One engineers perspective on global warming 33

In forum1554 MVP members of eng-tips.com develop articles for publication on the Internet. This informal peer-review process has resulted in several articles being published thus far. Early indications make this seem to be an effective way to make information available to the engineering profession.

One of the articles was on my perspective on global warming. It was published today.

I would be very interested to participate in a discussion here about the article or the subject in general. There were several conversations that were started and then cut short in the Engineering Writers Guild because that group is intended to promote publication, not debate points of view. If anyone want to take up those conversations, this is the place to do it (although it is too late to correct formatting, grammar, or punctuation errors).

The article is available at: One engineer's perspective on global warming

Thank you to all of those who worked hard on this article to keep me more or less honest. I had a lot of help, but at the end of the day any errors and/or omissions are mine. I'll share the credit for the good stuff, but I own the mistakes.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

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

 

[rconnor]

It will be interesting to see how the voting populace view the drive to take the energy intensity of USAn life down towards that of (say) Cuba

More attempts to discredit ACC and climate change action by creating straw man arguments. GregLocock attempts to scare people away from climate change action by insinuating that any attempts to reduce emissions per capita will result in a drastic loss in standard of living. His statement appears to be made out of ignorance of the actual data.

Emissions per Capita is different than energy intensity
Firstly, we must clarify that emissions per capita and energy intensity are two different things. With the increasing power supply from renewable energy, reducing emissions per capita does not have to come with large drops in energy intensity. These are two different things and GregLocock attempts to obfuscate that difference.

Emissions per Capita is not well correlated with standard of living
(All emissions data from World Bank for 2010, all human development index data from UN Human Development Report for 2013)
USA’s emissions per capita (in T CO2/capita) was 17.6, 10th highest. USA’s human development index (HDI) was 0.914, 5th highest. Countries that were above the US in emissions/capita were:
1. Qatar – 40.3 (HDI rank - 31st)
2. Trinidad and Tobago – 38.2 (HDI rank – 64th)
3. Kuwait – 31.3 (HDI rank – 46th)
4. Brunei Darussalam – 22.9 (HDI rank – 30th)
5. Aruba – 22.8 (HDI rank – 49th)
6. Luxembourg – 21.4 (HDI rank – 21st)
7. Oman – 20.4 (HDI rank – 56th)
8. United Arab Emirates – 19.9 (HDI rank – 40th)
9. Bahrain – 19.3 (HDI rank – 44th)

Furthermore, many well-developed European nations have emissions/capita values lower than 1/3rd of US levels:
Spain – 5.8 (HDI rank – 27th)
Sweden – 5.6 (HDI rank – 12th)
France – 5.6 (HDI rank – 20th)
Switzerland – 5.0 (HDI rank – 3rd)

CO2 emissions per capita vs GDP is also poorly correlated (source):
[image

http://www.eoearth.org/files/119901_120000/119926/300px-CO2_Emissions_vs._GDP_per_Capita.gif

]

It is important to note that GDP, while a nice and simple metric, is not the most meaningful (hence why I chose HDI). Studies show that GDP has little impact on happiness metrics and masks issues associated with inequality (source). We could look at other indexes, such as inequality (source), happiness, and the correlation looks almost opposite of GregLocock's assertion.

So there is no statistical basis for GregLocock’s insinuation that reductions in CO2 emissions per capita will result in a drastic drop in standard of living. Similar claims are made by many climate change skeptics. They are all done so out of ignorance of the actual data.

I would suggest that these sort of claims are born out of a political ideology more than anything else. Emission reduction initiatives require government intervention and if one’s ideology assumes that government intervention is a bad thing, then it pushes them to have issues with the initiatives. This position comes a priori to and, at times, in place of any research, hence why these claims fly in the face of actual data.

 

[2dye4]

Zdas makes some good points about energy bringing quality of life.
It is nice to have
1 stable heat to cook with.
2 Clean water for cooking or washing.
3 Light for extending productive hours.
4 Energy for building simple labor saving tools.

... etc , you can see the point of these but how about these.

1 Driving to the mall on Saturday because you are bored.
2 Buying a new package of towels because the old ones have a stain.
3 Running your speedboat up and down the lake from dawn to dusk.
4 Mowing your oversize yard weekly including areas you never set foot in.
5 Commuting an hour to work when the internet makes telepresence very useful.
6 Driving a dual wheel pick up truck sporting a bed that has never seen cargo or axles than never see mud.
7 Watering your lawn so that you can mow it weekly.
8 Watching a TV half the size of a room for 2-6 hours per day.
9 Running your heat so you can wear shorts inside in January.
10 Taking 30 min hot showers daily.
11 Filling that swimming pool in the backyard that gets used once a week after the new wears off.
12 Keeping a monster refrigerator that stores enough food for 4 families so you can throw most of it out weekly.

So you see there are necessities and then there are 'necessities'. We would not me measurably less
happy if we stopped doing energy intensive wasteful behaviors.

