature: 68.7°F or 20.4 °C
all data from – http://www.usclimatedata.com/
Another marvelous example of temperate reality bersis climate nonsense. My personal favorite was April in Boston, courtesy of Richard Lindzen, taken directly from the Boston Globe. Reproduced in the climate chapter of The Arts of Truth.
Yoiks! You want to wreck San Francisco by moving all the LA gang there??? 🙂
A wonderful comparison.
Few Londoners will realise they can experience half the worrying change prophesied for a 2℃ rise in global temperature, simply by going to the top of Big Ben.
……. and then descending to ground level.
Joe Public
The UK govt reckons that their mitigation efforts, as a result of the climate change act, will reduce temperatures by the year 2100 by two thousandths of a degree and cost 32 billion pounds according to Lord Stern.
As we don’t know what to do with all our money I am sure you will agree that this is a very good use for this borrowd money. Otherwise we might spend it on something pointless like power stations and hospitals…
Tonyb
Tony
I have seen such a claim before.
Do you have a link to a government paper/statement discussing such?
it would be useful to see it and then to write to an MP asking them to explain the economic case for spending such money to produce so little temperature reduction/ward off so little temperature rise..
Richard
Can you acknowledge that you saw this reply?
The acceptance of the figure was given by prof David mackay then chief scientist to DECC or just about to take up that position.
It can be seen in section three of my article here
http://judithcurry.com/2011/05/26/the-futility-of-carbon-reduction/
I asked a number of leading climate scientists for their estimate. Most had not even thought of doing the calculations, the couple that did agreed broadly with the figures.
Tonyb
It gets crazier by the day in the UK.
Yesterday, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change proposed that, because the UK unlikely to meet EU targets, we should consider spending tax payers money on carbon reduction projects in other countries. These will still count against our EU target.
I suppose it is better that we wreck another Nation’s economy with green schemes rather than further damage our own, but that would provide little solace for the British tax payer.
Stupidity piled upon stupidity.
It all becomes clear. I was wondering why our summer utility bill was so low. Now I know. We live on the 4th floor!
You could probably get Gore to do a swap, your apartment for his soon-to-be-flooded beachside villa. That is if you can stand a foot of water in your house and the heat stroke you will get from 0.04 Celsius global warming!
The most accurate general purpose thermometer I could find only has an accuracy of +/-0.05C. (Fisher for $405 US). But I guess they can buy the good ones with the $1,500,000,000,000 a year they have to confirm the models.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Keithley-8696-Platinum-4-wire-RTD-Air-Gas-Probe-/141788998096?hash=item21034869d0:g:lOUAAOSwajVUT7p6
4 wire RTD
0.01 Degrees
$85
Sorry, but that is only the probe. Gotta add an instrument to you pricing. And include the front end accuracy of the instrument to the probe accuracy.
David Jay in USA but really in Suzhou, China
For about $80K you should be able to measure (calculate) a 0.05C change with an FTIR pointed at the night sky. If you calibrate it very carefully.
What I envision by reading this article is someone from the Paris Climate forum going around the big room and screaming,”We want to make a pledge, I dare all of you to save the world and contribute with less warming by 2100? Me, me…and there is Chile with a new power plant!, this will contribute to .008 degrees, who else? me, me, Spain has 2 power plants and new policies! , and this is.016! C Ladies and gentleman!”, the place erupts in applause…As all of the IPPC board members smile while their brain rings the register bell
Twenty years ago, no one could have convinced me I’d be sitting aboard such a “ship of fools” as we’re all riding today. While its figurehead is surely “AGW theory”, its every fitting and finish has been warped to a state of grotesque uselessness by politically correct fashion. I believe what we have left is a submarine designed to what TV home remodeling folks assure me is the wildly popular “open concept” standard. Somewhere along the way, “must be able to float” got lost in the specifications for our ship-of-state.
Does anyone have the dollar value to achieve these 0.08-0.17 degrees C? Would be interesting to see how many millions They want to spend per 0.01 degree C
Heck, take that figure and multiply by 100 to see how many billions/trillions they would spend per 1 °C.
They .. they would spend our money.
Spare no expense when Saving The World™
Oh yeah. MAGICC: Money Aggregating Gullibility Inducing Cash Cow
Now THAT really is MAGICC.
in my organization they have recently unveiled an acronym called SCREW.
It stands for Service, Commitment…etc. All the usual bullcrap.
However, due to cost cutting I have for the last few years been primarily working alone.
So, in my mind their acronym will always stand for Solitary Confinement Reveals Everybody’s Weaknesses.
Never let a good acronym go to waste!!
It’s not that complicated.
1) Mankind’s CO2 contribution to the global CO2 balance is trivial.
2) CO2’s contribution to the global heat balance is trivial.
3) The GCM’s are useless.
A cheaper and economically more productive method than has been proposed would be to leave the coal energy plants as they are and dredge the ground up 1.7 meters higher. This would be funded by a long term stimulus plan that would provide considerable employment around the world. Since it only has to be done by 2100, it’s relatively cheap and we have cheap energy to do it with.
Thanks, Gary, your plan is great!! It not only solves the temperature problem, it solves the SEA LEVELS ARE RISING WE’RE ALL DOOMED!!! problem as well.
w.
But: sea levels are supposed to rise about 2 meters by 2100, raising the whole atmosphere some 1.4 meters, increasing temps around our heads (and at all altitudes) with 0.01 C or a comparably minuscule yet “catastrophic” amount…
ah yes, but the land is also rebounding as a result of all the ice age ice melting. so even if we do nothing the land is getting higher.
Because coastal areas will be flooded anyway, people will have to move to higher locations.
Has any scenario suggested that global mean temperature will peak somewhere below 2 C before 2100, and then head back down to “normal”? Or is all this effort just to forestall the dreaded 2 C limit for a decade or so? I mean perhaps people fortunate enough to see 2100 are nonetheless doomed by 2105.
