An eye-opening op-ed from James Hansen:


Quote:

Climate change is here — and worse than we thought     By James E. Hansen, Published: August 4 James E. Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels. But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic. My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather. In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present. This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change. The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now. These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills. Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of “climate dice” to help distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal, some mild. That’s natural variability. But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time. But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don’t let that fool you. Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide. When we plotted the world’s changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe. The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events. Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe. This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe. There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution. The future is now. And it is hot.

some people just cannot see the forest through the trees.

Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming.

Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty.
It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper.

We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out.

Soren wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 2:25pm:

Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming. Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty. It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper. We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out.

nice tree yeah?

Soren wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 2:25pm:

Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming. Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty. It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper. We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out.

Not if the cost of solar falls below the cost of extracting shale gas.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/now-us-says-solar-pv-to-be-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-by-2020-2020


Quote:

The sharp slump in solar PV prices has caused a dramatic re-evaluation of the technology cost and potential for solar by the world’s largest energy consumers – the US, China, and India – over the last three months. The latest update came from US Energy secretary Stephen Chu, who suggested in a keynote speech late last week that the US government’s “sunshot” program launched in 2020 – with the goal of making solar cheaper than fossil fuels by the end of the decade – was no longer just aspirational, but a growing reality. Chu began by making several observations about the US energy industry as it now stands. Onshore wind is already cheaper than new coal-fired energy, although gas is cheaper than both at around 5.5c/KWh, thanks to the boom in shale gas exploitation. Solar PV comes in at around 15c-24c/KWh. But Chu said the goal is to get solar down to 6.5c/KWh by the end of this decade (remember, Australia’s white energy paper absurdly predicts solar PV at 34c/KWh by 2035! Which is why you won’t hear a Chu-style speech from any current Australian energy minister). Chu noted that utility-scale solar had already gone from $8 a watt in 2005 to $3.80 a watt in 2010, when the cost of the module was $1.70/watt. To get the cost of utility-scale solar down to $1/watt, it needs the cost of modules (which accounts for half of the total cost) to fall to 50c/watt. What makes him more optimistic than ever that the US will get there is the fact that in less than two years, it is already down to 93c/watt for silicon-based panels and below 80c/watt for cadmium telluride. “We’re more than half way there on module costs already, “ he told the ARPA-E conference. “Now we’ve got to do the same on the balance of system costs, and we are working hard on that.” Once the total system cost gets to $1 a watt, utility-scale solar will have a long-term cost of energy of 6.5c/KWh. At that point, Chu says, it will be the same price as natural gas, without the need for any solar subsidies. Chu’s predictions mean that the governments of the world’s three biggest energy users – China, the US and India – each believe that the cost of utility-scale solar will be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020 at the latest. In India, because they have to import so much and have lousy transport infrastructure, that cost curve is expected to intersect with five years.

wooo james hansom.

As if anyone takes him serious anymore.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:13pm:

wooo james hansom. As if anyone takes him serious anymore.

That's funny to hear from someone who takes radio weathermen and random bloggers seriously.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:16pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 3:13pm: wooo james hansom. As if anyone takes him serious anymore. That's funny to hear from someone who takes radio weathermen and random bloggers seriously.

The guy must not realise that temps are no worse than 1988. What a dope.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:13pm:

wooo james hansom. As if anyone takes him serious anymore.

Who doesn't take him seriously? Would it be your mate Watts.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:24pm:

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 3:16pm: progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 3:13pm: wooo james hansom. As if anyone takes him serious anymore. That's funny to hear from someone who takes radio weathermen and random bloggers seriously. The guy must not realise that temps are no worse than 1988. What a dope.

Still denying the trend by using a one off spike as your reference point. You are something special, progs.

What argument are you going to use when the next substantial El Niño comes into play.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Enso-global-temp-anomalies.png

Hmmm we seem to have global warming that is not global. So is it global warming or is it local warming.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:24pm:

The guy must not realise that temps are no worse than 1988. What a dope.

O Rly?  ::)

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1988/to:2010

http://www.ozpolitic.com/album/members/Upton_Sinclair/1988__2010.png

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:35pm:

Hmmm we seem to have global warming that is not global. So is it global warming or is it local warming.

Close but no cigar. If you are going to use sea ice as a proxy for global warming then you have to look at GLOBAL sea ice levels

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/GlobalSeaIce_500.gif

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:36pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 3:24pm: The guy must not realise that temps are no worse than 1988. What a dope. O Rly?  ::) http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1988/to:2010 http://www.ozpolitic.com/album/members/Upton_Sinclair/1988__2010.png

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1988/mean:6

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:38pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 3:35pm: Hmmm we seem to have global warming that is not global. So is it global warming or is it local warming. Close but no cigar. If you are going to use sea ice as a proxy for global warming then you have to look at GLOBAL sea ice levels http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/GlobalSeaIce_500.gif

Why. There is a north and south that are far enough away from each other to see if global warming is global. Well it isnt.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:40pm:

Why. There is a north and south that are far enough away from each other to see if global warming is global. Well it isnt.

Yeah. Safe to say you're doing it wrong.

Why is wood through the trees using BEST data when it cant get peer-reviewed.

Maybe they should use that cred and start using Anthony Watts data. lol now this is good.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:45pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 3:40pm: Why. There is a north and south that are far enough away from each other to see if global warming is global. Well it isnt. Yeah. Safe to say you're doing it wrong.

Yeh the earth is not flat, so the global high temp and co2 stays at the top.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Antarctica_Sea_Ice.gif

Can you explain this, progs.

Anyways, wouldn't ice mass be a better proxy than sea ice extent.

http://redgirlsays.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Antarctica_Ice_Mass.jpg

No Significant Trend In Antarctica Ice Sheet Mass Balance 1979-2010


http://thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/5028-new-paper-no-significant-trend-in-antarctica-ice-sheet-mass-balance-1979-2010.html

And this
New paper shows Antarctic temperatures haven't increased over past 500 years

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2LnqaKYY1cY/UBbJJkMX4EI/AAAAAAAACYs/A7xtFailcqk/s400/Fullscreen%2Bcapture%2B7302012%2B103747%2BAM.jpg
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/new-paper-shows-antarctic-temperatures.html

Global warming not global.

MOTR wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 2:49pm:

Soren wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:25pm: Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming. Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty. It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper. We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out. Not if the cost of solar falls below the cost of extracting shale gas. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/now-us-says-solar-pv-to-be-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-by-2020-2020

Even better.

No need to sh!t your pants, boys, that's the main thing.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 4:03pm:

Global warming not global.

Antarctica: not the Globe.

Soren wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 4:14pm:

MOTR wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:49pm: Soren wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:25pm: Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming. Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty. It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper. We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out. Not if the cost of solar falls below the cost of extracting shale gas. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/now-us-says-solar-pv-to-be-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-by-2020-2020 Even better. No need to sh!t your pants, boys, that's the main thing.

Let's not assume a few subsidies won't prolong the death throes.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 4:15pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 4:03pm: Global warming not global. Antarctica: not the Globe.

either is the warming

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 3:48pm:

Yeh the earth is not flat, so the global high temp and co2 stays at the top.

No but the majority of the planets landmass is at the top, the majority of the ocean is down the bottom.

MOTR wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 4:16pm:

Soren wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 4:14pm: MOTR wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:49pm: Soren wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:25pm: Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming. Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty. It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper. We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out. Not if the cost of solar falls below the cost of extracting shale gas. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/now-us-says-solar-pv-to-be-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-by-2020-2020 Even better. No need to sh!t your pants, boys, that's the main thing. Let's not assume a few subsidies won't prolong the death throes.

This is why AGW is losing credibility, fast: ridiculous hyperbole. Death throes. How silly.

Here is the paper on the melt.

http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~kuipe117/docs/KuipersMunneke2011b.pdf


Quote:

This suggests that an increased forcing must have been acting in recent decades, and that this forcing must come from below the ice shelf, in the form of increased basal melt [Shepherd et al., 2003]. A picture emerges in which the ultimate fate of ice shelves is governed by oceanic forcing from below, whereas the timing of their breakup depends on the occurrence of ‘favorable’ atmospheric conditions.

Soren wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 4:33pm:

MOTR wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 4:16pm: Soren wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 4:14pm: MOTR wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:49pm: Soren wrote on Aug 5th, 2012 at 2:25pm: Don't panic, boys, shale gas is coming. Even Prez O'Bama says the US has enough to be cookin' with gas for a coupla centuries. China has plenty. We have plenty. It's clean, cheap(ish) and getting cheaper. We'll have solar by the time the gas runs out. Not if the cost of solar falls below the cost of extracting shale gas. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/now-us-says-solar-pv-to-be-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-by-2020-2020 Even better. No need to sh!t your pants, boys, that's the main thing. Let's not assume a few subsidies won't prolong the death throes. This is why AGW is losing credibility, fast: ridiculous hyperbole. Death throes. How silly.

I was talking about the gas industry. It's a common analogy for industries and indeed governments in decline.

The part of Antarctica that has warmed is the Antarctic Penisula (Western Antarctica). In a nutshell, that has resulted in an increase in sea ice as ice slides off the land faster. Eastern Antarctica has not melted, but then if it had, it would be a big surprise because most of it is at a much higher elevation.   

I keep having to point this out every now and again as the old denialist arguments are recycled time and time again.

---

Going by this study, we have quite a bit of warming to go to make up from the cooling


Climate in northern Europe reconstructed for the past 2,000 years: Cooling trend calculated precisely for the first time

09.07.2012
An international team including scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has published a reconstruction of the climate in northern Europe over the last 2,000 years based on the information provided by tree-rings. Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling. "We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Esper. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy, as they will influence the way today's climate changes are seen in context of historical warm periods." The new study has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Was the climate during Roman and Medieval times warmer than today? And why are these earlier warm periods important when assessing the global climate changes we are experiencing today? The discipline of paleoclimatology attempts to answer such questions. Scientists analyze indirect evidence of climate variability, such as ice cores and ocean sediments, and so reconstruct the climate of the past. The annual growth rings in trees are the most important witnesses over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years as they indicate how warm and cool past climate conditions were.

Researchers from Germany, Finland, Scotland, and Switzerland examined tree-ring density profiles in trees from Finnish Lapland. In this cold environment, trees often collapse into one of the numerous lakes, where they remain well preserved for thousands of years.

The international research team used these density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees in northern Scandinavia to create a sequence reaching back to 138 BC. The density measurements correlate closely with the summer temperatures in this area on the edge of the Nordic taiga. The researchers were thus able to create a temperature reconstruction of unprecedented quality. The reconstruction provides a high-resolution representation of temperature patterns in the Roman and Medieval Warm periods, but also shows the cold phases that occurred during the Migration Period and the later Little Ice Age.

In addition to the cold and warm phases, the new climate curve also exhibits a phenomenon that was not expected in this form. For the first time, researchers have now been able to use the data derived from tree-rings to precisely calculate a much longer-term cooling trend that has been playing out over the past 2,000 years. Their findings demonstrate that this trend involves a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium due to gradual changes to the position of the sun and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the sun.

"This figure we calculated may not seem particularly significant," says Esper. "However, it is also not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1°C. Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia."

http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/bilder_presse/09_geo_tree_ring_northern_europe_climate.jpg

http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/15491.php

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 7:56pm:

Going by this study, we have quite a bit of warming to go to make up from the cooling Climate in northern Europe reconstructed for the past 2,000 years: Cooling trend calculated precisely for the first time 09.07.2012 An international team including scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has published a reconstruction of the climate in northern Europe over the last 2,000 years based on the information provided by tree-rings. Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling. "We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Esper. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy, as they will influence the way today's climate changes are seen in context of historical warm periods." The new study has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Was the climate during Roman and Medieval times warmer than today? And why are these earlier warm periods important when assessing the global climate changes we are experiencing today? The discipline of paleoclimatology attempts to answer such questions. Scientists analyze indirect evidence of climate variability, such as ice cores and ocean sediments, and so reconstruct the climate of the past. The annual growth rings in trees are the most important witnesses over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years as they indicate how warm and cool past climate conditions were. Researchers from Germany, Finland, Scotland, and Switzerland examined tree-ring density profiles in trees from Finnish Lapland. In this cold environment, trees often collapse into one of the numerous lakes, where they remain well preserved for thousands of years. The international research team used these density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees in northern Scandinavia to create a sequence reaching back to 138 BC. The density measurements correlate closely with the summer temperatures in this area on the edge of the Nordic taiga. The researchers were thus able to create a temperature reconstruction of unprecedented quality. The reconstruction provides a high-resolution representation of temperature patterns in the Roman and Medieval Warm periods, but also shows the cold phases that occurred during the Migration Period and the later Little Ice Age. In addition to the cold and warm phases, the new climate curve also exhibits a phenomenon that was not expected in this form. For the first time, researchers have now been able to use the data derived from tree-rings to precisely calculate a much longer-term cooling trend that has been playing out over the past 2,000 years. Their findings demonstrate that this trend involves a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium due to gradual changes to the position of the sun and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the sun. "This figure we calculated may not seem particularly significant," says Esper. "However, it is also not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1°C. Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia." http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/bilder_presse/09_geo_tree_ring_northern_europe_climate.jpg http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/15491.php

F*ckety-f*ck, I hear you exclaim, AGW partisans.

;D

Orbital forcing of tree-ring data

Same as above, paper in nature.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/carousel/nclimate1589-f2.jpg

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html

So you're showing me a graph that shows that since humans began emitting large amounts of CO2 we've managed to overcome natural forces and reverse a long term orbital cooling? Is that what you're saying? And you think this advances your cause HOW exactly? http://www.ozpolitic.com/yabbfiles/Templates/Forum/default/shocked.gif

I know that the ragingly political science deniers like progressiveslol and Soren won't bother watching it, for anyone else curious about the above graphs and what they really mean you could do worse to take 20 minutes out of your busy schedule and hear what Peter Hadfield, one time correspondent to New Scientist, has to say about the topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY4Yecsx_-s&feature=player_embedded

More reason to ignore the 1930's or really more reason to ignore the political scientist hansen.

US drought index 1896 - 2012
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/screenhunter_152-aug-06-20-02.jpg

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pmdi&month=6&year=2012&filter=12&state=110&div=0

Move along: NOTHING TO SEE HERE!
  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screenhunter_157-jul-11-19-08.gif

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 8^th, 2012 at 7:59am:

More reason to ignore the 1930's or really more reason to ignore the political scientist hansen. US drought index 1896 - 2012 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pmdi&month=6&year=2012&filter=12&state=110&div=0

You see progs, I like to think of myself as a sceptically minded kind of guy and I was curious to see your graph and it's apparent stark contradiction of some of the claims made here in this very forum and decided that I needed to investigate it further. I followed your link and checked how it had been plotted and the data it represented and it all seemed above board, I even did a crash course on the Palmer Drought Index (thanks for that by the way, I had never come across that particular metric and it made for interesting reading, and I note with amusement you quoting an algorithmic MODEL of a complex interrelated and dynamic system as evidence. Was certainly good for a chuckle, I appreciate a man with a real sense of irony ;D) and everything seemed all correct and in order.

Then the penny dropped.

Your blogger of choice, Steve Goddard, had selected data for the ENTIRE contiguous US landmass, when in fact the drought is occurring predominantly over the Midwest, with some parts of the US experiencing wetter than normal conditions (like in the North West and North East):

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/sotc/drought/2012/06/zin201206_pg.gif

So I thought it was instructive to compare the same data for particular drought effected states. Here's just one example for now::

http://www.ozpolitic.com/album/members/Upton_Sinclair/arizona.PNG

Annoyingly, the NCDC server stopped responding and I couldn't plot the series for Colorado and Wyoming for some more comparison but I suspect it will follow this trend.

Basically, it is safe to say that all progs's graph really shows is that there were bad droughts in the 1930's but they were more consistent, what is interesting is the way that this time around the contiguous US landmass is experiencing both record drought AND precipitation conditions at the same time. That is an entirely unique phenomenon and just more evidence of that the changing climate is causing erratic extreme weather. But, as interesting as those observations are, they speak nothing to the severity and unprecedented nature of the drought being experienced in the drought affected region itself.

I'll post a few more examples just as soon as I can connect to the NCDC tool again. I think Colorado and Wyoming should really confirm the point I am making.

I'm on 3G so I suspect that explains my difficulties getting the other states, if anyone else out there wanted to plot them and share the results with us then by all means feel free ;)

It was good while it lasted mr hansom, but from now on, lets not expect people to take you seriously.

Study cherry picks more of Earth Is Hotter and Says Global Warming Is at Work

Martin P. Hoerling, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who studies the causes of weather extremes, said he shared Dr. Hansen’s general concern about global warming. But he has in the past criticized Dr. Hansen for, in his view, exaggerating the connection between global warming and specific weather extremes. In an interview, he said he felt that Dr. Hansen had done so again.

Dr. Hoerling has published research suggesting that the 2010 Russian heat wave was largely a consequence of natural climate variability, and a forthcoming study he carried out on the Texas drought of 2011 also says natural factors were the main cause.

Dr. Hoerling contended that Dr. Hansen’s new paper confuses drought, caused primarily by a lack of rainfall, with heat waves.

“This isn’t a serious science paper,” Dr. Hoerling said. “It’s mainly about perception, as indicated by the paper’s title. Perception is not a science.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/science/earth/extreme-heat-is-covering-more-of-the-earth-a-study-says.html

Cartoon mirror. The Homer Simpson of political pseudo climate science. Doh!
http://i.imgur.com/oJBRa.jpg

Meanwhile...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

July’s average temperature was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The last 12 months have been the hottest ever for the U.S., with over 27,000 high temperature records broken or tied so far this year. The hot weather has only worsened dry conditions, as nearly two-thirds of the U.S. faces a drought. NASA scientist James Hansen recently connected the extreme heat to climate change, writing “there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.”

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/1.jpg

Average temperature in July 2012 vs. average from 1981-2010.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 9^th, 2012 at 7:36pm:

Meanwhile... http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/ July’s average temperature was the hottest on record for the contiguous United States, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The last 12 months have been the hottest ever for the U.S., with over 27,000 high temperature records broken or tied so far this year. The hot weather has only worsened dry conditions, as nearly two-thirds of the U.S. faces a drought. NASA scientist James Hansen recently connected the extreme heat to climate change, writing “there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.” http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/1.jpg Average temperature in July 2012 vs. average from 1981-2010.