So please understand no one wants to deny Ethiopians cooking fuel or good food. Lets just not encourage the
driving of spotless SUV's everywhere. Why is that so complicated.

In short we have the lifestyle that energy extraction costs allow. If energy extraction costs were one third of
what they are we would have even more extravagances and also claim they are necessaries.

 

[2dye4]

Zdas

"" “The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low” seems to be saying "He doesn't agree with me." " there is a troubling shallowness in the arguments describing apparent discrepancies in estimates of forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity.” seems to say "he is attacking the thesis of my last published article, he has to be wrong""

[seems to be saying "He doesn't agree with me]

How can you make this judgement on only the statement.

If the reviewer was writing about a paper that proposed a new method of a soil test would you draw a similar conclusion from only such a statement.
Of course not. Your emotions around this issue are driving you quite severely.

That is my impression of most climate change skeptics. What they will accept and put forth as valid arguments for their case really have little logical basis
and just indicate an emotionally driven need for verification.

I think I will skip reading your paper, climate change skeptic profiling tells me your paper will likely have a fair bit of poorly reasoned emotionally driven points to make.

 

[rb1957]

"there is no statistical basis for GregLocock’s insinuation that reductions in CO2 emissions per capita will result in a drastic drop in standard of living" ... then why don't they increase taxation of gasoline to, oh say $10/lt ($38/USgal) ? and tax FFs used at power stations. that would cut CO2 emissions. but we also know the predictable economic consequences.

we focus on the US 'cause they're the one nation producing a lot of CO2 (a 1% reduction in US output probably equals the production of smaller countries) ... for now. we're not looking to the Russia, 'cause, well, they'll ignore us! in the future that batton (largest national producer of CO2) will probably be passed to China (who'll probably ignore us then too).

renewable sources of energy cannot supply the current energy needs. improvements in efficiency will only blunt the rate of increase in energy demands.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[beej67]

It would have a noticeable effect on the environment if we had a single clue how to do it. We don't. Every environmental intervention has had unintended consequences. Even the vaunted reductions in SMOG and Acid Rain have resulted in increased waste in refineries, hundreds of billions of dollars in mandated capital investments, and an ethanol fiasco that we will not know the ramifications of for generations.

Heck, skip that entirely and go straight to private enterprise doing it. Here's an outfit that will allow you to personally preserve an acre of tropical rain forest for the bargain price of $167 at current exchange rates:

http://www.worldlandtrust.org/projects/buy-acre

At that rate, Obama could have spent the 8 billion on 75,000 square miles of rain forest, which would be permanently preserved. That's an area larger than the entire country of Uruguay.

Seriously.

And instead, we get 0.02 degrees Celsius rise averted. Now which is better for the environment?

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

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[cranky108]

globi5, Actually I heat both water and my house with propane, because it is cheeper than electricity. And I do have a water pre-heater on my roof. But putting anything on my tile roof is a killer for more solar power. I have lower fire ratings because of the tile roof, and asking anyone to take more fire risk to install solar power is just dumb.
I also don't have an airconditioner because I don't have forced air in my house.

If utilities were concerned about people generating there own power, then they would not have rebate programs for people to reduce there energy usage, so your statment " utilities are in general not interested in anyone producing their own electricity because that reduces their market share" is not true. What is true is that people who put solar panels on there houses don't want to pay the full cost of there solar instalation. The whole idea of net metering is a gift to solar homeowners, who should only have there bills reduced by the energy they consume. They should also be paying capacity charges that are required to serve there home, as well as there share of the billing and accounting for the utility connection. The term for these people is free loaders.

OK I don't know the life of a Tesla battery, however with the Leaf you lease the battery, you have no battery worry about having to decide if you should scrap the car at the end of the battery life. Or worries that people will just dump the batteries.

Car charging starts at about 6:00, and the wind does not pickup until about 9:00, so there is a gap where the major part of car charging will be on coal and gas.

Actually the veriability of wind, in combonation with the veriabilty of customer load, causes other forms of energy production to be less efficent.

 

[swall]

rconnor--I for one would like to know what events or data caused you to move from skeptic to believer. Your presentations are thorough, but I don't have the time or background to wade through all of it. Simple statement, 25 words or less (OK, maybe 25 sentences). Or maybe just start a separate thread.

 

[rb1957]

i think rconnor should do his own "one engineer's view" on EWG

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[Comcokid]

Anyone care to comment on this recent article about Climate Models and Physical Data.

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-global-temperature-conundrum-cooling-climate.html

"We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions . . . Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming."

 

[zdas04]

Comcokid,
I've saved that to my favorites and every time someone says "we have evidence that does not depend on computer models" I'm going to link that in. Most scientists are fundamentally honest, decent people. Most data can be looked at from several angles to draw different conclusions. All computer models can be "adjusted" to satisfy a bias or a blind spot or an agenda. That article shows exactly how deeply those computer models are woven into the fabric of climate science.

