By PAUL C. “CHIP” KNAPPENBERGER and PATRICK J. MICHAELS
Currently, details are few, but apparently the results of a major scientific study on the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on clouds are going to have large implications for climate change projections—substantially lowering future temperature rise expectations.
In a blog post from the Department of Meteorology of the University of Reading, Dr. Nicolas Bellouin describes some preliminary results from a research study he leads investigating the influence of aerosols on cloud properties. The behavior of clouds, including how they are formed, how long they last, how bright they are, etc., plays a very large role in the earth’s climate system, and is considered the weakest part of global climate models. The climate model cloud deficiency results from a combination of scientific uncertainty about cloud behavior, as well as the modeling challenges that come from simulating the small spatial and temporal scales over which the important processes take place.
When it comes to the influence of human aerosol emissions on cloud properties, the scientific mainstream view is that aerosols modify clouds in such a way as to result in an enhanced cooling of the earth’s surface—a cooling influence which has acted to offset some portion of the warming influence resulting from human emissions of greenhouse gases (primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, like coal, oil, and natural gas to produce energy). In the absence of this presumed aerosol cooling effect, climate models predict that the earth should warm at a much faster rate than has been observed. A large cooling effect from aerosols was thus introduced in the early 1990s as a way to “fix” the climate models and bring them closer in line with the modest pace of observed warming. Despite that “fix,”climate models continue to overpredict the observed warming rate—which is bad enough news for climate models already.
But the new results, reported by Bellouin, make things much worse for them. His team’s investigations show that the anthropogenic cooling impact from clouds is much less than “assessed” by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also much less than employed by climate models. Less enhanced cloud cooling means that greenhouse gases have produced less warming than the climate models have determined. Another way to put it is that this new finding implies that the earth’s climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s surface will warm from a doubling of the pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration—is much below that of the average climate model (3.2°C) and near the low end of the IPCC’s 1.5°C to 4.5°C assessed range. This result comports with the concept of “lukewarming” (which you can read more about here).
Bellouin summarizes his findings:
Radiative forcing is a measure of the imbalance in the Earth’s energy budget caused by perturbations external to the natural climate system, such as the emission of aerosols into the atmosphere by human activities. Our preliminary [research] estimate of radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions, based on satellite observations of aerosol amounts and cloud reflectivity, is –0.6 W m−2. The negative sign indicates a loss of energy for the climate system. The estimate of climate models for the same radiative forcing is stronger, typically larger than –1 W m−2. What causes that discrepancy? Over the past few months, I have discussed with experts in aerosol-cloud interactions, and there are reasons to expect that aerosol-cloud interactions are weaker than simulated by climate models – and perhaps even weaker than the preliminary [research] estimate.
Bellouin promises a more formal and detailed release of his team’s findings in August.
As they stand, the results of this new study seem to confirm the results of an analysis published last year by Bjorn Stevens of the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology which also showed a much smaller anthropogenic enhancement of the cooling property of clouds.
When the Stevens results were incorporated into a determination of the earth’s climate sensitivity made by Nic Lewis, the result was a best estimate of the earth’s climate sensitivity of 1.5°C with a narrow range of 1.2°C to 1.8°C. This is a significant lowering and narrowing of the IPCC’s assessed range (again, 1.5°C to 4.5°C). The lower the climate sensitivity, the less future warming will result from our greenhouse gas emissions, the smaller any resultant impact, and the less the “need” to “do something” about it. Also, Lewis’ narrow range of uncertainty increases our confidence that climate change will not be catastrophic—that is, will not proceed at a rate that exceeds our ability to keep up.
At the time, we wrote:
If this Stevens/Lewis result holds up, it is the death blow to global warming hysteria.
The findings being reported by Nicolas Bellouin show, in fact, the Stevens/Lewis result to be holding up quite nicely.
Global Science Report is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”
I fully expect to see something…someday….that says clouds actually make it warmer…and it was the increase in clouds that upped the temp
I mean why not?….
I still can’t believe “scientists” created all these computer games…and just left out all the crap they know nothing about
Are not clouds a two-edged sword when it comes to temperature? Sure, they block out the Sun’s heat, but they also act as a “greenhouse gas” agent by keeping heat in.
No — that’s not how it works. We worry about the net effect and clouds are a net cooling agent.
I’m still waiting for the mitigation proposals that suggest releasing more aerosols to enhance cooling.
According to Joni Mitchell:
“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all…”
So the EPA caused global warming by issuing regs to reduce aerosols? 😉
Yes they are a 2 edged sword as you put it but the amount of incoming solar energy they reflect back out to space is far greater than the amount of surface long wave emission they block. Consider that if there were no green house gases (which includes water vapour and hence no clouds) earth would receive not 253 watts/sqM but approaching 353 watts/sqM (30% albedo of which most comes from cloud reflection) and without any green house effect 353 watts/sqM y9ields an equilibrium temperature of +11C
You are right about clouds being a two-edged sword. At the top, they reflect incoming visible Solar radiation back to space (they have a high albedo, above 0.4, compared to the dark solid & liquid surface with average albedo around 0.1) which means less infrared (IR) emitted from the surface of the Earth is needed for energy balance. This means global cooling at the surface. But depending on the temperature at the cloud tops, there is also less infrared (IR) black body emission (compared to the 288 K Earth’s solid & liquid surface, as given by the Stefan-Boltzmann law), a fraction of which is absorbed in the path length to the TOA (Top Of the Atmosphere), and the rest escapes to outer space at the TOA. For cloud tops in the lower troposphere (e.g. at 1.6 km, T=277 K) the net effect is global cooling. For high clouds in the stratosphere (e.g. thunderstorm anvils, or cirrus clouds), the very low surface temperature at around 215 K or lower means that the IR emission to outer space is low, meaning that for energy balance the emission from the Earth’s surface must be higher (i.e. the net effect is global warming). But thunderstorm anvil and cirrus clouds cover only a small portion of the Earth’s surface, compared to cumulus clouds in the lower troposphere (see any satellite or Apollo photo taken looking down on the Earth), so clouds overall lead to global cooling. So if doubling CO2 leads to global warming, increasing water vapor (which is a greenhouse gas twice as important as CO2), increasing clouds ought to be a negative feedback. Doubling CO2 does not mean a doubling of water vapor (a temperature increase of 0.6 K means a 4% increase in water vapor, which with a weighting factor of 2 means a possible 8% positive feedback, not 200%), so water vapor feedback is likely to be overwhelmed by the negative cloud feedback. The bottom line is that feedbacks are likely to moderate, not amplify the effect of doubling CO2 not including feedbacks. So climate sensitivity is likely to be less than 1 degree on doubling CO2 (I compute less than 0.6 degrees).
Because solids and liquids, including cloud particles, are effectively black bodies at IR frequencies, with emissivity 0.98 or greater, they absorb 288 K IR radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface at all frequencies (not just at resonant band frequencies like gases like CO2 and water vapor). At the cloud tops, they emit 277 K or 215 K Planck black body radiation, which by the Stefan-Boltzmann law is going to be considerably less. The difference in energy (or power/m^2 if you want to be picky) ends up being transferred by molecular collisions to the main gases of the troposphere (N2, O2, Ar) which as non-polar molecules with zero electric dipole moments cannot and do not emit any significant amount of IR radiation. Therefore the troposphere as a whole warms up. This is the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Energy is also transferred to N2, O2 and Ar by vibrationally excited states of the greenhouse gas molecules (water vapor, CO2, ozone, methane) which are formed by net absorption of resonant band frequencies emitted by the 288 K Earth’s surface.
the planet has 2 phases – different as night and day.
daytime, clouds block the sun
any beach basker knows that.
nighttime, they keep you warmer
any gardener knows that
so one would expect a certain outcome to be empirically observable if that is so.
and lo…it is.
Well maybe that’s why it gets warmer on the ground when a cloud passes in front of the sun?
Yes sarcasm
Greenhouse gases do not keep “heat” (noun) in.
The GHG effect is an action on long wave electromagnetic radiation energy, NOT on heat energy. And the same applies to them not letting the sun’s “heat ” in. They block the radiant energy at solar spectrum wavelengths, that otherwise would end up penetrating deep into the oceans where the oceans WILL convert that EM radiant energy into WASTE “heat energy”.
G
But when money clouds scientists’ minds it ALWAYS raises the temperature.
It’s quite obvious that whether clouds ultimately cool or warm matters little in the big picture, water in all of its forms is the great moderator of climate. Without water, the planet would be above boiling in the sunlight and a hundred or more degrees below freezing in the dark.
Lattitude: “I still can’t believe “scientists” created all these computer games…and just left out all the crap they know nothing about.”
I have a blog on the Club of Rome. This was a computer modeling exercise by “brilliant scientists.”
https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/club-of-rome-computer-models-vs-ipcc-climate-scientist-computer-models/
It is so obvious that like the Club of Rome these do-gooders had pre-calculated what they wanted and used science as merely the cudgel.
What you said is what got me 25 years ago. You read the initial report and it says, we don’t know anything about this, that or that or this. Yet we know the result to 95% and 97% of us agree. They said oceans were static. We knew nothing about the oceans. 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, zero knowledge and we’ll just assume they’re static even though we can’t explain any of the history of temperature let’s assume CO2 is the only significant driver of temperature and everything else is static or cyclical over very small time periods with small effects. Why? Why?
Then we’ll use a 20 year time period when temperatures go up and making all these other assumptions about everything else being static let’s calculate that CO2 caused 100% of this and use this as our basis for sensitivity.
Let’s also ignore any possible variation in Undersea volcanoes since we don’t know anything about them. Let’s assume no more volcanoes above ground for the next 100 years. Let’s assume the sun is static and it’s effects are minimal even though we have these correlations with cosmic rays and all kinds of cyclical effects let’s assume the sun has no weather.
Only the Earth’s atmosphere has “weather.” Everything else is small.and static.
The amazing thing is that people have believed this crap for so long in spite of obvious compelling evidence that the models were trash. Finally the Australian government realized that the best strategy was to declare victory and lay off all the buggers. I hope that once it is realized that the whole thing has been overplayed, that the models were trash that a lot of the money is dropped and people are laid off like at Yale. We’ve all been snookered of billions of dollars for them to play and deceive us for 25 years.
They didn’t leave out the unknown crap, they GUESSTIMATED, assumed, unfilled, tweaked all that crap until the models spit out a result they agree with.
Aphan,
‘They’ only guesstimated the known unknowns (the things that they knew they didn’t know) and left out the unknown unknowns (the things they didn’t know that they didn’t know). Of course, no field of study can account for unknown unknowns, but climate alarmists are adamantly convinced that the unknown unknowns are of no consequence.
In my view it would be fine to ignore the unknown unknowns and propose your theory anyway, after all you have to start somewhere. The problem is they didn’t admit the severity of the unknowns. The fact that the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere and we don’t know anything about it should give pause. The fact the sun is the source for almost all energy and we don’t really understand its variations or cycles or why there are correlations of cosmic ray intensity with climate on the earth. The fact they didn’t understand the interaction of the mantle and the oceans. The fact they don’t understand clouds which could be greater than CO2 effect significantly or that moisture / changes in humidity are unknown and could cause 4 or 5 times the effect of CO2.
It’s one thing to say: unknown unnkowns but another to say well, we don’t know anything about all these things and they each could make 10 times the change of CO2 let alone together. But believe me we know with 110% certainty that all the heat from 1975-1998 was caused by CO2 and 97% of all scientists agree.
There is also the fact they knew this aerosol problem 10 or 15 years ago. The fact they have fudged the temperature records. The fact they kept denying the LIA and MWP for so many years and the PDO and AMO too. The fact they never admit error. It’s not science. It’s not the scientific method.
How would one go about including in a model something you know nothing about?
Don’t get me wrong, I broadly agree with what you seem to be implying – that you can’t possibly know what you don’t know. I can therefore criticize the decision to waste resources on computer modeling in the first place, as ultimately being pointless since you simply can’t trust the result. But once someone decides to do the model, you can’t criticize them for only including the processes that they know something about.
The criticisms against the models and modelers runs far deeper than your simplistic allusion that they gave it their best shot, without knowing or understanding all the climate forcings and variables thereof.
Perhaps you never read “harry.readme”.
Kurt; their error is not in doing the modelling but rather in claiming the model outputs have any real world significance and worse, trying to reorder society on the basis of those model outputs. If they know that significant inputs to their models are guesses and then to try to hide that fact and insist the outputs are reliable predictors is unethical.
michael hammer
June 7, 2016 at 6:25 pm
=====
We have a winner…….
Nowhere in my post did I say they gave it their best shot. I simply stated the truism that you can’t include in a mathematical model a phenomenon you know nothing about.
“michael hammer
Kurt; their error is not in doing the modelling but rather in claiming the model outputs have any real world significance and worse, trying to reorder society on the basis of those model outputs.”
Didn’t I say that the model results can’t be trusted? And what precisely is the point of mathematically modeling something that has no real world significance? If you believe that the output of a model has no real world significance (and I for one do) then it seems to follow that you very well can criticize someone for engaging in that pointless exercise.
The point of the model is to test it against reality, to determine if it has some predictive capacity, and if so how much. The gap between empirical data and the model should lead to consideration of what kinds of processes are affecting reality and are not in the model. It should also lead to efforts to collect data with greater accuracy. But, it should never lead to things like Trenberth’s assertion that “the data must be wrong.” That is out right unscientific.
9 out of 10 models were not pointless at all! Their point was to show significant and alarming future warming, which they did. Problem was, when they ran them backward they couldn’t predict the past!
Honest investigators, confronted with this fatal disconnect, would admit that it proved serious flaws with the basic program input assumptions. Not being honest or scientists they did no such thing, and as Winston Churchill said- having stumbled over the truth, they picked themselves up and carried on as if nothing happened.
Lies, exaggerations, politicking and gross conspiracy ensued. But, sadly, no science.
The real point about the models is that despite the CAGW crowd knowing they don’t & can’t reflect reality, they falsely elevated the results as though they were real data, which uncritical, unthinking & greedy politicians then used to divert hundreds of billions of our taxes into useless and catastrophic mitigation schemes.
The models on which this whole scam is based must be fatally destroyed.
Models, and their accuracy…
You build a model with the knowledge you have. You identify as much as possible the things you don’t know enough about, and you exclude them.
Run the model. Observe the process that you are modeling. If they don’t match, one (or more) of these things are wrong:
1) You have a problem in the running of your model (these days, that is a programming bug – you did not create the model that you think you did). Check the program.
2) The things that you know are unknown, and thus did not include in your model, are more significant than you thought they were. Start determining these unknowns with practical research.
