Kicking the Climate Change Cat Further Down the Road... 43

[ewh]

What is the reputation of the NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, a organization of 50 "top" scientists) in the engineering community? I really don't know how reliable they are, but a study (Climate Change Reconsidered II) produced by them and published by the Heartland Institute (an organization which espouses other ideas I disagree with) claims to be "double peer reviewed" and presents a seemingly well-founded arguement that AGW is a political red herring.
I am not a climate scientist, but thought that this was a good example of one side of the differing dogmas surrounding the issue. Just how is a layman supposed to make sense of these opposing arguments?

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

or the summary

http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
-Dalai Lama XIV

 

[TomDOT]

cranky, we've know how to do fusion for decades. The H-bomb is primarily a fusion bomb, with a fission trigger. 1952. Heck, even the trigger core is probably fission-boosted.

We've also been doing controlled fusion for decades. How do you think all the new heavy elements came into existence? Whacking lighter elements together hard enough that the nuclei fuse.

In September 2013, Lawrence Livermore (Well NIF at Lawrence Livermore) managed to have controlled fusion with a net (useful) energy gain.

What we can't do is controlled fusion with net useful energy output cheaply enough yet. Lockheed's Skunk Works plans to have a 100 MW prototype built in 2017.

 

[rb1957]

ITER should be up and running sometime (soon?, '20s?)

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

You mean we stick things togather for fractions of a second and call that fusion? What ever you say. Minor details, not very useful.
Smoke pot, drink, about the same thing. Either way come to work with an after effect and you may not have a job, or ever work in the same profession again.

From the numbers I heard here, 17 feet should be good enough. Besides another huricane will be there sooner than the rising tide.

About the space weather, has anyone compaired the solar maximums with the earth tempetures?

 

[GrandpaDave]

Thanks cranky108... IMHO the planet will be hit by a life ending asteroid or the Yellowstone basin super eruption
before I'm flooded out due to CO2. At least I enjoy reading all the opinions and self-appointed experts on this thread.

When I can’t sleep, I read a few more lines.

 

[rb1957]

personally i liked George Carlin's take on things ... "save the earth ? don't worry about the earth, it was here before us, it'll be here after us, the earth's doing just fine !" (expletives deleted)

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[cranky108]

What are you saving the earth for? Or what are you saving it from? If we are saving it so we can be eco slaves, I'm not sure it's worth it.
I guess we can all become goverment parsites, just to avoid taxes.

 

[rconnor]

Cranky, being the self-appointed expert here (aka I don’t allow incorrect statements to go uncorrected which is apparently frowned upon here) , allow me to answer your question with regards to comparing solar activity to temperatures and provide GrandpaDave with some more sleep aids.

It’s a popular “skeptic” argument that the sun is driving the recent change in climate. However, this is, rather unsurprisingly, contrary to the evidence. Although changes in solar activity do have an effect on climate, the effect is minor in comparison with other recent forcings, namely increased CO2 concentrations. The dominance of other forcings makes the recent correlation between solar activity and temperature almost indistinguishable. However, it is there and is effecting temperatures.
[image

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png

]

Regards,

rconnor
Resident Climate Change Expert

 

[TGS4]

rconnor - that's quite the moniker that you've bestowed upon yourself. Truly, this is how Dr. Mann was able to become a Nobel Prize recipient. In the truest of warmist mentality, this is how one becomes an expert. Would you like a knighthood to go along with that, from your fellow warmist The Prince of Wales? In further true warmist fashion then, being an expert, I suppose that you will now try to silence debate, or even deem yourself worth too much to be observed talking with such filthy/evil deniers.

From your picture (which you really ought to provide proper acknowledgement - it's from

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png,

but I guess that experts don't need to be bothered with such indulgences), what is the supposed metric for "Temperature Anomaly"? And while sunspot number is also interesting, I would like to know the variation in the spectral intensity at various wavelengths, as well as the strength of the solar wind. And it is also wise to note that there is (as we've discussed) the large heat capacity of the oceans, so it would be expected that there would be a lag between forcing (of any kind) and response, which the simplistic Stanford graph conveniently leaves out - expecting that a one-to-one correspondence in correlation equals causation. (And I'm talking about something a little bit more complicated than - and yet entirely analogous to - the 3-month lag in seasonal air temperatures)

Sorry, what's that - there isn't spectral intensity data (from the far infrared to the far ultraviolet) going back more than about 20 years? Neither for the strength of the solar wind (and the corresponding resultant change in Galactic Cosmic Rays - GCRs)? Oh right, and we don't have ANY reliable data on Ocean Heat Content until the ARGO floats were fully deployed - maybe 10 years worth of data. And the surface air temperature record has been diddled with so much that Jerry Sandusky is jealous. Hmmm - seems that a lack of data isn't getting in the way of such self-proclaimed experts from knowing, to a fraction of a degree, what the thermodynamic response of the earth's surface fluids (air and water) will be 50-100 years henceforth to a forecast change in CO2! Puleeze!