Sucked in again hey AGW'ers. Seems too easy. 1930's, where is it.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 8^th, 2012 at 7:03pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 8th, 2012 at 7:59am: More reason to ignore the 1930's or really more reason to ignore the political scientist hansen. US drought index 1896 - 2012 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pmdi&month=6&year=2012&filter=12&state=110&div=0 You see progs, I like to think of myself as a sceptically minded kind of guy and I was curious to see your graph and it's apparent stark contradiction of some of the claims made here in this very forum and decided that I needed to investigate it further. I followed your link and checked how it had been plotted and the data it represented and it all seemed above board, I even did a crash course on the Palmer Drought Index (thanks for that by the way, I had never come across that particular metric and it made for interesting reading, and I note with amusement you quoting an algorithmic MODEL of a complex interrelated and dynamic system as evidence. Was certainly good for a chuckle, I appreciate a man with a real sense of irony ;D) and everything seemed all correct and in order. Then the penny dropped. Your blogger of choice, Steve Goddard, had selected data for the ENTIRE contiguous US landmass, when in fact the drought is occurring predominantly over the Midwest, with some parts of the US experiencing wetter than normal conditions (like in the North West and North East): http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/sotc/drought/2012/06/zin201206_pg.gif So I thought it was instructive to compare the same data for particular drought effected states. Here's just one example for now:: http://www.ozpolitic.com/album/members/Upton_Sinclair/arizona.PNG Annoyingly, the NCDC server stopped responding and I couldn't plot the series for Colorado and Wyoming for some more comparison but I suspect it will follow this trend. Basically, it is safe to say that all progs's graph really shows is that there were bad droughts in the 1930's but they were more consistent, what is interesting is the way that this time around the contiguous US landmass is experiencing both record drought AND precipitation conditions at the same time. That is an entirely unique phenomenon and just more evidence of that the changing climate is causing erratic extreme weather. But, as interesting as those observations are, they speak nothing to the severity and unprecedented nature of the drought being experienced in the drought affected region itself. I'll post a few more examples just as soon as I can connect to the NCDC tool again. I think Colorado and Wyoming should really confirm the point I am making. I'm on 3G so I suspect that explains my difficulties getting the other states, if anyone else out there wanted to plot them and share the results with us then by all means feel free ;)

Thanks for the analysis, Upton. By aggregating the data across the contiguous US landmass, the severity of drought experienced in local areas is going to be hidden by the net increase in rainfall that comes with the atmosphere's increased capacity to hold water vapour.

It seems to me that the PDSI times series graph across the contiguous US reflects exactly what would be expected from an increase in atmospheric CO2.

Climate change is driven by man-made graphs.  It's the worry you can have without ever leaving your computer. That's why the nerdy kids love it.

A good read on what is wrong with the temperature data siting

Peer-reviewed siting issues

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11800.pdf

And then onto what is to become, when they actually decide to start using it for reporting, the best temp siting stations around with the best data and no need for manipulation.

Using the NOAA USCRN data, the USA Average Temperature for July 2012 is: 75.5°F

1.There are no observer or transcription errors to correct.
2.There is no time of observation bias, nor need for correction of it.
3.There is no broad scale missing data, requiring filling in data from potentially bad surrounding stations. (FILNET)
4.There are no needs for bias adjustments for equipment types since all equipment is identical.
5.There are no need for urbanization adjustments, since all stations are rural and well sited.
6.There are no regular sensor errors due to air aspiration and triple redundant lab grade sensors. Any errors detected in one sensor are identified and managed by two others, ensuring quality data.
7.Due to the near perfect geospatial distribution of stations in the USA, there isn’t a need for gridding to get a national average temperature.


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/08/an-incovenient-result-july-2012-not-a-record-breaker-according-to-the-new-noaancdc-national-climate-reference-network

Soren wrote on Aug 9^th, 2012 at 8:50pm:

Climate change is driven by man-made graphs.

Conspiracy Theorists Anonomous, is down the corridor. However, you are welcome to stay if you have something rational to contribute to this discussion.

2012 vs 1936

2012 temps

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_2012_ncdc.png

And you can see why they avoid the 1930's temps like the plague

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_1936_ncdc.png

1934 just to show you are larger spread of warmer, rather than extreme (red) in 1936.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_1934_ncdc.png

AGW'ers are too gullible.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/08/dear-noaa-and-seth-which-1930s-were-you-referring-to-when-you-say-july-is-the-record-warmest/

MOTR wrote on Aug 9^th, 2012 at 9:00pm:

Soren wrote on Aug 9th, 2012 at 8:50pm: Climate change is driven by man-made graphs. Conspiracy Theorists Anonomous, is down the corridor. However, you are welcome to stay if you have something rational to contribute to this discussion.

What? Your graph's bigger than mine?

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 9^th, 2012 at 9:02pm:

2012 vs 1936 2012 temps http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_2012_ncdc.png And you can see why they avoid the 1930's temps like the plague http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_1936_ncdc.png 1934 just to show you are larger spread of warmer, rather than extreme (red) in 1936. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_1934_ncdc.png AGW'ers are too gullible. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/08/dear-noaa-and-seth-which-1930s-were-you-referring-to-when-you-say-july-is-the-record-warmest/

I had to laugh at this pearler from Watts.


Quote:

What’s interesting is that that if AGW had overcome natural variability, and many claim this, we wouldn’t see any statewide temperatures in 2012 lower than in 1936 or 1934.

Can his understanding of climate be this superficial.

MOTR wrote on Aug 9^th, 2012 at 9:32pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 9th, 2012 at 9:02pm: 2012 vs 1936 2012 temps http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_2012_ncdc.png And you can see why they avoid the 1930's temps like the plague http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_1936_ncdc.png 1934 just to show you are larger spread of warmer, rather than extreme (red) in 1936. http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/conus_july_1934_ncdc.png AGW'ers are too gullible. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/08/dear-noaa-and-seth-which-1930s-were-you-referring-to-when-you-say-july-is-the-record-warmest/ I had to laugh at this pearler from Watts. Quote: What’s interesting is that that if AGW had overcome natural variability, and many claim this, we wouldn’t see any statewide temperatures in 2012 lower than in 1936 or 1934. Can his understanding of climate be this superficial.

Yes, he could follow the like of hansen

Hansen, three decades ago.


Quote:

The global temperature rose 0.2°C between the middle 1960s and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980s. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.

You don't get it this right without having a a very good understanding of how the climate works. Today he has even more data at his disposal.

MOTR wrote on Aug 10^th, 2012 at 6:02am:

Hansen, three decades ago. Quote: The global temperature rose 0.2°C between the middle 1960s and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980s. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage. You don't get it this right without having a a very good understanding of how the climate works. Today he has even more data at his disposal.

Sounds more like the local hand reader. Sounds compelling, but when you know we are in a warming phase and his A B C scenario are way off, droughts happen all the time so bound to get that one right over a quarter century, it sounds more and more like the hand ringings of a hand reader.

This describes Hansen to a tee <----- propagandist, ideologue


Quote:

There is a simple way to tell the difference between scientists and propagandists. If scientists have a theory, they search diligently for data that might actually contradict their theory so that they test it rigorously or refine it. If propagandists have a theory, they carefully select only the data that might agree with their theory and dutifully ignore any data that might contradict it

Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels Rips Hansen -- in Letter to Editor rejected by Washington Post 

Michaels: 'Overpredicting warming by roughly 50% means that warming has been much less than Hansen thought'


To the Editor,

NASA climate modeller James Hansen introduces his August 5 op-ed ("Climate change is here--and worse than we thought") by referring to his June 23, 1988 testimony on global warming to a joint House/Senate Committee, stating that he was "too optimistic" at that time. The opposite is true.

At that time, Hansen projected warming based upon two viable emissions scenarios--what he called "Business as Usual", or his "Scenario A", and another with emissions reductions ("Scenario B"). The warmings predicted by the two, between then and now, are, respectively, 1.26 and 1.21 degrees Fahrenheit. The observed warming, in his own somewhat controversial climate record, is 0.68 degrees.

Overpredicting warming by roughly 50% (given the obviously large margins of error in this data) means that warming has been much less than he thought.

Patrick J. Michaels

Director, Center for the Study of Science

Cato Institute



http://www.climatedepot.com/a/17006/Climatologist-Dr-Pat-Michaels-Rips-Hansen--in-Letter-to-Editor-rejected-by-Washington-Post

Hadnt seen this before, think from 2009. Says a thousand words in a sentence.


Quote:

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears. … “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.

Seems like hansen is still up to his old trick (and other pseudo climate change nuts)

Sounds familiar

Quote:

Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.

The damage to the credibility of my profession is huge

That’s the takeaway line from meteorologist Cliff Mass on his Cliff Mass Weather Blog today, delivering a savage beatdown on the latest global warming scaremongering from NASA’s egregious James Hansen about recent summer heat waves: “It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.”  Mass thinks this is a mass of hot air.

Who is Cliff Mass, and why should we pay attention to him?  Mass is an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington.  He’s no climate skeptic; as he says in the post quoted in the headline here, “I believe that human-induced global warming is both observed, real, and a serious problem for mankind.”  But to his credit he thinks politicized, agenda-driven scientists like James Hansen, and the credulous media that always give credence to every poorly reasoned claim, do more harm than good.

There’s a lot in his cogent post, and it’s worth reading the whole thing. But here’s the most important part:

Now as the earth warms up the temperature variations shown remain like the bell curve…or Gaussian, but the mean should shift to warmer temperatures (see the figure below). The result is that you get more warm extremes and less cold extremes (less cold extremes are not mentioned very often for some reason).

http://4-ps.googleusercontent.com/h/www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2012/08/422x354xMass-Chart-copy.jpg.pagespeed.ic.lnk4wyrElO.jpg

So the result is that you seem more warm temperature records and less cold temperature records.   We are in fact seeing this.  The earth is warming and there are more maximum temperature records than cold ones.  Hansen and friends make a big deal about this.

But what they are not telling you is that the very warm anomalies we are seeing today would have been nearly as large if global warming had never occurred.  In his paper he makes a big deal about large (three sigma) anomalies from climatology.   Well, without any global warming the anomalies might have been say 2.8 sigma.   Or in terms of terms, heat waves of 10F might have been only 9F if global warming had not occurred.  To say it differently, the impact of global warming due to greenhouse gases is still small compared to natural processes, and the impacts to society would have been pretty much the same.  But you never hear it this way.   Those exaggerating the global warming signal imply that we are going from normal conditions to extremes due to global warming.  In reality, we go from naturally induced extremes, to a bit stronger extremes due to global warming.


Mass adds:

As an aside, the journal that this article was published in…the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)…allows members of the National Academy (like Dr. Hansen) to publish articles with essentially no peer review.  Until 2010 they could publish anything, with no peer review, and most recently the submission review is “supervised” by the submitting academy member WHO GETS TO SELECT THE REVIEWERS. Folks, this is really unfortunate for an entity that claims to be national journal of some reputation.  The result has been a lot of very bad papers in PNAS that would never have been accepted in real journals,with a real peer review process.  One could use stronger words, but this is a family blog.

Like Al Gore, reckless scientists like Hansen are the climate skeptic’s best friend

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/08/the-damage-to-the-credibility-of-my-profession-is-huge.php

Not a single mention of frequency, progs. Did you understand Hansen's paper? I thought his main point was that these extreme temperatures would become much more frequent, not that these extreme events would become much hotter. Although hotter events are now possible.

I think Mass' biggest beef is that Hansen is pitching his paper at the general population and not at the boffins. Anyways that's my gut reaction, I'll read what Mass has to say before commenting further.

Hansen has put himself out on a limb to some extent by predicting a shift to extended La Nina conditions - something that is not supported by data.  I wouldn't go so far as to call him reckless though.

Is this a fair summary of the Hansen paper, Muso?


Quote:

Hansen and his team looked at the recent past — rather than trying to model the future — to see if they could find the signature of man-made climate change through day-to-day and season-to-season weather. They used the period of 1951–80 as a base because it was a meteorologically stable stretch that also had a wealth of global weather data, unlike earlier periods. During that time period, extremely hot summers — like the one much of the U.S. is experiencing now — occurred only in 0.1% to 0.2% of the globe in a given year. But since 1981, extremely hot summers have baked about 10% of the earth’s land area annually — and in recent years, that percentage has been even higher. That means the odds of experiencing an extreme summer have risen from 1 in 300 during the 1951–80 period to nearly 1 in 10 now, according to Hansen’s calculations. “I don’t want people to be confused by natural variability,” he said in a statement. “We now know the chances these extreme weather events would have happened naturally — without climate change — is negligible.” Read more: http://science.time.com/2012/08/07/climate-change-equals-hot-summers-case-closed/#ixzz23BsWT3VL

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 10^th, 2012 at 6:31am:

MOTR wrote on Aug 10th, 2012 at 6:02am: Hansen, three decades ago. Quote: The global temperature rose 0.2°C between the middle 1960s and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980s. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage. You don't get it this right without having a a very good understanding of how the climate works. Today he has even more data at his disposal. Sounds more like the local hand reader. Sounds compelling, but when you know we are in a warming phase and his A B C scenario are way off, droughts happen all the time so bound to get that one right over a quarter century, it sounds more and more like the hand ringings of a hand reader.

Yes.  we are in a "warming phase" caused by the increase in atmospheric GHGs from anthropogenic sources.  As has been predicted for many decades now.

Do you have an alternate explanation for the observed warming of the planet of recent decades?

If so - we would love to hear it.  You would probably win a Nobel Prize if your explanation is in any way feasible.  Any answers?

Just a heads up, rabbitoh07, progs doesn't believe it's warming. This saves him the problem of having to develop an alternative hypothesis.

Oh bumbling, catastrophic hansen, you did it again.

Former Virginia State Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels, in a guest opinion on WUWT said:


Hansen claims that global warming is associated with increased drought in the US. This is a testable hypothesis which he chose not to test, and, because PNAS isn’t truly peer-reviewed for Members like him, no one tested it for him.

I have [examined] drought data [that] are from NCDC, and the temperature record is Hansen’s own. His hypothesis is a complete and abject failure.

I’ve looked at the data too, and I agree, Hansen’s hypothesis is a dud, and in no way supported by NOAA’s own data to be “scientific fact”. But, because it has been spread by an irresponsible and incurious media, its is a dangerous “dud”.
Let’s go to the data… 

In my research regarding why I didn’t think the July 2012 USA Temperature of 77.6F  was a record (compared to July 1936 of 77.4F), I spent some time trying to understand how they computed the value, since NCDC offers no way to replicate it and so far has not responded to my query about how it is done.

In conjunction with a switchover to happen next year from simple division averages (TCDD) to gridded averages (GrDD, which they say will be more accurate) NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) offers a visualization tool to plot all sorts of data for the continental USA (CONUS). From NCDC’s U.S. Climate Divisions page:


A visualization toolkit was created to help users examine snapshots of both datasets for the comparison period (i.e., through December 2009). The tool allows the user to select criteria which are of interest and investigate the comparisons themselves. Parameters included in the toolkit are temperature, precipitation, and a variety of drought indices. Changes in monthly, seasonal and annual variability can be examined through the use of the interactive time series plots. In addition, slope (trend) values by decade and 30-year period may also be added to the output plots. This allows the user to take a closer look at the behavior of the data at a variety of smaller time scales throughout the record.

Unfortunately, they don’t have 2010-2012 data online, and I could go to the NCDC FTP site and get the remaining data and plot all of it, but since many people on the alarmist bandwagon don’t trust data plots from skeptics, I thought the fact that these are unmodified 100+ year plots from NCDC directly outweighed the 3 years of data they didn’t provide.

Here’s some screen caps output direct from that visualization toolkit. You can visit it and exactly replicate any of these for yourself.



more
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/12/nasas-james-hansen-is-just-wrong-proof-that-there-is-no-increased-drought-in-the-usa-tied-to-temperature/

If you had of read the paper, progs, you'd know that this is another strawman.


Quote:

Abstract. The "climate dice" describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more "loaded" during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extreme climate outliers. These extremes were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering much less than 1% of Earth's surface. Now summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology, typically cover about 10% of the land area. Thus there is no need to equivocate about the summer heat waves in Texas in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, which exceeded 3σ – it is nearly certain that they would not have occurred in the absence of global warming. If global warming is not slowed from its current pace, by mid- century 3σ events will be the new norm and 5σ events will be common.

MOTR wrote on Aug 13^th, 2012 at 7:14am:

If you had of read the paper, progs, you'd know that this is another strawman. Quote: Abstract. The "climate dice" describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more "loaded" during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extreme climate outliers. These extremes were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering much less than 1% of Earth's surface. Now summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology, typically cover about 10% of the land area. Thus there is no need to equivocate about the summer heat waves in Texas in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, which exceeded 3σ – it is nearly certain that they would not have occurred in the absence of global warming. If global warming is not slowed from its current pace, by mid- century 3σ events will be the new norm and 5σ events will be common.

This whole hansen affair is a strawman.

I'm sure Pat Michaels will be submitting his rebuttal for publication any day now  ::)

Unlike WattsUpHisArse, Hansen's paper has been published and will stand or fall on its merits. And the yapping at the heels of people being sought out for commentary by the media will have zero influence over that. Deniers fight in the sphere of public opinion, scientists fight in the sphere of evidence, that's the critical difference.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 13^th, 2012 at 7:55pm:

I'm sure Pat Michaels will be submitting his rebuttal for publication any day now  ::) Unlike WattsUpHisArse, Hansen's paper has been published and will stand or fall on its merits. And the yapping at the heels of people being sought out for commentary by the media will have zero influence over that. Deniers fight in the sphere of public opinion, scientists fight in the sphere of evidence, that's the critical difference.

Under pal-review lol. Slap, poke, oo you hurt.

Oh bumbling, catastrophic hansen, you did it again.

More climate alarmism


James Hansen is at it again. Hansen, who runs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, is usually billed as a climate scientist – not to mention the godfather of the current global warming concern.

But Hansen knows spends as much time marching in demonstrations and petitioning governments for action on climate change as he does doing research. He engages in plenty of unscientific rhetoric, such as calling trains taking coal to electrical generating stations “death trains” because of the carbon dioxide given off by burning coal to generate power. He has even testified in court in Britain on behalf of environmentalist vandals who sought to infiltrate a power plant and cause it to shut down.