3) There are things that you did not know affect the process you are modeling. Here’s where you go back to your wild-haired theory boffins to come up with ideas for what those unknowns are – then you cycle back to (2) to remove those unknowns.
4) The things that you think you know are not actually so. In this case, it’s time to throw out the model, it is incorrect at a very fundamental level.
What we know about climate models – which do not match observations in any way, shape, or form…
Possibility 1) We can reasonably eliminate this one – there are enough different programs, built using different tools, on different systems, that all produce nearly the same results. Unlikely a programming bug that would be so consistent across all of the models.
Possibility 2) There are many things – like clouds – that are not sufficiently known, and are not included in the models (or are, but with guesses about their actual effects, not knowledge). Of course, the modelers continue to deny that any of these could be a problem – they know, somehow, that their guesses about the effects are correct, and that they are insignificant.
Possibility 3) It is completely denied by the modelers that there can be anything they do not know. Even though several things have been discovered (such as cosmic ray flux vs. cloud formation) that were never included in any of the models as either known quantities or guesses.
Possibility 4) The models cannot possibly be fundamentally flawed – or so the modelers claim. But they are. Every one of them is based on a CO2 blocking for IR that is nothing like the actual curve. Every one of them is based on an increase in water vapor with temperature that is nothing like the actual curve. Other things, too many to list; they have all been on this site and explained far better than a short comment can handle. The models are fundamentally flawed – and so are the modelers, as they fiddle with the observations of reality to make them match the models, as a fundamentally flawed model cannot ever be adjusted sufficiently to match the observations of reality.
Kurt, the answer to this is experiment. Measure the effect many times when clouds go by from underneath and up above. You may not know all the things that cause the temperature changes, but you will have an idea of their aggregated effect. The computer, and yes actual computer games and computer special effects added to the arrogance that we know all the first and second order effects pretty much ended actual experimentation – the famous “it’s just physics” rationale. It sounds like the Reading folks are actually out measuring things.
Frankly, the idea that we need multi quantum jumps in computer power to incorporate thunder storms and clouds because their areas are small is a reflection of this lost art of experimentation. They are worried about how to pixelate it all. Get out there and measure actual temperatures, humidities, windspeeds, amount of water involved on hundreds of these things. Then ‘grain count’ these things from earth images until you can get a range of variability. Geologists and mineralogists have been using these techniques for over a century. You can even calculate a chemical analysis for a rock this way. Tedious? Yes. As much fun as a computer game? No. But, like the massive task of digitizing libraries a few decades ago, it can and should be done. I think maybe a geologist should do this. Physicists are not suited for the work.
Gary, I couldn’t agree more. The waste on computer models that were easily demonstrable at being worthless is unconscionable. Australia and Yale were smart to declare victory and lay all them off. That’s what should happen all over. I have an article on the club of rome computer models here: https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/club-of-rome-computer-models-vs-ipcc-climate-scientist-computer-models/ The same problems no lessons learned.
Latitude
re: I still can’t believe “scientists” created all these computer games…and just left out all the crap they know nothing about”
Obviously they were not scientists – they were con artists.
Oh no…they just need much much more money and to keep at it, while insisting that we all act on the basis of their scariest “what if” scenario…the “what if” being what if the worst thing that can happen is warming and we get warming.
More money please!
“””””…… His team’s investigations show that the anthropogenic cooling impact from clouds is much less than “assessed” by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also much less than employed by climate models. …..”””””
So why is THIS report saying that the cooling from clouds is much LESS than previously thought ?
Let’s get it straight: ” Clouds DO NOT ….. COOL …. anything ” They are NOT refrigerators.
What clouds DO do, is to block some sunlight, which thus PREVENTS that lost sunlight from WARMING anything, or everything.
MORE clouds results in LESS warming; NOT LESS cooling.
This report talks about the “aerosols” (just the anthropogenic man made fossil fuelled non renewable energy caused aerosols), as if they are some magic thing that makes different clouds. Izzat different from H2O clouds.
Why not just say they make for MORE clouds ? Yes that means more are coverage more optical density more refractive scatter diffuse reflectance, more time of persistence, more clouds in tropical areas where more sunlight insolation occurs, and where more deep ocean is waiting to absorb and store as heat the solar energy that is NOT blocked by the more clouds.
The clouds are still just water (or ice) and the “aerosols” are just substrates to grow on.
An “aerosol” is the spritz of ant killer that you get when you push the button on the Lysol pressurized can..
G
I can’t believe they got all that money to make all of those wrong climate models. Hay what about me? Oh ya, I’m a Republican…, dinged-no money for me!!! 🙂
A lot can happen to a study, between now and August.
Exactly my thought.
And after November, depending on which way the wind blows.
Agreed. And we shouldn’t be excited about a pre release, when we get so antsy about them coming from the Warmistas.
Imo they should shut up until they release.
Eventually all frauds are revealed. And as some wag once put it, “time wounds all heels.”
More settled science…
Well, as Michael Mann would say just because we screwed up on the models doesnt mean global warming doesnt exist
Just wait until you see the press release.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/armageddon-report-no-5/
Pointman
I doubt anyone will see a press release if this study pans out. :/
Good read that 😀
Yes, a good read and a good analogy I say, Pointman. Thanks.
Stefan-Boltzmann radiation equation: Q = σ * ε * A * T^4 (The whole thang!)
Q – power – Watts or 3.41 Btu / eng h or 3.60 kJ /met h
σ – constant – 5.67 E-8 W/m^2 – T^4 or 19.35 Btu/eng h / m^2 – T^4 or 20.41 kJ / met h / m^2
ε – emissivity – a ratio dependent on surface materials (real world demands one)
A – surface area – m^2 (real world demands more than 1.0)
T – surface temperature, absolute – Kelvin w metric units or Rankine w English units
Some definitions:
Energy is a thermal property. Temperature is a proxy for the energy of an object/surface.
Heat, work, power are thermal processes – energy in motion.
An IR camera, radiometer, bolometer, etc. measures temperature, an indication of energy, not heat, work or power. In order to calculate gray body heat, Btu / h, both the area and emissivity of the surface must be known.
Gases have no meaningful area (like barns. Know what barns are?) and extremely low emissivity. The S-B equation implodes with gases and there can be no S-B down welling or “back” radiation. That is not to say there is no GHE just that GHGs gave nothing to do with it.
Disputing this GHG DWR, down welling, “back” radiation, loop concept is not denying the greenhouse effect/principle/process.
A greenhouse operator can increase thermal mass by installing boxes of rocks, trombe walls, black painted plastic tubes and barrels full of water or eutectic salts, aka the oceans.
If it gets too hot the operator can pull down reflective shades reducing the incoming heat, aka albedo which is more than just clouds. BTW IPCC AR5 credits clouds with -20 W/m^2 of RF and that’s a lot more cooling than CO2’s 2 W/m^2 of heating.
The operator can turn on misting water sprays and evaporative cooling to reduce the air temperature and raise relative humidity, aka storms, rain, snow, etc.
Both IPCC and Trenberth (same as IPCC) admit they really don’t understand the water vapor cycle, clouds, etc. very well. IPCC AR5 in TS.6 and Trenberth et. al. 2011 “Atmospheric Moisture Transports….”
Finally, someone has noted that S-B doesn’t apply to 3 dimensional gasses
the GHE is calculated to be 33C. Yet this is the amount of surface warming predicted by gravity and convection. As the atmosphere circulated, Kinetic energy at the surface is converted to potential energy at altitude. Modified by the condensation of water, this gives rise to the lapse rate 6.5C/km. The center of mass of the atmosphere is 5.5km. Multiply and you get:
6.5C/km x 5.5km = 32.5C
coincidence? hardly.
There are 240 W/m^2 of LWIR leaving the earth which correspond to a S-B BB temperature of 255 K or -18 C. The observed surface temperature is 15 C, 33 C hotter than the calculated temperature. The explanation for this 33 C is the GHG GHE.
But wait!
The surface emitting the 240 W/m^2 is the ToA, 15,000 m above the ground with an observed surface temperature of -80 C not the 15 C surface temperature measured 1.5 m above the land surface.
So the real question is not why is the observed surface temperature 33 C higher than the S-B BB calculation but why is the calculated S-B BB temperature 62 C higher than the observed ToA surface temperature?
As Indiana Jones observed when they discovered that the Nazis’ head piece of Ra had only one side, “Their staff is too tall, they are digging in the wrong location.”
The IR frequency band for CO2 is 50 Times less effective as UV frequency, the latter gives you a sunburn in under an hour. Never known backradiation from greenhouse gases to do that. look to ozone and UV in my MHO.
Sorry Nicholas; I can’t buy your Stefan-Boltzmann equation.
Try J = (sigma)T^4
S-B is the Total Radiant Emittance (W/m^2) of a …. Black Body Radiator …
By definition the emissivity (epsilon) of a BB is 1.0
A ” Gray ” Body which is as fictional as a Black Body would have a CONSTANT emissivity that is less than 1.0, and is independent of wavelength, so it has the same value at ALL frequencies.
No such constant emittance material exists, even at any single Temperature, let alone having the SAME value less than 1.0 at ALL frequencies, and ALL Temperatures.
So nyet on both BB and GB.
So at best one would have to integrate over all frequencies from zero to infinity, or say at least over the 99% to 1% residual radiant emittance frequency range for even one Temperature.
People should stop talking about the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation Law, unless they are referring to an ideal but non existing Black Body, which is what S-B applies to.
And yes; it IS a useful WAG that a lot of common materials do approximately respond to about a fourth power of Temperature law, as a purely seat of the pants approximation.
Reality goes off the rails when we assume that theoretical ideal but non existing models actually apply under conditions that are not in accord with their definition.
There is NO KNOWN MATERIAL that absorbs …. 100 % …. EM radiation at even ONE single frequency, let alone a material that absorbs 100% at EVERY frequency from zero to infinity. Or zero frequency to zero wavelength if you prefer to avoid the infinities. Ergo, …. Black Body Radiation …. is a purely theoretical fiction , but useful, because we can build quite respectable approximations to a BB which do radiate a spectrum that is close to the expected, at least over useful frequency ranges at some useful Temperatures. I prefer to call such radiation …. Thermal Radiation …. as being EM radiation whose properties depend almost entirely on the Temperature of the source, as distinct from radiative or absorptive properties that are a consequence of atomic or molecular structure, rather than Temperature.
G
And PS; No I don’t care if nobody else likes my definitions. So do NOT rely on any of the above in your PhD oral exams, or you will be flunked. Don’t write it down either.
Well, yes S-B BB doesn’t work in real life, but my point was that “they” (ACS toolkit) are using S-B BB and comparing 240 w/m^2 ToA radiation, 255 K, to the 288 K surface temp instead of to the ToA -80 C temp. Peas & carrots.
Absent the 33 C difference there is no need for a GHE theory. Per Trenberth Figure 10 there are only 63 W/m^2 of LWIR rising from the surface surface, not 240.
George
I learn more reading what you write in a minute than all the actual papers of have read combined.
thank you
/OT. You might find Vantablack to come quite close in the visible light frequency ranges.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
The aerosol indirect effect (the aerosol effect on cloud albedo) was almost exactly the same number in the IPCC AR5 report at -0.55 W/m2.
This study is a confirmation of the current estimates not a refutation.
Of course, in years past, the estimate was higher. GISS used to have it at -1.4 W/m2.
Alarmist activists HOWLED when AR5 was released because it was far too conservative about future warming and sensitivity ranges. This study confirms that the low end estimates match reality, whereas the models do not.
Not according to Lewis. Is -0,9 (−1.9 to −0.1) in AR5.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/03/19/implications-of-lower-aerosol-forcing-for-climate-sensitivity/
Another rational conclusion from the lowered estimate of the impact of aerosols on clouds, in conjunction with the climate models’ undershooting of observed temperature rise, is that climate variability is larger than what climate scientists presume. Of course, saying that is tantamount to an admission that climate scientists don’t really know the transient response of climate to an input in the first place, calling into question their ability to accurately model the climate.
The alarmists’ get out of jail free card is the climate tipping point. At some (ill defined) point, the climate will tip from one stable condition to another and we will all die. wiki It doesn’t matter what the present climate sensitivity is because, when we pass the tipping point, it will change.
It was really important that Michael Mann got rid of the MWP. That way we can say that the current temperatures are unprecedented and that surely the tipping point must be just around the corner.
They are admitting that the MWP happened…. NOW. Sort of hard to deny that in the face of overwhelming evidence…. however their out is saying it wasn’t warmer than the CWP… it was warmer. No if, could be or maybe’s about it. They still didn’t address how that happened in the absence of an increase in co2, or how things were different then than now. Or a decrease when it ended.
With cooling on the way adding insult to injury, the Climate Clan will be relegated to Flat-Earther status within 5 years.
So what if the scientific consensus flips to 97% determine GAGW false, but gov’t agencies continue to say it’s true and act accordingly? We know what Pres. Clinton will do, but even a Pres. Trump and R’s may not be able (or willing) to stop an EPA stocked with progressive enviro activists, a NASA tasked with Muslim outreach, and the Department of Muslim Outreach tasked with promoting CAGW as real, happening now, and the biggest threat.
You may as well ask what would happen if the world’s energy were supplied by magical pixie dust. Most of the climate scientists work for some bureaucracy or another so the premise there doesn’t make sense – as long as the government agencies want to push the climate change agenda, most climate scientists are never going to come to any consensus that global warming is overblown. Moreover, the “97% consensus” is fabricated propaganda. The only consensus is that CO2 emissions warm the planet to some degree or another. There is no consensus as to how much, or what effects will be seen on what time scales.
Al Capp asked what would happen if our needs could be supplied for free. He invented the Shmoo. link Shmoos wanted to be of use to people any way they could. They would even jump right into a frying pan.
In the another case, maybe in the Pogo comic strip, someone invented a car powered by the heartbeat of its driver. It, thus, required no gasoline.
In both cases the-powers-that-be put a swift end to these disruptive influences so the greedy could continue to gouge the populace.
If someone finds a way to supply our energy needs (for free) using magic pixie dust, I know exactly what will happen.
CommieBob –
That’s amazing – I present a purely rhetorical question, intended to show the futility of theorizing what would happen if an impossible event occurred, and you take the question literally so you can speculate on what would actually happen if my (rhetorical) impossible event occurred.
My interpretation of “magic pixie dust” is explained by:
Technological breakthroughs are almost impossible to predict. Suppose that someone actually came up with a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor. … The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Having grown up loving both All Capp and Walt Kelly’s fictional universes…
As I remember the temporary end of the Shmoon, was that society itself broke down for sheer laziness with utter dependence on free Shmoon (plural of shmoo). To save society, the people themselves exterminated the shmoon.
I do not remember the Pogo car episode you mention; but many Walt Kelly strips preceded my time.
