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

 

[ornerynorsk]

Post #400. No consensus.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[beej67]

I would expect the count of organisms to increase, but not necessarily the biodiversity.

Well sure. On the sort of time scales we live our lives in, biodiversity only goes one way - down. I just think if population growth itself were reversed, the rate of biodiversity loss would be similarly arrested, due to an overall reduction in the sorts of toxic pollution and habitat loss related to population.

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[cranky108]

Did you really expect a consensus? This is a discussion board, not a consensus board.

For climate change to be accepted a resurcher should look at every credable alternitate to his theory, and have a reason why it isen't real. Then the theory should be put out for verification he has not forgotten anything. So to go from it is man caused to only taxes can solve it means there should be an answer to any silly question I have. Or the theroy hasen't been vetted properly.

So to clame I am a denigher whan I ask a silly question is a cop out for you don't know, or you don't care, or it hasen't been looked at.

It's this leap I just don't see as anything except as a political ploy.

The problem with biodiversity is that it keeps changing. How much biodiversity has changed that is not man caused? I want to see those numbers.

 

[zdas04]

You want to see "consensus"? Talk to Climate Scientists. Anyone who doesn't agree no longer is allowed to call themselves "climate scientists".

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[ornerynorsk]

David, I had that exact thought as I hit the submit button! But really, to call them scientists, that's a bit of stretch. Opinionists, perhaps.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[cranky108]

That's a way to get consensus, vote to odd ball off the island. After all he does not have the team goal in mind.

Have you noticed a trend that Dems tend to cut NASA funding, and repubs tend to increase it? I haven't seen statics on other resurch groups to see if this is a common trend.
I see the oposite for public transportation spending. Different rat holes, different outcome.

 

[IRstuff]

"Have you noticed a trend that Dems tend to cut NASA funding, and repubs tend to increase it?"

I've actually thought the opposite, since space no longer feeds the military-industrial complex, the repubs are less interested in it, given that it's "government" instead of "market place" doing things.

TTFN
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[CajunCenturion]

I've actually thought the opposite, since space no longer feeds the military-industrial complex, the repubs are less interested in it, given that it's "government" instead of "market place" doing things.

While that may be what you'd like to think because that fits the narrative you want to believe, it's simply not true. Since the end of the Apollo program, NASA's budget has steadily declines as a percentage of the total federal budget. In normalized dollars, the numbers have been relatively constant with ups and downs under both parties. But the general trend has been rather minor increases during Republican administrations and rather minor decreases during Democratic administrations. In real dollars, it's not a big issue to either party.

Bill Nye Urges President Obama To Stop Budget Cuts To NASA's Planetary Science Program

Over the last few years, Congress has added back funding for the planetary program that the Office of Management and Budget has cut,"

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[beej67]

Hey Connor,

Cato just posted an evaluation of Obama's proposed emission standards revision, as evaluated with the MAGICC model, for not one, but three very different baseline scenarios: RCP45, RCP6, and RCP85. You'll note that RCP85 is very similar to A1FI, and actually has more emissions than A2.

http://www.cato.org/blog/002degc-te...-vital-number-missing-epas-numbers-fact-sheet

Here are the results:

Here's a graph where you can hardly tell the lines apart:

So yeah, there's that.


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[GregLocock]

From the "if the data doesn't support your argument find another measurement school"

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/13/pause-global-warming-data-sea-level-rises

Temperature shows a pause (18 years or thereabouts) so our lords and masters now tell us we should worry about sea level changing instead. That's quite a good one to choose, as it will need a lot of new models, lots of funding, lots of careers. Perhaps even some experiments. However there are an awful lot of unknown unknowns in that model, as you need a good estimate of what is happening temperature wise at your lower system boundary. You also need to consider plate tectonics etc.





Cheers

Greg Locock


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[hokie66]

But Greg, don't you believe this man?

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...rsity-california-irvine-speech-climate-change

 

[GrandpaDave]

All the science is settled P-E-R-I-O-D
So says the President and so it shall be.

Taxpayers... Get ready to pay!