Hansen and two other authors published a study this week that claims extreme weather events, especially droughts, are increasing in frequency and intensity and that it is “99% certain” that the cause is manmade global warming.

Nice conclusion – if your intent is to scare the public and politicians into action. But even many scientists not known as global warming sceptics have shaken their heads in disbelief at the sloppiness of Hansen’s latest work.

Hansen and his co-authors contend that the chances of having a drought such as the one that has gripped much of the continental U.S. this summer was just one in 300 in the years between 1950 and the 1980s, but the chance now is one in 10. This change, Hansen insists, can only be due to the negative effect human carbon emissions are having on climate.

But to arrive at their conclusions, Hansen and his colleagues had to “cherry-pick.” They had to carefully select the past years they compared to today. The period from the 1950s to the 1980s are well known for being substantially cooler than today. It makes the contrast look much more dire when you take a reasonably warm period such as the past 15 years and compare it to a notably cool period.

It may well be that droughts are much more common now than they were during the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. But that doesn’t tell us much about why.

For instance, as much or more of the globe was under drought conditions in the 1930s as it is today. But if Hansen et al admitted that, they might also have had to admit there are possible causes other than manmade emissions.

Much of the world was even warmer in the 1930s, but the cause couldn’t possibly have been idling SUVs and belching coal-fired power plants. To add the ’30s into the mix raises the possibility that other causes are at work or that, perhaps, extreme weather events are cyclical – recurring over time according to natural rhythms.

Martin Hoerling, a climate researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who specializes in extreme weather, told the New York Times he felt Hansen was making too much of the certainty of the connection between possible climate change and drought.

Hoerling, who explains that he is also concerned about unnatural climate change, has published papers explaining that the devastating Russian heat wave of two summers ago was a naturally occurring weather event. The Times reports he has another study coming soon showing that natural factors are also behind the current American drought.

Hoerling insists Hansen confuses drought (which is a lack of rainfall), with heat waves. “This isn’t a serious science paper,” he told the Times. “It’s mainly about perception … (and) perception is not a science.”

Don’t take my word for it. I’m as biased on the sceptic side as Hansen is on the alarmist side. But you can believe Hoerling.


http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/08/10/more-climate-alarmism

Here's a challenge for you, progs. Read the Hansen paper and tell me in a handful of sentences what he has set out to prove and what he believes he has proven.

There is nothing specifically in the paper that extends our understanding of the link between extreme hot temperatures and drought.

Read the abstract, progs, is drought mentioned once? This paper is all about the likelihood of extreme weather in different time periods.

I've read the paper several times now and I can't find a single instance where Hansen confuses drought (which is a lack of rainfall), with heat waves.

I'd be happy for you to point them out to me.

I'll let Hoerling tell you why hansen is up to his old climate tricks

Martin Hoerling on James Hansen’s ‘game over’ thinking

This is a word document prepared by Dr. Martin Hoerling of NOAA and provided to the New York Times is response to Dr. James Hansen’s “Game Over for The Climate” essay. Since much of the full response has not seen daylight, I asked Dr. Hoerling if I could republish it here and he graciously agreed.  – Anthony

Guest post by Dr. Martin Hoerling

Too much to post here, you will need to follow the link, but I will give his summaries.

------------
Summary

The claim in the Hansen NYT piece that the Midwest would be a dustbowl in coming decades thus runs contrary to peer reviewed literature and recent assessments by the U.S. Global Research Program that emerged from the synthesis of current understanding by an expert team of scientists.



Figure 1. The relative change in runoff in the twenty-first century expressed as the ensemble (arithmetic) mean of relative change (percentage) in runoff for the period 2041–60, computed as 100 times the difference between 2041–60 runoff in the SRESA1B experiments and 1900–70 runoff in the 20C3M experiments, divided by 1900–70 runoff. Based on Fig. 4 from Milly et al. (2005). [Milly, P, K. Dunne, A. Vecchia, Nature, 438, 2005, doi:10.1038/nature04312]. Left-side illustrates runoff change for drainage basin scale, and right side for geopolitical state scales.

Regarding observed changes in climate of the Great Plains, I stated:

“Indeed, that region (Great Plains) has seen a general increase in rainfall over the long term, during most seasons (certainly no material decline).  Also, for the warm season when evaporative loss is especially effective, the climate of the central Great Plains has not become materially warmer (perhaps even cooled) since 1900.  In other words, climate conditions in the growing season of the Central Great Plains are today not materially different from those existing 100 years ago.  This observational fact belies the expectations, from climate simulations, and in truth, our science lacks a good explanation for this discrepancy. “
----------

Summary

The certainty language expressed in the Hansen NYT piece about the coming dustbowl fate for the Great Plains region and Midwest is contrary to the low confidence of regional climate change projections for coming decades as documented in USGCRP and IPCC reports. Not only are various regional patterns of trends that have been observed over the last century poorly understood, but the projections of regional changes in coming decades are highly uncertain.



Figure 2. The 1901-2010 trends in summertime (June-August) daily averaged surface temperature (°C/110 yrs; top) and rainfall (% of change over 110 yrs, bottom). Trends are plotted at available station sites, using the GHCNv3 data. Cooling (warming) trends shown in blue (red), and increased (decreased) rainfall shown in blue (red).
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Summary

The global warming signal is much smaller than the typical daily variability of surface air temperature over the United States. Most of the magnitude of daily weather extremes owes its causes to natural internal fluctuations and not to global warming. A possible exception could be imagined if global warming were also to increase the variability of daily temperatures (and not just increase the mean temperatures), but no compelling evidence to such effects has been shown. While globally averaged temperatures have risen during the past century, the cause for which is very likely human-induce climate change, the signal of this change is still barely audible among the loud noise of daily, backyard weather fluctuations.

Weather, of course, is more than temperature variability. While this discussion has involved temperature, weather involves rain, storms, winds, severe convection, clouds among others. In this regard, it is important to reiterate the statement in IPCC SREX (2012) in their Executive Summary which states that “many weather and climate extremes are the result of natural climate variability”, and that “even if there were no anthropogenic changes in climate, a wide variety of natural and weather extremes would still occur”.



Figure 3. The daily surface temperature variability during 1901-2010 averaged for all months during January-December (°C, top), and the ratio of that daily variability to the magnitude of the observed global warming signal (nondimensional). The variability is the standard deviation of daily temperature fluctuations calculated for each calendar month, and averaged across all months. The global mean warming signal of +0.51°C is derived from the NCDC analysis of the 2011 annual mean global averaged surface temperature departure relative to a 20th Century climatology (see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2011/13)
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Summary

Analysis of various forced model simulations indicates that human influences did not contribute substantially to the magnitude of the Russian heat wave. Even accounting for a possible stronger warming signal, as suggested by Rahmsdorf and Coumou, these were still appreciably smaller than the peak magnitude of the event (which reached 10°C over Moscow during July). Barriapedro et al. (2011) conclude that the magnitude of the 2010 event was so extreme that despite an increase in temperatures due to human climate change, the likelihood of an analog over the same region remains fairly low until the second half of the 21st century. These results are thus consistent also with the Hawkins and Sutton (2012) results regarding the time of emergence of a climate change signal at local scales.
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more
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/13/martin-hoerling-on-james-hansens-game-over-thinking/

Once again, progs, you have proven you can't answer a direct question.

MOTR wrote on Aug 14^th, 2012 at 7:36pm:

Once again, progs, you have proven you can't answer a direct question.

Hey, you like scientists, a scientist giving you the answer to your question. Never satisfied are you.

That wasn't an answer to my question. Why can't you answer the question directly, progs?

On why NOAA's Martin Hoerling was completely wrong on his attack on James Hansen'

The response by NOAA’s Martin Hoerling to James Hansen’s recent op-ed does not reflect the scientific literature.

I’m traveling, so let me focus first on Hoerling’s incorrect statements — posted on this blog and DotEarth — about drought. As readers know, the journal Nature asked me to write a Comment piece on the threat posed by drought after they read one of my posts examining the latest science on prolonged drought and “Dust-Bowlification.”

The Nature article, which is basically a review of recent drought literature, is here (subs. req’d). Most of the text is here.

The research I did for that article — along with the comments of the expert reviewers I sent it to — is why I know Hoerling is quite wrong. Hoerling begins by quoting Hansen’s recent New York Times Op-Ed piece:

“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels.”

Hoerling then asserts:

He doesn’t define “several decades,” but a reasonable assumption is that he refers to a period from today through mid-century. I am unaware of any projection for “semi-permanent” drought in this time frame over the expansive region of the Central Great Plains. He implies the drought will be due to a lack of rain (except for the brief, and ineffective downpours)…
But facts should, and do, matter to some. The vision of a Midwest Dustbowl is a scary one, and the author appears intent to instill fear rather than reason.

That’s a very serious attack on Hansen — if it were true. But it isn’t, and it should be retracted.
The fact is that the recent literature examining warming-driven drought in America could not be clearer in warning about a “semi-permanent” (or worse) drought in both the South West and the Central Great Plains and “More and more of the Midwest.” Here are two studies that lay things out starkly:

Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Drought under global warming: a review” (2010)

Michael Wehner et al., “Projections of Future Drought in the Continental United States and Mexico” (2011)

I would also add the 2010 Environmental Research Letters article “Characterizing changes in drought risk for the United States from climate change.”

And that’s not even counting the Journal of Geophysical Research study that Hansen himself co-authored in 1990, “Potential evapotranspiration and the likelihood of future drought,” which projected that severe to extreme drought in the United States, then occurring every 20 years or so, could become an every-other-year phenomenon by mid-century.

As an important aside, contrary to what Hoerling states, Hansen was not implying the drought will be due to lack of rain (by itself). Everyone seriously writing about warming-driven drought knows we are talking about a combination of factors, ones that I laid out in my Nature article:

Precipitation patterns are expected to shift, expanding the dry subtropics. What precipitation there is will probably come in extreme deluges, resulting in runoff rather than drought alleviation. Warming causes greater evaporation and, once the ground is dry, the Sun’s energy goes into baking the soil, leading to a further increase in air temperature. That is why, for instance, so many temperature records were set for the United States in the 1930s Dust Bowl; and why, in 2011, drought-stricken Texas saw the hottest summer ever recorded for a US state. Finally, many regions are expected to see earlier snowmelt, so less water will be stored on mountain tops for the summer dry season.

Obviously, since Hansen coauthored an article titled, “Potential evapotranspiration and the likelihood of future drought,” we know he understands the drought conditions are driven by more than precipitation changes. The whole point of that 1990 paper was to examine the impact of warming-driven evaporation on soil moisture and drought.

It is quite surprising that Hoerling doesn’t appear to know the drought literature given that, as Revkin notes, he “runs an effort by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the forces contributing to extreme weather events!” [CCNG readers, Hoerling seems to me to be some kind of useful idiot or embedded denier in NOAA -- he has repeatedly come out with snap analyses of extreme weather events that have been thoroughly debunked once real climatologists spend the time to do a thorough and reasoned analysis -- but of course by that time the damage is done. Hoerling's behavior in this regard is unprofessional and just scientifically inaccurate.]

Upton Sinclair wrote on Aug 14^th, 2012 at 8:27pm:

On why NOAA's Martin Hoerling was completely wrong on his attack on James Hansen' The response by NOAA’s Martin Hoerling to James Hansen’s recent op-ed does not reflect the scientific literature. I’m traveling, so let me focus first on Hoerling’s incorrect statements — posted on this blog and DotEarth — about drought. As readers know, the journal Nature asked me to write a Comment piece on the threat posed by drought after they read one of my posts examining the latest science on prolonged drought and “Dust-Bowlification.” The Nature article, which is basically a review of recent drought literature, is here (subs. req’d). Most of the text is here. The research I did for that article — along with the comments of the expert reviewers I sent it to — is why I know Hoerling is quite wrong. Hoerling begins by quoting Hansen’s recent New York Times Op-Ed piece: “Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels.” Hoerling then asserts: He doesn’t define “several decades,” but a reasonable assumption is that he refers to a period from today through mid-century. I am unaware of any projection for “semi-permanent” drought in this time frame over the expansive region of the Central Great Plains. He implies the drought will be due to a lack of rain (except for the brief, and ineffective downpours)… But facts should, and do, matter to some. The vision of a Midwest Dustbowl is a scary one, and the author appears intent to instill fear rather than reason. That’s a very serious attack on Hansen — if it were true. But it isn’t, and it should be retracted. The fact is that the recent literature examining warming-driven drought in America could not be clearer in warning about a “semi-permanent” (or worse) drought in both the South West and the Central Great Plains and “More and more of the Midwest.” Here are two studies that lay things out starkly: Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Drought under global warming: a review” (2010) Michael Wehner et al., “Projections of Future Drought in the Continental United States and Mexico” (2011) I would also add the 2010 Environmental Research Letters article “Characterizing changes in drought risk for the United States from climate change.” And that’s not even counting the Journal of Geophysical Research study that Hansen himself co-authored in 1990, “Potential evapotranspiration and the likelihood of future drought,” which projected that severe to extreme drought in the United States, then occurring every 20 years or so, could become an every-other-year phenomenon by mid-century. As an important aside, contrary to what Hoerling states, Hansen was not implying the drought will be due to lack of rain (by itself). Everyone seriously writing about warming-driven drought knows we are talking about a combination of factors, ones that I laid out in my Nature article: Precipitation patterns are expected to shift, expanding the dry subtropics. What precipitation there is will probably come in extreme deluges, resulting in runoff rather than drought alleviation. Warming causes greater evaporation and, once the ground is dry, the Sun’s energy goes into baking the soil, leading to a further increase in air temperature. That is why, for instance, so many temperature records were set for the United States in the 1930s Dust Bowl; and why, in 2011, drought-stricken Texas saw the hottest summer ever recorded for a US state. Finally, many regions are expected to see earlier snowmelt, so less water will be stored on mountain tops for the summer dry season. Obviously, since Hansen coauthored an article titled, “Potential evapotranspiration and the likelihood of future drought,” we know he understands the drought conditions are driven by more than precipitation changes. The whole point of that 1990 paper was to examine the impact of warming-driven evaporation on soil moisture and drought. It is quite surprising that Hoerling doesn’t appear to know the drought literature given that, as Revkin notes, he “runs an effort by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the forces contributing to extreme weather events!” [CCNG readers, Hoerling seems to me to be some kind of useful idiot or embedded denier in NOAA -- he has repeatedly come out with snap analyses of extreme weather events that have been thoroughly debunked once real climatologists spend the time to do a thorough and reasoned analysis -- but of course by that time the damage is done. Hoerling's behavior in this regard is unprofessional and just scientifically inaccurate.]

lol love the red bit. Did they realise that hansen is irresponsible for releasing his paper about doom and gloom on cherry picked data that has not been reviewed yet,. But alas, the damage is done blah blah

We will see what happens to the irresponsible hansen or the irresponsible Hoerling

When we enter an El Nino cycle and we start to get quite spectacular evidence of Global Warming, will that be enough to convince you, I wonder?

---

muso wrote on Aug 14^th, 2012 at 9:03pm:

When we enter an El Nino cycle and we start to get quite spectacular evidence of Global Warming, will that be enough to convince you, I wonder?

Progs will just reset his argument. Rather than saying the planet hasn't warmed since 1998, he'll be saying the planet is in a cooling phase since it hasn't warmed since [insert year here].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx2WG291_7E&sns=em

The essence of Hansen's paper. Throw up as many straw men as you like, it's not going to obfuscate the facts.

MOTR wrote on Aug 15^th, 2012 at 3:18am:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx2WG291_7E&sns=em The essence of Hansen's paper. Throw up as many straw men as you like, it's not going to obfuscate the facts.

The fact that hansen is an activist scientist. Is being laughed at by his peers. Is a scaremonger of the highest order.

They can make the 1930's data disappear with their fraud, but they cant make the news articles go away. They can cherry pick as much as they like, but that will not make the science anymore correct.

Progs, if you read the paper you would understand that Hansen includes data from the 1930s when discussing the US.


Quote:

The longer time scale is important for the United States, because of the well-known extreme heat and droughts of the 1930s. The frequency of occurrence of the three categories of hot summers in the contiguous 48 states of the United States is shown in the lower right of Figure 7. The 48 states cover less than 1.6% of the global area and thus the results are very "noisy". Despite the noise, we can discern that the trend toward hot summers in recent decades is not as pronounced in the United States as it is in hemispheric land area as a whole. Also the extreme summer heat of the 1930s, especially 1934 and 1936, is comparable to the most extreme recent years.

More scientists to answer your questions why are are being lied to by hansen

In his Aug. 6 op-ed, "A New Climate-Change Consensus," Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp speaks of "the trend—a decades-long march toward hotter and wilder weather." We have seen quite a few such claims this summer season, and Mr. Krupp insists that we accept them as "true." Only with Lewis Carroll's famous definition of truth, "What I tell you three times is true," is this the case.

But repetition of a fib does not make it true. As one of many pieces of evidence that our climate is doing what it always does, consider the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's year-by-year data for wet and dry years in the continental U.S.

From 1900 to the present, there are only irregular, chaotic variations from year to year, but no change in the trend or in the frequency of dry years or wet years. Sometimes there are clusters of dry years, the most significant being the dry Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. These tend to be followed by clusters of wet years.

Despite shrill claims of new record highs, when we look at record highs for temperature measurement stations that have existed long enough to have a meaningful history, there is no trend in the number of extreme high temperatures, neither regionally nor continentally. We do see the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s setting the largest number of record highs, at a time when it is acknowledged that humans had negligible effect on climate.

What about strong tornadoes? Again there is no trend. Last year was an unusually active season, and unfortunately some of those storms ravaged population centers. We were told that these disasters were the result of human CO2 emissions. Yet 2011 was only the sixth worst for strong tornadoes since 1950 and far from a record. And have any of us heard about this tornado year? Why not? Because 2012 has been unusually quiet. Most of the tornado season is behind us, and so far the tornado count is mired in the lowest quintile of historical activity. As for hurricanes, again there is no discernible trend. Regarding wildfires, past western fires burned far more acreage than today. Any climate effect on wildfires is complicated by the controversial fire suppression practices of the past hundred years.

Lurid media reporting and advocates' claims aside, even the last comprehensive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report noted that "archived data sets are not yet sufficient for determining long-term trends in [weather] extremes." Yet this has not stopped global warming advocates from using hot summer weather as a tool to dramatize a supposedly impending climate Armageddon.