And you goofs trying to take credit from atomic bomb energy releases - do the figgin' math! Incoming solar irradiance PER SECOND is equal to the TOTAL energy output of the largest man-made bomb (the Soviet Union's TSAR). If we converted all of our fossil fuel usage to heat (with absolutely no work, just straight to heat), it would still be less than 1e-5 of the total incoming solar irradiance.

 

[GrandpaDave]

Hip Hip Hooray TGS4... It is all about politics now.
The current POTUS, President Obama, says climate change is a fact.
And everyone knows he has never lied and will always tell the
truth... . He's a great orator and Campaigner-in-Chief, but
what he's saying about climate change being fact is puzzling
since the science is incomplete... IMHO.

It is now time to take action and tax the people more and more
and redistribute the wealth... even the new Pope in Rome is
pushing for that.

Ugh...

 

[GrandpaDave]

Thanks for the additional sleep aids rconnor.

In your opinion, is the science on climate change complete
and is now a fact as the POTUS states? As far as I can tell,
the science is incomplete but the Politian’s will be running
to increase taxes on the America people. So as China, India and
so on and so forth burn away and pollute with CO2, the people
here and elsewhere will go broke.

So what are the real solution? IMHO, the Politian’s are not the
answer. Look what happened to the federal, oops... taxpayers,
dollars invested in green energy. Yes, Obama's friends and donors.

SHOW, er GIVE, ME THE MONEY...

 

[GregLocock]

I think the political side is going to get much more interesting. If the dog ate my homework theory is correct, ie multidecade ENSO effects have absorbed all the extra heat and hidden it (even in plain sight, the sea temperature difference is tiny), and the multidecade ENSO cycle behaves as usual, that is 30 to 60 years between peaks, then we can imagine a future where for the next two decades:

a) the developing countries will continue to burn all the fossil fuels they can afford
b) CO2 will continue to rise
c) the pause in global temperatures will continue
d) the science will improve/start
e)the positive feedback effects (and of course negative feedbacks) will be better quantified as a result of d
f)the climate sensitivity assigned to CO2 will change as a result of (e)

But for d and e to take place the funding must continue, and therefore the bleatings of useful idiots is actually serving a worthwhile purpose in the long run, if you think that trying to understand the long term climate is a worthwhile exercise, and to some extent I do. Unfortunately for Europe they are sort of committed to taking the bleatings seriously, although Germany is now pursuing a rather more rational path, which I imagine will involve gently explaining to Denmark that relying on windpower for base load is actually an economic nightmare.






Cheers

Greg Locock


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[beej67]

So I ran into this website the other day, and it made me think of this thread. I'm not really trying to argue a point here, just share something a lot of engineers might find pretty cool. Although I do think it's fun to pick through these things and identify which have a higher R^2 value than CO2-Temp (0.84).

I present to you, the Spurious Correlation Generator!

http://www.tylervigen.com/

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[GregLocock]

Sadly the dog ate my homework theory has now been given the boot as a hot contender.

If ENSO affects global temperatures, on a cyclical basis, then its cyclical affect should show up all around the world. So what we should be able to do is a look at the periodicity of ENSO, which we can estimate historically if somewhat vaguely from weather records in China (I think this the weakness in this analysis), and the periodicity of the temperature record in England, which is well established for 350 years, because people have been measuring it as best they can for that long. (This is called data, as opposed to whatever we'd like to call the extrapolations of computer models, same number of letters).

So, best guess for an ENSO cycle is 30-60 years, with some preference for the 30ish end of things. And, no real sign of a strong 30-60 year cycle in the Pommy weather.

So it looks to me like the dog didn't eat my homework.

Now of course, we all know that rainfall is a much better predictor of temperature than thermometers (or at least tree ring width is supposed to correlate to temp not rainfall in worry-wart world) so perhaps we should be looking at trees or rain gauges, not thermometers. Well, I shall leave that sort of nonsense to the Mann and his followers, I'd rather use a thermometer to measure temperature. And before rconnors arcs up, yes, I know, the temperature record isn't perfect, but if you walk out of the 500 year old pub into the 800 year old graveyard and look around where the thermometer is kept, it ain't no airport.

Rather more interestingly, the average annual temperature in central England, in 1660, was within 1/2 degree C of that last year. Ya gotta larf, or else you'd cry.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[GregLocock]

here's a better attempt at reconstructing ENSO

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/braganza2009/braganza2009enso.txt

I'll run my own analysis on those two datasets some time soon.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[rconnor]

TGS4,
The moniker – tongue-in-cheek response to GrandpaDave referring to me as the “self-appointed climate expert”.

Missing reference – You got me! I tried to sneak in some science from the sketchy institution that is Stanford! Here’s the source. More Info. Now please go back to having no issues with fabricated quotes from GWPF or blatant misdirection from NIPCC.

I’ve talked about solar activity and temperatures about 4 times now. I included the proper reference the first time I used that image but I get a little lazy when I have to repeat the same thing over and over due to this special “skeptic” form of memory loss. And seriously, disagree with me all you want, but don’t accuse me of not using references in my posts. Or at the very least, call out every post that doesn’t (starting with yourself).