 

[rconnor]

Ornerynorsk, while we continue to squabble, US has made some small but important strides towards reducing emissions. The power plant and vehicle fuel efficiency initiatives demonstrates that the President and a sufficient amount of US government and citizenry agree that something needs to be done about climate change.

Beej67, assuming that CATO’s analysis is accurate, and I have severe doubts on that front, what are they, and you, trying to conclude? The EPA proposal (excluding all other emission reduction measures, including the vehicle fuel efficiency regulation) will not have a significant impact on future global temperatures, so we shouldn’t do anything? Let’s return to our McDonalds-only diet analogy. Finding it difficult to drop McDonalds cold-turkey, our friend decides to see what effect switching from coke to diet coke will have on his future health, while keeping everything else the same. Unsurprisingly, the estimates concluded that it will be beneficial but won’t mitigate his future health concerns completely. So are we to conclude that our friend may as well not bother switching to a more healthy beverage choice? And, furthermore, use it as an example as to why our friend shouldn’t make any positive dietary changes?

As is always the case with CATO and other such places, the only arguments they can make are by taking a microscope to one particular issue, incorrectly looking at it in complete isolation and then incorrectly expanding the conclusion to the big picture (or just flat out making stuff up). Yes, the EPA proposal is rather weak in the grand scheme and I would have rather it been more aggressive (are you also suggesting this?) but climate change mitigation won’t happen with a wave of a wand, it will take small but steady steps towards significant reductions. This is a big first step, especially in the US.

730 million metric tonnes of carbon pollution reduction is not meaningless. $55 Billion to $93 Billion in benefits is not meaningless. It doesn’t solve the issue of climate change, not by a long shot. It was never supposed to and everyone, including CATO, knows that. It was supposed to be and is a step in the right direction.

GregLocock, if you’d like to bring up the “pause” perhaps you should start with providing a counter-argument to any of my 13 previous posts on why the “pause” is a dead argument. You have continually said that temperature is a poor metric to use (expect when it comes to the “pause” apparently), now you chastise people for following your advice? It does not matter whether the metric is temperature, OHC (surface, deep and abyssal), humidity, glacial mass, ice extent, snow coverage or sea level, they all show signs of increased energy.

Regarding your plate tectonic theory (I believe geothermal flux is what you are actually getting at), here’s a few bits of literature for you:
- Stein and Stein, 1992
- Davies and Davies, 2010

Estimated surface heat flux = 47 +/- 2 TW, equivalent to 0.09 W/m^2. This is much smaller than the estimated 0.58 +/- 0.15 W/m^2 energy imbalance (using a very conservative value, by the way) and rather insignificant when compared to solar radiation at 341.3 W/m^2. Furthermore, the surface heat flux is very consistent, even over geological time frames, let alone over the past 50 years. Even if the surface heat flux went from 0 to 0.09 in the last 50 years, which it of course did not, it would be too small to account for the changes in climate noted.

Geothermal flux is not a valid counter-theory to recent climate change because:
- It is too weak (roughly 4 times too weak)
- It is too consistent (any change in geothermal flux over the last 50 years would be infinitesimally small)

So GregLocock, I ask you, with geothermal flux proven to be insignificant, solar activity in decline and aerosols increasing, how have temperatures increased, OHC increased, humidity increased, sea level risen, ice extents decreased, snow coverage decreased, glacial mass decreased? If it were “natural”, then all those metrics would be moving in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, the theory that I prescribe to does a darn good job predicting and explaining the changes in those metrics.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I assumed plate tectonics referred to changing sea levels. The press are blaming GW (and rising sea levels) for the chalk cliffs at Beachy Head crumbling, without any thought to how they got up there to begin with.

- Steve

 

[CajunCenturion]

the only arguments they can make are by taking a microscope to one particular issue, incorrectly looking at it in complete isolation and then incorrectly expanding the conclusion to the big picture

Hold that thought.

$55 Billion to $93 Billion in benefits is not meaningless. It doesn’t solve the issue of climate change, not by a long shot. It was never supposed to and everyone, including CATO, knows that. It was supposed to be and is a step in the right direction.

Is it a step in the right direction? How much will it cost to realize that $55 to 93 billion in benefits?