In a telling 2007 PBS interview, former Sen. Tim Wirth gloated about how he had rigged the 1988 Senate testimony chamber to dramatize the impact of NASA scientist James Hansen's histrionic testimony on imminent danger from global warming: "We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer . . . So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington or close to it."

Not content to gamble on the vagaries of weather statistics, Mr. Wirth also boasted, "What we did is that we went in the night beforehand and opened all the windows . . . so the air conditioning wasn't working inside the room . . . when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot." Tricks like those described by Sen. Wirth have been refined to an art to promote the cause of economically costly action to prevent supposedly catastrophic consequences of increasing CO2. Contrast these manipulations with the measured and informative Senate testimony of climatologist John Christy earlier this month.

In an effort to move the science debate completely into the political arena, Mr. Krupp implies that with the exception of a few enlightened Republican governors and captains of industry, most "conservatives" are climate skeptics—and vice versa. But some of the most formidable opponents of climate hysteria include the politically liberal physics Nobel laureate, Ivar Giaever; famously independent physicist and author, Freeman Dyson; environmentalist futurist, and father of the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock; left-center chemist, Fritz Vahrenholt, one of the fathers of the German environmental movement, and many others who would bristle at being lumped into the conservative camp.

Whether increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is bad or good is a question of science. And in science, truth and facts are not the playthings of causes, nor a touchstone of political correctness, nor true religion, nor "what I tell you three times is true."

Humanity has always dealt with changing climate. In addition to the years of drought and excessive moisture described above, the geological record makes it clear that there have been longer-term periods of drought, lasting for many years as during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to many decades or centuries. None of these past climate changes, which had a profound effect on humanity, had anything to do with CO2, and there are good reasons for skepticism that doubling CO2 will make much difference compared to natural climate changes.

It is increasingly clear that doubling CO2 is unlikely to increase global temperature more than about one degree Celsius, not the much larger values touted by the global warming establishment. In fact, CO2 levels are below the optimum levels for most plants, and there are persuasive arguments that the mild warming and increased agricultural yields from doubling CO2 will be an overall benefit for humanity. Let us debate and deal with serious, real problems facing our society, not elaborately orchestrated, phony ones, like the trumped-up need to drastically curtail CO2 emissions.

Roger W. Cohen

Fellow, American Physical Society

La Jolla, Calif.

William Happer

Princeton University

Princeton, N.J.

Richard S. Lindzen

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, Mass.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443991704577579951766037924.html

More scientists explaining about a paper from an idiot extremist activist climate scientist.

A dummies prediction
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/fig2.2.gif


I was finishing up my U.S. Senate testimony for 1 Aug when a reporter sent me a PNAS paper by Hansen et al. (2012) embargoed until after the Hearing. Because of the embargo, I couldn’t comment about Hansen et al. at the Hearing. This paper claimed, among other things, that the proportion of the Northern Hemisphere land area (with weather stations) that exceeded extreme summer hot temperatures was now 10 percent or more for the 2006 to 2011 period.

For extremes at that level (three standard deviations or 3-sigma) this was remarkable evidence for “human-made global warming.” Statistically speaking, the area covered by that extreme in any given hotter-than-average year should only be in the lowest single digits … that is, if the Hansen et al. assumptions are true – i.e., (a) if TMean accurately represents only the effect of extra greenhouse gases, (b) if the climate acts like a bell-shaped curve, (c) if the bell-shaped curve determined by a single 30-year period (1951-1980) represents all of natural climate variability, and (d) if the GISS interpolated and extrapolated dataset preserves accurate anomaly values. (I hope you are raising a suspicious eyebrow by now.)

The conclusion, to which the authors jumped, was that such a relatively large area of recent extremes could only be caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect. But, the authors went further by making an attempt at advocacy, not science, as they say they were motivated by “the need for the public to appreciate the significance of human-made global warming.”

Permit me to digress into an opinionated comment. In 2006, President George W. Bush was wrong when he said we were addicted to oil. The real truth is, oil, and other carbon-based fuels, are merely the affordable means by which we can satisfy our true addictions – long life, good health, prosperity, technological progress, adequate food supplies, internet services, freedom of movement, protection from environmental threats, and so on. As I’ve said numerous times after living in Africa, – without energy, life is brutal and short.

Folks with Hansen’s view are quick to condemn carbon fuels while overlooking the obvious reasons for their use and the astounding benefits they provide (and in which they participate). The lead author referred to coal trains as “death trains – no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to the crematoria.” The truth, in my opinion, is the exact opposite – carbon has provided accessible energy that has been indisputably responsible for enhancing security, longevity, and the overall welfare of human life. In other words, carbon-based energy has lifted billions out of an impoverished, brutal existence.

In my view, that is “good,” and I hope Hansen and co-authors would agree. I can’t scientifically demonstrate that improving the human condition is “good” because that is a value judgment about human life. This “good” is simply something I believe to be of inestimable value, and which at this point in history is made possible by carbon.

Back to science. After reading Part 1, everyone should have some serious concerns about the methodology of the Hansen et al. as published in PNAS. [By the way, I went through the same peer-review process for this post as for a PNAS publication: I selected my colleague Roy Spencer, a highly qualified, award-winning climate scientist, as the reviewer.]

With regard to (a) above, I’ve already provided evidence in Part 1 that TMean misrepresents the response of the climate system to extra greenhouse gases. So, I decided to look only at TMax. For this I downloaded the station data from the Berkeley BEST dataset (quality-controlled version). This dataset has more stations than GISS, and can be gridded so as to avoid extrapolated and interpolated values where strange statistical features can arise. This gridding addresses assumption (d) above. I binned the data into 1° Lat x 2° Lon grids, and de-biased the individual station time series relative to one another within each grid, merging them into a single time series per grid. The results below are for NH summer only, to match the results that Hansen et al. used to formulate their main assertions.

In Fig. 2.1 I show the percentage of the NH land areas that Hansen et al. calculated to be above the TMean 3-sigma threshold for 2006 to 2011 (black-filled circles). The next curve (gray-filled circles) is the same calculation, using the same base period (1951-1980), but using TMax from my construction from the BEST station data. The correlation between the two is high, so broad spatial and temporal features are the same. However, the areal coverage drops off by over half, from Hansen’s 6-year average of 12 percent to this analysis at 5 percent (click for full-size version):

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/fig2.1.gif

Now, I believe assumption (c), that the particular climate of 1951-1980 can provide the complete and ideal distribution for calculating the impact of greenhouse gas increases, displays a remarkably biased view of the statistics of a non-linear dynamical system. Hansen et al. claim this short period faithfully represents the natural climate variability of not just the present, but the past 10,000 years – and that 1981-2011 is outside of that range. Hansen assuming any 30-year period represents all of Holocene climate is simply astounding to me.

A quick look at the time series of the US record of high TMax’s (Fig.1.1 in Part 1) indicates that the period 1951-1980 was one of especially low variability in the relatively brief 110-year climate record. Thus, it is an unrepresentative sample of the climate’s natural variability. So, for a major portion of the observed NH land area, the selection of 1951-80 as the reference-base immediately convicts the anomalies for those decades outside of that period as criminal outliers.

This brings up an important question. How many decades of accurate climate observations are required to establish a climatology from which departures from that climatology may be declared as outside the realm of natural variability? Since the climate is a non-linear, dynamical system, the answer is unknown, but certainly the ideal base-period would be much longer than 30 years thanks to the natural variability of the background climate on all time scales.

We can test the choice of 1951-1980 as capable of defining an accurate pre-greenhouse warming climatology. I shall simply add 20 years to the beginning of the reference period. Certainly Hansen et al. would consider 1931-1950 as “pre-greenhouse” since they considered their own later reference period of 1951-1980 as such. Will this change the outcome?

The result is the third curve from the top (open circles) in Fig. 2.1 above, showing values mostly in the low single digits (6-year average of 2.9 percent) being generally a quarter of Hansen et al.’s results. In other words, the results change quite a bit simply by widening the window back into a period with even less greenhouse forcing for an acceptable base-climate. (Please note that the only grids used to calculate the percentage of area were those with at least 90 percent of the data during the reference period – I couldn’t tell from Hansen et al. whether they had applied such a consistency test.)

The lowest curve in Fig. 2.1 (squares) uses a base reference period of 80 years (1931-2010) in which a lot of variability occurred. The recent decade doesn’t show much at all with a 1.3 percent average. Now, one may legitimately complain that since I included the most recent 30 years of greenhouse warming in the statistics, that the reference period is not pure enough for testing the effect. I understand fully. My response is, can anyone prove that decades with even higher temperatures and variations have not occurred in the last 1,000 or even 10,000 pre-greenhouse, post-glacial years?

That question takes us back to our nemesis. What is an accurate expression of the statistics of the interglacial, non-greenhouse-enhanced climate? Or, what is the extent of anomalies that Mother Nature can achieve on her own for the “natural” climate system from one 30-year period to the next? I’ll bet the variations are much greater than depicted by 1951-1980 alone, so this choice by Hansen as the base climate is not broad enough. In the least, there should be no objection to using 1931-1980 as a reference-base for a non-enhanced-greenhouse climate.

In press reports for this paper (e.g., here), Hansen indicated that “he had underestimated how bad things could get” regarding his 1988 predictions of future climate. According to the global temperature chart below (Fig. 2.2), one could make the case that his comment apparently means he hadn’t anticipated how bad his 1988 predictions would be when compared with satellite observations from UAH and RSS:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/fig2.2.gif



http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/08/fun-with-summer-statistics-part-2-the-northern-hemisphere-land/

By the way, a climate model simulation is a hypothesis and Fig. 2.2 is called ”testing a hypothesis.” The simulations fail the test. (Note that though allowing for growing emissions in scenario A, the real world emitted even more greenhouse gases, so the results here are an underestimate of the actual model errors.)

The bottom line of this little exercise is that I believe the analysis of Hansen et al. is based on assumptions designed to confirm a specific bias about climate change and then, like a legal brief, advocates for public acceptance of that bias to motivate the adoption of certain policies (see Hansen’s Washington Post Op-Ed 3 Aug 2012).

Using the different assumptions above, which I believe are more scientifically defensible, I don’t see alarming changes. Further, the discussion in and around Hansen et al. of the danger of carbon-based energy is simply an advocacy-based opinion of an immensely complex issue and which ignores the ubiquitous and undeniable benefits that carbon-based energy provides for human life.

Finally, I thought I just saw the proverbial “horse” I presumed was dead twitch a little (see Part 1). So, I want to beat it one more time. In Fig. 2.3 is the 1900-2011 analysis of areal coverage of positive anomalies (2.05-sigma or 2.5 percent significance level) over USA48 from the BEST TMax and TMin gridded data. The reference period is 1951-1980:


Does anyone still think TMax and TMin (and thus TMean) have consistently measured the same physical property of the climate through the years?

It’s August and the dewpoint just dipped below 70°F here in Alabama, so I’m headed out for a run.

REFERENCE:
Hansen, J., M. Sato and R. Ruedy, 2012: Perception of climate change. Proc. Nat. Ac. Sci., doi/10.1073/pnas.1205276109.


http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/08/fun-with-summer-statistics-part-2-the-northern-hemisphere-land/

Honestly, progs, I've come home from a hard day at work, and the last thing I want to do is read through screeds cut and pasted from some denial site. If you have a point to make, make it succinctly. If it makes sense I'll always go to any link you post.

MOTR wrote on Aug 16^th, 2012 at 8:45pm:

Honestly, progs, I've come home from a hard day at work, and the last thing I want to do is read through screeds cut and pasted from some denial site. If you have a point to make, make it succinctly. If it makes sense I'll always go to any link you post.

You read from some exteme activist scientist. That creates precedence.

Progs, if you can't summarise it you don't understand it. If you don't understand what you're posting, don't post it.

MOTR wrote on Aug 16^th, 2012 at 9:00pm:

Progs, if you can't summarise it you don't understand it. If you don't understand what you're posting, don't post it.

Dont be telling me what to do. Who the hell are you.

Just take your busy body totalitarian attitude and give it to yourself with the words 'dont read or comment on it'

MOTR wrote on Aug 16^th, 2012 at 8:45pm:

If you have a point to make, make it succinctly.

AGW=a load of stats.

'Global warming' - sounds scary but it's just averages.
Instead of 129 freezing days, its 126.
instead of 189 pleasant days, it is 194.
Instead of 47 unchanged days, it's 45.

Soren wrote on Aug 16^th, 2012 at 9:56pm:

MOTR wrote on Aug 16th, 2012 at 8:45pm: If you have a point to make, make it succinctly. AGW=a load of stats. 'Global warming' - sounds scary but it's just averages. Instead of 129 freezing days, its 126. instead of 189 pleasant days, it is 194. Instead of 47 unchanged days, it's 45.

That's what I'm talking about. Now link it.

MOTR wrote on Aug 16^th, 2012 at 8:45pm:

Honestly, progs, I've come home from a hard day at work, and the last thing I want to do is read through screeds cut and pasted from some denial site. If you have a point to make, make it succinctly. If it makes sense I'll always go to any link you post.

Succinctly - "This study which I found on a denialist site puts the climate Sensitivity as low (yeah! Low rules). It's just one study, whereas the IPCC AR4 Climate study was based on a host of climate studies from around the world, but I like this one as opposed to the IPCC's synthesis of multiple studies (even though it included studies with low values)  because it gives me the low result I like."  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

However, progs aside, the best estimate today based on more modern studies puts climate sensitivity at 2.6–4.1 °C for a doubling of CO2, with most studies clustering around 3 °C, so the error bars have closed a little. That mean value of 3 °C hasn't changed since 1999, and it's confirmed by all the usual data, including Ice core data, the Pinatubo eruption and 20-21st Century hard data.

Does that mean that you won't get single studies that put it lower? Of course not.

Climate sensitivity of  3 °C is not climate change by 3 °C, of course.

Climate sensitivity of  3 °C means a predicted change due to CO2 IF NOTHING ELSE changes.

Soren wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 9:35am:

Climate sensitivity of  3 °C is not climate change by 3 °C, of course. Climate sensitivity of  3 °C means a predicted change due to CO2 IF NOTHING ELSE changes.

Keep trying and you'll understand it eventually. The radiative forcing due to CO2 plus methane plus nitrous oxide plus ozone etc is around 4W/m2.  This equates to about 1 Celsius degree (1 Kelvin, 1K) for a doubling of CO2. Added to this are the various feedbacks which occur as a result of the CO2 (etc) forcing.  These include the  water vapor feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, the cloud feedback, and the lapse rate feedback. Now if we add up all these feedbacks and together with the radiative forcings, we get a sensitivity to CO2 doubling of approximately 3 °C ± 1.5 °C.

Now this does not include such unlikely scenarios as the Earth suddenly shifting off its axis due to Iranian Clerics masturbating, enormous stratospheric volcanoes such as the Mt Toba eruption, which happened about 70,000 years ago, huge meteroid impacts, dramatic rapid fluctuations in solar output or God sneezing.

So yes, it doesn't account for any of the above changes. 

What I'm describing here is strictly  equilibrium climate sensitivity.  This applies over about a 100 year timescale. Apart from that, there is "effective climate sensitivity" (ESS) which covers slower factors as major albedo changes such as those due to major ice caps melting. This is less certain than the ECS, but is likely to be around double that of the ECS,

sigh..... :)

Then there is the transient climate sensitivity(TCS), much beloved of  Roy Spencer and his croneys. The TCS is lower than the ECS because it doesn't take into account the "inertia" of ocean heat uptake.

muso wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 7:01pm:

Soren wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 9:35am: Climate sensitivity of  3 °C is not climate change by 3 °C, of course. Climate sensitivity of  3 °C means a predicted change due to CO2 IF NOTHING ELSE changes. Keep trying and you'll understand it eventually. The radiative forcing due to CO2 plus methane plus nitrous oxide plus ozone etc is around 4W/m2.  This equates to about 1 Celsius degree (1 Kelvin, 1K) for a doubling of CO2. Added to this are the various feedbacks which occur as a result of the CO2 (etc) forcing.  These include the  water vapor feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, the cloud feedback, and the lapse rate feedback. Now if we add up all these feedbacks and together with the radiative forcings, we get a sensitivity to CO2 doubling of approximately 3 °C ± 1.5 °C. Now this does not include such unlikely scenarios as the Earth suddenly shifting off its axis due to Iranian Clerics masturbating, enormous stratospheric volcanoes such as the Mt Toba eruption, which happened about 70,000 years ago, huge meteroid impacts, dramatic rapid fluctuations in solar output or God sneezing. So yes, it doesn't account for any of the above changes.  What I'm describing here is strictly  equilibrium climate sensitivity.  This applies over about a 100 year timescale. Apart from that, there is "effective climate sensitivity" (ESS) which covers slower factors as major albedo changes such as those due to major ice caps melting. This is less certain than the ECS, but is likely to be around double that of the ECS, sigh..... :) Then there is the transient climate sensitivity(TCS), much beloved of  Roy Spencer and his croneys. The TCS is lower than the ECS because it doesn't take into account the "inertia" of ocean heat uptake.

You make it sound like feedback behaviour are known. Far from it. It is still well in the assumption stage from the AGW'rs of an increase rather than a descrease in temp due to feedbacks


Models get cloud feedback wrong, but *only* by 70W/m2 (that’s 19 times larger than the CO2 effect)


Yet another paper shows that the climate models have flaws, described as “gross” “severe” and “disturbing”. The direct effect of doubling CO2 is theoretically 3.7W per square meter. The feedbacks supposedly are 2 -3 times as strong (according to the IPCC). But some scientists are trying to figure out those feedbacks with models which have flaws in the order of 70W per square meter. (How do we find that signal in noise that’s up to 19 times larger?)

Remember climate science is settled:  like gravity and a round earth. (Really?)


Miller et al 2012 [abstract] [PDF] find that some models predict clouds to have a net shortwave radiative effect near zero, but observations show it is 70W per square meter. Presumably, cloud shortwave radiative effect means the sunlight bounced upwards off the surface of the clouds and out into space.

What’s especially interesting about this paper is the level of detail. They test shortwave and longwave radiation, precipitation flux, integrated water vapor, liquid water path, cloud fraction, and they have observations from the top of the atmosphere and the surface. With so much information they can test models against short wave and long wave radiation, to see how well the models are really simulating clouds.