Can’t flip what doesn’t exist…
” but gov’t agencies continue to say it’s true and act accordingly? ”
Solution?
Dissolve the EPA.
Simples.
Kurt: I’m amazed you didn’t sternly point out that the Dep’t of Muslim Outreach isn’t real. I hope to give you a laugh someday, but I evidently missed you on this one. Didn’t occur to you I’m well aware of the abundance of CliScis at the teat? My point was (I thought obvious) that if the broader science community, as well as the general public, come to agree that CAGW is false, will that be enough to dislodge the bureaucrats (you and I agree) are at the controls of a gov’t so bloated it has rocket scientists tasked with muslim outreach? I know, explaining it doesn’t make it funnier, but I’m amazed my comment led you to your rhetorical question that utterly missed the point.
So, if the admitted heating impact of the increase in C02 is refactored to be about 1.5 C per doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, that is getting very close to what most so-called flat-earth denier scientists believe. This is amusing.
Eventually they HAVE to find a way to make 1 degree of warming into story of a disaster of untold dimensions. That or find something new to scare the world with. They are not going to just give up.
Nah, they’ll just start scaring us with what will happen with a tripling of CO2 and how bad it will be for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. And ocean corals and sea ice will be non existent.
AGW is a logarithmic effect.
A trebling is not as bad as a doubling and a half seems.
Most of the theoretical bad has already happened.
“””””…..
MCourtney
June 8, 2016 at 1:06 am
AGW is a logarithmic effect. …..”””””
Show us some experimental data that demonstrates a logarithmic relationship.
Sometimes the two variables that are purported to be logarithmically related actually change in opposite direction. The logarithm function NEVER ever goes in the opposite direction.
It might be a non linear relationship, but it isn’t logarithmic. That is as regards CO2 abundance, and surface or lower atmosphere Temperature
A logarithmic relationship means going from 280 ppmm to 560 ppmm produces the same Temperature increment, as going from one ppmm to two ppmm, or from one molecule of CO2 to two molecules of CO2. That is if it produces any change at all.
There is NO uncertainty as to what a logarithmic relationship is.
G
Since 2C is now deemed to be “Unsafe” and 1.5C is the new target, I’d say “Watch this space”. Already we can see another repositioning, after “Global Warming” was ditched & “Climate Change” came in, the new mantra of “Ocean Acidification” is being pushed, along with “Extreme Weather”.
Ocean acidification is demonstrably false.
As long as they keep harping on falsehoods, they will be drummed out in the end.
We just need to keep up the drumbeat until that happens.
How come 2C wasn’t considered dangerous or unsafe when the estimate was 3.5-6C?
One problem with clouds is the inconsistency of their influence. Low clouds are dense and block solar radiation but as we move up higher in the atmosphere they let more and more radiation through. Cloud at night blocks long-wave radiation, preventing the surface from cooling as quickly or as much, although again the influence varies with height.
On top of that there’s a regional and seasonal influence with day time cloud in high northern latitudes as winter approaches causing warmer temperatures than would occur without the cloud. The reason is that if there was no cloud there would be a large net heat loss from the Earth’s surface because the solar radiation is striking at such a shallow angle and the W/m^2 is low, lower than the heat being lost. Have cloud and the heat loss is blocked. Studies in northern Scandinavia have suggested a difference of 10 deg C.
Clouds at night mean it was certainly a lot hotter during the day to evaporate all that extra moisture to make those clouds. It was that much hotter day time Temperature that made it hotter at night NOT the clouds, which are a result of the high daytime Temperature and humidity. The high clouds do the same thing as the low clouds, they block sunlight.
And clouds or not it WILL be colder in the morning than it was the night before, and much colder than it was the day before.
Clouds at night are a consequence of the Temperatures, not the cause of those Temperatures.
G
Are the aerosols interaction with clouds is new? They were there even before industrialization and thus it is a inbuilt process but it varies both in space and time just like water vapour and cloud cover.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Especially differences between effusive and explosive volcanoes. The latter has a cooling effect from aerosol s, the former has a net warming effect from destruction of ozone voa anions like Br, Cl,SOx, NOx.
Aerosol is a three dollar word for ” dust “.
G
All of this sudden emphasis on “aerosols” is just a smoke screen to avoid addressing the BASIC interaction, which is simply that ANY WARMING however triggered or caused MUST result in an INCREASE in clouds, which MUST result in a reduction in ground level solar insolation, with its consequent cooling effect; thus a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK temperature regulating mechanism.
It matters not a jot, what the actual cause of the Temperature increase is, the atmospheric oceanic system acts in such a way as to oppose that increase in Temperature AND VERSE VICEA.
It’s called ” Le Chatalier’s Principle ” and it operates in virtually all real physical systems.
G
At some point, it seems to me that folks will have to accept that planet earth resists ANY temperature forcing function with “negative feedback” – period. If that were not true, the planet would long ago have either frozen or smoked life as we know it to oblivion.
Seems to me that is the exact point. It’s intuitive – hence those on the Left cannot see it, they lack Wisdom. always have.
I think you’ll find that the very first sceptics were sceptical because of this common sense and said so (after investigation).
And they were on the left.
Most of my friends and I were skeptical when this first came out. Mostly because of the left wing nut cases who were prominently pushing it.
We then took the time to investigate the science, and found that there wasn’t any.
Yes agreed – but I think you describe here a “positive feedback”, that is to say, a feedback which does not lead to an equilibrium state as would a negative one.
“At some point, it seems to me that folks will have to accept that planet earth resists ANY temperature forcing function with “negative feedback” – period. If that were not true, the planet would long ago have either frozen or smoked life as we know it to oblivion.”
+ a whole big bunch.
This is the crux of the matter.
Lots of people know this to be true.
Just need to get rid of folks who pretend that facts do not matter and we know nothing of Earth history.
Yes! The negative feedback is there! The people with the money are determined not to find it! It’s the only way to fix their models. Refusing to look is scientific dishonesty.
The results certainly won’t be “death blow to global warming hysteria” simply because the hysteria is driven by politics, not science. If it was all about the science, AGW would have died 20 years ago.
Sad but quite likely correct… 🙁
“I thank Graham Feingold, Johannes Quaas, Annica Ekman, Leo Donner, and Ilan Koren for interesting discussions on current understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions. Note that they do not all agree that aerosol-cloud radiative forcing is weak: some argue that a value of up to −1.2 W m−2 remains consistent with scientific understanding.”
Steve
Its over and you know it, stop!
In an article published June 16, 2014 in WUWT which was titled “Nature Abhors a Positive Feedback” I derived a climate sensitivity for CO2 of 0.7. I don’t recall any commentor taking issue with that derivation.
“The behavior of clouds, including how they are formed, how long they last, how bright they are, etc., plays a very large role in the earth’s climate system,…”
Big sunshades made of water affect the climate? Who’da thunk it?
But the science is settled, right? We’re still doomed, aren’t we? Or at least doomedish?
(I’d say doomished ; )
Doom is too gloomy, we’re just dimished.
Remember Rasool and Schneider 1971? In those days NASA was saying that the aerosol effect overcame the greenhouse effect and predicted that fossil fuel emissions would cause an ice age. Then in 1976 the 30-year cooling trend turned into a warming trend and Hansen 1981 came along (also from NASA). He wrote that that the greenhouse effect overcame the aerosol effect and as the warming effect intensified so did the Hansen 1981 hypothesis until the orgasmic Hansen 1988 Congressional testimony and the sensational NYT story about that testimony – melting polar ice caps, rising seas, extreme weather, mass extinctions, social upheaval etc etc. – the old “we’re all going to die” narrative. The primacy of the greenhouse effect over the aerosol effect survived the hiatus era thanks to creative people like Karl 2015 and Nieves 2015. Isn’t climate science fun? Maybe it’s not really science but it’s fun because the more you scare the taxpayers the more money they give you to do even more research so that you can scare them even more. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Here are some relevant links with respect to these comments:
1. Hurst persistence is known to exist in all aspects of nature including surface temperature and this property of temperature can create decadal and even multi-decadal patterns in the temperature time series. A causal theory of changes in temperature must show that the observed changes are in excess of those that can be created by persistence alone. Otherwise scientists will find themselves forever changing and fine tuning their theory to match apparent patterns created out of randomness by the Hurst effect. There are a number of items on this subject at ssrn.com/author=2220942. Here is one of them
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2763358
2. Climate sensitivity is irrelevant to a discussion about fossil fuel emissions until we can come up with empirical evidence that changes in atmospheric CO2 are related to fossil fuel emissions. In fact, if the idea is to attenuate the rate of warming by cutting fossil fuel emissions, empirical evidence must be presented that relates warming to fossil fuel emissions. No credible evidence exists for these relationships. The underlying problem is uncertainty in natural flows. We can’t measure natural flows and changes in the mass of the biota well enough to detect the effect of fossil fuel emissions
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2654191
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2642639
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
Your #2. is why we are unlikely to see anymore level 3 & 4 CO2 maps from the NASA OCO-2 team until the Democratic president political appointtees who oversee NASA change over to Republican appointtees.
I feel that something essential in such a study is a baseline: how does the current emission of anthropogenic aerosols compare with the peak of the industrial revolution? We cannot answer this
Now peak emission is from Asia, as apposed to Europe and the US in the early 20th century. Satellite imagery shows polluted air sweeping eastwards from Asia. Studies have indicated that this is influencing weather in the Pacific This is unlikely to change within the near future. I do believe that after some inquiry that Japan’s climate has been influenced: it gets hellishingly hot there in summer with a constant hazy atmosphere. Given its latitude and maritime nature it is hotter than one would expect
There is also the question of natural aerosols. I worked in Liberia at one time. At one time of the year dust from the Sahara sweeps south hundreds of KM. After a few hours any parked car has a blanket of the stuff. I have a photo taken from a plane at around 1500 ft where one can barely see the ground. I have also caught fragments of ash in my hand in New Zealand that originated as bush fires in Australia (2000 km away) . Nature is wonderfully resilient
Whatever, one needs hard data before making assumptions in science
It seems like the Shadow is alive and well living among AGW climate scientists. You remember the Shadow from the 30s and 40s radio program. He had the ability to “cloud men’s minds” and become invisible to evil doers. Only this time around, not only is he invisible, so are the clouds.
The introduction of the notion of aerosols as the agent for neutralizing the effect of GHG’s is just another twist in the rear guard action of climate alarmists, now increasingly evident. Of course it has to be anthopogenic? How else to continue the argument for world control, which is the basis of this massive fraud.
Alarmists’ feigned and aggressive ignorance of cloud formation has always been their get-out-of-jail-free card…. (literally)…
Alarmists’ spurious fossil-fuel aerosol feedback was essential to make the CAGW models SEEM plausible, because without this “aerosol fix”, CAGW ECS model projections would soon go “to infinity and beyond!” because the bogus CAGW models had a built in “CO2 runaway positive feedback loop” involving increased water vapor GHG forcing generated by increased ocean evaporation from CO2 forcing…
The problem with “runaway positive feedback loops” is that when the sum of the feedbacks exceed 1.0, the models suddenly go exponential and it’s off “to infinity and beyond!”…. That wouldn’t do…
Sooooo, to prevent the CAGW models projections going to infinity, the modelers added this fossil-fuel aerosol “fix” to keep the sum of the water vapor GHG feedbacks from exceeding 1 and going to infinity… “Neat trick”….
What’s actually happening is that CO2’s logarithmic forcing effect DOES cause some warming and does cause SOME increased ocean evaporation, but this CO2 induced increased ocean evaporation actually has a NEGATIVE cloud-cover cooling effect making CO2’s NET ECS around 0.5C~1.0C, which isn’t very scary… Actually, a net benefit given all the added benefits of increased CO2: warmer winters, increased arable land in northern latitudes, earlier springs, longer growing seasons, CO2 fertilization effect, increased crop yields, slightly more precipitation, plants lose less water from shrinking leaf stomata, etc.
The only way to “fix” CAGW models is to remove the aerosol “fix”, remove the “runaway positive water vapor GHG feedback loop”, and increase the cooling effects of clouds…
The problem is that if CAGW alarmists made these model corrections, ECS projections would be around 0.5C~1.0C, which would be the end of CAGW… They can’t allow THAT to happen…
We’re getting VERY close to the beginning of the end of this CAGW scam.
I assume alarmists’ next plan of attack is to convince political hacks and the aggressively ignorant that 0.5C~1C of ECS is also catastrophic…. I hope they have fun with that….
I thought it was the Alarmists’ plan to waste $76 TRILLION (UN estimate) on CO2 sequestration policies to keep CO2 warming below 2C by 2100… If we don’t waste a dime, we’ll enjoy 0.5~1.0C of beneficial CO2 warming recovery, plus all the positive effects of higher CO2 levels…
What to do… What to do…
I assume alarmists’ next plan of attack is to convince political hacks and the aggressively ignorant that 0.5C~1C of ECS is also catastrophic….
Bingo! In Paris they “agreed” to keeping warming under 2.0 degrees, but to “try” for 1.5. They’re a step ahead of you! Calls for1.0 can’t be far off. Talk about moving the goal posts!
The less developed countries must have thought “hallelujah – let the mitigation funds rain un us”. There are many countries in the receiving end of this political game. These countries have no reasons to be reasonable.
Is it just me or does it seem that the closer Trump looks like being elected ,the more oops we may have overestimated , from the alarmists .
I might encourage my children to name a couple of my grandchildren: Nic, Steven and Tony.
Should have added that in the US: Lord or Viscount would not be a good name but Chris would be just fine. I know the list goes on but ….
I made a discovery today.
After yet another missionary had given a presentation to convince us that the temperature ‘pause’ was imaginary, I Googled ‘IPCC absorption’ to see if they had at last injected some science into their arguments. To my amazement I found that they had! At last there was an exposition of the ‘CO2 colours the atmosphere’ paradigm, rather than the ‘reflecting layer’ so loved by followers of Al Gore.
I might suspect that realisation is breaking through and they are trying to construct an exit strategy. However the report summary made no mention of anything that could be construed as a physical explanation.
My personal theory is that the ‘trend’ is in fact two steps, lagged in the control theory sense. The first around 1960 might have been the result of concerns about ‘acid rain’ and the installation of scrubbers in power station chimneys to remove SO2. The second, starting in 1980, could have resulted from the banning of CFCs, boosting the ozone layer and cited in Harries’ 2001 paper as a contributor to temperature rise.
But maybe you can help me with a conjecture. The effect of doubling atmospheric CO2 has been estimated as a forcing of 4 W/m^2. Now I believe that the mean irradiation is a little over 1,300 W/m^2, so that would give an increase of around a third of one percent. Power lost by the Earth’s radiation is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature, so this would be compensated by a rise of some one-twelfth of a percent. Taking the mean temperature as some 278K, this would be around 0.23 degrees. Why are much greater values quoted?
