Ross McKittrick writes on his personal web page: (h/t to David L. Hagen)
I have just released a working paper with Kevin Dayaratna and David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC which recomputes standard Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates using updated empirical estimates of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS).
- Dayaratna, Kevin, Ross McKitrick and David Kreutzer (2016) Empirically-Constrained Climate Sensitivity and the Social Cost of Carbon. SSRN Discussion Paper 2759505.
We applied the 2015 Lewis and Curry ECS distribution to the widely-used DICE and FUND Integrated Assessment Models. Previously the developers of these models (and others) have relied on model-simulated distribution of ECS values, especially from a 2007 paper by Roe and Baker. The Roe-Baker distribution underpins the US government’s current SCC values used for regulatory purposes. We critique this aspect of SCC computation, explaining why the Roe-Baker distribution is unsuitable. A major reason is that simulated ECS distributions have been superseded by a suite of empirically-estimated distributions. Using a recent, well-constrained empirical ECS distribution we find the estimated SCC drops substantially in both the DICE and FUND models, and in the latter there is a large probability it is no longer even positive.
The paper:
EMPIRICALLY-CONSTRAINED CLIMATE SENSITIVITY AND THE SOCIAL COST OF CARBON Kevin Dayaratna Heritage Foundation Washington DC Ross McKitrick Department of Economics, University of Guelph Frontier Centre for Public Policy David Kreutzer Heritage Foundation Washington DC
Abstract:
Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) require parameterization of both economic and climatic processes. The latter include Ocean Heat Uptake (OHU) efficiency, which represents the rate of heat exchange between the atmosphere and the deep ocean, and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), or the surface temperature response to doubling of CO2 levels after adjustment of the deep ocean. Due to a lack of adequate data, OHU and ECS parameter distributions in IAMs have been based on simulations from climate models. In recent years, new and sufficiently long observational data sets have emerged to support a growing body of empirical ECS estimates, but the results have not been applied in IAMs. We incorporate a recent observational estimate of the ECS distribution conditioned on observed OHU efficiency into two widely-used IAMs. The resulting Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates are much smaller than those from models based on simulated parameters. In the DICE model the average SCC falls by 30-50% depending on the discount rate, while in the FUND model the average SCC falls by over 80%. The span of estimates across discount rates also shrinks considerably, implying less sensitivity to this parameter choice”
Draft copy: Empirically-Constrained Climate Sensitivity and the Social Cost of Carbon.SSRN-id2759505 (PDF)
“Substituting an empirical ECS distribution from LC15 yields a mean 2020 SCC of $19.52, a drop of 48%. The same exercise for the FUND model yields a mean SCC estimate of $19.33 based on RB07 and $3.33 based on the LC15 parameters—an 83% decline. Furthermore the probability of a negative SCC (implying CO2 emissions are a positive externality) jumps dramatically using an empirical ECS distribution. Using the FUND model, under the RB07 parameterization at a 3% discount rate there is only about a ten percent chance of a negative SCC through 2050, but using the LC15 distribution, the probability of a negative SCC jumps to about 40%. Remarkably, replacing simulated climate sensitivity values with an empirical distribution calls into question whether CO2 is even a negative externality. The lower SCC values also cluster more closely together across difference discount rates, diminishing the importance of this parameter.”
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That has been my thought all along. Increased crop yields, less (% wise) cold mortality, less heating costs, less winter-related expenses, etc, etc. IF those things were actually occurring (certainly the crop increase has).
Seriously, the “social cost of carbon”?
Carbon can be very expensive especially when it’s in the form of diamonds.
The cost of carbon dioxide is nada. Anyone that tries to tell me there’s a social cost for exhaling can stick their papers in a place where there’s minimal solar radiation 🙂
These arguments (on both sides of the fence) are just plain silly!
Hard live in times of CO2 :
https://www.google.at/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-samsung&source=android-browser&q=us+life+expectancy&gfe_rd=cr&ei=T3FXV6nQEtTb8Afmo734BA
my denglish:
Hard life in times of CO2 :
https://www.google.at/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-samsung&source=android-browser&q=us+life+expectancy&gfe_rd=cr&ei=T3FXV6nQEtTb8Afmo734BA
[still practisising ]
A 40% chance CO2 ‘harm’ is negative is more than the 38% confidence Gavin has that 2015 was the warmest year evah.
Horrible, nasty carbon. Maybe instead of decrying it, teachers should start by telling young students that around 18% of our bodies are comprised of the stuff (second only to oxygen). Then go on and tell them how much is in the natural world around us. It is even safe as a drinking water filter. Mind, the majority of adults probably do not know this either. So many are so blind to the latest paradigm to which they flock in droves
If you think carbon has a coat, try going without!
Yesterday, here in the UK, I switched on the BBC radio service, Radio 4 for just two minutes.
A woman was being allowed to explain how in Rajastan, people were dying in the extreme heat whilst they suffered from dismally unreliable electricity supply of as little as 2 hours per day.