We can also see how four models appear to do well on one parameter, only to invariably fail on another. It is easy to see how a not-so-diligent researcher could “verify” some aspect of each and every model but without testing and comparing all the aspects, these single point “successes” are meaningless.

Critics will say this study was just one year in one region (2006 over the African Sahel) but if global climate models don’t understand cloud microphysics and the radiative effect of the condensed water vapor that covers 60% of Planet Earth, then they can’t predict the climate anywhere. And no, the pretense that predicting climate 100 years in advance is somehow easier than predicting a single year is bollocks… 100 years of climate modeling means adding up 100 years of errors. The errors don’t cancel out, they accumulate.

Even though the models are tested below with one year (2006) as the dotted blue line, the blue bands are envelopes of model outputs for 2001-2010, and we would hope that even if the models got the year wrong, the observations would at least fall within the extremes of the decadal predictions, but frequently they didn’t. Indeed the authors note that the decade itself was not that critical saying “virtually the same results are obtained when the GCM solution envelope is stretched to thirty years.”

The four global models tested are: CM2, HADGEM1, CCSM3 & GISS-EH

much more
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/models-get-cloud-feedback-wrong-but-only-by-70wm2-thats-19-times-larger-than-the-co2-effect/

OK, you like that one highly focused regional study because it gives low feedbacks but you conveniently ignore the other 30 odd papers that confirm much higher feedbacks. Of course Joanne Nova could never publish anything like that on her personal blog. She'd lose her funding from the Heartland Institute.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 7:25pm:

muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:01pm: Soren wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 9:35am: Climate sensitivity of  3 °C is not climate change by 3 °C, of course. Climate sensitivity of  3 °C means a predicted change due to CO2 IF NOTHING ELSE changes. Keep trying and you'll understand it eventually. The radiative forcing due to CO2 plus methane plus nitrous oxide plus ozone etc is around 4W/m2.  This equates to about 1 Celsius degree (1 Kelvin, 1K) for a doubling of CO2. Added to this are the various feedbacks which occur as a result of the CO2 (etc) forcing.  These include the  water vapor feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, the cloud feedback, and the lapse rate feedback. Now if we add up all these feedbacks and together with the radiative forcings, we get a sensitivity to CO2 doubling of approximately 3 °C ± 1.5 °C. Now this does not include such unlikely scenarios as the Earth suddenly shifting off its axis due to Iranian Clerics masturbating, enormous stratospheric volcanoes such as the Mt Toba eruption, which happened about 70,000 years ago, huge meteroid impacts, dramatic rapid fluctuations in solar output or God sneezing. So yes, it doesn't account for any of the above changes.  What I'm describing here is strictly  equilibrium climate sensitivity.  This applies over about a 100 year timescale. Apart from that, there is "effective climate sensitivity" (ESS) which covers slower factors as major albedo changes such as those due to major ice caps melting. This is less certain than the ECS, but is likely to be around double that of the ECS, sigh..... :) Then there is the transient climate sensitivity(TCS), much beloved of  Roy Spencer and his croneys. The TCS is lower than the ECS because it doesn't take into account the "inertia" of ocean heat uptake. You make it sound like feedback behaviour are known. Far from it. It is still well in the assumption stage from the AGW'rs of an increase rather than a descrease in temp due to feedbacks Models get cloud feedback wrong, but *only* by 70W/m2 (that’s 19 times larger than the CO2 effect) Yet another paper shows that the climate models have flaws, described as “gross” “severe” and “disturbing”. The direct effect of doubling CO2 is theoretically 3.7W per square meter. The feedbacks supposedly are 2 -3 times as strong (according to the IPCC). But some scientists are trying to figure out those feedbacks with models which have flaws in the order of 70W per square meter. (How do we find that signal in noise that’s up to 19 times larger?) Remember climate science is settled:  like gravity and a round earth. (Really?) Miller et al 2012 [abstract] [PDF] find that some models predict clouds to have a net shortwave radiative effect near zero, but observations show it is 70W per square meter. Presumably, cloud shortwave radiative effect means the sunlight bounced upwards off the surface of the clouds and out into space. What’s especially interesting about this paper is the level of detail. They test shortwave and longwave radiation, precipitation flux, integrated water vapor, liquid water path, cloud fraction, and they have observations from the top of the atmosphere and the surface. With so much information they can test models against short wave and long wave radiation, to see how well the models are really simulating clouds. We can also see how four models appear to do well on one parameter, only to invariably fail on another. It is easy to see how a not-so-diligent researcher could “verify” some aspect of each and every model but without testing and comparing all the aspects, these single point “successes” are meaningless. Critics will say this study was just one year in one region (2006 over the African Sahel) but if global climate models don’t understand cloud microphysics and the radiative effect of the condensed water vapor that covers 60% of Planet Earth, then they can’t predict the climate anywhere. And no, the pretense that predicting climate 100 years in advance is somehow easier than predicting a single year is bollocks… 100 years of climate modeling means adding up 100 years of errors. The errors don’t cancel out, they accumulate. Even though the models are tested below with one year (2006) as the dotted blue line, the blue bands are envelopes of model outputs for 2001-2010, and we would hope that even if the models got the year wrong, the observations would at least fall within the extremes of the decadal predictions, but frequently they didn’t. Indeed the authors note that the decade itself was not that critical saying “virtually the same results are obtained when the GCM solution envelope is stretched to thirty years.” The four global models tested are: CM2, HADGEM1, CCSM3 & GISS-EH much more http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/models-get-cloud-feedback-wrong-but-only-by-70wm2-thats-19-times-larger-than-the-co2-effect/

Next time post a link to the actual paper, progs.

My bet is you haven't even read it.

Want to know how to deliver a study that shows negative feedbacks?

Easy - You too could receive funding from wealthy oil corporations.

Instructions:

1. Read the IPCC Regional Climate Predictions chapter 11, taking particular note of the regions where there is little or no warming. Aha! Let's try the African Sahel region you say. That's a nice white area on the projected temperature map. An excellent starting point for my study.  ;) (I think my bank balance is starting to increase already) If it's a white area on the map, that means that there is a localised area of negative feedback, because it's less than CO2 forcing. (Why? - See the key words in the footnote)

Can I get a loan. I can use my idea as collateral. To hell with my personal integrity, I prefer money.

Actually, you'll find that the original author had no such intention. It was a genuine study intended to quantify cloud feedback.

Footnote:- Sahel: extreme drought, dust storms, highly localised dimming (cooling).

MOTR wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:25pm: muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:01pm: Soren wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 9:35am: Climate sensitivity of  3 °C is not climate change by 3 °C, of course. Climate sensitivity of  3 °C means a predicted change due to CO2 IF NOTHING ELSE changes. Keep trying and you'll understand it eventually. The radiative forcing due to CO2 plus methane plus nitrous oxide plus ozone etc is around 4W/m2.  This equates to about 1 Celsius degree (1 Kelvin, 1K) for a doubling of CO2. Added to this are the various feedbacks which occur as a result of the CO2 (etc) forcing.  These include the  water vapor feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, the cloud feedback, and the lapse rate feedback. Now if we add up all these feedbacks and together with the radiative forcings, we get a sensitivity to CO2 doubling of approximately 3 °C ± 1.5 °C. Now this does not include such unlikely scenarios as the Earth suddenly shifting off its axis due to Iranian Clerics masturbating, enormous stratospheric volcanoes such as the Mt Toba eruption, which happened about 70,000 years ago, huge meteroid impacts, dramatic rapid fluctuations in solar output or God sneezing. So yes, it doesn't account for any of the above changes.  What I'm describing here is strictly  equilibrium climate sensitivity.  This applies over about a 100 year timescale. Apart from that, there is "effective climate sensitivity" (ESS) which covers slower factors as major albedo changes such as those due to major ice caps melting. This is less certain than the ECS, but is likely to be around double that of the ECS, sigh..... :) Then there is the transient climate sensitivity(TCS), much beloved of  Roy Spencer and his croneys. The TCS is lower than the ECS because it doesn't take into account the "inertia" of ocean heat uptake. You make it sound like feedback behaviour are known. Far from it. It is still well in the assumption stage from the AGW'rs of an increase rather than a descrease in temp due to feedbacks Models get cloud feedback wrong, but *only* by 70W/m2 (that’s 19 times larger than the CO2 effect) Yet another paper shows that the climate models have flaws, described as “gross” “severe” and “disturbing”. The direct effect of doubling CO2 is theoretically 3.7W per square meter. The feedbacks supposedly are 2 -3 times as strong (according to the IPCC). But some scientists are trying to figure out those feedbacks with models which have flaws in the order of 70W per square meter. (How do we find that signal in noise that’s up to 19 times larger?) Remember climate science is settled:  like gravity and a round earth. (Really?) Miller et al 2012 [abstract] [PDF] find that some models predict clouds to have a net shortwave radiative effect near zero, but observations show it is 70W per square meter. Presumably, cloud shortwave radiative effect means the sunlight bounced upwards off the surface of the clouds and out into space. What’s especially interesting about this paper is the level of detail. They test shortwave and longwave radiation, precipitation flux, integrated water vapor, liquid water path, cloud fraction, and they have observations from the top of the atmosphere and the surface. With so much information they can test models against short wave and long wave radiation, to see how well the models are really simulating clouds. We can also see how four models appear to do well on one parameter, only to invariably fail on another. It is easy to see how a not-so-diligent researcher could “verify” some aspect of each and every model but without testing and comparing all the aspects, these single point “successes” are meaningless. Critics will say this study was just one year in one region (2006 over the African Sahel) but if global climate models don’t understand cloud microphysics and the radiative effect of the condensed water vapor that covers 60% of Planet Earth, then they can’t predict the climate anywhere. And no, the pretense that predicting climate 100 years in advance is somehow easier than predicting a single year is bollocks… 100 years of climate modeling means adding up 100 years of errors. The errors don’t cancel out, they accumulate. Even though the models are tested below with one year (2006) as the dotted blue line, the blue bands are envelopes of model outputs for 2001-2010, and we would hope that even if the models got the year wrong, the observations would at least fall within the extremes of the decadal predictions, but frequently they didn’t. Indeed the authors note that the decade itself was not that critical saying “virtually the same results are obtained when the GCM solution envelope is stretched to thirty years.” The four global models tested are: CM2, HADGEM1, CCSM3 & GISS-EH much more http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/models-get-cloud-feedback-wrong-but-only-by-70wm2-thats-19-times-larger-than-the-co2-effect/ Next time post a link to the actual paper, progs. My bet is you haven't even read it.

Next time mind your own dam business.

The link is on the post to all the information needed, including the link to the paper.

Thats the second time in 2 days you trying to use some totalitarian BS with me.

muso wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 7:01pm:

Soren wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 9:35am: Climate sensitivity of  3 °C is not climate change by 3 °C, of course. Climate sensitivity of  3 °C means a predicted change due to CO2 IF NOTHING ELSE changes. Keep trying and you'll understand it eventually. The radiative forcing due to CO2 plus methane plus nitrous oxide plus ozone etc is around 4W/m2.  This equates to about 1 Celsius degree (1 Kelvin, 1K) for a doubling of CO2. Added to this are the various feedbacks which occur as a result of the CO2 (etc) forcing.  These include the  water vapor feedback, the ice-albedo feedback, the cloud feedback, and the lapse rate feedback. Now if we add up all these feedbacks and together with the radiative forcings, we get a sensitivity to CO2 doubling of approximately 3 °C ± 1.5 °C. Now this does not include such unlikely scenarios as the Earth suddenly shifting off its axis due to Iranian Clerics masturbating, enormous stratospheric volcanoes such as the Mt Toba eruption, which happened about 70,000 years ago, huge meteroid impacts, dramatic rapid fluctuations in solar output or God sneezing. So yes, it doesn't account for any of the above changes.  What I'm describing here is strictly  equilibrium climate sensitivity.  This applies over about a 100 year timescale. Apart from that, there is "effective climate sensitivity" (ESS) which covers slower factors as major albedo changes such as those due to major ice caps melting. This is less certain than the ECS, but is likely to be around double that of the ECS, sigh..... :) Then there is the transient climate sensitivity(TCS), much beloved of  Roy Spencer and his croneys. The TCS is lower than the ECS because it doesn't take into account the "inertia" of ocean heat uptake.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Love you, man!

There's nothing like a boffin trying to make sense for the great unwashed.

muso wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 7:42pm:

OK, you like that one highly focused regional study because it gives low feedbacks but you conveniently ignore the other 30 odd papers that confirm much higher feedbacks. Of course Joanne Nova could never publish anything like that on her personal blog. She'd lose her funding from the Heartland Institute.

muso wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 7:56pm:

Want to know how to deliver a study that shows negative feedbacks? Easy - You too could receive funding from wealthy oil corporations. Instructions: 1. Read the IPCC Regional Climate Predictions chapter 11, taking particular note of the regions where there is little or no warming. Aha! Let's try the African Sahel region you say. That's a nice white area on the projected temperature map. An excellent starting point for my study.  ;) (I think my bank balance is starting to increase already) If it's a white area on the map, that means that there is a localised area of negative feedback, because it's less than CO2 forcing. (Why? - See the key words in the footnote) Can I get a loan. I can use my idea as collateral. To hell with my personal integrity, I prefer money. Actually, you'll find that the original author had no such intention. It was a genuine study intended to quantify cloud feedback. Footnote:- Sahel: extreme drought, dust storms, highly localised dimming (cooling).

I am pretty sure that cloud feedback, regardless of where in the world, would work pretty much the same as anywhere in the world.

You really don't know clouds at all.  ;)

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 10:10pm:

muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:42pm: OK, you like that one highly focused regional study because it gives low feedbacks but you conveniently ignore the other 30 odd papers that confirm much higher feedbacks. Of course Joanne Nova could never publish anything like that on her personal blog. She'd lose her funding from the Heartland Institute. muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:56pm: Want to know how to deliver a study that shows negative feedbacks? Easy - You too could receive funding from wealthy oil corporations. Instructions: 1. Read the IPCC Regional Climate Predictions chapter 11, taking particular note of the regions where there is little or no warming. Aha! Let's try the African Sahel region you say. That's a nice white area on the projected temperature map. An excellent starting point for my study.  ;) (I think my bank balance is starting to increase already) If it's a white area on the map, that means that there is a localised area of negative feedback, because it's less than CO2 forcing. (Why? - See the key words in the footnote) Can I get a loan. I can use my idea as collateral. To hell with my personal integrity, I prefer money. Actually, you'll find that the original author had no such intention. It was a genuine study intended to quantify cloud feedback. Footnote:- Sahel: extreme drought, dust storms, highly localised dimming (cooling). I am pretty sure that cloud feedback, regardless of where in the world, would work pretty much the same as anywhere in the world.

Have you read the paper yet, progs?

Does the paper extrapolate beyond the West African Sahel?

MOTR wrote on Aug 18^th, 2012 at 3:14am:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 10:10pm: muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:42pm: OK, you like that one highly focused regional study because it gives low feedbacks but you conveniently ignore the other 30 odd papers that confirm much higher feedbacks. Of course Joanne Nova could never publish anything like that on her personal blog. She'd lose her funding from the Heartland Institute. muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:56pm: Want to know how to deliver a study that shows negative feedbacks? Easy - You too could receive funding from wealthy oil corporations. Instructions: 1. Read the IPCC Regional Climate Predictions chapter 11, taking particular note of the regions where there is little or no warming. Aha! Let's try the African Sahel region you say. That's a nice white area on the projected temperature map. An excellent starting point for my study.  ;) (I think my bank balance is starting to increase already) If it's a white area on the map, that means that there is a localised area of negative feedback, because it's less than CO2 forcing. (Why? - See the key words in the footnote) Can I get a loan. I can use my idea as collateral. To hell with my personal integrity, I prefer money. Actually, you'll find that the original author had no such intention. It was a genuine study intended to quantify cloud feedback. Footnote:- Sahel: extreme drought, dust storms, highly localised dimming (cooling). I am pretty sure that cloud feedback, regardless of where in the world, would work pretty much the same as anywhere in the world. Have you read the paper yet, progs? Does the paper extrapolate beyond the West African Sahel?

Why do you continue to ask round about questions. Read it for yourself, then make your statement.

muso wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 10:57pm:

You really don't know clouds at all.  ;)

Do you believe a like for like cloud works differently depending on where on earth. Like for like in every way.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 18^th, 2012 at 8:28am:

MOTR wrote on Aug 18th, 2012 at 3:14am: progressiveslol wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 10:10pm: muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:42pm: OK, you like that one highly focused regional study because it gives low feedbacks but you conveniently ignore the other 30 odd papers that confirm much higher feedbacks. Of course Joanne Nova could never publish anything like that on her personal blog. She'd lose her funding from the Heartland Institute. muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:56pm: Want to know how to deliver a study that shows negative feedbacks? Easy - You too could receive funding from wealthy oil corporations. Instructions: 1. Read the IPCC Regional Climate Predictions chapter 11, taking particular note of the regions where there is little or no warming. Aha! Let's try the African Sahel region you say. That's a nice white area on the projected temperature map. An excellent starting point for my study.  ;) (I think my bank balance is starting to increase already) If it's a white area on the map, that means that there is a localised area of negative feedback, because it's less than CO2 forcing. (Why? - See the key words in the footnote) Can I get a loan. I can use my idea as collateral. To hell with my personal integrity, I prefer money. Actually, you'll find that the original author had no such intention. It was a genuine study intended to quantify cloud feedback. Footnote:- Sahel: extreme drought, dust storms, highly localised dimming (cooling). I am pretty sure that cloud feedback, regardless of where in the world, would work pretty much the same as anywhere in the world. Have you read the paper yet, progs? Does the paper extrapolate beyond the West African Sahel? Why do you continue to ask round about questions. Read it for yourself, then make your statement.

Why do you continue to avoid answering direct questions. What's difficult about telling us how you believe this paper extends our knowledge of cloud radiative forcing.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 18^th, 2012 at 8:30am:

muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 10:57pm: You really don't know clouds at all.  ;) Do you believe a like for like cloud works differently depending on where on earth. Like for like in every way.

There is no such thing. There is a great deal of variation in the nature of cloud radiative feedbacks, even at the same location. That's why we have to conduct studies in many different environments and locations to determine the net effect of cloud feedbacks.