The value of 1,300 W/m^2 is for a circular cross-section of the Earth. Since the total surface area of a sphere is 4 times the cross-sectional area, the flux per m^2 for outgoing IR radiation at the TOA (Top Of the Atmosphere) must be 4 times your 0.23 degrees, or 0.92 degrees, if we accept the value of 4 W/m^2 for forcing.
.
Little amounts mean a lot. The latest TSI is measured by SORCE is at 1360 and some tenths. Any calculations from 2001 have to be redefined as those numbers relied on a higher TSI from 1368 to 1370 w/m^2.
At 1300 w/m^2 we’d have a cooling of about 3C. As it is, roughly a 1/3 to 1/2 of current global warming that was attributed by the IPCC is wrong.
It will be interesting to see if the TSI declines during a prolonged solar minimum or if there are other unknown factors. It’ll be interesting to see if the Stefan Boltzmann formula is right, or small increases and decreases of TSI have larger impacts on temperature.
Compare the stated temperature or observed of Venus with the measured using 1360. Or Mars.
I’ve mentioned this before, microwave radiation zips right through cloud cover. One frequency heats water specifically. The same as in your microwave at home.
If we enter into a modern minimum. Which looks like we might be.
From the blog post By Nicolas Bellouin
“I thank Graham Feingold, Johannes Quaas, Annica Ekman, Leo Donner, and Ilan Koren for interesting discussions on current understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions.
Note that they do not all agree that aerosol-cloud radiative forcing is weak: some argue that a value of up to −1.2 W m−2 remains consistent with scientific understanding.”
So the takeway here is that we can add another modeling result to the hundreds of reported results, and that this new modelling result falls within the spectrum of all the other modelling results. So, literally nothing new to see here. Except perhaps that using the phrase ‘death blow to global warming hysteria’ is pretty ridiculous, considering that this result falls within range of IPCC predictions.
But lets look at the bright side, it seems that WUWT is coming on board with at least the lower end of the IPCC predictions. Welcome!
Cheers,
Ben
I admire your stoicism, after all the cancellation of thermageddon must be very disappointing.
You’ll need to convince the rest of the world that thermageddon has been canceled, they have not accepted that statement.
Chris,
Do you mean that part of the world that is clueless and can be led around?
Perhaps you mean the rest of the world that looked at your rhetorical tactics and said hold on!
“Settled Science”, “97%”, “Ever Recorded”.
That part of the world which then examined the modeling and manipulated data and all the rest which confirmed their knowledge that when an agenda was cloaked in myth and promoted with snake oil, it came from the tent of The Big Lie? That the promoters’ paychecks depended on their lies?
Is that what you mean?
‘You’ll need to convince the rest of the world that thermageddon has been canceled, they have not accepted that statement.’
That’s because people have been lied to for a long time. But a lot of people are tripping to it now.
The rest of the world could care less about climate change. Most Americans rank it dead last in any context, and if not asked wouldn’t bring it up. And the people that do think about it in China, India, or Russia, think it’s a scam. And how we benefit from it from the stupid Americans.
well, that was exactly my point. How exactly does a modelling result (which you guys don’t trust anyway) that falls squarely within the previously reported IPCC boundaries change anything? The fact that it falls within the boundaries means that there are already other models that have the same outcome.
Basically, it changes nothing, neither pro or con either of our positions, but I find the interpretation given to it fairly strange.
Alan, your opinion is that the rest of the world is clueless and can be led on. By “the rest of the world”, we are not just talking about scientists (corrupted!) or governments (power and money grab!). We are also talking about the largest oil companies (Shell, BP, Exxon), we are talking the Fortune 1000. We are also talking about countries like the Philippines – if the CAGW movement results in lack of energy and perpetual poverty for places like the Philippines, why do they say it is real and happening now? How do they gain by that? How does Walmart gain by saying AGW is real? How does BP?
I love it when a leftists decides that he and his buds constitute “the rest of the world”.
Ego much?
“I love it when a leftists decides that he and his buds constitute “the rest of the world”.”
Tell you what, Mark, enlighten me with 5 countries whose public position is that AGW is not a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Enlighten me with 5 companies whose public position is that AGW is not a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Take your time, I’ll wait.
BenBen Good to see you.
I am glad you come by from time to time. Over time, perhaps you will convince me that the warmist side is correct. Perhaps you will see that the position of the skeptics has merit.
In any event, I respect you for arguing your case.
Only a tried-and-true Kool Ade-guzzling cognitive dissonance-plagued Believer could say that WUWT is “coming around” to the IPCC’s faux science “predictions”, ben. So congratulations, on staying true to your humanity-hating economy-destroying cause to the bitter end.
TonyL,
Really? Goebbels argued for his agenda. Would you publicly gush about him, too?
Do you think that the ultimate aims of the powers behind the whole CAGW meme are any less dangerous to mankind than the ideas promoted by Riefenstahl?
Hey TonyL, thanks a lot for the kind words! We’re all humans in the end 🙂
“So congratulations, on staying true to your humanity-hating economy-destroying cause to the bitter end.”
Hey Bruce, you might want to give the Philippines a heads up – they didn’t get the message that belief in CAGW makes you humanity hating and economy destroying. In fact, they say just the opposite: “For the Philippines, climate change means sorrowful catalogues of casualty and fatality; the countless voices of the homeless and the grieving – their very tears and screams carried to us by the winds and the waves that blew their homes away…. we are all aware of how the discourse on development and inequality, within and among nations, is intertwined with climate change. Invariably, those who have the least bear most of the burden.”
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/747138/full-text-paris-agreement-philippine-statement-cop21#ixzz4B0a4uCYY
A politician trying to increase the power of government.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Chris: Well, I’ve seen your comments, and benben’s, and the other [snip], and figured it was all a scam, but if the Philipino gov’t puts out a statement, call me alarmed! Appeals to authority are not so persuasive, but appeal to non-authority, who can argue with that? What makes it so convincing is that you didn’t just take some gov’t press release as fact, you went to the Philippines and got the feel of the people there, right?
Could the moderators please say something about these kind of statements above? Its really unpleasant when people say things like ‘hitler youth’
[snipped .mod]
Paul Courtney said: :What makes it so convincing is that you didn’t just take some gov’t press release as fact, you went to the Philippines and got the feel of the people there, right?”
As a matter of fact, Paul, I have done that, I’ve been there more than 20 times on business and holiday trips, and have had the exact discussions you referred to. The same for Indonesia, Thailand, Mynamar, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka. How about you?
MarkW said: “A politician trying to increase the power of government.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
Got it, so nothing said by a scientist, scientific organization, or government is to be trusted. Of course, if a scientific paper somehow casts doubt on CAGW, that’s a different story – then the work is rock solid. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/06/study-worsening-drought-from-climate-change-may-be-considerably-weaker-and-less-extensive-than-previously-thought/
That still doesn’t explain why companies such as Walmart and BP say that AGW is a serious issue. How do you explain that away?
Sorry to the mod, thought my reference to a Monty Python line made clear I was not refering to that 40’s youth group, sorry to benben too since that’s how he took it. Chris, you’d be more credible about your world-traveling conversations if you weren’t playing the anonymous tr@ll. Far as I can see, you post a link to a press release and expect to persuade. But keep trying.
Paul, my name is Chris, I’m curious why it is important that you know my full name. I don’t claim to be a climate scientist, I don’t claim any position of authority or influence. When I post here, I try to use supporting links as much as possible, rather than just saying stuff. So how am I a troll? Just because I disagree with your position? That’s rather weak of you, if I must say.
As far as my “claims” about SE Asia, I’m an American who has lived in Singapore for 20 years. I have regional sales job and so travel often to all of the countries I mentioned. Once again, specifically how much time have you spent in ASEAN, or other poor regions of the world, whose thinking you claim to represent?
And as far as “just one link”, that’s a whole lot better than the zero links you post. Or is Paul Courtney such a worldwide authority that we are supposed to accept at face value whatever you say? That’s laughable.
Benben
WUWT has been on board with the possibility of AGW from the beginning its CAGW that was and is the issue. CAGW is a fraud that is being perpetrated for political reason, this study is just more proof and benben is a fraud for self ego gratification and pseudo-science/pseudo-Religion and your commentary is proof of that, though there is no doubt in my mind you don’t see it, but stooges are always so.
Yeah, but at 1.5 degrees doubling the results of burning all that carbon would still be pretty bad, so this results doesn’t change that. All it does is give us a few more years to transition to renewables, which we would need anyway.
Again, I’m not saying this particular paper will change anyones position, its just the interpretation of it is weird. A lower bound modelling result still confirms the IPCC range, it’ll just lower the average a bit. Nothing to see here?
Benben
“Yeah, but at 1.5 degrees doubling the results of burning all that carbon would still be pretty bad, so this results doesn’t change that”
Really the world has been hotter in the past with no catastrophic results so where is your evidence for this?
Whens the next doubling 300 years or more? There is zero evidence that even if the temps did increase another 1.5c that it would have any negative impact and quite probably it would have a very beneficial impact on our ability to live on this planet. So even if we take your scenario as gospel CAGW is dead and you just admitted it. Greener, warmer, wetter, less savvier weather all of these are the apparent results of the warming since the LIA, not base on models but on actual observations so where is the “pretty bad” your religion is dead.
Benben, do you have any evidence that a 1.5C warming would be pretty bad?
We’ve already seen 0.8C of that 1.5 and nothing bad has happened, in fact the world has been getting better.
The Holocene Optimum was at a minimum 5C warmer than today, and things were great back then.
There is not, and never has been any need to transition to renewables, which still don’t work.
Haha, MarkW were you around in the holocene? there is quite a bit of evidence pointing towards the idea increasing CO2 levels drastically in a very short time is possibly a bad idea. But anyway, let’s not get into that discussion with you guys.
You have to agree with me that this particular blog post we are commenting on is a bit weird, no? It says that a modelling result which falls into IPCC range sounds the death knell of climate alarm. That is just not true.
You have a point; we should be skeptical. It’s just another model. So instead of taking drastic action maybe we should just wait and see what happens.
benben, I realize that you specialize in making stupid look cool, but sheesh.
First off, there have been dozens and dozens of studies regarding the many warm periods over the last 10K years. All of which were warmer than it is today.
As to your evidence that rapid increases in CO2 are bad. Models are not evidence.
As for the real world, there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that indicates that CO2 increases, even rapid ones are bad.
Heck, a few million years ago, CO2 levels were in the 5000 to 7000 ppm range, and life flourished.
benben says:
“You have to agree with me that this particular blog post we are commenting on is a bit weird, no?”
Yes. And I’m glad benben said “we”, not “you guys”. In benben’s case, he must be using the royal “we”, because his comment here is certainly weird:
“Haha, MarkW were you around in the holocene?”
benben doesn’t understand that he was also ‘around in the Holocene’. I’ll help the youngster: We are still in the Holocene. All of us, right now. Even benben.
And:
“…there is quite a bit of evidence pointing towards the idea increasing CO2 levels drastically in a very short time is possibly a bad idea.”
Let’s see your ‘quite a bit of evidence’, benben. Post it right here. Opinions don’t count.
Next, benben says:
“But anyway, let’s not get into that discussion with you guys.”
benben, you don’t want to discuss your “evidence” because you would lose that debate. There is no convincing evidence that the rise in CO2 (by only one part in 10,000, over the past century) has caused any measurable changes in global temperature, or that it has caused any other negative effects.
On the contrary, there is plenty of verifiable evidence showing that the increase in (harmless) CO2 has been a net benefit.
I can post that evidence, benben. But you first: post “quite a bit of evidence” showing that increasing CO2 is “a bad idea.” And remember, opinions don’t count.
Well DB, you are right, but some would argue we are currently in the Anthropocene 😉 Anyway, I obviously meant to comment on the fact that he was not around when it was +5.0C warmer.
Its kind of ridiculous to demand ‘evidence’ that emitting half a trillion tons of CO2 has negative effects on the long run, when you could just go and follow any MOOC or get a recent textbook with exactly that. Obviously you haven’t done it so you’re not interested in seeing what evidence there is. This insistence of ‘proving the entire AGW hypothesis one blog comment or go home’ is somehow disingenuous, and really not relevant to my initial comment. You really just want to pull the debate into stuff that you want to talk about, instead of contribute to the topic at hand.
More of interest is to debate the SPECIFIC claim made in this blog post, namely that a modelling result that lies within the IPCC boundaries can be seen as the death knell of climate alarmism.
This is what I commented on, and that is what I am interested in hearing your opinion on, my dear DB.
Cheers,
Ben
“Well DB, you are right, but some would argue we are currently in the Anthropocene ;)”
You can call it the Idiocene for all I care, but you’d still have to define the exact time frame to which you are applying the name. Since the “Anthropocene” has never been official recognized, defined, or quantified, it seems a little odd to argue about whether we are currently in it, or not.
“Anyway, I obviously meant to comment on the fact that he was not around when it was +5.0C warmer.”
Well since NONE of us have been alive in any other Epoch besides the Holocene/Anthropocene/Idiocene and at no point has that Epoch ever been +5.0C warmer than it is today, your point is the exact opposite of “obvious”. What was it specifically?
“Its kind of ridiculous to demand ‘evidence’ that emitting half a trillion tons of CO2 has negative effects on the long run, when you could just go and follow any MOOC or get a recent textbook with exactly that.”
Really? I cannot think of one officially sanctioned textbook which contains empirical evidence that emitting CO2 has already had negative effects, in the short run…probably because emitting half a trillion tons of CO2 has never been directly, indisputably, empirically linked to any effect currently taking place that is negative. And of course “evidence” of it’s effect over the “long run” cannot be known until the long run has occurred.
Now what you originally said was-“…there is quite a bit of evidence pointing towards the idea increasing CO2 levels drastically in a very short time is possibly a bad idea.” Something that is “possibly a bad idea” is not the same thing as “something empirically proven to be bad”.
“Obviously you haven’t done it so you’re not interested in seeing what evidence there is.”
Mind reading, logical fallacy, cognitive bias. You have zero means for knowing that db has, or has not done, or what db is or is not interested in. THAT is obvious to any sane person.
“This insistence of ‘proving the entire AGW hypothesis one blog comment or go home’ is somehow disingenuous, and really not relevant to my initial comment.”
Show us all, exactly where, ANYONE “insisted” that! Or even anything close to that! Do you even know what the word disingenuous means? It means-“lacking in candor, frankness, or sincerity”. I cannot think of anyone here who is MORE frank or has MORE candor than dbstealey. Making up wild insinuations about what you think people are “insisting” is illogical, as well as pitiful.