Willis,
The first motion I put to Suffolk County Council as a brand new (and very surprised) county councillor) was about global warming and how the ambition to be the greenest county was a waste of taxpayers’ money. Suffolk’s contribution to global warming by 2080 will be the difference in temperature if one rises seven inches, the height of a small chihuahua. Fenbeagle did me a nice cartoon of The Chihuahua of Doom.
It may not have changed anything,but they still remember it and have at least a vague notion about how silly the carbon reduction business is.
JF
JF, well done on your new position and good luck getting your motion past the boneheads that grace our political chambers these days. I can only hope that you set a new standard of honest discussions with your constituents and be damned when you to be.
As I said, Satire is the greatest enemy of ridiculous and corrupt policies, especially if you don’t have to make anything up.
Julian Suffolk UK? Which ward?
Julian Flood November 10, 2015 at 11:43 am
Thanks, Julian, that’s a great tale. However, I have a hard time believing that one county could make a difference that large … you might check your figures against those of Lomborg.
Always good to hear from you,
w/
Willis, I was not on oath… if I remember correctly I used a lapse rate of 3 deg/1000′ and a sensitivity of 1.5 deg per doubling. The fiddle factor was the proportion of UK population involved and I ignored Sizewell B which cuts the footprint considerably.
It’s not really a joke. My division, Haverhill Cangle, includes some very deprived estates. This farce will,if the winter is hard, literally kill some of my residents who will make the choice to save money by not keeping warm. When I shouted across the council chamber, besides myself with rage, ‘leave my estates alone’, it was no joke.
JF
My personal experiences with my own council and its green agenda have not been all that convincing.
Here in Somerset we used to have a thriving business running from the local tip.
Items would be delivered by local people, and a huge amount would be salvaged and sold on to both members of the public and also small businesses.
Actually, during the boom years of the late 90’s and early 00’s there was an astonishing amount of very high quality goods and materials being thrown out by local householders.
A simple monetary incentive placed much of this back in the hands of local people.
Since items rarely needed more than simple repairs or relocation to an appreciative owner.
But, on a typical day a vast number of items were rescued for re-use.
As a slightly unusual example, I have a musician friend who once picked up a cello!! A cello that had been thrown out!! He reconditioned it and sold it on to a local music shop for £600.
However – in about 2004 the local council changed the tip into a “recycling centre” run by a company called Viridor, with targets to increase the quantity of recycling of goods and to measure the quantity of materials “recycled”.
The first significant change, was that the recovery and sale of goods was banned.
Cameras were installed and on one occasion the police were called when a child’s bicycle was taken from the site. Similar changes occurred elsewhere in the country at the same time.
The upshot of this is that whilst a cello arriving at the site would now be included in the tonnage weight of “recycled” timber – this is not necessarily clearly an improvement on the former arrangement.
Many local people who had subsisted on the back of money earned from repairing and reselling goods were effectively put out of business.
When I visited the site after the changes it was deeply distressing to see quality items being abandoned and crushed by a JCB.
But certainly – the officially measured “recycling” had increased.
Destroying goods could be measured so much more easily than redistributing them.
Meanwhile a local council property which cares for four or five disabled people had a gas and electricity bill of over £13,000 for ONE YEAR.
Don’t ask how I know this – but I do.
And I know why their bill is so high. They have no central heating thermostats. No ability to access the radiator valves. They cool the building by opening windows and doors at all times of the year. And they wash all clothes daily whether they are dirty or not and tumble dry all washing.
If they set out with the specific intention of wasting as much energy as possible – then I’d struggle to think how they could do a better job of it.
I could bore people on this topic forever.
Suffice to say – I have concluded that the state sector green agenda is not much more than theatre, fakery and failure. But measured failure can appear to be more effective than the invisible hand of the market. That’s the trouble with the invisible hand. It’s hard to see!!
I did a similar study showing that if Pennsylvania were to shut down all fossil fuel fired power plants, the net effect would be to reduce the CO2 concentration by 0.008 ppm. Of course, that means neighboring states that import electricity would literally be in the dark…
Having worked for a French Company in Africa for the past 17 years, the problems in the “Civilized ” world do not amaze me, the Germans going as they are are going to have an Arab President within the next ten years!
I think that that is a little bit soon, but perhaps within four generations or so (bearing in mind that German women are only having 1.67 children, and immigrants some 3 to 4.2 children), Germans will be trying to maintain a minority Government such as South Africa sought to do for so many years.
Unless something is done reasonably soon, the die will be cast.
Of course people buy this stuff … they may even imagine that it matters and that those silly politicians know something so they leave them alone, figuring they can’t do too much harm.
But remember, this is an era in which people buy books “… for Dummies.” And yes, there’s even a title “Sex for Dummies.”
Is it any wonder then that the dummies have inherited the earth?
Sex for, or with?
That’s definitely a book for burning.
Nobody should be encouraging dummies to have sex.
If they can’t work it out for themselves then we should permit them to remove themselves from the gene pool.
It may well be a slippery slope from there to the gas chambers.
But – we have to draw the line somewhere!!
Well written, thanks. How depressing.
Also note that the numbers are so small that they are far below the uncertainties in our measurements (and our measuring ability)–something important to legitimate scientists but, apparently, not to the global warming crowd. Whenever politics trumps science, we get this “facts are irrelevant” mentality.
I would like to add that Thorium reactors are not on the Green lefties wish list, the reason being that we would still have cheap reliable energy. Their thinking is negative, it is not about saving the Earth if it was they wouldn’t want ugly bird and bat slicers/fryers that deface the landscape. It is purely about control and the implementation of a world wide socialist “utopia”which they cannot get via the ballot box, because the 1st world are not stupid enough to vote in extreme left wing parties (although France did come pretty close).
This is their last chance because they have the EU and Obama on their side, this will change (hopefully), when Obama leaves office and if Cameron doesn’t take us out of the EU inspiring other countries to do the same, then the migrant issue and inevitable internal terrorist attacks will be the downfall of the EU. The fact that we do not have Australia and Canada making rational decisions is also bad news.