From Tellus (1981), 33,438-443

Surface temperature sensitivities from cloud cover variations in the Hummel-Kuhn radiative-convective model with three different cloud approximations - Hummel, JR


Quote:

Both cloud amount and height are known to affect surface temperature...... as the amount of clouds increases, the planetary albedo increases and the surface temperature decreases (e.g. Schneider, 1972). The surface temperature also responds to changes in cloud height, the nature of the response (i.e. whether the surface temperature increases or decreases) depending on the cloud and its original height (e.g. Manabe and Wetherald, 1967).

Also see:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAS3506.1

Quote:

On the Role of Moist Processes in Tropical Intraseasonal Variability: Cloud–Radiation and Moisture–Convection Feedbacks Sandrine Bony Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, CNRS, Paris, France

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 10:10pm:

muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:42pm: OK, you like that one highly focused regional study because it gives low feedbacks but you conveniently ignore the other 30 odd papers that confirm much higher feedbacks. Of course Joanne Nova could never publish anything like that on her personal blog. She'd lose her funding from the Heartland Institute. muso wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 7:56pm: Want to know how to deliver a study that shows negative feedbacks? Easy - You too could receive funding from wealthy oil corporations. Instructions: 1. Read the IPCC Regional Climate Predictions chapter 11, taking particular note of the regions where there is little or no warming. Aha! Let's try the African Sahel region you say. That's a nice white area on the projected temperature map. An excellent starting point for my study.  ;) (I think my bank balance is starting to increase already) If it's a white area on the map, that means that there is a localised area of negative feedback, because it's less than CO2 forcing. (Why? - See the key words in the footnote) Can I get a loan. I can use my idea as collateral. To hell with my personal integrity, I prefer money. Actually, you'll find that the original author had no such intention. It was a genuine study intended to quantify cloud feedback. Footnote:- Sahel: extreme drought, dust storms, highly localised dimming (cooling). I am pretty sure that cloud feedback, regardless of where in the world, would work pretty much the same as anywhere in the world.

Lol, you would never catch tony abbott saying such a thing as he would be attacked mercilessly! Such an ignorant statement would kill the Liberal Party, which is why deniers refrain from being specific if they are in positions of power!!

I'd rather focus on trying to explain how it works rather than ridiculing people for making daft statements. We all do that. Mind you, many of us correct ourselves afterwards.

Soren wrote on Aug 17^th, 2012 at 9:19pm:

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Love you, man! There's nothing like a boffin trying to make sense for the great unwashed.

By the way, I should have said "combine" the feedbacks rather than "add up".  In another forum I frequent, that would have been jumped on pretty quickly.

muso wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 7:38am:

I'd rather focus on trying to explain how it works rather than ridiculing people for making daft statements. We all do that. Mind you, many of us correct ourselves afterwards.

It is still not a daft statement just because you dont understand a like for like cloud act the same anywhere..

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 8:14am:

just because you dont understand a like for like cloud act the same anywhere..

I certainly can't understand what you've written here. Care to explain it in more detail for we humble peons?

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 8:14am:

muso wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 7:38am: I'd rather focus on trying to explain how it works rather than ridiculing people for making daft statements. We all do that. Mind you, many of us correct ourselves afterwards. It is still not a daft statement just because you dont understand a like for like cloud act the same anywhere..

I was mainly trying to stop DRAH ridiculing you, but hey, please vindicate yourself. Let's start by taking a high altitude tropical cirrus cloud at say 14,000 metres , so explain to me what the "like" would be at mid latitudes and polar latitudes, because in the West African Sahel, that would be a fairly typical height for cirrus.  (You can phone a friend)

I'm just trying to make you think before you post. Remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question, but there is definitely such a thing as a stupid assertion.

muso wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 7:48am:

Soren wrote on Aug 17th, 2012 at 9:19pm: ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Love you, man! There's nothing like a boffin trying to make sense for the great unwashed. By the way, I should have said "combine" the feedbacks rather than "add up".  In another forum I frequent, that would have been jumped on pretty quickly.

Yes, I noticed that but though it would be petty to pull you up on it. I was quietly confident you'd self-correct. 

muso wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 11:08am:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 8:14am: muso wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 7:38am: I'd rather focus on trying to explain how it works rather than ridiculing people for making daft statements. We all do that. Mind you, many of us correct ourselves afterwards. It is still not a daft statement just because you dont understand a like for like cloud act the same anywhere.. I was mainly trying to stop DRAH ridiculing you, but hey, please vindicate yourself. Let's start by taking a high altitude tropical cirrus cloud at say 14,000 metres , so explain to me what the "like" would be at mid latitudes and polar latitudes, because in the West African Sahel, that would be a fairly typical height for cirrus.  (You can phone a friend) I'm just trying to make you think before you post. Remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question, but there is definitely such a thing as a stupid assertion.

That would not be like for like.

You'll have to explain what you mean.  Maybe you could give us an example of what you mean by like for like.  What about tropical convective clouds then? Some pretty major feedbacks there.

What factors determine "like for like" as you put it?

muso wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 4:39pm:

You'll have to explain what you mean.  Maybe you could give us an example of what you mean by like for like.  What about tropical convective clouds then? Some pretty major feedbacks there. What factors determine "like for like" as you put it?

I am talking like for like in every way. It would have to be height, density, convection, even chemical make up should be similar ect ect.

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 4:55pm:

muso wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 4:39pm: You'll have to explain what you mean.  Maybe you could give us an example of what you mean by like for like.  What about tropical convective clouds then? Some pretty major feedbacks there. What factors determine "like for like" as you put it? I am talking like for like in every way. It would have to be height, density, convection, even chemical make up should be similar ect ect.

... then  you might as well throw in geographical location and season if you want like for like. You do realise that cloud altitudes are much higher in tropical latitudes for one thing? For example, high clouds range from about 6000 metres to about 18,000 metres in the tropics, whereas similar clouds are found between about 5000 metres and 13,000 metres  at mid latitudes.

Cloud altitude has a considerable effect on radiative feedback for several reasons. For a start, feedback can have negative and positive components. Usually positive feedbacks result from reflection/emission of IR radiation back to ground level from the cloud base, whereas negative feedbacks result from radiation from the cloud ceiling to outer space. The altitude of the clouds  also has impacts on increasing the  moisture content of the upper atmosphere, which increases radiative feedback etc.

So in practice it's extremely difficult to account for variations in planetary boundary layer (among other factors) when calculating cloud feedbacks. Studies like Miller, M., Ghate, V., Zahn, R., (2012) are intended to improve our understanding of regional cloud feedback processes and hence improve the resolution of regional climate prediction.   

Of course, every single denialist site on the blogosphere will misinterpret, clutch at straws,seize  the wrong end of the stick and just about everything else they can do. 

The sad thing is that the likes of Anthony Watts is about as ignorant on the subject as you are, based on your responses. 

muso wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 6:54pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 4:55pm: muso wrote on Aug 19th, 2012 at 4:39pm: You'll have to explain what you mean.  Maybe you could give us an example of what you mean by like for like.  What about tropical convective clouds then? Some pretty major feedbacks there. What factors determine "like for like" as you put it? I am talking like for like in every way. It would have to be height, density, convection, even chemical make up should be similar ect ect. ... then  you might as well throw in geographical location and season if you want like for like. You do realise that cloud altitudes are much higher in tropical latitudes for one thing? For example, high clouds range from about 600 metres to about 18,000 metres in the tropics, whereas similar clouds are found between about 5000 metres and 13,000 metres  at mid latitudes. Cloud altitude has a considerable effect on radiative feedback for several reasons. For a start, feedback can have negative and positive components. Usually negative feedbacks result from emission of IR radiation to ground level from the cloud base, whereas positive feedbacks result from radiation from the cloud ceiling to outer space. The altitude of the clouds  also has impacts on increasing the  moisture content of the upper atmosphere, which increases radiative feedback etc. So in practice it's extremely difficult to account for variations in planetary boundary layer (among other factors) when calculating cloud feedbacks. Studies like Miller, M., Ghate, V., Zahn, R., (2012) are intended to improve our understanding of cloud feedback prediction and hence improve the resolution of regional climate prediction.    Of course, every single denialist site on the blogosphere will misinterpret, clutch at straws,seize  the wrong end of the stick and just about everything else they can do.  The sad thing is that the likes of Anthony Watts is about as ignorant on the subject as you are, based on your responses.

So what you are saying is that there is plenty of like for like overlap considering height depending on what the paper had for its cloud height.

Quote:

So what you are saying is that there is plenty of like for like overlap considering height depending on what the paper had for its cloud height.

No- unless you're just talking about altitude.  Do some reading.
 

muso wrote on Aug 19^th, 2012 at 7:16pm:

Quote: So what you are saying is that there is plenty of like for like overlap considering height depending on what the paper had for its cloud height. No- unless you're just talking about altitude.  Do some reading.

Yes I read what you wrote.

Climate change will bring to us.

Chrislee wrote on Aug 27^th, 2012 at 7:31pm:

Climate change will bring to us.

yes it will!!  ;) ;)

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 27^th, 2012 at 7:39pm:

Chrislee wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:31pm: Climate change will bring to us. yes it will!!  ;) ;)

Will bring to us ..WHAT??


I understand that you, (and Chrislee) may not be able to answer this question..

gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 27^th, 2012 at 8:32pm:

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:39pm: Chrislee wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:31pm: Climate change will bring to us. yes it will!!  ;) ;) Will bring to us ..WHAT?? I understand that you, (and Chrislee) may not be able to answer this question..

Redistribution of wealth. Perpetual dictatorship.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 27^th, 2012 at 8:32pm:

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:39pm: Chrislee wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:31pm: Climate change will bring to us. yes it will!!  ;) ;) Will bring to us ..WHAT?? I understand that you, (and Chrislee) may not be able to answer this question..

I was being sarcastic: ya gonna sue me mr hardcore??  :D :D :D :D

Around climate change. This causes large temperature differences. Yes, you will have to get used, because changes will become bigger.

Elayne Taylor wrote on Sep 10^th, 2012 at 9:52pm:

Around climate change. This causes large temperature differences. Yes, you will have to get used, because changes will become bigger.

...uNLESS THERE ARE COUNTER FEEDBACK MEACHANISMS AS YET UNACCOUNTED FOR OF COURSE!!   :o :o :o

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 28^th, 2012 at 9:37pm:

gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 8:32pm: BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:39pm: Chrislee wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:31pm: Climate change will bring to us. yes it will!!  ;) ;) Will bring to us ..WHAT?? I understand that you, (and Chrislee) may not be able to answer this question.. I was being sarcastic: ya gonna sue me mr hardcore??  :D :D :D :D

Hell no...it's much more fun to watch you make a fool of yourself....

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 27^th, 2012 at 8:47pm:

Redistribution of wealth. Perpetual dictatorship.

LOL. Massive conspiracy! You're starting to sound like it_in_the_light or whatever he/she calls themself, massive LOL's

Here's some reading for you! ;D

http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf

I love it when deniers show the true underlying crazy that drives their worldview, it just really starts to show the fringe real estate you bottom feeders occupy ;D

Upton Sinclair wrote on Sep 12^th, 2012 at 7:18pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 8:47pm: Redistribution of wealth. Perpetual dictatorship. LOL. Massive conspiracy! You're starting to sound like it_in_the_light or whatever he/she calls themself, massive LOL's Here's some reading for you! ;D http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf I love it when deniers show the true underlying crazy that drives their worldview, it just really starts to show the fringe real estate you bottom feeders occupy ;D

Gentle, Upton, progs hasn't worked out he's a nutter yet.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Sep 12^th, 2012 at 7:18pm:

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 8:47pm: Redistribution of wealth. Perpetual dictatorship. LOL. Massive conspiracy! You're starting to sound like it_in_the_light or whatever he/she calls themself, massive LOL's Here's some reading for you! ;D http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf I love it when deniers show the true underlying crazy that drives their worldview, it just really starts to show the fringe real estate you bottom feeders occupy ;D

Bit slow to pick it up, but thats to be expected.

Agenda 21 is no conspiracy. AGW will go hand in hand for perpetual dictatorship and redistribution of wealth will be used to sell it.

progressiveslol wrote on Sep 13^th, 2012 at 11:59am:

Agenda 21 is no conspiracy.

No. It's not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

It's a perfectly benign, non-binding commitment within the UN.

Yet you guys get worked up in a hysterical lather claiming that it IS a conspiracy. Why is that do you think?

Quote:

Climate change is here — and worse than we thought

So they didn't get it right before.

But now - now they've got it right, my wordy me.

They'd thought they'd got it right before, but they didn't. But now, they know they are right this time.  Statistics don't lie this time.

Soren wrote on Sep 13^th, 2012 at 9:21pm:

Quote: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought So they didn't get it right before. But now - now they've got it right, my wordy me. They'd thought they'd got it right before, but they didn't. But now, they know they are right this time.  Statistics don't lie this time.

LOL  ::)

If you knew anything about statistics you'd know about probabilities and uncertainty. Climate science has never predicted a precise single outcome, it provides probabilities on outcomes with margins of error. Increasingly it looks as if things are going to happen in the upper limits of projections made over the last few decades and things will happen much faster than we supposed.

Upton Sinclair wrote on Sep 13^th, 2012 at 9:32pm:

Soren wrote on Sep 13th, 2012 at 9:21pm: Quote: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought So they didn't get it right before. But now - now they've got it right, my wordy me. They'd thought they'd got it right before, but they didn't. But now, they know they are right this time.  Statistics don't lie this time. LOL  ::) If you knew anything about statistics you'd know about probabilities and uncertainty. Climate science has never predicted a precise single outcome, it provides probabilities on outcomes with margins of error. Increasingly it looks as if things are going to happen in the upper limits of projections made over the last few decades and things will happen much faster than we supposed.

blah blah blah and hansen says scenario A will be the best outcome (if we actually cut emissions) and we are lower than that. AGW fruit loop tea leaf readers are and always will be wrong.

progressiveslol wrote on Sep 13^th, 2012 at 9:39pm:

blah blah blah and hansen says scenario A will be the best outcome (if we actually cut emissions) and we are lower than that. AGW fruit loop tea leaf readers are and always will be wrong.

No, you'll always be wrong:

http://www.realclimate.org/images/hansen11.jpg

http://www.realclimate.org/images/model11.jpg

MOTR wrote on Sep 12^th, 2012 at 7:21pm:

Upton Sinclair wrote on Sep 12th, 2012 at 7:18pm: progressiveslol wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 8:47pm: Redistribution of wealth. Perpetual dictatorship. LOL. Massive conspiracy! You're starting to sound like it_in_the_light or whatever he/she calls themself, massive LOL's Here's some reading for you! ;D http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf I love it when deniers show the true underlying crazy that drives their worldview, it just really starts to show the fringe real estate you bottom feeders occupy ;D Gentle, Upton, progs hasn't worked out he's a nutter yet.

I don't think he is. He's like many Australians who don't understand the scientific basis, but who reads the popular press and what's available on the blogosphere, and unfortunately there are plenty of people around who like to mislead the public for whatever agenda. It's incredibly seductive to read that there really isn't a problem and I can totally understand why some people would believe that. That's why we need to avoid labelling people as nutters and just try to explain the science. (I have fallen into the same trap myself, but let's target the source of the disinformation.) 

I don't blame people for believing what they do, and I agree that some of the agendas that seek to redistribute wealth globally are counter productive. That said, we still collectively face a major challenge.

The initiatives taken to date with Solar PV and even the carbon tax, have had a significant effect on reducing carbon emissions within Australlia already. Many coal fired power stations are operating at around 50% capacity.   

I was totally surprised on the huge impact on coal fired generation.  The interesting thing is that the carbon tax should have had about a $23 per Megawatt impact on coal generated electricity. In fact, the cost impact is not evenly distributed. Ironically, the highest impact has been in South Australia, even though they have more gas generation.

In Queensland, which has the highest proportion of coal -fired generation, the increased cost per MW is a bit less than expected. That's because there is currently a higher demand for gas generation (and solar PV etc), and a lower demand for coal-fired electricity. The market price is therefore less that would have been expected. Currently, there is something like 1800MW of Solar PV electricity generated in Australia, which is comparable to a medium-sized power station.  It will be interesting to see what happens in summer with the increased load.