“You really just want to pull the debate into stuff that you want to talk about, instead of contribute to the topic at hand.”
You’re the one who brought up “evidence”…do you want to talk about evidence or not? If you do, PROVIDE SOME. If you don’t, don’t bring it up.
“More of interest is to debate the SPECIFIC claim made in this blog post, namely that a modelling result that lies within the IPCC boundaries can be seen as the death knell of climate alarmism.
This is what I commented on, and that is what I am interested in hearing your opinion on, my dear DB.”
Let’s see if you can follow this…
An alarmist is defined as- “someone who is considered to be exaggerating a danger and so causing needless worry or panic.”
Climate change is the norm. The climate has always changed, and most likely, always will.
Climate ALARMISM is the idea that changes in the climate are alarming! (weird huh?) The only reason any changes would “alarm” a rational, reasonable person, is if there was evidence/proof/verification that those changes were going to cause something dreadful, tragic, horrible, dangerous, unnatural etc. to happen.
So, when studies show that climate changes are NOT going to cause ALARMING things to happen, (that there is no danger, no reason to worry or panic) alarmism, by definition, should die…stop existing….no longer live. That’s what we call rational behavior. Reasonable. Logical.
If what results from current climate changes lies within the LOW END of the IPCC boundaries, then no one here sees any rational, logical reason to be alarmed. The article DID NOT SAY that this was a “death knell” for climate change. Or AGW. Or anything else outside of climate ALARM.
We are back to in big letters … 38 billion tons … Ta da…. beneficial ben.. so in the spirit of climate science , maybe and if , it could, what happened to 19 billion of it last year ? Why that’s 1 and half times produced in all of 1965. Why don’t you enlighten me/us on how that happened. I’ll bet you have a dandy explanation on how in 1998 the co2 increase 2.93 ppm and the next year dropped to 0.88. WOW when I think about it, 1999 the amount of co2 came in less than 1965, which was 0.98 . And every year following that was well below 1998 despite a constant increase of over a billion metric tons a year. I’m just all ears!!
I’ll bet you are just chomping at the bit to tell me how the global warming matched up at 1368 w/m^2 and not at the actual level of 1360. I can’t wait to hear how did you do that? !!
Ah! Ha! The co2 is hiding somewhere! Maybe we will find it in an imaginary tropical hotspot.
benben says:
Its kind of ridiculous to demand ‘evidence’ that emitting half a trillion tons of CO2 has negative effects on the long run, when you could just go and follow any MOOC or get a recent textbook with exactly that.
In other words, benben posts opinions, not the “evidence” he claimed.
Next, benben says:
You really just want to pull the debate into stuff that you want to talk about, instead of contribute to the topic at hand.
Please quit deflecting, and post the “quite a bit of evidence” you claimed to have.
benben doesn’t understand that without providing for skepticism of scientific claims, the alternative becomes Lysenkoism: the state’s authority determines whether a scientific hypothesis is true or false. It is not arrived at by falsification per the Scientific Method, but rather, by government bureaucrats.
We’re not there quite yet, but we are pretty close, with certain groups and government officials demanding judicial punishment for scientists skeptical of the ‘dangerous AGW’ conjecture.
People like benben are enablers of Lysenkoism. As we see, he can’t produce “quite a bit of evidence”, or any credible evidence at all to support his opinion that “CO2 has negative effects”.
At this point all that is left for benben and his fellow travelers are government decrees stating that his climate alarmist faction has the only correct answer and conclusion. It’s already started with the EPA’s preposterous designation that CO2 is a “pollutant”.
When people like benben cannot back their opinions with facts, evidence, observations, and measurements, they’re no longer discussing science; they’ve lost the science debate. Now they’re enablers of rule by a nameless, faceless, and unaccountable bureaucracy.
Thanks a lot, Comrade benben.
*sigh* sure DB, whatever floats your boat. But once you’re done preaching about communism, I invite you to take a look at the other side of the fence. I’m here, why wouldn’t you go take a look in my backyard? Go read a book. Any one of the recent general introduction to environmental sciences books should do just fine. At least it’ll give us a shared base from which to talk.
Three days later, and benben still has no evidence to post. That’s because there is no credible evidence to support the man-made global warming scare. As benben demonstrates, his opinion is baseless.
Why do some folks continue to argue about something that exists only in their imagination? It’s certainly understandable why ‘benben’ hides behind his anonymous screen name. The way employers vet applicants these days, benben’s chances of landing a job that requires any more thinking than waiting tables would be close to zero if he used his real name.
IPCC models and predictions look ridiculous.
benben,
I have no idea who you are, but I’ve seen the twists and turns in your words, so therefore have a question for you:
does your paycheck depend upon your promotion of AGW and your rebuttals against skeptic points of view, etc.?
Not in the least. Does your paycheck depend on your promotion of the skeptical cause? It’s pretty closed minded to believe that someone with a different opinion of your own can only hold that opinion because he or she is forced/payed/lied to.
And anyway, what we are doing here is very much falsification: throw your theory against the hardest wall possible and if it’s still standing afterwards, it’s a stronger theory.
An article as above for example, that tries to pass off a normal IPCC result as something indicating the ‘death knell of climate alarm’… let’s be honest, that is pretty detrimental to the skeptical cause 😉
I should also mention, the main thing keeping me (and probably many others) away here are the frequent and very unpleasant references to events in the 1940s (see above for example).
Cheers,
ben
My guess is that he is a subsidy farmer.
A big problem I have in the issue of GW and public policy is this: (This thread is very appropriate)
Not long ago, the issue was CAGW, and the theory was based on “H2O feedback”. The argument was that CO2 would raise the temperature to some extent, which would not, in itself, be harmful. But that higher temperature would cause more water vapor to go into the atmosphere. Because H20 is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, it would cause a feedback loop. More H20 would cause more warming which cause more H2O, and off to catastrophe. This feedback also gave rise to the notion of a “tipping point”, where water vapor effects become dominant. So water vapor was invoked to do something which CO2 could not do on it’s own.
But: BUT: BUT:
If the theory was to work, the ECS of CO2 had to be above 2.5, the higher, the better. Hence the IPCC values of “Most Likely” from 3.0 – 4.5. If you have an ECS of 2.0 or less, the H2O feedback does not develop, and CAGW goes *poof*, up in a cloud of black greasy smoke. As evidence piled up that the all critical ECS is 2.0 or less, the response was to not move the goalposts, but to rip them down and build new ones. CAGW became “Climate Change”, and an ECS of 3.0 or more became “Temperature Rise” of 2.0 deg. or more.
I would engage benben to explain how and why all this happened. If benben can be forced to work his way through this, he might be brought to *think* about this. My understanding is that benben has an advanced degree in Environmental Science, and so provides a good view on how the alarmists are thinking. I would expect benben to be fully indoctrinated in the alarmist point of view, and so hard to reach. Also, is CAGW a paycheck issue for benben? Possibly, straight up, very possibly.
If benben can be turned to the Dark Side, he is well positioned to raise havoc inside the enemy camp. Consider me treating an alarmist with decency and respect is just the subversive side of my better nature.
Tony L, that is exactly the picture that CAGW drew.
Beyond that is the w/m^2 I’ve been hammering about. I purposely didn’t divide by 4 in another post. No one from the warmest side argued. The reason they probably didn’t argue is that if they had done the math, it lowers the real calculation of the rise from co2 0.5 C. I can see them telling me I’m wrong about the 2 to 3 C but right about the 0.5 C. That’s wipes out the entire story.
Then there is this. As a skeptic I’m wondering about the 1368 to 1370 w/m^2. There was supposed to a problem with the equipment. Well, maybe, suppose in the CAGW world that’s what they said and the TSI has really declined to 1360 w/m^2. That’s not a pause, that’s a decline. I can see the efforts made to keep adjusting the temperature. ( and I so totally trust CAGW ÷÷÷÷ sarc on the trust)
Most of the warmest are still cutting and pasting arguments that use the 1368 on here. In the public view number was rounded up to 1370. I’m curious as to how they will answer.
TonyL
“If benben can be turned to the Dark Side, he is well positioned to raise havoc inside the enemy camp. Consider me treating an alarmist with decency and respect is just the subversive side of my better nature.”
Seriously? He’s a stooge paid or otherwise nothing you say or anyone says will make a difference to him, you could get Michael Mann to scream “I was wrong” in his face it would have zero impression. He doesn’t care about anything other than whatever he is getting for playing his games here whether its money, an internship or just the chance to lick the boots of his favorite Communist talking head that’s it.
If he is educated in anything its political science and he probably managed to get his degree by cleaning his professors BWM between classes. Don’t waste your time thinking he is worth anything.
“He doesn’t care about anything other than whatever he is getting for playing his games here whether its money, an internship or just the chance to lick the boots of his favorite Communist talking head that’s it.”
Bob, have you considered taking an anger management class?
Chris, I guess if you want to talk to people on this blog you’ll just have to live with nasty and unpleasant comments like those from Bob. Whatever.
TonyL, I think I looked into this some time ago and it was all satisfactory accounted for in the models (H20 feedback loops are relatively quick, so they are quite well modeled and understood because you need them for short term weather modelling as well).
BUT, how about this. Even though I don’t do anything related to climate change myself, my flatmate is doing his PhD in climate models (e.g. he actually programs the models and does that work y’all hate so much here). He’s away for the summer, but if you get back to me with that exact question in a couple of months (august?), then I’ll get him to answer.
Incidentally, I asked him why he never takes time to come to a site like WUWT to answer any questions himself, he said its because of the incredibly unpleasant tone many commenters here have. So, thanks Bob!
Cheers,
Ben
@rishrac
Now I am getting really confused. The usual variation for TSI is generally given as 0.1%, way too small to make a difference. Therefor solar is a constant and cannot be a driver of change on Earth.
Well 0.1% of 1370 w/m^2 is 1.3 w/m^2.
Now I see:
So 1.3 is insignificant, and the difference between 0.6 and 1.0 is critical? I think we have lost the plot somewhere.
Closed minded? Hardly…it’s hard nosed reality. We’ve seen paid commenters here repeatedly. The airwaves are full of them. NPR (gov’t radio) regularly features them on it’s CAGW indoctrination programs. If you knew anything at all about the debates, you would know what I’ve said is true. Perhaps you know it but are trying to deflect attention from that fact. If you do know it, then you are performing exactly as do the paid propagandists, so what’s the difference?
Newsflash! You’ve already made a number of putdowns of the readership in this thread, but yet you’re still here. Anyone with alternate viewpoints is quickly banned/censored/words edited at most of the sites which support your agenda. Gov’t officials at many levels are making attempts to suppress the speech of skeptics and worse.
Twist your way past that!
“higher temperature would cause more water vapor to go into the atmosphere. Because H20 is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, it would cause a feedback loop.”
In other words, 0.04% CO2 will make the powerful water do something that the existing 4% of water simply refuses to do to itself.
That’s why it’s called a ‘forcing’, then, because water vapor won’t feed itself back voluntarily.
What’s confusing me the most is why doesn’t somebody simply pass a law to provide a sanctuary atmosphere where it can escape the bullying of CO2 – wouldn’t that be the best way to achieve social justice?
It’s all so esoteric!
Obviously everyone should do without to provide funding for more study because the science can only be settled by sensitive souls who can’t decide what bathroom to use.
I’ll have to review this while I pee so it makes sense…
Chris
“Bob, have you considered taking an anger management class?”
Benben has been spewing nonsense on this site for ever in god knows how many different names its a game to him,. I don’t have any issue with honest people making whatever comments and I am usually the one trying to make people except differing points of view and I try to understand where everyone is coming from. But I have no time for Benben its just a game to him he doesn’t mean anything he says (if fact he probably does stand for anything) here he’s just trolling for his own amusement, he plays classic poli-sci divide and confuse games and he think he is fooling everyone.
Benben
“So, thanks Bob!”
Your welcome
Wow, some nice conspiracy thinking on display here. Good work guys!
[Could “benben” please say something about the suitability of these kind of statements? Its really unpleasant when he says things like ‘conspiracy thinking’ .mod]
“Incidentally, I asked him why he never takes time to come to a site like WUWT to answer any questions himself, he said its because of the incredibly unpleasant tone many commenters here have. So, thanks Bob!”
benben, no one asked or desires for you or your flatmate to come to WUWT “to answer questions”. What is, or is not, “an incredibly unpleasant tone” is subjective. But if there is a tone here that keeps thin skinned, unskilled, incompetent people from posting their personal opinions, logical fallacies, and cognitive biases on a regular basis, I am THANKFUL for it and all who create it.
To whomever is modding at the moment-
“[Could “benben” please say something about the suitability of these kind of statements? Its really unpleasant when he says things like ‘conspiracy thinking’ .mod]”
I haven’t laughed that hard for days! Thanks for the grin as I head for bed. 🙂
Honestly, mods should probably not engage in the debate like this, but fairly obviously that a person interjecting himself in the discussion to call one of the participants part of a certain organization from the 1940s is crossing a line, which the mod rightfully snipped.
On the other hand, when someone completely out of nowhere accuses me of “spewing nonsense on this site for ever in god knows how many different names” then it’s fair to characterize that as conspiracy thinking, especially in light of the fact that this person also says I’m being paid to be here (I wish!)
Incidentally mod, you know I’m not posting under various names since you have access to IP addresses, so if anything you should have shut that down as well, instead of encouraging that kind of behaviour.
Cheers,
ben
[when your email address contains the word “spammer”, you hide behind a fake name, and many of your comments here are negative, it does make one wonder about you. /mod]
benben,
You have hijacked this thread repeatedly, and so far, extremely tolerant mods have allowed it, despite the WUWT policy page clearly stating that off-topic comments can be deleted at will. Might I suggest that continual whining and pouting about what the mods are not doing to your satisfaction, might result in them having unpleasant feelings towards you that might result in all of your off topic, irrelevant comments disappearing forever?
Just a thought…
Mod, I respectfully ask you not to share parts my private e-mail address here on this forum. If you have any concerns that this email address is somehow fake, just send me an e-mail and I’ll reply.
Aphan, that is a rather peculiar interpretation of the above thread. If you would go back to my original comment you’d see that it was very on-topic, and that I thereafter requested multiple times that the other commenters also stay on topic.
Cheers,
Ben – who’s actual name is ben
benben-
“And anyway, what we are doing here is very much falsification: throw your theory against the hardest wall possible and if it’s still standing afterwards, it’s a stronger theory.”
Wrong. You seem to totally misunderstand what falsification means in science-
“The concern with falsifiability gained attention by way of philosopher of science Karl Popper’s scientific epistemology “falsificationism”. Popper stresses the problem of demarcation—distinguishing the scientific from the unscientific—and makes falsifiability the demarcation criterion, such that what is unfalsifiable is classified as unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory to be scientifically true is pseudoscience.”