Sorry for those who had feelings of deja vu, this was my post in the last article, I copied and pasted it into this one, because the thought crossed my mind that surely all the delegates in Paris are not left wing control freaks. Our PM certainly isn’t, if these figures were publicised enough, they might derail the left wing agenda. There is no logic in impoverishing the first world nations on the basis of a minute increase in temperature, if the lights can be kept on for long enough to develop Thorium Reactors
Andy, I would like to know about a thorium reactor working today.
Thanks for the reply George. The theory of Thorium reactors has been around for years,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power discusses why although a working reactor was built in the early 1970’s in USA, it was never pursued because the military wanted the plutonium “waste” that came from uranium nuclear reactors. The article concludes that had Thorium research continued, USA would have been energy independent by the year 2000.
India in 2012 were ready to build one http://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/india-turns-to-thorium-as-future-reactor-fuel
My point is as follows:
The CAGW theory says that we will reach a tipping point when CO2 concentrations rise to a certain point and runaway warming will occur. I know this is nonsense as does everyone else on this website, but the politicians aren’t convinced. We are d8niers, scept!cs call us what they will, but the idea of AGW is now well entrenched in the population’s mindset. I my view the only way forward is to support what the warmists are saying, BUT with the proviso, that the small temperature increases do not justify the huge expense to mitigate them and that they are not going to take us to a tipping point within 50 years anyway and governments are willing to use the money they were using to subsidise renewals to carry out collaborative research into building thorium reactors. The lefties will show their true colours (red not green!) when they dismiss this option, the politicians and “scientists” will save face and humanity will be blessed with cheap, reliable power. A win, win situation to all except those that want to take us back to medieval times!
Contrary to all the nonsense from clueless pollies and the media coal use is booming in the developing world and will continue for a long time to come. In fact over 90% of new co2 emissions until 2040 will come from non OECD countries.( EIA)
Even OZ’s new PM Turnbull told the media that the world will still use coal and fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Here is the GWPF link about Asia’s booming use of coal———-
http://www.thegwpf.com/asia-building-500-new-coal-power-plants-this-year-alone/
As usual, good work running down the data.
It’s the argument I had in mind but was too lazy to run down the MAGICC analysis for when I instead wrote this criticism of Notre Dame University’s misplaced environmentalism. Obviously, I thereby gave Notre Dame too much credit.
“Which means that after spending billions of dollars and destroying valuable power plants and reducing our energy options and making us more dependent on Middle East oil, all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads …”
So, would it be correct then to say that we hope cooler heads prevail?
Laughed out loud at that. Thanks.
But then everybody gets cold feet
How can they make a prediction for 2100 when the models are based on expanding local weather to grids. People here are sick of the new weather reports,. They say hopeful things like a 60% chance of rain. One report was 100% chance of 50mls of rain. It was so wrong, you would not have gotten wet walking outside. These are the foolish reports that IPCC expands on?
Give me a break.
In 1998, no one could have predicted the plateauing of temperature for the next 17 years but these scammers want us to believe they can predict to the nearest thousandth of a degree?
“This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your feet.”
Depends on the time of day, Tmin at 5cm could be 5°C below Tmin at 2 meters.
Ignoring ground effects and changes in convection, of course. Every analogy has it’s weaknesses.
No need to worry. Models by many like Vukcevic forecast a comming cooling by 2030. That should cool them off before 2100. My worry is that they’ll take credit for it.
Yes, but you’re all forgetting the new killer – HAZE. Aaaarrgh.
It’s only Model Haze.
Model haze, all in my eyes
Don’t know if it’s day or night
You got me blowin’, blowin’ my mind
Is it tomorrow,
or just the end of time?
Love the pic.
I’m loving it … that China, which today accounts for some 45% or more of all carbon emissions worldwide due to coal burning, somehow only manages to wiggle the needle downward by 0.026 degrees? From “the inevitable” rise?
Well! They can and should be taking that “to the bank” so to speak. They’re doing their ineffectual part to take action so to say, to drop the inexorable rise by as wee-a-bit as the United States or Europe. They’re now free to use as much coal as they like, so long as the amount being used by the next conference is a wee-bit less than they project. Which will – because we really have to believe the models – which will then tautologically be responsible for an even greater wee bit of unrealized temperature rise.
Meanwhile, the frog in the pot thing’s are pretty mellow. Toasty. Pass another margarita!
The thing with this isn’t the mendacity of doggedly sticking to the almost-now-proven trope that The Sky is Falling, but rather that in the next paragraph all the erstwhile curs and snakes are given a nice big politically corrected pass for what the inevitable future is said to be, so long as they moderate it just a wee bit.
That’s where I get furious.
IF the IPCC and/or those people who hold for the polemic of Global Warming As Caused By Humans … really mean what they say, then by all rights they should not be subservient to the whims and polity of Politically Motivated Groupthink Censors. TAX the dâmned carbon: universally and worldwide, if that’s what they want. Let the economy of the world do what it will (which is to say, not much … the fears of its doom aren’t easily realized, as anyone studying the rises-and-falls of oil prices can attest). Go ahead! Kick it in!
OR NOT.
Because apparently, if we’re just brutally honest – the likes of China can underreport their outrageously fast carbon mining and burning by 15%, and no one does more than ask for another cup of cappuccino and a fresh croissant. “Oh, goody! See, Jules! They’re being really good about careful reporting!”. Meantimes the Chinese are busting ribs laughing at the gullibility of the West. By comparison to their trillion-dollar carbon economy, even if they were to underwrite the entire IPCC-Paris, even if … It’d be just a few cups in the bucket.
Maybe not even.
And once you control the venue, the croissant munching, first class jet riding, pontificating and fabricating experts will be extra-specially careful not to step on the Hosts’ Toes.