Quote:

Climate change has moved into a new and dangerous phase. The Arctic has been warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world. In the past few weeks, melting of the Arctic sea ice has accelerated dramatically, reducing the area and volume to levels never previously experienced. About 80 per cent of the summer sea-ice has been lost since 1979; on current trends the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015 and ice-free all year by 2030 - events that were not expected to occur for another 100 years. More concerning, the Greenland ice sheet this year has had unprecedented melting, adding to a trend that will substantially increase sea levels. Beyond the Arctic, the world is in the fifth year of a severe food crisis - largely climate change driven - that is about to become far worse as the full impact of extreme drought in the US food bowl works its way through the global food chain, leading to price rises from which Australia will not be immune. Drought around the Mediterranean contributed to this and has played a big part in triggering the Arab Spring. Globally, the escalation of extreme weather continues. Science is clearly linking these events to climate change, with human carbon emissions as the prime cause. The polar icecaps are one of the vital regulators of global climate; if the ice disappears, the absorption of more solar radiation accelerates ocean warming, with increasing risk of large-scale release of carbon dioxide and methane from melting permafrost. This may initiate irreversible runaway warming. Advertisement Global energy, food and water security are also poised on a knife edge. These changes are occurring at the 0.8 degrees increase, relative to pre-industrial conditions already experienced, let alone the extra 1.2 degrees that probably will result from our historic emissions. The "official" target of limiting temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees is way too high. Current policies, such as our Clean Energy Future package, are far worse and would result in a 4 degrees-plus temperature rise. Official panaceas, such as carbon capture and storage, are not working. Australian leaders glibly talk about adapting to a 4-degree world with little idea of what it means - which is a world of 1 billion people rather than the present 7 billion. We know how to establish a genuine low-carbon economy, which would stave off the worst impacts of climate change, but it is too late for gradual implementation. It has to be set up at emergency speed. Yet we hear nothing of this from the political, business or NGO institutions that should be leading the response. Why? Financial incentives are the main culprit, in particular the bonus culture that has spread through Australian business since the early 1990s. The damage caused by this culture threatens the very foundations of democratic society. Few directors or executives are prepared to give serious attention to long-term issues such as climate change when their rewards are based almost entirely on short-term performance. Many privately agree that climate change needs far more urgent action, but few are prepared to speak out for fear of derailing "business as usual". This is a fundamental failure of governance - directors have a fiduciary responsibility to objectively assess the critical risks to which their companies are exposed and take action to ensure these risks are adequately managed. But if they acknowledge climate change as a serious risk, they are bound to act, which requires a radical redirection of Australian business away from our addiction to high-carbon coal and gas, our most powerful vested interests losing out in the process. Better, then, to stick to absolute denial, irrespective of the consequences. This flows through to politicians, non government organisations and the bureaucracy, who are subjected to immense pressure from the corporate sector not to rock the boat. The chorus is picked up with vehemence by a compliant media and shock jocks, the result being politically expedient and contradictory climate policy. Adversarial politics and corporate myopia are incapable of addressing life-threatening climate change. The community must go around these barriers and demand leaders take urgent action before the poisoned chalice we pass to our grandchildren becomes even more toxic. Ian Dunlop chaired the Australian Coal Association 1987-1988 and Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading 1998-2000. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/fourdegree-rise-demands-90degree-rethink-20120921-26byz.html#ixzz27Bk3we6f

But of course nobody cares :(

muso wrote on Sep 15^th, 2012 at 5:10pm:

I was totally surprised on the huge impact on coal fired generation.  The interesting thing is that the carbon tax should have had about a $23 per Megawatt impact on coal generated electricity. In fact, the cost impact is not evenly distributed. Ironically, the highest impact has been in South Australia, even though they have more gas generation. In Queensland, which has the highest proportion of coal -fired generation, the increased cost per MW is a bit less than expected. That's because there is currently a higher demand for gas generation (and solar PV etc), and a lower demand for coal-fired electricity. The market price is therefore less that would have been expected. Currently, there is something like 1800MW of Solar PV electricity generated in Australia, which is comparable to a medium-sized power station.  It will be interesting to see what happens in summer with the increased load.

this is interesting. i do wonder how much it cost to build all the solar generators to get 1800MW.
all those rooftop panels, none of the cheap, across all the cities produce only what a medium sized conventional power station produces.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 12^th, 2012 at 3:21pm:

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 28th, 2012 at 9:37pm: gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 8:32pm: BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:39pm: Chrislee wrote on Aug 27th, 2012 at 7:31pm: Climate change will bring to us. Will bring to us ..WHAT?? I understand that you, (and Chrislee) may not be able to answer this question.. I was being sarcastic: ya gonna sue me mr hardcore??  :D :D :D :D Hell no...it's much more fun to watch you make a fool of yourself.... Climate change will bring to us.

yes it will!!


Yes Indeed.

It HAS caused change ALREADY..!!  And it's really only just heading out onto the runway.... getting ready for the acceleration to achieve lift-off.!

I can't be bothered reading earlier posts.....

I cannot understand how anyone can still deny we are in the midst of the greatest climactic and ecological change in our history as sentient beings.

There is no doubt.
And YES ...Humans are the greatest cause.
We have failed to keep our own home safe, through greed, basically,  and guess who pays the price.?

Not the arseholes who made/still make.. mega bucks thats for sure. :(

Saw a really interesting piece on SBS tonight.  Lost Civilisations ..... a look at earlier peoples who were wiped off the face of the earth by volcanism and tsunami's.

What we face makes them pale in comparison.!

Food for thought.

Bertram wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2012 at 11:56am:

muso wrote on Sep 15th, 2012 at 5:10pm:   I was totally surprised on the huge impact on coal fired generation.  The interesting thing is that the carbon tax should have had about a $23 per Megawatt impact on coal generated electricity. In fact, the cost impact is not evenly distributed. Ironically, the highest impact has been in South Australia, even though they have more gas generation. In Queensland, which has the highest proportion of coal -fired generation, the increased cost per MW is a bit less than expected. That's because there is currently a higher demand for gas generation (and solar PV etc), and a lower demand for coal-fired electricity. The market price is therefore less that would have been expected. Currently, there is something like 1800MW of Solar PV electricity generated in Australia, which is comparable to a medium-sized power station.  It will be interesting to see what happens in summer with the increased load. this is interesting. i do wonder how much it cost to build all the solar generators to get 1800MW. all those rooftop panels, none of the cheap, across all the cities produce only what a medium sized conventional power station produces.

Well, solar PV is gradually coming down in price. The projections are that it will be on a par with coal fired generation by 2030. The fact that so many have been installed has reduced the cost somewhat. Of course the money would have been better spent on combined cycle generation (more bang for your buck) or even solar thermal, which is competing quite well in California with gas generation.  It's a problem of intestinal fortitude (or lack of) by those in power. On the other hand, those who have installed solar panels have done very well for themselves.

It would be an interesting exercise to calculate the total cost.

hmm yeh those with solar power are definitely benefiting ...
I checked it out for my place, but  I have too many trees and no Nthn roof space.

Not effective..so I'm stuck with paying power providers.

I'm just wondering really, how the take-up of solar power will affect my power bill.
Thats certainly more concern to me than the carbon tax.!!!

I've been told that the more people on solar, the higher the cost of electricity will be for those not.

Why would this be ? 

If demand decreases for electricity supply, , shouldn't the cost drop also?

Isn't that how the 'market' works.? Supply and demand.?

Guess I'm pretty naive about this...because  I think  I can answer my own question upon consideration.
:(

Its BUSINESS.  Which must produce PROFIT.
If less usage of the supply, then profit drops,...
Then the power companies raise the prices.

How gloomy is that.
Am I wrong?

It's all too complicated for me I'm afraid. :(

 

muso wrote on Sep 24^th, 2012 at 5:55pm:

Well, solar PV is gradually coming down in price. The projections are that it will be on a par with coal fired generation by 2030.

;D ;D ;D


http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/fakesign.png

Emma wrote on Sep 24^th, 2012 at 11:30pm:

I've been told that the more people on solar, the higher the cost of electricity will be for those not. Why would this be ?

because people who put solar electricity back in the grid are paid for it.
also there is a government subsidy for solar for which someone has to pay.
so you have to pay for solar energy whether you use it or not. being a very expensive energy source, it costs a lot to subsidise it. your power bills are subsidising it.

Dsmithy70 wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2012 at 7:17pm:

Quote: Climate change has moved into a new and dangerous phase. The Arctic has been warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world. In the past few weeks, melting of the Arctic sea ice has accelerated dramatically, reducing the area and volume to levels never previously experienced. About 80 per cent of the summer sea-ice has been lost since 1979; on current trends the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015 and ice-free all year by 2030 - events that were not expected to occur for another 100 years. More concerning, the Greenland ice sheet this year has had unprecedented melting, adding to a trend that will substantially increase sea levels. Beyond the Arctic, the world is in the fifth year of a severe food crisis - largely climate change driven - that is about to become far worse as the full impact of extreme drought in the US food bowl works its way through the global food chain, leading to price rises from which Australia will not be immune. Drought around the Mediterranean contributed to this and has played a big part in triggering the Arab Spring. Globally, the escalation of extreme weather continues. Science is clearly linking these events to climate change, with human carbon emissions as the prime cause. The polar icecaps are one of the vital regulators of global climate; if the ice disappears, the absorption of more solar radiation accelerates ocean warming, with increasing risk of large-scale release of carbon dioxide and methane from melting permafrost. This may initiate irreversible runaway warming. Advertisement Global energy, food and water security are also poised on a knife edge. These changes are occurring at the 0.8 degrees increase, relative to pre-industrial conditions already experienced, let alone the extra 1.2 degrees that probably will result from our historic emissions. The "official" target of limiting temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees is way too high. Current policies, such as our Clean Energy Future package, are far worse and would result in a 4 degrees-plus temperature rise. Official panaceas, such as carbon capture and storage, are not working. Australian leaders glibly talk about adapting to a 4-degree world with little idea of what it means - which is a world of 1 billion people rather than the present 7 billion. We know how to establish a genuine low-carbon economy, which would stave off the worst impacts of climate change, but it is too late for gradual implementation. It has to be set up at emergency speed. Yet we hear nothing of this from the political, business or NGO institutions that should be leading the response. Why? Financial incentives are the main culprit, in particular the bonus culture that has spread through Australian business since the early 1990s. The damage caused by this culture threatens the very foundations of democratic society. Few directors or executives are prepared to give serious attention to long-term issues such as climate change when their rewards are based almost entirely on short-term performance. Many privately agree that climate change needs far more urgent action, but few are prepared to speak out for fear of derailing "business as usual". This is a fundamental failure of governance - directors have a fiduciary responsibility to objectively assess the critical risks to which their companies are exposed and take action to ensure these risks are adequately managed. But if they acknowledge climate change as a serious risk, they are bound to act, which requires a radical redirection of Australian business away from our addiction to high-carbon coal and gas, our most powerful vested interests losing out in the process. Better, then, to stick to absolute denial, irrespective of the consequences. This flows through to politicians, non government organisations and the bureaucracy, who are subjected to immense pressure from the corporate sector not to rock the boat. The chorus is picked up with vehemence by a compliant media and shock jocks, the result being politically expedient and contradictory climate policy. Adversarial politics and corporate myopia are incapable of addressing life-threatening climate change. The community must go around these barriers and demand leaders take urgent action before the poisoned chalice we pass to our grandchildren becomes even more toxic. Ian Dunlop chaired the Australian Coal Association 1987-1988 and Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading 1998-2000. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/fourdegree-rise-demands-90degree-rethink-20120921-26byz.html#ixzz27Bk3we6f But of course nobody cares :(

I DO. :)

Have just read some earlier posts, obviously  ::),  and find this piece particularly interesting.

Also, Muso.  Your comments about why we cling to the redundant...  it certainly shows fear on the part of the big money earners.

Like it was said, the CEO's of the coys. that could do the most, are too busy ensuring they receive their (short-term) bonus each year.

When it hits the fan, they may have marginally more protection, BUT, not in the long run.

I guess it is true what has been determined about 'CEO's'......... many of the highest paid are sociopaths.!

Bertram wrote on Oct 6^th, 2012 at 9:26pm:

Emma wrote on Sep 24th, 2012 at 11:30pm: I've been told that the more people on solar, the higher the cost of electricity will be for those not. Why would this be ?    because people who put solar electricity back in the grid are paid for it. also there is a government subsidy for solar for which someone has to pay. so you have to pay for solar energy whether you use it or not. being a very expensive energy source, it costs a lot to subsidise it. your power bills are subsidising it.

This is where the carbon tax is a fraud. The carbon tax should have covered all renewable scheme costs.

I am in good Steed when I say The carbon tax is a fraud in that it isn't transforming Power, or indeed Prayer,  into 100% not just renewable Energy, as Dr. Karl has professed possible withing 10 years I think.
EDIT: No I don't mean the CT itself is negative. I should have said clearly that instead of that...

But free energy as it should be.
As the sun is freeeee.
The air
And the grass.

Alas, then, poor poliitcs.
The carbon tax should have grasped beyond beurocrap, into humanity's field..

---

That's just the ideal.
Earth is dying, the scientists ignored by the leaders of the New Krypton.

Get Out Of it.!!
Umm  perhaps I mean...don't be deliberately obtuse.  Are you just a negative like Abbott.?

CARBON TAX.....   everybody says power costs have hugely increased, 'cos of this  initiative.

Load of Codswallop, far as I can see.  My bill hasn't  SKYROCKETED.!!
In fact, I have been pleased to remain  about the same vis a vis power costs.
GAS has gone up...  I have gas hot water and cooking.   
And NO I don't have solar power.

SO IMO  all these media bites about massive increases to ordinary people is just a load of Bull... the hysteria is stupid,  and CONTAGIOUS.
The Carbon Tax is just the first initiative in this scary new world,  and the Government has at least TRIED to start the ball rolling.
BUT  -- the ABBOTT gang of nincompoops say they'll repeal it. !! 
HOW utterly mindlessly stupid is that? 
I've heard absolutely ZILCH from the opposition about any plans they have.!!

BUT THEN AGAIN , that is perfectly natural,  seeing as they DENY reality, ( doh ?? wot climate change??)   and SEEK TO SPREAD THEIR OPINION. AND  thats all it is,  a poorly informed, blinkered view, which is sadly ..plain to see in the actions of the LNP in Government in Queensland.

If you aren't in Queensland I doubt you have any idea of what this govt is doing to the environment  and lots more, including working people. amongst many others..!!
I doubt your News would inform you,  .. :( >:(  wouldn't want the news to get out..!!


SO ANYHOW 
back to a closer focus on climate change ..
I HAVE taken perfectly reasonable steps to reduce my power usage, by turning OFF non-essentials. !!  Not hard at all.  It's a bit like approaching the water restrictions,  BUT,  This is voluntary.  :)
And .. I don't pay for water anyway, because I have been living on rain-water for at least 22 yrs, and have only had to purchase water less than 6 times.

And that was through the longest drought in Q's recorded history.

So I think I DO have some credibility....  I may not be totally green.. but I walk the talk.!!

Do you?? :-?

Apparently its NOT worse than we thought - seems our GBR is gonna be just fine after all...

Can't link, go to notrickszone for source.


Corals Surviving Just Fine In Warm Waters – Another Predicted Catastrophe Gets Cancelled

By P Gosselin on 2. Februar 2013


Ocean warming, caused by man-made global warming, was supposed to lead to the destruction of the corals we were told again and again.

But now a new study published at the Marine Pollution Bulletin shows that corals are far more resilient than first thought. More bad news for the catastrophe-obsessed climate kooks.

Don't believe all you read, especially on generation capacity.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/price-surges-spark-debate/story-e6freoof-1226551533389

Games are being played to manipulate prices.  :-X

Rider wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2013 at 8:34am:

Apparently its NOT worse than we thought - seems our GBR is gonna be just fine after all... Can't link, go to notrickszone for source. Corals Surviving Just Fine In Warm Waters – Another Predicted Catastrophe Gets Cancelled By P Gosselin on 2. Februar 2013 Ocean warming, caused by man-made global warming, was supposed to lead to the destruction of the corals we were told again and again. But now a new study published at the Marine Pollution Bulletin shows that corals are far more resilient than first thought. More bad news for the catastrophe-obsessed climate kooks.

False premise. It was reduced calcification due to ocean pH reduction. Come on, get it right. We did after all tell you "again and again" that it was reduced calcification rates.  Nice try but no cigar.

On the original Hoffman study, it shows that some coral reefs have had a chance to regrow in the short term following favourable weather conditions in recent years. There is absolutely no implication that corals won't continue to bleach, in some cases irreparably. Some have recovered a bit.Some are already lost for ever. This is in line with expectations unfortunately.

In fact as conditions continue to deteriorate, there will be less and less opportunity for such regrowth.

However as I said earlier, there are two factors at play. This paper just discusses recovery after coral bleaching events. It takes no stock of the reduced calcification rate, which is the crux of the matter.

The fact that corals survive in warm seas is irrelevant to the issue of decreased calcification.

Soren wrote on Sep 25^th, 2012 at 8:35pm:

muso wrote on Sep 24th, 2012 at 5:55pm: Well, solar PV is gradually coming down in price. The projections are that it will be on a par with coal fired generation by 2030.  ;D ;D ;D

Soren. Tell me what Pie Charts have to do with projections - and you accuse me of poor analogies.

Rider wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2013 at 8:34am:

Apparently its NOT worse than we thought - seems our GBR is gonna be just fine after all... Can't link, go to notrickszone for source. Corals Surviving Just Fine In Warm Waters – Another Predicted Catastrophe Gets Cancelled By P Gosselin on 2. Februar 2013 Ocean warming, caused by man-made global warming, was supposed to lead to the destruction of the corals we were told again and again. But now a new study published at the Marine Pollution Bulletin shows that corals are far more resilient than first thought. More bad news for the catastrophe-obsessed climate kooks.

Oh but we have been roundly criticised for risking the death of the Great Barrier Reef.  ... one of the Natural Wonders of the world,  and now under threat by rampant development and transport of fossil fuels, approved by our govts.  It is not acceptable.

Unesco is about to give us another thrashing... and if the Great Barrier Reef loses it's World Heritage listing, it  becomes another degraded ecosystem ripe for further abuse.

It truly is sickening !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

A filthy trade... worse than drug smuggling, or people trafficking... 
...ooooh   sorry.. but think about it.

Once the Reef is silted and poisoned by agricultural practices and fossil fuels expansion ...it won't come back... and we will be responsible.... 

'cos we let morons like Hicks have free rein... laissez-faire... the rich win more riches,  and the world loses something irreplaceable. :(

muso wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2013 at 11:54am:

Soren wrote on Sep 25th, 2012 at 8:35pm: muso wrote on Sep 24th, 2012 at 5:55pm: Well, solar PV is gradually coming down in price. The projections are that it will be on a par with coal fired generation by 2030.  ;D ;D ;D Soren. Tell me what Pie Charts have to do with projections - and you accuse me of poor analogies.

Laffing at 'projections are'. Whose 'projections'? Or is it according to 'sources'?
This stuff is always so far in the future that by then no-one will remember them.

The shine comes off these 'projections' faster than the gold paint off a reject shop watch. What was the 'projection' for the European carbon price, say, 2 years ago? What will it be by 2030? Invest in carbon permits if you want blow your life savings.
Short of chucking it out the window, there is no faster way. But this is not what was projected 2 years ago.

And not only, but also:

Wind turbines only last for ‘half as long as previously thought’, according to a new study. But even in their short lifespans, those turbines can do a lot of damage. Wind farms are devastating populations of rare birds and bats across the world, driving some to the point of extinction. Most environmentalists just don’t want to know. Because they’re so desperate to believe in renewable energy, they’re in a state of denial. But the evidence suggests that, this century at least, renewables pose a far greater threat to wildlife than climate change.

I’m a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Oxford university. I trained as a zoologist, I’ve worked as an environmental consultant — conducting impact assessments on projects like the Folkestone-to-London rail link — and I now teach ecology and conservation. Though I started out neutral on renewable energy, I’ve since seen the havoc wreaked on wildlife by wind power, hydro power, biofuels and tidal barrages. The environmentalists who support such projects do so for ideological reasons. What few of them have in their heads, though, is the consolation of sciencehttp://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/


Uh-oh.....