GCR/Solar Activity – I’ve included a link to 6 papers that conclude against GCR’s having a significant impact on cloud formation in the last thread. Here’s a few:
Gray et al 2010 (from the sketchy Stanford Solar Center)

We therefore conclude that the currently available data do not provide substantial support for the hypothesized global cloud cover linkage to cosmic rays.

Kazil et al 2006:

our analysis indicates that the variation of ionization by galactic cosmic rays over the decadal solar cycle does not entail a response in aerosol production and cloud cover via the second indirect aerosol effect that would explain observed variations in global cloud cover. We estimate that the variation in radiative forcing resulting from a response of clouds to the change in galactic cosmic ray ionization and subsequent aerosol production over the decadal solar cycle is smaller than the concurrent variation of total solar irradiance.

Kristjansson et al 2008:

no statistically significant correlations were found between any of the four cloud parameters and GCR

Kulmala et al 2010:

Our main conclusion is that galactic cosmic rays appear to play a minor role for atmospheric aerosol formation events, and so for the connected aerosol-climate effects as well.

Possibly more damning than the countless papers stating that solar activity has had minimal impact over the recent warming (Huber and Knutti 2011, Benestad 2009, Lean 2008, Lockwood 2008, Foukal 2006, Usoskin 2005, Solanki 2004, Slott 2003, Solanki 2003, Lean 1999, Schurer 2013,…), the type of warming cannot be explained by solar activity. Nights are warming faster than days. The stratosphere is cooling while the troposphere is warming. Ray Pierrehumbert (U of Chicago) put it best when he said, when referring to the hypothesis that solar activity is causing the recent change in climate:

That’s a coffin with so many nails in it already that the hard part is finding a place to hammer in a new one

OHC Data – I agree that the new ARGO Data is by far the best we have but tell me how the trend of ARGO data (black) tracks the pentadal data (blue) in the 0-2000m NOAA graph above? It sits 1.29x10^22 J below the pentadal (comparing 2011 data) but the trend is almost identical. Even if you choose to remain agnostic until after more data is out, there is NOTHING to suggest that conclusions drawn from the pentadal data will be disproven with the ARGO data. In fact, the first 9 years appear to be validating the pentadal data. You also need to keep in mind that all other metrics (global temperature, humidity, sea ice, sea level, glaciers, etc.) all trend in directions that support a warming climate. The CO2 theory not only does an excellent job explaining these trends, it also does a good job predicting them. Whereas solar activity, described above, fails miserably at both.

A-Bomb – Thank you.

 

[cranky108]

Of the 14 or so groups that support your theory, how many of them have you quoted? And how many don't do there own studies?

And how much economic theory has been studied to determine the effectiveness of more taxes? Or how many jobs will be lost in this country? Or how it will effect the averige tax payer/voter?

How much study has been done to determine the effects of more power given to the UN?

How much more money will be given to cronies of the president, and how many more will go bankrupt?

 

[beej67]

So this is interesting.

http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/20...whole-concept-behind-ipcc-is-basically-wrong/

Q:
Is there according to you a “climate consensus” in the community of climate scientists and if so what is it?

Bengtsson:
I believe the whole climate consensus debate is silly. There is not a single well educated scientist that question that greenhouse gases do affect climate. However, this is not the issue but rather how much and how fast. Here there is no consensus as you can see from the IPCC report where climate sensitivity varies with a factor of three! Based on observational data climate sensitivity is clearly rather small and much smaller that the majority of models. Here I intend to stick to Karl Popper in highlighting the need for proper validation.

Q:
Mojib Latif once said at a conference of the WMO (in 2009) “we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves”. Do you think the climate community is doing that (enough)? or are others like the GWPF needed to ask these “nasty” questions? If so, what does this say about the state of Academia?

Bengtsson:
I think the climate community shall be more critical and spend more time to understand what they are doing instead of presenting endless and often superficial results and to do this with a critical mind. I do not believe that the IPCC machinery is what is best for science in the long term. We are still in a situation where our knowledge is insufficient and climate models are not good enough. What we need is more basic research freely organized and driven by leading scientists without time pressure to deliver and only deliver when they believe the result is good and solid enough. It is not for scientists to determine what society should do. In order for society to make sensible decisions in complex issues it is essential to have input from different areas and from different individuals. The whole concept behind IPCC is basically wrong.

Bengtsson (born 1935) was the director of of ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting) for 18 years and after that he was the director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[beej67]

More from Bengtsson:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...l-helpful-climate-cause-claims-professor.html

The five contributing scientists submitted the paper to Environmental Research Letters – a highly regarded journal – but were told it had been rejected. A scientist asked by the journal to assess the paper under the peer review process reportedly wrote: ‘It is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.’

Prof Bengtsson, 79, said it was ‘utterly unacceptable’ to advise against publishing a paper on the political grounds.

He said: ‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

Here's another take on this so-called 'controversy':

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/climate-contrarians_b_5347614.html

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[GrandpaDave]

Yes... It fits right into Arianna's spinning...