LOL
GoatGuy
China obviously will be doing nothing before 2030 to reduce/curb temperatures. In fact it will obviously be adding to temperatures (assuming that CO2 is the temperature driver as claimed).
But anyone who thinks that China will do anything meaningful after that, is deluded. Notwithstanding that China is building some nuclear plants, China will only start contributing towards CO2 abatement when there is an alternative viable and economical energy source to replace fossil fuels. presently, nuclear is not that.
Given how long it takes to develop new technology and get it to market, we know that nothing is on the horizon for 2030, but by 2050 technology may have moved on, and almost certainly will have before the end of this century. We do not have to worry about 2100 since it is almost inevitable that things will be very different.
Sorry for the OT Willis, but I came across some interesting “mean wave height” data over at Surfline on an El Nino update. Their data show at best flat and what looks to me decreasing avg wave heights in 5 pacific ocean basins. Socal, Norcal, Oregon, Hawaii and Central America. It seems impossible to have more energy being stored in the oceans and have decreasing avg wave heights. I hope you could take a look at the data.
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/heres-what-we-can-expect-for-the-west-coast-hawaii-and-beyond-this-winter-thanks-to-a-robust-el-nino-event-off_133236/
Good perspective Willis. Thank you.
A hilarious article Willis. The only thing that is not funny is that these dopes might actually try to implement it..
The “MAGICC” number for catastrophic global warming is being bantered around as 2C. Now at 2ppm per year it would take 200 years to reach 800ppm at which time the temperature increase due to CO2 would be slightly less than 1C. To get the other 1C we would need to add another 800 ppm so this would take another 400 years.
Surely in the next 600 years we will have fusion power or at least thorium reactors?
However, we are taking about total CO2 in the atmosphere and not the contribution from burning fossil fuels.
Even while temperature increases have stalled, China has increased its CO2 production by a factor of 2. So If doubling it didn’t change the temperature, why would we expect that cutting it in half would have any effect at all.
actually i find it strange to see these models confirm what i believe is the anthropogenic CO2 factor.
in fact i do believe CO2 does indeed warm our planet but more in the factor of 0.02 – 0.1°C
glad to see this confirmed by the “same models”
Any assessment that assumes climate sensitivity is greater than zero will result in excessively high temperature estimate.
Engineering science demonstrates CO2, in spite of being a ghg, has no effect on climate. Identification of the two factors that do cause reported average global temperature change (sunspot number is the only independent variable) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com (97% match since before 1900). Everything not explicitly included (such as aerosols, volcanos, non-condensing ghg, ice changes, etc.) must find room in the unexplained 3%.
The last 500 million years of substantial CO2 with no sustained temperature change is also evidence CO2 has no effect on climate. This is documented in the analysis linked above and also in a peer reviewed paper at Energy & Environment, Volume 26, No. 5, 2015, 841-845.
I do not know whether an increase from CO2 at current levels results in zero change in temperatures, but I do accept that we are unable to measure any increase in temperatures driven by CO2 using our best measuring devices.
Within the error bounds and the limitation inherent in this equipment, and the data set that it produces, we are unable to detect the signal to CO2 over and above the noise of natural variation. This is notwithstanting that we now have some 36 years worth of satellite data during which time there is has been a measurable increase in global CO2 emissions, so we do have a data set from which one might expect to see a signal, if there truly is a signal.
This means that the Climate Sensitivity to CO2, at current levels, must be low (if any at all) if the error bounds are low and natural variation small. But if the error bounds are large and/or if the range of natural variation is large, then Climate Sensitivity to CO2 at current levels (if any at all) could be similarly large.
I do not consider that we are in a position to say determinatively precisely what the Climate sensitivity to CO2 (if any at all) is, other than we just cannot presently measure and detect its signal.
The evidence that CO2 has no effect on climate is valid based on the existence of life (atmospheric CO2 had to have been more than 150 ppmv for 500 million years) and average global temperature went up and down over the period. Any rational error bounds would do.
I like Dan Pangburn’s model yet have not found the time to verify it in detail. http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
I suggest others should examine it – it is simple and sensible and does not require any fudging of data (such as the fabricated aerosol data used in the models cited by the IPCC).
I note that Dan’s model predicts imminent global cooling. This agrees with my own opinion – we should expect natural global cooling to be evident after the current El Nino runs it course.
With respect Richard, there is ample evidence that Earth’s atmospheric temperature is insensitive to atmospheric CO2. Also please note that CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/18/anatomy-of-a-collapsing-climate-paradigm/#comment-1886588
A few observations (we formally published most of these conclusions in 2002 – we’ve known this for a long time):
1. CO2 is the basis for all carbon-based life on Earth – and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient.
2. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
3. Recent global warming was natural and ~cyclical – the next phase following the ~20 year pause will be global cooling, starting by about 2020 or sooner.
3. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales (published in 2008).
4. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society.
5. Green energy schemes (scams) are responsible for driving up energy costs and increasing winter mortality rates.
I suggest that most of the above statements are true, to a high degree of confidence.
All of the above statements are blasphemy to warmist fanatics.
It is truly remarkable how the warmists could get it so wrong.
Regards, Allan
(Petroleum Engineer / Earth Scientist)
Sooooo I actually took a look at the paper and am sorry to say this, but Lomborg’s numbers are all wrong:
‘I will use the default values of MAGICC as the standard run (with a climate sensitivity of 3°C)’
Virtually every recent study finds a sensitivity way below 3ºC. So the numbers are too high – actual impact would be like air on your feet compared to air around your knees.
PS: Lomborg claims that the results are ‘robust’ to different sensitivities and that one can find details in the supplementary info. I didn’t feel like wading in there to find out if the warming reduction is 0.017º or 0.009ºC .
Not the point, Alberto Zaragoza Comendador.
If he took realistic values for climate sensitivity then his argument could be waved away as “under-estimating the impact of CO2”.
But by going for the upper ends of the range – it’s a bad as it gets.