Soren wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:12pm:

And not only, but also: Wind turbines only last for ‘half as long as previously thought’, according to a new study. But even in their short lifespans, those turbines can do a lot of damage. Wind farms are devastating populations of rare birds and bats across the world, driving some to the point of extinction. Most environmentalists just don’t want to know. Because they’re so desperate to believe in renewable energy, they’re in a state of denial. But the evidence suggests that, this century at least, renewables pose a far greater threat to wildlife than climate change. I’m a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Oxford university. I trained as a zoologist, I’ve worked as an environmental consultant — conducting impact assessments on projects like the Folkestone-to-London rail link — and I now teach ecology and conservation. Though I started out neutral on renewable energy, I’ve since seen the havoc wreaked on wildlife by wind power, hydro power, biofuels and tidal barrages. The environmentalists who support such projects do so for ideological reasons. What few of them have in their heads, though, is the consolation of sciencehttp://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/ Uh-oh.....

The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand.

Funny how the conservatives who are saying "f-k the world" by attacking renewables, but suddenly care about some fictitous birds the fossil fuel industry has feed them.

Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:23pm:

The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand.

You have millions of fingers on your hand?

... wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:24pm:

Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5th, 2013 at 4:23pm: The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand. You have millions of fingers on your hand?

This is a timely picture...

http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.4956.1340125548!/image/Wind2.jpg_gen/derivatives/fullsize/Wind2.jpg

Ok so 100,000 to 440,000 in the US alone is a bit more than counting on one hand, yes?

Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:23pm:

The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand.

http://universe-review.ca/I10-10-polydactyly.jpg

greggerypeccary wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:53pm:

Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5th, 2013 at 4:23pm: The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand. http://universe-review.ca/I10-10-polydactyly.jpg

http://universe-review.ca/I10-10-polydactyly.jpg
I'd love to hear this guy play the Flight of the Bumble Bee on piano. fabbo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8alxBofd_eQ

Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:23pm:

Soren wrote on Feb 5th, 2013 at 4:12pm: And not only, but also: Wind turbines only last for ‘half as long as previously thought’, according to a new study. But even in their short lifespans, those turbines can do a lot of damage. Wind farms are devastating populations of rare birds and bats across the world, driving some to the point of extinction. Most environmentalists just don’t want to know. Because they’re so desperate to believe in renewable energy, they’re in a state of denial. But the evidence suggests that, this century at least, renewables pose a far greater threat to wildlife than climate change. I’m a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Oxford university. I trained as a zoologist, I’ve worked as an environmental consultant — conducting impact assessments on projects like the Folkestone-to-London rail link — and I now teach ecology and conservation. Though I started out neutral on renewable energy, I’ve since seen the havoc wreaked on wildlife by wind power, hydro power, biofuels and tidal barrages. The environmentalists who support such projects do so for ideological reasons. What few of them have in their heads, though, is the consolation of sciencehttp://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/ Uh-oh..... The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand. Funny how the conservatives who are saying "f-k the world" by attacking renewables, but suddenly care about some fictitous birds the fossil fuel industry has feed them.

Aren't you a tad too closed minded? The guy is a science lecturer at Oxford.

You ninnies are now so discombobulated that you will not listen even to scientists unless they are blindly pushing the party line. You parrot the mindless mantra of Big Denialist conspiracies and propaganda.

Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5^th, 2013 at 4:42pm:

... wrote on Feb 5th, 2013 at 4:24pm: Doctor Jolly wrote on Feb 5th, 2013 at 4:23pm: The number of birds killed world-wide by wind turbines could be counted on one hand. You have millions of fingers on your hand? This is a timely picture... http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.4956.1340125548!/image/Wind2.jpg_gen/derivatives/fullsize/Wind2.jpg

Yeah, it would have been honest of you to also say that these are figures by the... er... wind farm industry, as it is made clear by The Nature article where it comes from:
"The industry maintains that the effects on wildlife are minor. Although there are only a few, limited estimates of bird fatalities at a national level, the available data for the United States suggest that wind farms account for a tiny fraction of avian deaths (see 'Bird killers')."
http://www.nature.com/news/the-trouble-with-turbines-an-ill-wind-1.10849

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8alxBofd_eQ[/quote]

what astonishing creatures we are... 

you nobs are now talking about loss of birds??
as a reason not to research and utilise  various  renewable energy solutions??

what about the exxon-valdesz  disaster... or the BP oil rig spill in the Gulf ... or     or.. or..

You never cared before.... when oil and waste products  and smog was doing the killing.

Major Major Major  --- ooops thats Catch-22...

Major Major Hypocrits.

The BP spill was caused by a US contractor not correctly ascertaining the stress levels of the caps.

The Valdez spill was caused by a Jo Hazelwood acting negligently for which he was found guilty - though Exxon did pay over $500m in damages for the grounding in Port William Sound.

Often people just blame the big oil company without looking at individual levels of negligence for which it is near on impossible to police.

You hate the oil companies, yet I bet you fill your car up with petrol every week to drive to work and to see family eh?

well you'd be wrong Hick.....

I only fill my 4 cyl once a month... and... don't do much driving... so .. ??
I have a petrol burning vehicle.... but it's not the V8 your peers love to brag about,  just like you brag about all that flying hither and thither... making money  for you and the polluters. It is always that the blame lies with someone else...never would the coys making their millions have responsibility..!!  Why,, thats unimaginable..!! ::) ::) ::) ::)
   
You get paid heaps ? so you say,  for travelling the world promoting the Oil industry.... guess you MUST support your money source  ..... as nothing matters but YOU. 
FOOL.
 
ENABLER

Happy polluter  ....SICKO. MONEYLOVER CORRUPT FOOL

A shameless c&p from C3Headlines via the inimitable Marc Morano's Climate Depot, to all those warmist cultists who think every flood and every flake of flukking snow means the world is in a tail spin. Its all been seen before, and I bet you would have wrung your pathetic hands about then too.

A list of 1956 severe disasters before 350ppm CO2 levels - must be early climate change, no?


1956: 125 Die In NYC Region Blizzard - 13.5 Inches Of Snow Quickly Dumped On Area

1956: "Threat of Famine Hovering Over Ice-Shrouded Europe"

1956: 400,000 Square Miles of Australia Threatened By Floods

1956: "It Hit Like A Bomb" - Freak Tropical Storm Floods & Blacks-Out Large Areas


1956: “Moisture conditions are the worst in recorded history”

1956: "Drought Spectre Creeps Across Great Plains, Granary of U.S.


1956: Texas/Oklahoma Blizzard Leaves Up To 43" of Snow

1956: Likely 58 Japanese Dead From Blizzard


1956: Earthquakes Rock Afghanistan - 20,000 Feared Dead


1956: Torrential Rains Swamp Tasmania - "Worst Flood In Years"


1956: "Flood Of Snakes" Threaten Farmers

1956: "Ike Will See Farm-Ranch Drought Scars No President Has Ever Witnessed"


1956: Crippling Blizzard Follows Tornadoes In Dakotas - "One Of The Worst Storms On Record"

1956: Nova Scotia Struck By 40MPH Gales, 20" Of Snow, 12ft Drifts

1956: 23-Day Cold Wave Death Toll In Europe Stands At 777

1956: Turkey's "Worst Winter" Brings Torrential Rains & Big Snow Melts

1956: Large Cracks In Taj Majal's Main Structure Appear - Heavy Floods To Blame

1956: Flood Mud Carpets Toulon, France Region - Rare Heavy Storm To Blame

1956: Black Dust Storm & Tornadoes In U.S. Kill 16

1956: "White House Plans New Drought Aid"


1956: "Ike Declares California Fire Major Disaster" - Brush Fires Spread


1956: Floods & Avalanches Affect Areas of Germany and Austria

1956: Cyclone Strikes Queensland, Australia

1956: Southern Ohio Fights Forest Fires From High Wind & Low Humidity Conditions


1956: Los Angeles First Hit With Record Storm Flood Then Sizzled By Fire

1956: 2,000 Chinese Die In Typhoon

1956: Canadian Farmers Lose Crops To Golf-Ball Sized Hailstorm

1956: Famous Historian Predicts Devastating World Famine To Come


1956: Tidal Wave 24-Feet High Roars Into Calcutta


1956: Cloudburst Storm Triggers Dangerous Floods In Brazil

1956: Idaho's Forest Fires Increase By 20 As New Storms Strike


1956: South Pole Iceberg Sighted That Is 3X The Size of Manhattan Island

1956: Hurricane Flossy Floods New Orlean's Streets


1956: Tornadoes & Floods Plague Central U.S.

1956: 600 Mile Wide Typhoon With 140MPH Winds Rips Into Okinawa


1956: Vast Forest Fires Rage In Alaska


1956: 30% of U.S. Has Extreme Drought Conditions

1956: Greek Islands Struck By Earthquake, Volcano & Tidal Wave


1956: Monsoon Dumps 11 Inches Of Rain On Australia In 24 Hours


1956: 150 Forest Fires Plague New Mexico & Arizona

1956: Hurricane Hits Florida


1956: 19 British Die From Forest Fire On Sun-Baked Hills Of Cyprus

;D ;D ;D  and this was all before the ice age scare in the '70's, way too much gathering around the KoolAid me thinks.

Emma wrote on Feb 6^th, 2013 at 12:05am:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8alxBofd_eQ what astonishing creatures we are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCgxCNNFm-k

your point?
:)
what astonishing creatures we are.

treasure and trash....

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Feb 6^th, 2013 at 12:23am:

The BP spill was caused by a US contractor not correctly ascertaining the stress levels of the caps.

It was caused by ineffective management.

Emma wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2013 at 12:36am:

your point? :) what astonishing creatures we are. treasure and trash....

I THINK THE POINT HE'S TRYING TO SELL- LIKE A DODGY REAL ESTATE AGENT WHO CAN COVER ALL HIS EMOTIONS WITH A PORNO MOUSTACHE- IS THAT ENTROPY AND THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS DO NOT EXIST AND THEREFORE ANYTHING CAN BE REVERSED BECAUSE WE ARE SUCH CLEVER CREATURES.  8-) 8-)  :-?  ::)

I will presume to think you refer to Hick
:)

Good descriptiondo...  :)

well it is bucketing down here at the moment...
I have expected this .... it was predicted by a Kiwi ?  I think,  a long range weather forecaster, an old dude, obviously..
who said...  for QLD... will have an unusually dry start and early summer,  but it would really change towards the end of summer,, and well into Autumn.... lots of rain.. poss. 2 cyclones ... IN THIS REGION>>> big rains  ..

and yep... gutters are overflowing .... so far no Big WINDS here...  thats good...
:)

   

Emma wrote on Feb 25^th, 2013 at 5:22am:

well it is bucketing down here at the moment... I have expected this .... it was predicted by a Kiwi ?  I think,  a long range weather forecaster, an old dude, obviously.. who said...  for QLD... will have an unusually dry start and early summer,  but it would really change towards the end of summer,, and well into Autumn.... lots of rain.. poss. 2 cyclones ... IN THIS REGION>>> big rains  .. and yep... gutters are overflowing .... so far no Big WINDS here...  thats good... :)

Thank goodness no-one listens to flannery, but labor like paying him. If you did listen to him, then you must be dreamin.

actually I live in the now world, and take my views from my own considerations...my own interpretations,    my own place ..
and I hadn't even really cared to know who Tim Flannery is.. but you all keep talking him down... so he must have said something right.. ...
;D

Emma wrote on Feb 25^th, 2013 at 11:51pm:

actually I live in the now world, and take my views from my own considerations...my own interpretations,    my own place .. and I hadn't even really cared to know who Tim Flannery is.. but you all keep talking him down... so he must have said something right.. ... ;D

Yes he did. Kids will not know what snow is.

oh?/

lots of kids don't know what snow is today...  so..??

Emma wrote on Feb 25^th, 2013 at 11:51pm:

actually I live in the now world, and take my views from my own considerations...my own interpretations,    my own place .. and I hadn't even really cared to know who Tim Flannery is.. but you all keep talking him down... so he must have said something right.. ... ;D

Same could be said about Lord Monckton?

Emma wrote on Feb 25^th, 2013 at 11:51pm:

actually I live in the now world, and take my views from my own considerations...my own interpretations,    my own place .. and I hadn't even really cared to know who Tim Flannery is.. but you all keep talking him down... so he must have said something right.. ... ;D

If only Tim Flannery was as unimportant as you are then it wouldn't be an issue.

damien wrote on Feb 26^th, 2013 at 6:59am:

Emma wrote on Feb 25th, 2013 at 11:51pm: actually I live in the now world, and take my views from my own considerations...my own interpretations,    my own place .. and I hadn't even really cared to know who Tim Flannery is.. but you all keep talking him down... so he must have said something right.. ... ;D Same could be said about Lord Monckton?

LOL, MONKTON V ABBOTT! HERE WE GO!!

Are there people on this site that don't believe that something is going astray with the climate?

I noticed it in 1969

miketrees wrote on Mar 31^st, 2013 at 7:26pm:

Are there people on this site that don't believe that something is going astray with the climate? I noticed it in 1969

I noticed it in the last 400 thousand years.

Ah yes climate change has been happening forever, the great driver of evolution on our planet.

However I think there is something spooky going on right now.

miketrees wrote on Mar 31^st, 2013 at 7:44pm:

Ah yes climate change has been happening forever, the great driver of evolution on our planet. However I think there is something spooky going on right now.

spooky?

temperature rises driven by rising CO2 levels in the earths atmosphere and polar ice and glacial melting is spooky?

Science is never spooky - metaphysics and philosophy, magic shows etc - they can be spooky

Chimp_Logic wrote on Mar 31^st, 2013 at 8:32pm:

miketrees wrote on Mar 31st, 2013 at 7:44pm: Ah yes climate change has been happening forever, the great driver of evolution on our planet. However I think there is something spooky going on right now. spooky? temperature rises driven by rising CO2 levels in the earths atmosphere and polar ice and glacial melting is spooky? Science is never spooky - metaphysics and philosophy, magic shows etc - they can be spooky

AGW is a CULT, man.



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k68qHUlbcw0/UWQJD8Ma4HI/AAAAAAACE2o/XxIab9Y9pG4/s1600/theo4.jpg

Soren wrote on Apr 10^th, 2013 at 10:42pm:

Chimp_Logic wrote on Mar 31st, 2013 at 8:32pm: miketrees wrote on Mar 31st, 2013 at 7:44pm: Ah yes climate change has been happening forever, the great driver of evolution on our planet. However I think there is something spooky going on right now. spooky? temperature rises driven by rising CO2 levels in the earths atmosphere and polar ice and glacial melting is spooky? Science is never spooky - metaphysics and philosophy, magic shows etc - they can be spooky AGW is a CULT, man. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k68qHUlbcw0/UWQJD8Ma4HI/AAAAAAACE2o/XxIab9Y9pG4/s1600/theo4.jpg

Love that cartoon

progressiveslol wrote on Apr 10^th, 2013 at 11:19pm:

Soren wrote on Apr 10th, 2013 at 10:42pm: Chimp_Logic wrote on Mar 31st, 2013 at 8:32pm: miketrees wrote on Mar 31st, 2013 at 7:44pm: Ah yes climate change has been happening forever, the great driver of evolution on our planet. However I think there is something spooky going on right now. spooky? temperature rises driven by rising CO2 levels in the earths atmosphere and polar ice and glacial melting is spooky? Science is never spooky - metaphysics and philosophy, magic shows etc - they can be spooky AGW is a CULT, man. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k68qHUlbcw0/UWQJD8Ma4HI/AAAAAAACE2o/XxIab9Y9pG4/s1600/theo4.jpg Love that cartoon

Excellent.   ;D


A cult indeed.

Chimp_Logic wrote on Mar 31^st, 2013 at 8:32pm:

temperature rises driven by rising CO2 levels in the earths atmosphere

Nice little hypothesis you have there.

Got anything else?

greggerypeccary wrote on Apr 10^th, 2013 at 11:29pm:

Chimp_Logic wrote on Mar 31st, 2013 at 8:32pm: temperature rises driven by rising CO2 levels in the earths atmosphere Nice little hypothesis you have there. Got anything else?

Gee I wouldnt go there. It sounds technical.  ;)

so ...
Yes  Mickeytrees..

there are people on this forum who deny the reality of climate change.!! ;D

Emma wrote on Apr 10^th, 2013 at 11:32pm:

so ... Yes  Mickeytrees.. there are people on this forum who deny the reality of climate change.!! ;D

Really?

Who?

greggerypeccary wrote on Apr 10^th, 2013 at 11:34pm:

Emma wrote on Apr 10th, 2013 at 11:32pm: so ... Yes  Mickeytrees.. there are people on this forum who deny the reality of climate change.!! ;D Really? Who?

Yeh I cant remember anyone denying the reality of climate change.

Emma wrote on Apr 10^th, 2013 at 11:32pm:

so ... Yes  Mickeytrees.. there are people on this forum who deny the reality of climate change.!! ;D

Official:  You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering doubt about AGW and so as a blasphemer you are to be stoned to  death.
Matthias:  Look, I'd had a lovely supper and all I said to my wife was, "That piece of baloney about AGW is, well, baloney!
Official:  Blasphemy!  He's said it again.
Emma:         Yes, he did.
Official:  Did you hear him?
Emma:         Yes we did.      Really.
Official:  (suspiciously) Are there any women here today?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks

chuckle chuckle.... 

good one- classic movie

Soren  ... for one... 
and many others ...   ::)

the mugs are so  similar in their diatribes its hard to remember who is who...  but ... you know who  you are.
Conspiracy to delude the world about it is a common theme.

P Lolly??  you disagree with everything else ,  but you say you 'agree' climate change is happening.?? 

Is this new???  or are you

1) so intent on playing devils advocate you lost sight of the real
2) just being contrary for the sake of it
3) are unable to communicate effectively. ???

Emma wrote on Apr 11^th, 2013 at 1:37am:

P Lolly??  you disagree with everything else ,  but you say you 'agree' climate change is happening.??

The usual stance. Climate change has always been happening. It's true as far as it goes, but the claim is then that the projected change in climate for the next 100 years is no different to anything we had in the past.

It's the usual deconstruction argument. It's a bit like saying that wild dingos are just the same as dogs, so they  are quite safe.

It's failing to see any difference between past clmate with known natural mechanisms, and current and projected climate with well established anthropogenic mechanisms.