You throw your theory against every single wall that currently exists, ALL of them, not just the hardest wall. And if its still standing afterwards, it still does not prove that your theory is correct, or even stronger. It only improves the chance that it MIGHT be correct. It only takes one wall-even a soft, padded, fabric covered wall to destroy a theory. That wall might not exist yet. Or we might not have found it yet. But the lack of a destroying wall does not mean your theory is indestructible.
Anthropogenic this, that and another
Most likely all nonsense
Before the Anthropoids started interfering with global climate it was never hot, never cold, never cloudy, never sunny, never wet, never dry, no snow no ice, there was a snowball earth, there was a fireball earth.
We have to be grateful forever to the Anthropoids for making our climate so benign.
There you have it, science is settled.
Another cut. CAGW is suffering a death by a thousand cuts. It’s going to be painful, lingering and hence a memorable death.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Right, a thousand cuts. That’s why China is rolling out a carbon tax nationwide, that’s why France (just this week) mandated green or solar roofs on new buildings, that’s why Australia has rolled out the Energy Efficiency Certification Scheme, which puts a price on carbon. All in the last year.
It hardly seems necessary to remind readers that Governments can be wrong . . and/or corrupt . . and or power/control freaky, Chris . . (but I did anyway ; )
And, I feel it is wise to remind readers that the UN is a coming together of the most powerful people in each country. Not “countries”, in the general population sense, just the most powerful few. Therefore, it’s very easy to get something agreed to, which promotes more power/wealth for those “elite” few in each country. “Climate Change” is just the sort of thing that “hands” the ruling elites a convenient way to justify more taxes, more control over speech, and education, and finances, etc., while maintaining the appearance/cover that they are doing it all for the “general welfare”.
(yer welcome, Chris ; )
John, thanks for making respectful replies, much appreciated. To your comment; “And, I feel it is wise to remind readers that the UN is a coming together of the most powerful people in each country.”
I respectfully disagree on that one, I think the UN has relatively little power, though there is lots of grandstanding (and wasted money). Let’s look at a few cases.
IPCC – there is a very small full time team, they rely almost entirely on outside scientists for the research that is done. There is little in the way of enforcement mechanism behind COP21, yes, the countries have agreed to targets, but what happens if they don’t make them? The UN has no enforcement mechanism.
Free trade – all the big agreements – TPCC, NAFTA, the new one being negotiated in the EU – have almost nothing to do w the UN. In fact, those agreements reveal that big companies are the real power brokers, not the UN.
Conflicts – when is the last time the UN played a major role in resolving a major conflict? Almost everything happening in the Middle East is outside of UN control, it is individual countries (like Russia in Syria) or coalitions.
Chris,
I said nothing about how much power the UN has, so this makes no sense to me
“I respectfully disagree on that one, I think the UN has relatively little power…”
It certainly had the power to form/facilitate the UN IPCC, and “hand” the most powerful people in each country a very convenient way for THEM to justify more taxing, restricting, indoctrinating, crony capitalizing, etc., while playing the part of world saviors.
John, you said: “And, I feel it is wise to remind readers that the UN is a coming together of the most powerful people in each country. Not “countries”, in the general population sense, just the most powerful few. ”
To me, that implies the UN having power – yes, you said people, but they if they are not exercising their power on behalf of the UN, then there is no connection. And in any case, I don’t know which specific powerful people you are talking about. Can you give me 3 names of powerful people that are part of this group?
Chris,
“And in any case, I don’t know which specific powerful people you are talking about. ”
Well, people like Mr. Obama, or Mr. Mugabe . . whom those they send to the UN either obey, or they are replaced . . It’s hard for me to believe you don’t know about how people end up representing “countries” at the UN. The most powerful people, meaning the people who can tell the army what to do, for instance . . powerful, like wielding power . .
Oh, and speaking of a thousand cuts, what are some of the key skeptic tenets? 1) The Pause – oops, that has ended. 2) Arctic ice is recovering – oops, no it isn’t. 3) Antarctic ice is growing – still true, though some areas are shrinking. Oh well, you still have 1 out of 3.
There are key skeptic tenets? Is there a list somewhere? And here I am thinking that being a skeptic of something is just withholding judgement until empirical evidence demonstrates that a position can and should logically be taken. For example, being a “Chris” skeptic just means I’m not taking any certain position on who/what Chris is, or isn’t, until I gather enough evidence to make a logical and reasonable judgement about that. Every rational person knows that stereotyping and making sweeping generalizations about entire groups of people is illogical, irrational, and evidence of a cognitive bias. 🙂
And the climate has always changed, (there’s nothing BUT empirical evidence of that) so pauses coming and going-normal, ice melting and growing and melting again-normal, growing more in some areas and not in others-totally normal. Temps rising during interglacial periods, and dropping during glacial periods-normal.
Maybe Chris is so confused by all of the terminology changes and attempts to redefine words that he doesn’t know that CAGW stands for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming…which is different from regular old Anthropogenic Global Warming….and natural Global Warming…and other changes that are not CATASTROPHIC. Killing off the “catastrophic” kind doesn’t affect all of the other kinds at all. So he still has those.
Aphan, my point, which I guess I will need to make more literally, is that climate skeptics often point to the pause, the Arctic ice not melting by 2013 and the growth in Antarctic ice as proof points that AGW is not happening or is too small to worry about.
You mention temperatures rise during interglacial periods, such as now. What is the reason for that?
As far as the C in CAGW, if the oceans rise by 1m over the next 100 years, would you consider that a catastrophic event?
Steven
“the costs have come down ( yes they are cheaper to make… econ 101, make more, and you learn)”
Maybe but most of the companies producing these panels are going out of business because they are slowly losing their government subsidies.
The amount of subsidies going to renewables is much higher than reported in most of these studies and the production of most of these systems is theoretical and not actual output.
Bob Boder said: “Maybe but most of the companies producing these panels are going out of business because they are slowly losing their government subsidies.”
No, just like in any maturing industry, there is a shakeout, and this has been particularly true in solar due to extremely aggressive Chinese panel manufacturers. So yes, some consolidation, but the overall market is growing rapidly: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/ihs-increases-2015-pv-forecast-to-59-gw–2016-to-65-gw_100021513/#axzz4B5bn5lz2
Chris-
What “climate skeptics often do” does not mean that all skeptics all believe/think/feel the same way about everything. I believe it’s possible that humans can and could even now be affecting Earth’s climate, but the fact that it is possible, does not mean that anyone has proven that we are to my satisfaction.
The Earth changes. It always has. Sometimes it has changed slowly, and sometimes it has changed rapidly-in less than a decade, long before humans were around to be blamed for such changes.
(See the report- “Abrupt Climate Change-Inevitable Surprises” written by the National Committee on Abrupt Climate Change and published by the NAS in 2002. 244 pages with over 500 scientific references)
So the idea that humans have caused some abrupt changes already, or will in the future, can only be entertained if all possible mechanisms from which Earth has produced such changes on it’s own in the past, have first been eliminated. AGW is a theory based on correlations that may or may not be causally related to one another. Natural GW and GC and climate change is a known and evidence based FACT.
“You mention temperatures rise during interglacial periods, such as now. What is the reason for that? ”
Ask the “experts”-
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-4.html
“As far as the C in CAGW, if the oceans rise by 1m over the next 100 years, would you consider that a catastrophic event?”
A catastrophe is defined as- “an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering; a disaster.” Current mid range estimates are that sea levels have been rising by 3.5 mm per year since the early 1900’s. Clearly not catastrophic there. And should it continue at the same rate, we’re looking at 350 mm in the next 100 years, which is about 1/3 of a meter. Again, not great or sudden, and certainly not a disaster.
(Of course they measure sea level rise with satellites which we’ve recently been informed are inaccurate and prone to drift and algorithm problems. And then there’s this-http://notrickszone.com/2016/04/11/broken-altimetry-225-tide-gauges-show-sea-level-rising-only-1-48-mm-per-year-less-than-half-the-satellite-claimed-rate/#sthash.UX2Vtku2.qtNNlyDh.dpbs which shows that “The average SLR at those 225 gauges is +0.90 mm/yr. The median is +1.41 mm/yr. ” So we could be looking at 141 mm in the next 100 years…which is even LESS of a non-disaster)
But, surely you DO understand that human cities exist on land that scientists have known for centuries was once under water, and yet humanity has made zero efforts to pull those cities back from the coasts…you know….to prevent the inevitable return of those waters to the same levels they were during previous eras in which the ice caps retreated completely or almost completely? I’d think that smart humans would learn from the past geological evidence they are surrounded by and stop building civilization on top of future submerged property, and fault lines, and near volcanoes and known tornado paths if they truly want to limit the amount of damage/suffering that we know comes from natural disasters. But nope, hurricane after hurricane wipes out coastal cities and what do we do….we rebuild. Again.
Aphan, there are a number of papers that have been published showing links between AGW and extreme events. Here is one: http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/00ca18a19ff194252940f7e3c58da254.pdf
As far as ocean level increases, I was asking a question – if ocean levels increase by 1m over the next 100 years, would you consider that a catastophic event?
Chris
And how are ocean levels going to increase by 1 meter in 100 years?
2 mm/year x 10 years = 20 mm (3/4 inch) in 10 years
2 mm/year x 100 years = 200 mm = 20 cm = 8 inch in 100 years.
[Your] projected (imaginary) “threat” requires 5 TIMES the current rate!
But, to avoid this projected imaginary threat, you FORCE the world to 100 years of death and starvation and misery by artificially and deliberately restricting fossil fuel use.
And, worse, your artificial and deliberate restrictions on fossil fuel use would have NO effect on the imaginary threat you have exaggerated into impossible future sea level rise!
Chris said-
“Aphan, there are a number of papers that have been published showing links between AGW and extreme events. Here is one: http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/00ca18a19ff194252940f7e3c58da254.pdf”
Chris, there are a number of papers that have been published showing no link between AGW and extreme events. I don’t care about links. I care about facts. Evidence. Empirical, duplicatable, verifiable facts. Correlation is not causation. Not even perfect correlation.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/04/fewer-heatwaves-for-9-million-australians-in-sydney-darwin-hobart-melbourne-thank-co2/
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/eight-reasons-the-australian-heatwave-is-not-climate-change/
“As far as ocean level increases, I was asking a question – if ocean levels increase by 1m over the next 100 years, would you consider that a catastophic event?”
I answered that question.
Chris says:
…climate skeptics often point to the pause, the Arctic ice not melting by 2013 and the growth in Antarctic ice as proof points that AGW is not happening or is too small to worry about.
Chris, why do you keep claiming that skeptics have something to prove? The onus is on you to produce credible evidence showing that your catastrophic AGW scare is anything more than a fantasy. And for the umpteenth time: skeptics have nothing to prove.
And you keep asking:
As far as the C in CAGW, if the oceans rise by 1m over the next 100 years, would you consider that a catastrophic event?
I would consider that worrisome. If sea levels continued to rise at that rate and begin to accelerate p[ast one meter like all those failed predictions, I would call it catastrophic.
But there is no evidence whatever that sea levels will rise by one meter over the next hundred years, and plenty of evidence that they won’t. That’s just another alarmist “What If” scenario, based on rank speculation.
That scenario is no different from all the other scare tactics your side uses. You try to alarm the public with that kind of evidence-free nonsense because you don’t have anything else.
Not one of your alarming predictions has ever come true. In science, when predictions like yours are wrong 100.0% of the time, your conjecture fails. It has been falsified by the real world.
The rent-seeking alarmist crowd’s arguments would have been laughed out of the lab and off the campus long ago, except for one thing: the huge piles of grant money being shoveled into the CAGW scare.
Your scare is bought and paid for. That isn’t science. And when the money runs out, your “dangerous man-made global warming” nonsense will look as ridiculous as phrenology.
But until then, it’s fun ‘n’ easy picking apart what passes for a rational alarmist argument — like your baseless “what if” conjecture that sea levels will rise by one meter over the next hundred years. As if.
my favourite one has to be ‘renewables are so much more expensive than fossil!’ until – oops – now renewables are cheaper and developing countries are massively investing in them.
Except, Denmark just stopped building them and Britain, Germany and Spain are paying the price… how’s that lower cost, again?
I’d have to see some evidence of lower cost from renewables, i.e., wind and solar. Your assertion doesn’t make it so.
When the facts on hand don’t fit the narrative, benben does what trolls world wide always do. He just makes it up.
haha, yes did you notice I said developing countries? It would be nice if you could respond to what I actually wrote, instead of debate your own hypothetical green communist. Would make things much more interesting all around.
Denmark stopped building those windturbines because the EU forced them to stop, over illegal state subsidies. Now doesn’t that go against your usual narrative that the EU is a renewable energy pushing subsidy monster? I find it infinitely interesting to see how you guys interpret these facts to fit your own preferred world view.
Evidence, you could have just googled it but sure:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/wind-and-solar-are-crushing-fossil-fuels
“While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.
“One reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to produce. Recent solar and wind auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended with winning bids from companies that promised to produce electricity at the cheapest rate, from any source, anywhere in the world, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). ”
Just spend 5 minutes googling and you will find any statistics your heart may desire.
benben
That you would actually link that Bloomberg piece (and expect anyone with a clue to believe any of it) is enlightening. Scanning the article is more enlightening, still.
You have completely convinced me that propaganda is your thing.
Ps While you tried to ascribe more than one viewpoint to me, astute readers and you, can do any number of searches and will find zero evidence that I’ve ever said any of those things. Just more propaganda on your part.
pffff, man, just google for prices paid for either solar or wind in any of the large scale auctions held in the six months or so. What do you want me to do? Buy a GW of wind turbines and send you the invoice? It’s really strange trying to talk to guys like you.
Hmmmm how about… IEA reports?
https://irenanewsroom.org/2015/01/17/renewable-power-costs-plummet-many-sources-now-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-worldwide/
Report highlights:
In many countries, including Europe, onshore wind power is one of the most competitive sources of new electricity capacity available. Individual wind projects are consistently delivering electricity for USD 0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) without financial support, compared to a range of USD 0.045 to 0.14/kWh for fossil-fuel power plants.
The average cost of wind energy ranges from USD 0.06/kWh in China and Asia to USD 0.09/kWh in Africa. North America also has competitive wind projects, with an average cost of USD 0.07/kWh.
Solar PV module prices have dropped 75% since 2009 and continue to decrease.
Residential solar PV systems are now as much as 70% cheaper than in 2008.
benben says:
Residential solar PV systems are now as much as 70% cheaper than in 2008.