Which means the effect of COP21 is as great as it gets.
And it ain’t great.
Just a little note about the lapse rate. It’s not that the air molecules cool as you go up a hill, it’s that they occupy less volume.
This is the fallacy of the greenhouse effect. The temperature at 1000meters 1meter above a high flat plane is the same as the air 1000 meters above land at sea level. It is the density of the air that gives a higher or lower temperature reading not “cooling” with height. The chemical composition of the air is irrelevant to this phenomina. That is why the temperature of the Venusian atmosphere at 1000mb is just 66C
It is exactly 1.173 times hotter than the mean temperature of Earth at sea level as the S/B equation says it should be due to it’s closer proximity to the sun. At its surface the air molecules (mainly CO2) are pressurised to 92 times that of Earth at sea level. So same individual energy in each molecule but much greater concentration in any given volume.
“It’s not that the air molecules cool as you go up a hill, it’s that they occupy less volume.” Not sure that is correct. Temperature is approximately proportional to the average kinetic energy of the particles. A less dense gas at the same temperature contains less heat (that is energy) than a more dense gas, but the average KE of the particles is the same.
The adiabatic lapse rate describes the work that air must do as it expands as the pressure drops. Expansion against pressure is isentropic – it is reversible and all the energy can be recovered as work. As the system does work to expand, the temperature has to fall to maintain the same entropy. As we expand, we increase the uncertainty of the position of the particles, and seemingly increase the entropy. However, the reduction in temperature slows the particles down, decreasing the uncertainty and balancing out the entropy gain.
Expansion into a vacuum is not isentropic- it results in a change of entropy. The consequence is that the temperature of an expanding ideal gas remains the same as it expands into a vacuum. This is an irreversible process. This makes sense, since we can easily compress and decompress a cylinder, but we cannot get the gas molecules back from a vacuum.
Expansion in the atmosphere is not into a vacuum, so this is close to an isentropic expansion, with consequent temperature changes.
This does not explain why temperature 1m above Nairobi at about 3000ft is much cooler than 1m above Mombassa, at sea level. I am thinking this is because the atmosphere gains most of its heat from conduction from the surface, and most of the surface is at sea level. Thus the air above Nairobi must have gained most of its heat at approximately sea level, and has since expanded and cooled. A better explanation would be welcome.
Is not that solar longer term trend has also increased since 1850. Why people are not at all interested to find contribution of temperature rise from the sun during that period?
http://www.grandunification.com/gifs/Sunspot_Trendline.gif
There really is even no serious science behind the 0.17 degC number, because it is based on the IPCC values for ECS, which itself is pseudo-science garbage.
The important quote from Curry’s article is probably
Who knows? Even if an attempt to reduce the costs of green energy mostly failed, that approach would likely produce better long term results than the Children’s Crusade is going to obtain from Paris where, in a New Years Eve sort of exercise, the assembled nations will pledge the national equivalent of resolving to give up drinking; gambling, cussing; wild,wild women; lose some weight; and take up jogging — with the traditional lack of meaningful results.
“we should make green energy so cheap ”
…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/business/energy-environment/a-texas-utility-offers-a-nighttime-special-free-electricity.html
…
http://free.txu.com/
You’d have to be seriously delusional to think that energy is cheap, just because the customer can get it for “free” during a certain time period.
Bruce Cobb commented: “You’d have to be seriously delusional to think that energy is cheap, just because the customer can get it for “free” during a certain time period.”
+1 What struck me the most when I read about this “free electricity” in Texas was the use of the term “free”. Translated it means….electricity you already paid for when your taxes were used as subsidies, electricity that no one else is using and can’t be saved so it will just go to waste, and electricity that will cause your paid for electricity cost to go up to pay for the infrastructure/grid. TINSTAFL
from the NYT article:
======================
Briana Lamb, an elementary school teacher, waits until her watch strikes 9 p.m. to run her washing machine and dishwasher. It costs her nothing until 6 a.m. Kayleen Willard, a cosmetologist, unplugs appliances when she goes to work in the morning. By 9 p.m., she has them plugged back in.
And Sherri Burks, business manager of a local law firm, keeps a yellow sticker on her townhouse’s thermostat, a note to guests that says: “After 9 p.m. I don’t care what you do. You can party after 9.”
The women are just three of the thousands of TXU Energy customers who are at the vanguard of a bold attempt by the utility to change how people consume energy.
======================
There are no male customers endorsing the product in the advertorial.
=============
“And although nearly 63,000 residences dropped out of the program over that time — in part because rates are typically higher under the plans at peak hours…
=============
So it isn’t really free – like all the electricity in Qatar produced by burning hydrocarbons.
When things that have costs are supplied at no charge, thoughtless creatures will waste as much as possible is order to get their “fair share,” just in case someone else gets in first, hence the old “tragedy of the commons”. Free lunch is a bad policy, because it encourages bad behavior. The NYT advertorial includes a demonstration of that ugly aspect of human psychology:
==================
Ms. Burks, the law firm business manager, is part of that shift — and she is not motivated by environmental concerns.
“I never thought about it,” she said. In fact, she leaves lights on and even the television on when she leaves the room.
“I’m really wasteful now,” she said. “The first thing I tell my guests is my electricity is free after 9.”
==================
That’s some heavily-subsidized wastefulness that she’s proud of.
Also, according to the testimonial of Ms. Burk the party-animal, she has a note for her guests pinned to the thermostat in her townhouse that reads:
* * * * * * * * * *
“After 9 p.m. I don’t care what you do. You can party after 9.”
* * * * * * * * * *
So a “party” is when you can change the setting on your thermostat?
Woo Hoo! Let’s “party.”
Does anyone believe the yellow sticky note is anything more than a journalistic fiction?
If green energy were to become cheaper there would be no debate.
Green energy is the equivalent of purchasing bandwidth by the minute as in the early days of the internet. It was not government subsidies that caused a great paradigm shift to internet commerce, it was when internet bandwidth costs dropped.