The proposed solution?
YES, you guessed it. Her organization was going to assist in providing Rajastanis with, in here words, “access to clean energy” in the form of solar panel, batteries and inverters.
Here in the UK, the propaganda and brainwashing program is now so all encompassing and so persistent that black is white and night is day – and the problems of access of the world’s poor to reliable energy can be solved by providing them with access to more expensive and more unreliable energy.
In the minds of the useful idiots, all of the third world should be targeted with expensive unreliable energy.
Meanwhile for the same useful idiots – big hydro should be obstructed by all possible means.
Because, whilst clean – it is too cheap and too reliable – I suppose.
The environmental movements and third world aid movements may have started out with good intentions.
They have seemingly since morphed into a force for foolish, destructive and wasteful cruelty.
These monsters and their agenda must be halted before they can do any more damage.
(P.S. I am always puzzled by the contention that providing households in the third world with millions of lead acid batteries is a promotion of “clean energy”. Doesn’t the title hold some clues – lead and acid? AND, does it never occur to these NGO/eco warrior idiots that household in india already have access to lead-acid batteries and a vast range of cheap UPS and inverter technologies, since they have been living with unreliable power provision for decades. In my experience indian villagers know more about inverters, UPS and AVR technology than the average westerner. They also know more about diesel generators. Which they use. Especially after dark. Because diesel works out cheaper than battery storage in most situations.)
IF Rajastan has a poor electric distribution system because of government corruption or rebellion, off-the-grid solutions like solar panels and inverters are a good plan. It isn’t the most efficient plan, but it may be the only plan available in that POLITICAL environment. Remember ALL of this garbage is about politics and one of the chief tools of politics is conflating unrelated cause and effect to create alarm and clamoring for safety amongst the citizenry to increase the power and importance of the politician.
If there is a stable government, the charities would be far better off investing in the expansion of the electric grid. Of course the problem in that is it is harder to connect the photo of a child to the expansion of the grid in a fund-raising campaign, and since most of the big charities are better termed big fund-raising organizations (not necessarily good at effective distribution in a way the really helps people – after all if there were no victims out there, there would be no fund-raising efforts to skim 40% off the top of!)
I see what you are saying. But we are not talking about Afghanistan.
The only problem is that the govt. has not ramped up the supply side to keep up with demand.
Instead they waffle on about piecemeal clean energy solutions.
They do have nuclear and coal and a grasp of how to operate a grid.
They just need more supply, because there are more people using more energy.
Powercuts are not the correct answer to rising demand.
And personal batteries and inverters are just about the most expensive approach in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, the program will set up the renewable energy and the government will pay them 10 times the value of the benefit.
Another massive facepalm!!! 🙂
ever heard about
thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
_____________________________________
– thesis: yes CO2 is bad.
– antithesis – no, think of CO2 advantages.
– synthesis – move along , nothing with CO2 here.
The Government of Ontario is releasing its climate action plan today. Does anyone know if McKitrick’s SCC paper had any influence?
Stupid question of course, In Canada if you are not on board with the AGW “scare” narrative you are politically irrelevant.
As always, we live in interesting times.
Temperature drives CO2 and water vapour concentrations and evaporative and convective cooling independently. The whole CAGW – GHG scare is based on the obvious fallacy of putting the effect before the cause. Unless the range and causes of natural variation, as seen in the natural temperature quasi-periodicities, are known within reasonably narrow limits it is simply not possible to even begin to estimate the effect of anthropogenic CO2 on climate. In fact, the IPCC recognizes this point.
The key factor in making CO2 emission control policy and the basis for the WG2 and 3 sections of AR5 is the climate sensitivity to CO2. By AR5 – WG1 the IPCC itself is saying: (Section 9.7.3.3)
“The assessed literature suggests that the range of climate sensitivities and transient responses covered by CMIP3/5 cannot be narrowed significantly by constraining the models with observations of the mean climate and variability, consistent with the difficulty of constraining the cloud feedbacks from observations ”
In plain English, this means that the IPCC contributors have no idea what the climate sensitivity is. Therefore, there is no credible basis for the WG 2 and 3 reports, and the Government policy makers have no empirical scientific basis for the entire UNFCCC process and their economically destructive climate and energy policies.
The whole idea of a climate sensitivity to CO2 (i.e., that we could dial up a chosen temperature by setting CO2 levels at some calculated level) is simply bizarre because the response of the temperature to Anthropogenic CO2 is simply not a constant, and will vary depending, as it does, on the state of the system as a whole at the time of the CO2 introduction.
In fact, the range of outcomes depend almost entirely simply on the RCPs chosen. The RCPs depend on little more than fanciful speculations by economists. The principal component in the RCPs is whatever population forecast/speculation will best support the climate and energy policies of the IPCCs client Western governments. This entirely imaginary exercise is then further removed from reality by the use of whatever discount rate will produce a SCC appropriate to the needs on the governments funding the study – as in the Stern reports’ mystical musings .