I only minored in Econ, but it’s clear that benben doesn’t have a clue about economics. Residential customers pay less for PV for only one reason: windmill and solar power is heavily subsidized. Many of those subsidies escalate annually, and will eventually reach 50¢/kWh.
Clean coal power costs 6¢ – 9¢/kWh net of taxes, while wind and PV requires massive tax subsidies. Does benben really believe that solar and windmills can compete with fossil fuel power without their immense subsidies? It wouldn’t surprise me.
People like benben seem to suffer from two deficiencies: their inability to be scientific skeptics, and their economic illiteracy. No climate alarmist is ever a skeptic, and the naive and credulous ones believe those pie in the sky claims that wind and solar power is cheaper than fossil fuel power.
The first is necessary for science to progress, and the second is concentrated in the Ivory Tower. Didn’t benben say he’s at Yale?
benben
That renewables are getting cheaper, is not the same thing as renewable BEING cheaper than fossil fuels. You can understand that right?
The Bloomberg article shows that INVESTMENTS in fossil fuels are dropping while INVESTMENTS in renewables are increasing. Well DUH. Fossil fuels were hot investments when they were “new” as well. Cheap and efficient and in great supply, prices to purchase them have dropped over the years…as they SHOULD have. They got so cheap that companies aren’t making as much money as they used to, and people are taking their investing dollars elsewhere. That’s why the article states-
“Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.”
And
“Oil and gas woes are driven less by renewables than by a mismatch of too much supply and too little demand.”
Investing in a product or end result does NOT automatically guarantee that those products will work, or that the end result will be what you hoped it would be. It’s a risk. Remember the real estate market? The housing bubble? The .com bubble? Investments in companies like Kmart, JC Penney etc used to be HUGE….now they aren’t.
The article shows a chart in which is shows that in the 15 years since 2000, solar has gone from 0% of the global power generated to a whopping….1.6% of it! Woah. And wind has gone from 0.% of the global power generation to 3.1%. If both market keep growing at their current rates….in another 30 years, combined they’ll equal…15% of the world’s global power generation! And 30 after that?…30%.
I wonder if those developing countries understand that if renewables continue their meteoric rise, in another 60 years, 70% of the world’s fuel will STILL be coming from something other than renewables? benben apparently doesn’t.
benben apparently doesn’t actually dig far enough for his “truth” either-
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Electricity_prices_for_households_consumers_2014s2.png
This chart shows that Denmark (DK) pays the highest price for it’s household energy than any other EU country does. More than HALF of that cost is in “other taxes” and “VAT”.. Denmark is also the country with the MOST wind generated power in the EU. So much for it being “cheap” benben.
IRENA? HaHaHaHa!
“With a mandate from countries around the world, IRENA encourages governments to adopt enabling policies [SUBSIDIES] for renewable energy investments, provides practical tools and policy advice to accelerate renewable energy deployment, and facilitates knowledge sharing and technology transfer to provide clean, sustainable energy for the world’s growing population.”
http://www.irena.org/Menu/index.aspx?PriMenuID=13&mnu=Pri
Bennie: I thought you wanted to stay on topic, the death of CAGW?
Well, at least we have an easily falsifiable statement here. I give plenty of reports saying X, DB fervently believes Y, but can’t really back it up except referring to my supposed stupidity. I thought you wanted evidence DB? I gave you plenty of evidence! And all you have to do is literally search in google for ‘2016 renewable energy costs’ to find dozens more. Now you show me the evidence that at this moment, in 2016, utility scale wind and solar is still extremely expensive compared to fossil fuels.
(Paul, this is a different thread, here I replied to someone else’s comment, but fair point)
benben-
“Now you show me the evidence that at this moment, in 2016, utility scale wind and solar is still extremely expensive compared to fossil fuels.”
Since 2016 isn’t even half over, I googled “2015 renewable energy costs”.
“The median cost of producing so-called baseload power that is available all the time from natural gas, coal and atomic plants was about $100 a megawatt-hour for 2015 compared with about $200 for solar , which dropped from $500 in 2010. Those costs take into account investment, fuel, maintenance and dismantling of the installations over their lifetimes and vary widely between countries and plants. For instance, commercial rooftop solar installations generate power for $311.77 a megawatt-hour in Belgium and $166.70 in sunnier Spain, the findings show.”
Finding– The median cost of Solar in 2015 was TWICE the price of fossil fuels and nuclear. It also depends on where one lives-commercial solar in Belgium costs DOUBLE what commercial solar in Spain costs. I’d call that extremely expensive solar to solar comparison…wouldn’t you?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-31/solar-wind-power-costs-drop-as-fossil-fuels-increase-iea-says
“In China, onshore wind is cheaper than gas-fired power, at $77 per MWh versus $113, but it is much more expensive still than coal-generated electricity, at $44, while solar PV power is at $109. In the US, coal and gas are still cheaper, at $65 per MWh, against onshore wind at $80 and PV at $107.”
“Luke Mills, analyst, energy economics at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “Generating costs continue to vary greatly from region to region, reflecting influences such as the shale gas boom in the US, changing utilisation rates in areas of high renewables penetration, the shortage of local gas production in East Asia, carbon prices in Europe, differing regulations on nuclear power across the world, and contrasting resources for solar generation.”
Finding – Again, depends on where you live and what’s going on, but coal and gas are still cheaper in many regions of the world. In the US (even after leveling) wind is 20% more expensive than coal and gas, and solar PV is 40% more expensive.
http://about.bnef.com/press-releases/wind-solar-boost-cost-competitiveness-versus-fossil-fuels/
Check out page 7- and figure ES-1
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63604.pdf
“Figure ES-1 shows the unsubsidized LCOEs for wind, centralized utility-scale solar PV, natural gas combined-cycle, and coal in the United States, Germany, and China for the year 2014, and projections for 2025 based on 2014 estimates of changing costs.”
Finding – Renewables, more expensive, for a long time.
benben
You seem to have missed the last paragraph from your IRENA link-
“The report goes on to explain that renewable energy price improvements are not universal, and that costs range widely according to resources and the availability of financing. Offshore wind and concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies are in earlier stages and deployment costs remain higher than those of fossil fuels. These technologies will however become more cost-competitive in future, especially where low-cost financing is available.”
“Residential solar PV systems are now as much as 70% cheaper than in 2008.
I only minored in Econ, but it’s clear that benben doesn’t have a clue about economics. Residential customers pay less for PV for only one reason:”
minor in econ, but logic fail.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62558.pdf
“customers pay less for PV for only one reason:”
err no. They pay less today than in 2008 for MANY REASONS.
1. the costs have come down ( yes they are cheaper to make… econ 101, make more, and you learn)
learning curve… maybe econ 201
2. incentives in some states.. In cali we. however, pay more.
3. Polyisilicon supply was TIGHT in 2008 where benben pegs the start of his comparison
here db
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53347.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65872.pdf
see figure es-2 for example
http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/downloads/role-advancements-photovoltaic-efficiency-reliability-and-costs
Here’s an example: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/new-low-for-wind-energy-costs-morocco-tender-averages-us30mwh-81108
So Aphan, Steve Mosher,
You’re saying that in 2015, utility scale on-shore wind and solar was cheaper than fossil in some places and more expensive in others, depending on stuff like supply lines (for fossil, e.g. a tiny island is more expensive than next to Rotterdam), and wind and solar resources. And small scale solar is more expensive all around, except for some small exceptions (e.g. Hawaii, because of above reason), and experimental renewables such as concentrated solar or wave energy are also more expensive.
Good! I agree with that. You see, what a little googling can do for our common viewpoints?
The main gist of my argument is that prices of renewables are falling very rapidly (just look at the prices in 2010 or before, exactly as Steve says, learning curve). So 2016 will be cheaper and 2017 even more so. But sure, if you refuse to look at prices quoted in 2016 (see link by Chris above), lets just wait until the 2016 reports come out.
Cheers,
Ben
Benben,
I can’t speak for Steven. But what I said, and demonstrated with supporting links, is that while solar and onshore wind are becoming cheaper and cheaper, they are still more expensive for consumers at the utility level when all costs and subsidies and taxes are examined. They currently make up a very small portion of the overall energy production, and it remains to be seen what costs will occur if the entire grid moves over.
There is no argument that they are rapidly growing, and that costs have dropped enormously since the technology became available, especially on the solar panels and installation costs themselves. Had those prices NOT dropped as they have, there would have been little growth. The question still remains unanswered: Will their use ever become as cheap and efficient to ALL consumers, in all regions, as fossil fuels like coal and natural gas are? Will people who live in less sunny areas, and less windy areas, ever know the same low cost utilities they do now with fossil fuels?
You seem to be saying that they already are. I AM saying that the links you provided, and those I posted, say otherwise.
Dear Aphan,
No need to be so combative AFTER I already said we agree with each other. Dropping prices will expand the number of situations in which renewables are cost competitive, and I fully agree with you that only time will tell how far that will take us. For now at least we can let go of the tired old argument that renewables are terrible under every circumstance, and move the argument forward to seeing where they make economic sense and where they don’t. Just to be clear, there are plenty of places where anno 2016 they don’t make sense from a purely economic perspective.
I’m just happy to see someone on WUWT acknowledge that wind turbines can make competetive energy without subsidies! (again, provided they’re built in appropriate places)
Cheers,
Ben
Steven Mosher,
I was quite correct, subsidies make alternative energy costs competitive with fossil fuel costs. But without those subsidies, there would be no residential or commercial markets for their overpriced, unreliable energy.
Don’t you read your links? They refer to “models”, and report retail prices for “residential and commercial” customers. That’s like saying Solyndra had sales of $500 million booked, so they’re very profitable.
Wrong. Solyndra burned through far more money than they ever made, so they went bankrupt in less than a year.
Same-same when you compare retail “residential and commercial” costs — while completely disregarding the obscene taxpayer subsidies that keep windmills and other ‘alternative’ energy schemes afloat. Take away those immense taxpayer subsidies, and windmills would go the way of Solyndra just as fast, if not faster.
Only one of your links even mentions taxpayer subsidies:
This highlights the challenges that remain before solar energy can compete with incumbent electricity technologies without subsidy.
Your other links sing the praises of ‘alternative’ power while completely ignoring the subsidies. And you’re questioning my understanding of economics?
If those subsidies were removed or even substantially cut, there would be dozens if not hundreds of Solyndra-style bankruptcies. It was recently posted here where some subsidies for wind power will increase annually, and eventually top out at more than 50¢ per kWh. When clean coal power can be wholesaled for well under 10¢/kWh, you can see that without those enormous subsidies there would be no retail demand for anything other than fossil, nuke, and hydro power.
The other links you posted never considered the gigantic taxpayer subsidies that keep windmill power and similar energy sources afloat. Without those huge taxpayer subsidies, the lanscape wouldn’t be littered and defaced with raptor-killing monstrosities, which are a direct result of the “dangerous AGW” scam that permeates government, academia, and a legion of rent-seekers cashing in on the hoax.
Clouds WARM the earth…everybody knows that. (arc) This elfin spell check won’t let me write (sarc)!
I don’t think the indicated preliminary CAMS estimate of aerosol-cloud interaction forcing implies a smaller total aerosol forcing (which includes radiation as well as cloud interaction) than the IPCC AR5 median estimate of –0.9 W/m^2 (between 1750 to 2011). However, it is further evidence that many CMIP5 models have excessively negative aerosol forcing, and it likely does point to the AR5 –1.9 W/m^2 negative bound (of the 5-95% range) being some way too strong. Moreover, Bellouin hints at future revisions to reduce the estimate being likely. I suspect that recent findings about natural aerosols being able to seed clouds to a greater extent than previously thought will lead to further reductions in estimated total aerosol forcing
IMO this new research reported by Bellouin gives greater assurance that the lowish observationally-based estimates of TCR (1.3 to 1.4 K) are correct, supporting substantially lower estimated warming to the final decades of this century than per the CMIP5 multimodel mean.
Last post got panned for some reason ,
Has anyone noticed the closer Donald Trump gets to being the Pres the more confessions and back peddling from the alarmists , this can only be a good thing .
Its just soooo ingrained into everyday folk-lore – Clouds at Night Keep You Warm.
Does not the actual cloud and its temperature obey the local prevailing lapse rate – if not – why not?
Hence, a cloud at (say) 1000 metres above you will be typically 10degC cooler than you.
How the fook is that cold object going to radiate energy to the surface, the warm object. It breaks every rule in the book.
So, what’s going on. Maybe, as per climate science all over, cause and effect have been totally interchanged. Maybe the cloud is simply an (other) indication that you have been overtaken and engulfed by a blob of warm & moist air that has rolled in from somewhere else.
As if the temp rise wasn’t enough to tell you that, the cloud bubbles up where the warm air interfaces cold air above you. The cloud is not radiating net energy to you – it cannot – its colder than you simply because its up in the sky.
The cloud is not keeping you warm any more than hauling blocks of ice into your Canadian winter living room and expecting it to be toasty and warm.
Certainly the cloud radiates, everything with a temperature above zero Kelvin radiates, EVEN supposedly non-greenhouse gases like oxygen and nitrogen. Polar molecules do NOT have a monopoly on radiation.
so, take similar containers, attach them to The Surface Of The Earth. Short of going to Planet Zog, that happens automatically. Arrange for one to contain more CO2 than the other.
How much does its temperature change, if at all?
And PLEASE, do not give me any of that guff about microwave ovens and what happens in there. It is an entirely different mechanism and if you don’t understand that, keep out of this discussion until you do. You probably wont re-enter it, certainly ion the warmist side anyway.
OK so ypo want trapped heat in the form of radiation. right, so put an illuminated light bulb between 2 mirrors then switch off the bulb. Does the light remain trapped. does the bulb seemingly keep glowing for minutes, days or even centuries. do the mirrors even have an effect that lasts for nanoseconds?
If we can photograph ligtning in slow motion this is surely a trivial problem. Fine, show me the you-tube videos.
As NASA supposedly said, in God we trust etc etc,
I say and we all should, Show Me Pictures or, It Didn’t Happen
While I’m on… I’ve got a little CO2 meter running in my garden. A small PC logs its data every 15 minutes.
About an hour before sunrise today, that meter recorded a peak of 670ppm CO2
An hour before sunset yesterday, it recorded a minimum of 404
There is hardly a breath of wind, the nearest power station, large factory or main road are 10’s and hundreds of miles away from here.
It is late spring, things round this very rural area are growing like exploding fireworks. Some brave if not misguided soils are actually growing corn and you can see it move from day to day. The land should be a massive sponge for CO2
So where did that 670ppm of CO2 come from?
I say it came from my neighbour’s field half a mile away, after he took crop of winter fodder silage yesterday morning.