Make green energy cheaper or just shut-up already. Green demagoguery is not going to heat my house or appliances.
An old engineer friend of mine shared a story that one of his professors told him years ago. With the introduction of the steam locomotive in England, transportation was transformed. However, the stacks belched hot cinders catching the following cars and countryside on fire, not to mention soiling the clothes of the well-to- do passengers. Parliament promptly stepped in and passed a law that locomotive boiler exhaust stacks had to be rerouted back into the boilers.
Political “wisdom” is timeless.
Oatley:
Actually, Parliament was showing “political wisdom” by attempting to promote downdraft combustion technology as a method to reduce the pollution and fires from early steam locomotives.
Downdraft stoves consume their own smoke and have higher efficiency. And , as the link says
Importantly, Parliament did NOT introduce subsidies to bias the market such that downdraft technology was adopted for use in steam locomotives before that technology was perfected for the purpose. But, in the present, Parliament has introduced subsidies which bias the market to adopt expensive and inefficient wind turbines for electricity generation.
This shows that – contrary to your assertion – political “wisdom” is not timeless.
Richard
Willis – advocates of the policy often say something like “Yes, but this is just the first step. Wait until the other nations get so amazed at the damage we’re doing to our own economy that they all want to sign on and do the same”. Of course they don’t put it honestly like that
EPA ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY came pretty close though.
U.S. House Science Committee – July 9, 2015
CHAIRMAN LAMAR SMITH: “On the Clean Power Plan, former Obama Administration Assistant Secretary Charles McConnell said at best it will reduce global temperature by only one one-hundredth of a degree Celsius. At the same time it’s going to increase the cost of electricity. That’s going to hurt the lowest income Americans the most. How do you justify such an expensive, burdensome, onerous rule that’s really not going to do much good and isn’t this all pain and no gain.
ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “No sir, I don’t agree with you. If you look at the RIA we did, the Regulatory Impact Analysis you would see it’s enormously beneficial.
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action to address what’s a necessary action to protect…”
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you disagree with my one one-hundredth of a degree figure? Do you disagree with the one one-hundredth of a degree?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I’m not disagreeing that this action in and of itself will not make all the difference we need to address climate action, but what I’m saying is that if we don’t take action domestically we will never get started and we’ll never…”
Read more: http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/07/15/epa-chief-admits-obama-regs-have-no-measurable-climate-impact-one-one-hundredth-of-a-degree-epa-chief-mccarthy-defends-regs-as-enormously-beneficial-symbolic-impact/#ixzz3jxPsOENF
You realise that this means that we’re doomed, don’t you?
I wonder what is the reality on the percentage contribution of global warming [emissions — which is the Paris meet target] in the global [land & water] temperature raise to date? Then only the anology of reduction could be assessed.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Maybe someone can help me out here.
In assessing the heat retention/creating/shedding characteristics in the laboratory of CO2, is this testing done under STATIC air conditions (i.e., zero air flow) in some sort of “closed” container?
If this is so, will the lab measured values thus obtained be different if an air flow was introduced into the test conditions and/or if the test was performed , somehow, under “unconfined” conditions?
Or are the heat retention/creating/shedding characteristics of CO2 based on tests done in the real world, i.e., in the atmosphere (with wind, sun, clouds, rain, etc. )?
Any response will be greatly appreciated.
JT, the simple answer is that lab tests are done in long sealed glass tubes at RT. Presumably no convection/conduction. But under the falsifiable assumption (OCE-2) that CO2 is a reasonably well mixed gas, thse results should exptrapolate. And remember, the various radiation transfer codes are also used to design things like heat seeking A/A and G/A missiles. Those work quite well. CO2 is a GHG. This has been lnown since Tyndall in 1859. The unknowns are how much because of net feedbacks, and with what net consequences.
“CO2 is a GHG”
/////
it is mere conjecture that CO2 is a GHG. It is a radiative gas. Of course, we can measure and detect and make use of its radiative properties, and lock onto the radiative signal, but that does not make it a GHG.
We have yet to determine whether it is a Greenhouse gas. May be it is, but I have seen nothing that convinces me that in the real world conditions of Earth’s atmosphere, at 20th century atmospheric concentration, that it is a GHG.
Rist is generally correct, but they only extrapolate in the sense that the initial condition is that way. However, they set off a host of different changes that react to both the change in temperature (such as evaporation) and the change in CO2 (such as plant growth), which each set off their own sets of changes.
Just because the basic property of something is knowable doesn’t mean it’s complex interactions are manageable or predictable. This is like comparing personal finances to the economy as a whole. It’s the butterfly effect on the grandest of scales.
Canada is the second largest country in the world , yet 90% of the population lives within 200 miles of the American border !!! Why ??? ( hint: it’s not because the Americans smell pretty )
IT’S FUKKING COLD !!!
Thanks, I feel better now !
But they do smell pretty, don’t they?
When McKibben says “do the math”, he doesn’t mean THAT math.
You mean the hard math like 1+1=2?
Intellectuals thrive on the non-intuitive. They love being able to point out that 1+1=3. This is actually valuable, and not to be disregarded. The problem is that in doing so, they dismiss the value of common sense and bottom line.
In our current recurring drama, they are essentially trying to tell us that 1.1C*1=3C because 1 is actually 3.
” it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and seventeen hundredths of a degree” should be ” it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and 1.7 hundredths of a degree” or ” it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and seventeen thousanths of a degree”
Thanks, Peter. Actually, both of us were wrong. The correct number for the “pessimistic” estimate of global compliance with COP21 pledges is not eight hundredths, but five hundredths of a degree ( 0.05°C). See Lomborg’s Table 1. I’ve updated the head post to read:
I appreciate you checking my work.
w.
Review is a good thing.
Over the years I’ve collected a massive number of favourites on the AGW scam. I can replace virtually all of them with this post.