Without including the costs necessarily to realize the savings, it seems that one is looking at a particular issue - the savings - and looking at it in completely isolation. So what are the estimated costs required of a plan that is estimated to realize $55 to 93 billion is savings?

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[rconnor]

The estimated cost is $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion.

So yes, it is a step in the right direction - economically and ecologically.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Are the $55 to 93 billion savings based on domestic savings or global savings?
Are the$ 7.3 to 8.8 billion cost figures based on domestics costs or global costs?

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[beej67]

730 million metric tonnes of carbon pollution reduction is not meaningless. $55 Billion to $93 Billion in benefits is not meaningless. It doesn’t solve the issue of climate change, not by a long shot. It was never supposed to and everyone, including CATO, knows that. It was supposed to be and is a step in the right direction.

A 0.02 degree Celsius step, over the entire century, eh?

And how many species extinctions is that 0.02 degree Celsius step going to save?

(And that's presuming that the EPA is right about CO2 being the only culprit, which I don't believe)

How many species could be saved if we instead threw that 8.8 billion at conservation? That 8.8 billion is 131 times the annual budget of the Audubon Society, to put it in perspective.



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[zdas04]

I've been trying to stay out of this discussion, but I'm sorry I can't. Just because the EPA pulled $55-93 billion benefits and $7.2 to 8.8 billion in costs out of clear dry air doesn't make it so. I've been studying EPA's benefit and cost numbers on the Clean Air Act for several years and have found EVERY SINGLE ONE of them to have been invented from whole cloth. As a consultant to the Oil & Gas Industry I've been the primary author or co-author of several thousand pages of documents refuting the cost and benefit claims that the EPA has made under the [legal] guise of the Clean Air Act (you can find them on the docket for Subpart OOOO). Under that act the EPA is obligated to control the emissions of various source pollutants (NOx, SOx, CO, HAP, BETEX, etc.) so regulating those substances at least have a legal starting point even if the final regulations go far beyond any cost/benefit ratio anticipated by the Act itself.

The EPA fact sheet linked above just has big numbers and bold fonts, but writing a number in 24 point bold font does not actually confirm its validity. I know they have a Technical Support Document backing it up, but since I don't represent the coal industry and wouldn't get paid for slogging through it I'm not going to. If it is anything like the Technical Support Documents they've written for Oil & Gas regulations they were prepared by the low bidder to defend a pre-defined agenda--facts be damned.

CO2 and Methane are simply not source pollutants and regulations to limit them do not have a legal justification. Regardless of where you stand on AGW, a regulation without a legal foundation cannot be considered to be a good thing. Next they'll take off after some other pet hypothesis and make the introduction of Chlorine into water systems and swimming pools illegal (it has been proposed) and millions will die. The EPA and the President are out of control on this issue (and many others) and their data is fabricated and absolutely without merit.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[GregLocock]

It's no good bleating on about the 18 year and counting pause in temeperatures not being real as nobody has /proved/ the dog ate my homework theory. It's a good suggestion, but it has not been proved.

Anyway, I said they should be using the heat stored, not sea level. Sea level changes are due to far more mechanisms than just heat stored in the oceans, and as I said, one enormous interface to the system is almost totally unexplored and uninstrumented, so it will be impossible to validate the models. Yet again they have selected a measure which has been monotonically increasing since the last Ice Age, and which shows no acceleration over the industrial age. Another pause.

Here is an excerpt from a paper on NOAA's website,

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mtsparker.html

"One might expect to see an acceleration in the rise of sea level if indeed the effect of the accumulation of greenhouse gases during the last century, and especially during the last half of the century, has had an effect. No researcher to date has convincingly demonstrated such an acceleration. The interannual signal that makes trend determination difficult creates even more of a problem in trying to find an acceleration. The same problem exists with the global air temperature data and trying to conclusively demonstrate a recent intensification in that upward trend.

It is possible that the greenhouse effect has not shown up yet because the ocean has absorbed the heat and transported it in some fashion to its depths."

The last sentence is a zinger. The magical dog ate my homework theory even manages to suppress the expansion of water when it is heated. (OK, it may be that a dominant proportion of the ocean is at less than 4 degrees C, I'll have a look at that)

Cheers

Greg Locock


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