First of all you have to understand and ideally see what happens to a patch of ground when crops are removed and until you do, I’ll continue to talk gibberish, won’t I? you need to fully grasp how soil fertility almost entirely depends on the decomposition of ancient and not-so ancient plant material and NOT what farmers acquire from sales-people and merchants in sacks, erroneously labelled as fertiliser.
Until then, my theory that CO2 is coming from agriculture will be and remain, utter nonsense.
I’d suggest you do not Pass the Buck, declare yourself as ‘Can’t Be Bothered, nor to refer to The Consensus or ask someone in Authority, either to point to external websites or perpetuate the deluge of tedious little graphs with relentlessly rising lines on them.
ok?
Using current cAGW computer modelled analysis I foretell/hindtell that your garden experienced unprecedented and extreme warming destroying life as we know it (or it will any-time in the future or past with proper negative temporal adjustments, Soviet style). /sarc
Daytime photosynthesis uses CO2 and releases oxygen. Night time respiration uses oxygen and releases CO2. Some forests release more CO2 than they use. Young forests and plants consume CO2. It’s a complex issue. Many interesting canopy studies. Surprising results.
1) Clouds reflect light. They don’t have to absorb it and reradiate it as black body radiation.
2) Unless there’s warm air advection, your air temperature should be dropping at night. Neither the reflection above nor the cloud’s black body radiation can prevent that.
On a cloudless night, the sky’s black body radiation drops way off. Even if the CO2 and H2O IR windows are completely saturated, there’s lots of space for ground radiation to escape to space and cooling proceeds much more quickly.
While you have to be aware of the processes going on, it’s interesting to take a IR thermometer and display the “temperature” of both clear sky and clouds. Clear sky, even during the day, can be the equivalent of a surprisingly cold blackbody.
Today in New Hampshire at 1030, I get -22°C. aiming at the zenith.
Have you seen the articles about using IR thermometers to estimate precipitable water in the air column? Some produce very good results.
That’s right. If clouds reflect light from the source (the sun) during the day, then they also reflect light from any other source. At night, that source is the earth.
Any northern temperate gardener who has to cover his tomatoes to protect them from a frost, welcomes clouds because they help keep it warm.
Yes, point an IR thermometer at the sky at night when it’s clear and when it’s cloudy.
That is empirical proof. It’s so easy there’s really no excuse for faith.
gnomish said-
“That’s right. If clouds reflect light from the source (the sun) during the day, then they also reflect light from any other source. At night, that source is the earth. Any northern temperate gardener who has to cover his tomatoes to protect them from a frost, welcomes clouds because they help keep it warm. Yes, point an IR thermometer at the sky at night when it’s clear and when it’s cloudy.That is empirical proof. It’s so easy there’s really no excuse for faith.”
Let’s be a little more sciencey/specific. Part of the reason that clouds are so poorly represented by models is that clouds are never exactly the same-in density, altitudes, accumulation rates, dissipation rates, what they are made of, how long they remain, or what weather conditions will spawn them and which ones won’t. In other words, it’s not exactly EASY to explain clouds, or how they affect climate specifically.
Clouds reflect visible, short wave radiation, from the Sun during the day.
The Earth does not give off visible, short wave radiation. Not at night. Not ever. The Earth gives off infrared, long wave radiation, that is absorbed and re-emitted by clouds, not reflected.
Clouds both prevent the Earth’s surface from heating more than it would in a cloudless atmosphere (aka cooling) as well as keeping the atmosphere warmer than it would be without clouds (aka warming). Subtracting the net cooling (of about 12C) from the net warming (about 7C) = a cooling of about 5C at the surface.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html
Frost forms on the ground, not in the sky. A gardener covers his tomatoes to protect against frost, which occurs at or below freezing at the surface. Clouds form in the sky at different altitudes, and warmer clouds are closer to the surface than colder clouds are. So, it really depends on what TYPE of clouds form, and where in the atmosphere they are, rather or not your tomato plants could actually be “warmed” or protected by them. Most gardeners rely on temperature forecasts, and thermometers rather than cloudiness. The gardener covers his plants to retain as much heat/ slow down their heat loss, and that of the ground around them, to space on ANY night where surface temps might dip below freezing.
http://www.wfmz.com/weather/Why-do-clouds-form-at-different-heights-in-the-atmosphere/180022
all very nice theory and modelling, aphan.
are you, for some good reason, unwilling to go put your IR thermometer to work and find out what’s real?
everything i said was true and accurate and empirically demonstrable,
whether you care to acknowledge that or not is irrelevent to the simple fact that it’s all that matters in the real world.
perhaps you didn’t understand that a warm body radiates a spectrum of frequencies?
I think you do get it that water or co2 absorbs very specific wavelength(s) which is(are) only a subset of what a black or gray body radiates.
so you should have no problem understanding that the very specific subset is NOT all there is in the radiant spectrum.
there is no point in quibbling.
facts are facts
they don’t care what anybody says.
here, dear Aphan- this may improve your understanding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudge_pot
read uP, little smudge pot.
gnomish,
I’m not sure where/why you disagree with me. I understand what smudge pots are, and I grew up on a farm. From your link-
“This artificial smog forms a “blanket” that blocks infrared light, thereby preventing radiative cooling that would otherwise cause or worsen frost.[1] (Low clouds can have a similar “infrared blanket” effect, which is why cloudy nights tend to be warmer than clear-sky nights.)”
The first sentence reply- Did you read where I wrote-
“The gardener covers his plants to retain as much heat/ slow down their heat loss, and that of the ground around them, to space on ANY night where surface temps might dip below freezing. “???
Radiative cooling=heat loss. Smudge pots, like covering your tomatoes, work by keeping the “radiative heat” given off by the ground and the plants close to the ground- ie “they prevent radiative cooling”.
The rest of that quote says…(bold mine)… “( Low clouds can have a similar “infrared blanket effect, which is why cloudy nights tend to be warmer than clear-sky nights.)” LOW clouds, not all clouds. Which is why I also clarified prior- “Clouds form in the sky at different altitudes, and warmer clouds are closer to the surface than colder clouds are. So, it really depends on what TYPE of clouds form, and where in the atmosphere they are, rather or not your tomato plants could actually be “warmed” or protected by them.”
From NASA- (bold mine) http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Clouds/
“The study of clouds, where they occur, and their characteristics, play a key role in the understanding of climate change. Low, thick clouds primarily reflect solar radiation and cool the surface of the Earth. High, thin clouds primarily transmit incoming solar radiation; at the same time, they trap some of the outgoing infrared radiation emitted by the Earth and radiate it back downward, thereby warming the surface of the Earth. Whether a given cloud will heat or cool the surface depends on several factors, including the cloud’s altitude, its size, and the make-up of the particles that form the cloud. The balance between the cooling and warming actions of clouds is very close although, overall, averaging the effects of all the clouds around the globe, cooling predominates.”
“The shortwave rays from the Sun are scattered in a cloud. Many of the rays return to space. The resulting “cloud albedo forcing,” taken by itself, tends to cause a cooling of the Earth.”
“Longwave rays emitted by the Earth are absorbed and reemitted by a cloud, with some rays going to the surface. Thicker arrows indicate more energy. The resulting “cloud greenhouse forcing,” taken by itself, tends to cause a warming of the Earth.”
So, to clarify further-these are not MY theories or models or whatever gnomish, they are standard scientific facts that even NASA agrees with. 1) clouds both warm AND cool the Earth-it depends on what the cloud is made of, where it’s at etc. 2) Shortwave radiation from the Sun gets scattered (reflected=albedo) and longwave radiation gets absorbed and re-emitted. 3) Cloudy skies CAN be warmer than clear-sky nights, BUT the temperature in the AIR high above the plants you are trying to protect from frost does not matter nearly as much as the GROUND temperature does…because frost forms on the ground, not in the sky.
Yes, ma’am. I was not disputing what you have just repeated.
I was on about what you just now left out, to wit:
” The Earth gives off infrared, long wave radiation, that is absorbed and re-emitted by clouds, not reflected.”
That is incorrect because the a warm body does not radiate exclusively at the absorbtion frequency of CO2 which is relatively narrow spectrum and a small fraction of the radiated spectrum.
http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EAS8803_Fall2009/Lec6.pdf
Most of the IR radiated by earth that is returned by any cloud is done by reflection not reradiation, mmk?
gnomish,
I can’t help it if you do not accept the terminology and the differences between something that reflects energy and something that absorbs (and re-radiates) it. I cannot make you accept the terminology accepted and used by NASA and other scientific organizations. But I can point out your lack of specificity and attempt to correct what you keep saying.
You said-
“That is incorrect because the a warm body does not radiate exclusively at the absorbtion frequency of CO2 which is relatively narrow spectrum and a small fraction of the radiated spectrum.”
I never said a warm body DOES radiate exclusively at the absorption frequency of CO2 with it’s relatively narrow spectrum. The Earth’s surface absorbs short wave radiation from the Sun, and then heats, and then releases LONG WAVE radiation to cool itself in the form of infrared radiation. But not ALL long wave radiation falls within the narrow spectrum absorbed by CO2!!! Some of what is radiated is at the absorption frequency of water vapor-a key component of CLOUDS and the greenhouse gas there is the most of in our atmosphere.
Learn something-
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dargan/111/111_02.pdf
“Most of the IR radiated by earth that is returned by any cloud is done by reflection not reradiation, mmk?”
FALSE. And the link you posted talks about ABSORPTION and EMISSION (re-radiation), not REFLECTION. It supports my point as well.
Can we see photographs of their models, complete with aerosols?
Tony, I sent this earlier, but may be in moderation?? But an aerosol that does not seem to appear in the models.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants
Saharan dust gets plastered over all of Europe too. Plainly visible in the Alps during the melt season.
So Pres Obama can show this study to claim his legacy is complete, He has reduced warming induced by release of industrial CO2 below the 2C ‘tipping point’! If this study is to be believed, WELL below, in fact, it looks like there is no amount of industrial CO2 that would be conceivably released in the next 150 years that would cause temps to reach the dreaded 2C tipping point.
Where does he go to collect his Nobel Peace prize?
So I’ve read all this… and I have a theory.
Just spittballing here, random brainstorm. Ignore me if you like.
But if the total gain from CO2 is something like 1.5C to 1.8C… That would explain the hiatus since 1998, right?
No.
Using UAH/RSS data and the 1998-2016 Super El Nino nexus delta, the last 18 years show about a +.045 C per decade sensitivity. After the 2018 La Nina maximum the pause/stop sensitivity over the past 20 years may be 0.0 C or negative (using the 2000-2018 La Nina nexus delta).
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_May_2016_v6.jpg
Error Alert:replace the word “sensitivity” with “delta” in the above speculation.
“Using UAH/RSS data and the 1998-2016 Super El Nino nexus delta, the last 18 years show about a +.045 C per decade sensitivity.”
you cant calculate sensitivity from short time series.
Period.
Real world observation:
Dry air over my region, clear skies with radiational cooling, cool Moist air over my region, cloudy skies no radiational cooling, warm and muggy.
Conclusion:
water vapor, water vapor, ya, ya , ya
CO2, CO2, na, na, na
WE NEED FUNDS OR THE WORLD DIES !
1682 was a cloudy year in Ireland (still v.cloudy here)
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2016/06/head-in-clouds.html
No need for these worthless theories, the experiment has been done. We’ve put huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere in the past 20 years with no effect (It’s still 1/4th normal, BTW). Either added CO2 causes no warming or fossil fuels just prevented another LIA.
Why are clouds not a problem in the climate model hindcasts, which are always very accurate?
Small potatoes. What counts is how much water vapor is being added to the atmosphere from El Nino-like conditions (yes El Nino-ish conditions can even occur in the Atlantic). An over-charged ocean likely interacts with winds to layer up and send evaporation, aka water vapor, into the atmosphere. That process likely dwarfs anything else. We are in a net evaporation point along the seesaw stadial/interstadial pendulum that is in charge and has been over the past 800,000 years. Somewhere at this peak, the oceans will have disgorged all their excess heat and we begin the stair-step slide down to frozen hell.
We’ve all known for quite some time that CAGW’s demise would descend from the clouds…
CAGW’s requiem:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbn6a0AFfnM
What a stroke of genius it was to change the meme to CACD
From my abstract socio-political-philosophical perspective, this seems to be an example of the widening gap between academia and politics. The academics are looking for ways to save face, rather than go along with the increasingly untenable utterances of political and environmental lobbies.
I.e. Academia is looking for a stance of plausible deniability: ‘the data showed what we said then, and its new data that is gradually causing us to reassess our position, and that’s your grant money well spent’ rather than ‘the data never said what we claimed, and we basically lied and bent science out of shape to get our hands on funding and career enhancing publicity’.
If more energy leaves ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will cool down. If less energy leaves the ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will heat up. The GHE theory postulates that GHGs impede/trap/store the flow of heat leaving the ToA and as a consequence the atmosphere will heat up.
340 W/m^2 arrive at the ToA, 100 W/m^2 are reflected straight away leaving 240 W/m^2 to continue into the atmosphere (80 W/m^2) and surface (160 W/m^2). In order to maintain the existing temperature (not really required) 240 W/m^2 must leave the ToA. Leaving the surface are: Thermals, 17 W/m^2; evapotranspiration, 80 W/m^2; LWIR, 63 W/m^2 totaling 160 W/m^2 plus the atmosphere’s 80 W/m^2 making a grand total of 240 W/m^2 at ToA.
The S-B BB temperature corresponding to ToA 240 W/m^2 OLR is 255 k or -18 C. This value is compared to a surface temperature of 15 C. The 33 C higher surface temperature is attributed to/explained by the GHE theory.
This is an incorrect comparison.
The ToA temperature of 255 K should be compared to the ToA temperature of -80 C not the 1.5 m above land surface temperature of 15 C. The 255-193=62 difference is explained by the earth’s effective emissivity. The ratio of the ToA observed temperature to the S-B BB temperature gives the emissivity: (273-80) / (273 – 18) = .767.
Because the +33 C difference between ToA 255 K and 1.5 m 288 K doesn’t exist the GHE theory/explanation is non-solution to a non-problem.
Reblogged this on ClimateTheTruth.com and commented:
It’s looking like Climate Sensitivity is even lower than the last Nic Lewis estimate of 1.5ºC and way below the hysterically wrong and oft-repeated IPCC gross exaggerations. New results reported by Nicolas Bellouin could spell the end of global warming hysteria.
Henrik Svensmark said, some time ago that, in effect, clouds were determining climate!
It’s not the climate sensitivity to clouds that is significant. That effect has been researched and is clear. What is in question is if humans alter cloud cover more than natural processes, most importantly the cloud forming effect of increased cosmic rays, and the sun’s control of cosmic rays. See Paullitely blog “how in the Universe… For all details, at Paullitely.com