“all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads”
Not even. The quoted number is relative to the projected increase. More precise phrasing on all these “temperature reductions” would be “amount of temperature increase averted.”
In the end, it’s still only models, or more accurately, computer games
These facts need to be put on mugs and on car bumper stickers – they are game changers
My company makes mugs if anyone wants to make and distribute, but I cannot compete with Chinese prices
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
So much pain for so little gain.
“after spending billions of dollars and destroying valuable power plants and reducing our energy options and making us more dependent on Middle East oil, all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads … I am overcome with gratitude for such a stupendous accomplishment.”
And that’s just the fallout in the US, from the UN and EPA’s draconian emission control plans to forestall supposed ‘global warming’ that already stopped nearly two decades ago.
Anthony’s passionate Tweet accompanying this post sums up the insanity:
@Anthony Watts: Why emission reductions goals @COP21 in Paris are just f****** stupid. No, seriuosly, it’s that bad. https://t.co/xhUi5t6gEG
A few comments above make the mistake of thinking of “global temperature” in the same way as a measured temperature hence the talk of measurement accuracy. It is actually an index; an average of > 1 million measured temperatures (min/max per day times 365 days x 2000 (say) stations worldwide). The averaging process obviously squeezes out all those underlying seasonal and spatially distributed variations and ends up with an index which changes only a tiny amount from one period to another.
Central limit theorem tells us that the resulting year on year variations in the index will tend towards a Gaussian distribution and indeed analysis of yearly differences are quite difficult to distinguish from a Gaussian (random) distribution. Respectable statisticians have opined that there are trends separate from these Gaussian components and differentiate the series from a random walk. However, they must be even smaller.
I cannot think of any other system in the world where such a tiny change in the estimated mean as a proportion of the underlying measured population variance would be regarded as significant. Let alone taken as the basis for policies which have huge costs and risks.
Anyway, enjoyed the article: thanks
Leaving aside the issue of Climate Sensitivity, all this hinges upon Governments achieving their targets/commitments. Of course, in the real world this is impossible since Green Energy is not despatchable and requires 100% backup from conventionally powered generation which means that there is no measurable reduction in CO2, and it simply takes too long to build the windfarms that would be necessary to replace existing fossil fuel generation.
The fact is that there is little energy in wind such that vast arrays of wind turbines are required, and this means that enormous numbers of wind turbines need to be erected and coupled to the grid. this takes inordinate lengths of time to construct and there is no way that this can be done by 2030.
James Delingpole has a good article on this. The UK Government has secretly/privately acknowledged that it cannot meet its current commitments, so what chance has it got to meeting any new commitments that it might make in Paris?
See: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/10/camerons-green-energy-policy-unravels-horribly-leaked-letter-ecologist/
These commitments are just pie in the sky, albeit pointless and terribly expensive.
The Minister for Energy and Climate change was reported in ‘The Times’ yesterday as considering spending UK taxpayer’s money on carbon reduction projects in other countries, as these reduction can be counted against our EU obligations.
Piling stupidity upon stupidity
Yes, but it does nothing to reduce global emissions so does nothing whatsoever to combat global warming.
Reblogged this on Mbafn's Blog and commented:
No wonder Lomborg is not wanted at any of the Australian universities….too much of a logical thinker!!!
How can anyone think that any meaningful data comes out of africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts
the WMO flag up the continent- one fifth of the the world’s land mass, needs 9000 new temp stations- some hope with a continent in constant turmoil . The few stations that actually give out any data – less than 50% of the time are all situated in cities or at airports.
it is not simply Africa, we have no idea as to global temperatures since most of the globe is unmeasured, and is disproportionally represented by stations in the US and North west Europe. See:
Yet despite such a woeful spatial coverage, Mosher recently joined issue with me when I pointing the above out. to his mark 1 eyeball, the above plot represents a global measurement data base!
GISS estimate up to 1200 kilometers from stations this might have some meaning if the landscape was exactly the same throughout the 1200 kilometers-
in between will be
• Upland regions
• Coastal regions
• Forest
• Urban regions
take the UK-
“Upland areas have a specific type of climate that is notably different from the surrounding lower levels.
Temperature usually falls with height at a rate of between 5 and 10 °C per 1,000 metres, depending on
the humidity of the air. This means that even quite modest upland regions, such as The Cotswolds, can
be significantly colder on average than somewhere like the nearby Severn Valley in Gloucestershire”
Have a look at the UK weather forecast for about a week and you will soon see that over the distance of the UK less than 1200 km, temperatures frequently vary by some 5 to 7 degC.
As a general and approcimate rule of thumb, Scotland is some 1 to 2 deg C cooler than the boarders that are some 1 to 2 deg cooler than the Midlands that is 1 to 2 deg Cooler than the South East which is 1 to 2 degC cooler than the South West which is 1 to 2 deg cooler than the Channel isles.
At the time of writing, according to the BBC, tonight’s forecast is: Lerwick 8 degC, Edinburgh 10 degC, Manchester 13 degC, St Hellier 14degC, so a spread of 6 degC. This is not as variable as frequently the case since presently the UK is experiencing a loy of rainy weather associated with the storm Abigail.
The idea that one can extrapolate weather/temperatures over a distance of 1200km is farcical.
I’ve said it often, the totality, the sum of global warming is measured in values so small as to be indistinguishable from zero. Nor will we every be able to say that it is outside the range of natural variability. It’s really time to stop funding this nonsense. And I mean stop funding it completely. No more GCM funding, no more supercomputers to run them, no more travel to COP meetings, no more budget for bureaucrat-scientits and advocacy scientits, no more UN contrbutions for IPCC or UNFCCC, no more funding from the NAS or NIH to do with global warming or climate change.
If they promise to behave, a small bit of funding can still go to weather modeling, of course, and maybe we can marginally increase our measuring capability in space and to fund real scientists who honestly ask questions they aren’t already sure of which they know the answers.
What is amazing is that such a farce can be maintained at such a large scale.