For a more complete discussion see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
I sent an email to the three authors of this study on May 12, 2016. Most of it is copied below:
I have reviewed your paper “EMPIRICALLY-CONSTRAINED CLIMATE SENSITIVITY AND THE SOCIAL COST OF CARBON” here. Your study uses estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) from a paper “Lewis and Curry 2015” (LC15) and the two Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) DICE and FUND to calculate new estimates of the Social Cost/Benefit of Carbon (SCC).
I agree that the ECS estimates used by the IWG are far too high and should be based on a realistic empirically based estimate. However, I find your paper deficient on account of the following four reasons;
1. The use of the DICE model is inappropriate because that model fails to account for the CO2 fertilization effect and it assumes that the optimum climate for humanity was the pre-industrial climate of 1900, which was near the end of the Little Ice Age. CO2 fertilization is an known physical effect documented by thousands of published papers. The failure to account for this important effect disqualifies this model for consideration in the calculation of social cost/benefit of greenhouse gas emissions. Testimony by Dr. Mendelsohn shows that there is no evidence that the temperature increase since 1900 caused any damages, and such damages would be easily detectable. The model does not include most benefits of warming, which should disqualify the use of it. The DICE model produces future sea level rise values that far exceed mainstream projections and exceed even the highest end of the projected sea level rise by the year 2300 as reported in the AR5 report. Your paper should not include the DICE model. The FUND model is the only IAM that should be used to determine a SCC.
2. The climate sensitivity estimated in LC15 is too high for three reasons giving estimates of SCC that are too high. A study by Nic Lewis used new estimates of aerosol forcing. Nicholas Lewis writes, “a compelling new paper by Bjorn Stevens estimating aerosol forcing using multiple physically-based, observationally-constrained approaches is a game changer.” Using the new aerosol estimate reduces the mean estimate of ECS from 1.64 to 1.45 ºC. By failing to use the best and most current aerosol forcing estimates you have overestimated climate sensitivity.
3. Dr. Ross McKitrick with Steve McIntyre published excellent papers that broke the “hockey stick” and restored the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age natural temperature variability to history. Numerous peer reviewed papers show the large natural millennium scale climate cycle. It is indefensible to ignore natural climate change due to the millennium cycle. Climatologist Dr. Richard Lindzen writes, “Lewis does not take account of natural variability, and, I suspect, his estimates are high.”
4. The HadCRUT4 temperature index used in LC15 is contaminated by the urban heat island effect (UHIE), and this effect must be subtracted from the recorded temperature change to determine the effect of greenhouse gases. Numerous studies show the this UHIE contamination, most notably, McKitrick and Michaels 2004 and McKitrick and Michaels 2007. Correcting for the effects of points 2, 3 and 4 reduces the ESC to 1.02 ºC as shown in my report. http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2205
Applying the four corrections listed above would reduce the SCC best estimate to -$16.6/tCO2. The likely range is -19.3 to -11.5 US$/tCO2, and it is extremely likely to be less than -4.3 US$/tCO2. The benefits of CO2 fertilization, reduced cold weather related mortality, lower outdoor industry costs such as construction costs, increased arable land area and reduced heating costs greatly exceed harmful effects of warming on a global basis. High and improbable values of the SCC as reported by you and others may lead to very damaging policy decisions as evidenced by the Alberta climate change plan. [Note, the values of SCC in this paragraph were updated to those in my revised paper at the link above. The previous best estimate of SCC was -$17.7tCO2 as reported on WUWT on May 21.]
Of course the SCC is negative. That is what a net benefit looks like. Boy would that screw up the EPA clean power plan!!!
Just reference the recent papers of greening of the Earth and rising crop yields, and then think about power blackouts, and it all becomes clear.
I have a nice idea that I believe everyone will hate. Think it through before trashing it. I won’t really care. I very seldom come back to posts.
We should produce 6 months to a full year of MREs, or some other non-perishable rations, in sufficient quantity to feed the entire US population for that period. Add 10% for incidentals. Tell everyone far ahead what will happen. Then, on a specified day at a specified time (you know D-day, H-hour, M-minute) all coal-fired, natural gas, and nuclear powerplants would be shut down and mothballed for that 6 month to 1 year period. Everyone would have time to stock up on rations, bottled water, essential meds for the chronically ill, etc. The only electrical generation allowed for that time would be renewables. NOTHING else. Give them their chance to show what they can do in the real world. And give the Greens what they claim to want. When the time was up, bring the power back, unless the people don’t want it any longer.
I figure there would be riots to get the power back on after about 2 days. All the “progressives” and “Greens” would be going insane without their smart phones by that time. If you doubt me, have you never seen one of them misplace their phone? I watched a guy leave work solely because he forgot to charge his phone the night before. 2 hours without it and he was starting to fray at the edges.
I know. It’s a bad idea. BUT, if we tried it and advertised that we were going to give them what they say they want, no one would support their agenda for generations.
A little bit /sarc, but I bet not nearly as much as you think. Enjoy!