There is no claim of reducing the current temperature, (previously described as dire).
There is little evidence to support that only anthropogenic CO2 is warming the earth.
There is debate as to how much the earth has actually warmed in the last 125 years
There is debate about the net effect of a warming earth. Like increased growing seasons, the positive is likely to outweigh the negative.
It is highly unlikely countries will consistently damage their economies over the next 100 years when there are no immediate, tangible dire effects visible from global warming to their country.
It is certain this will cause friction and tension among countries as they bicker over who and how much of an economic hit each commits to and subsequent bickering over who followed through.
It is certain anthropogenic CO2 will increase as populations and economies grow. Eating diet cookies does not reduce caloric intake if twice the cookies are consumed.
Ironically, if it is true that human induced CO2 is warming the earth, there is risk that if the earth goes into a cooling cycle, reducing human warming could bring about dire results from a too cool earth.
Chicken little instead of being intercepted by the fox, made it to the king and persuaded him the sky is falling. That such a farce can be maintained at such a global scale for such a long period of time has to be a watershed in human stupid.
Regarding the Alarmists: “Stupid is as stupid does”.
So ALL current climate hysteria is predicated on their own figures to ‘save’ less than 1/10th of one degree by the end of the century? For that return Earthlings are set to spend literally £$trillions? Those Cadbury’s Smash Martians had us sussed right from the off.
“So when someone says we will fry, I know they lack experience. With water and shade a human can survive the hottest climates on earth, much better than almost any other species.”
This is quite true. Primitive man (ie Lucy and her tribe) evolved to ”sweat which allowed them to run down prey which would perish from heat stroke. thus they could hunt without too much technology but with some excess amount of exertion successfully.
Thanks Willis. A memorable and probably historical piece.
Disregarding for a moment that the sensitivity to CO2 might be significantly exaggerated.
Could this be the illustration which eventually turn the tide on the scientific illiterate leaders?
“The rate at which non-condensing air cools with increasing altitude is called the “dry adiabatic lapse rate”. The rule of thumb states that for every hundred metres higher that you climb, the temperature drops by 1°C. …. Now, a human being is typically around 1.7 metres tall, plus or minus. This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your feet. And recall from above that the “impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100” … The sum total of the entire restructuring of the US energy production will be to make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads.”
This must be the best illustration so far of the idiocracy by United Nations – and the United States.
Thanks Willis,
your observations are true but you failed to quote a reference point.
What is the temperature of your reference point?
How can one describe the outputs from the climate model called MAGICC? According to the United Nations ( http://unfccc.int/adaptation/nairobi_work_programme/knowledge_resources_and_publications/items/5430.php ) “MAGICC gives projections of global-mean temperature and sea level change.” It seems to many that these projections are exactly what are needed for evaluation of policy proposals on greenhouse gas emissions. Actually predictions are what are needed. Isn’t “projection” merely a synonym for “prediction”? No, it is not.
A “prediction” is a type of proposition. A “projection” is not a type of proposition. Thus, though a declarative sentence such as “The impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100.” may look like a proposition it isn’t one. A tip off to this state of affairs is that a projection lacks a probability of being true while a proposition has one.
The Times has picked up on this story.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4609473.ece
“The UN has grossly exaggerated the benefits of a proposed deal on climate change, which will reduce global warming by as little 0.05C, according to a study.
The deal, due to be signed by almost 200 countries in Paris next month, will cost the EU hundreds of billions of pounds a year to implement but will have a negligible impact on rising temperatures, said Bjorn Lomborg, an economist and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist.”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/01008/ae1aaa58-871b-11e5_1008716c.jpg
Christiana Figueres was accused of making a ‘phenomenally misleading’ claim
Thibault Camus/ Associated Press
There is only one complete and exact computer of global climate and that is the planet itself. By definition it complies with all laws of nature.
Einstein said “No amount of experimentation can prove I’m right but only one experiment is needed to prove I’m wrong”.
That one experiment which demonstrates to be wrong the theory that change to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide causes climate change, was run on the planet computer and the results are archived in the Vostok ice cores which have been extracted from Antarctic glaciers and also CO2 and temperature trajectories for the last 542 million years as estimated using proxies.
Estimates of CO2 level and average global temperature trajectories for the current ice age and also for the entire Phanerozoic eon (the last 542 million years) are extant.
The only science that is required is realization of the computational mandate that temperature change is in response to the time-integral of the net forcing, not the instantaneous value of the net forcing itself.
If CO2 was a forcing, average global temperature would respond to the time-integral of it (or the time-integral of a math function of it). The data demonstrate that the temperature does not respond this way so global climate change must be caused by something else.
The analysis at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com addresses this and also identifies the two factors which explain (97% match) the average global temperature trajectory since before 1900.
Willis it’s good to keep explaining perspective. I’m afraid (very much afraid) that most folks don’t understand any of what you’ve written. Of course you’re correct, but people tend to believe what they’re told, most especially when it’s expressed by an entity seen as above reproach, as the main stream media is.
Goebbels was right about the big lie, but wrong about the reason it was so important. People just can’t believe anyone in authority, having made it to that position to begin with, would lie to them at that level. They have a need to believe in the democratic process, and that people already “vetted” by society are worth listening to. They don’t understand willful subterfuge and don’t want to, and also can’t believe anyone lying to them on such a huge scale could possibly get away with it; it just couldn’t happen. They, like myself, wish to believe in the common decency of their friends and neighbors. They don’t wish to live in a world dominated by people who would lie to them.
As a civilization, we’re largely moral in our treatment of each other. It simply denies belief there might be people in power who not only would take advantage of us for profit, but also believe that behavior is morally correct.
Willis, Great post. One small correction – you should have used the environmental lapse rate, the decrease in temperature with altitude like pilots use. That’s about 2 C / 1000 feet or 2/3 the value you used. So, optimistically, the net effect of the USCPP will be the air around your knees will be as cool as the air around your head would have been without the USCPP.