"Warming since the beginning of the Holocene" is a bit different than "cooling for 6,000 years followed by a rapid heating starting in 1950." It is all in how you feed the model, "tune" the model, and interpret the model results.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

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

 

[beej67]

I want anyone to do an engineer's view, a scientists view, or a policy makers view that explains how averting 0.02 degrees of rise is more important than preserving habitat in an area the size of Uruguay.

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

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[2dye4]

What I take from the PysOrg article is that there is some question about whether the natural part of the climate is very slowly warming or cooling.

It is good to get this more accurate but as the authors say of this research.

"" It does not, the authors emphasize, change the evidence of human impact on global climate beginning in the 20th century.""

The difference is the rate of change implied by the now verified hockey stick rise in temps. The long term trend is a small fraction of this rate.

 

[GregLocock]

You are presumably aware that the rate of change and level of change seen in the 20th century is not especially unusual? consider the the change in CET around 1700 for example.

As to cut'n'paste boy's confusing latest post, I'll get back to it later, but selecting the economic basket case called Spain as the poster boy for GDP/CO2 is quite hilarious. Do you know what PIGS is? Have you ever been to Spain other than on a cruise ship? The average full time pay in Spain is less than minimum wage in Australia. Its main exports are wine and olive oil. Its main industries are tourism and agriculture. If that is the vision of the future for the USA then fine, but somehow I doubt that the general populace would agree.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[GregLocock]

2dye4

Here's a graph of the 11 year moving average of the HadCET data, comparing the rate of change for a 1.12 deg C event around 1700, at 8 deg per century (red line) and the recent rather slower rate of change over the same amplitude at 5.6 deg /century (green line). As you can see the recent change is not exceptional in amplitude or speed. Sadly we don't have data of this quality for other parts of the world for the same timeframe.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rconnor]

swall, interesting question. I can't say it was any one thing specifically. However, in a general sense, it was the weakness of skeptic arguments in light of a better understanding that changed my mind. Take the "pause" for example. Once you do a bit more research and learn about ENSO dynamics and Ocean Heat Contet, not only does the "pause" NOT provide a crucial blow to the ACC theory but it actually works to support it. Skeptic arguments can be continually turned against the skeptic side and what your left with is actually something that supports the theory.

I've been picking away at an article or new thread topic which I will outline the fault with these arguments as well as provide a detailed description of the strength of the ACC theory and the weakness of skeptic counter-theories. Hopefully it will summarize some of my other posts all in one place, rather than as separate responses to the charade of random, unconnected arguments put forth from skeptics.

GregLocock, again, why use a regional data set if you are trying to make claims about global temperatures? Furthermore, what's interesting about this period is that TSI has been in decline since 1950 and aerosols have been increasing since 1950. Oh and a negative PDO phase should been lowering temperatures if the rise during the positive PDO phase was all natural, not keep them flat. This is why I love the "it's natural" argument so much. If it were natural, then temperatures would have been decreasing since the 1950's, not rising (brings us back to my point to swall). The "it's changed before"/"it's natural" argument has a serious problem on it's hands. It requires an explanation as to why temperatures are doing the exactly opposite of what they should be doing, assuming the ACC theory is incorrect (despite the fact it explains the recent warming very accurately).

So, is "Solar Notch Theory" the explanation you'd like to go with (I'd advise against it - 16 Jul 14 16:42)? Maybe geothermal flux (I'd also advise against it - 16 Jun 14 11:49)?

Before TGS4 counters with argumentum ad ignorantiam, let me be clear that it is not just that all skeptic counter theories fail to describe the current situation but, more importantly, the ACC theory does an excellent job doing so.

 

[GregLocock]

I'm not talking about theories I'm using measured data to illustrate that the recent temperature changes are not especially rapid or large. No theory required.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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[rconnor]

A theory is required when all natural drivers (*increased aerosols is mainly anthropogenic) should have been pushing temperatures down since the 1950's, not up.

 

[GregLocock]

Even by your standards that is a non sequitur, which of your mechanisms is active over 13 years?

Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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[rb1957]

@2dye4 ...

1) why does that statement give you confidence ? the data is saying one thing, yet they throw in that statement to be politically correct ? unless they mean to be saying, "somewhere in our analysis we screwed up, 'cause we got the wrong answer ('cause we know what the results should have been)".

2) i must have missed something, when was the Mann hockey stick verified ? the last i heard was that it had been shownproven to be a artifice of the data analysis routines.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[2dye4]

Regarding the endless debate about rates of temp change.

I believe there are many components to the global average temperature, a few relevant ones.

1 A slowly changing unknown cause long term trend.

2 A noisy random component with relatively fast dynamics ( years to a couple of decades )

3 A function ( with memory or having dynamic behavior) possibly nonlinear mapping the deviation in CO2
from historical norms to a corresponding deviation in temperature.


We want to separate these hopefully. One tool that could be useful is the relative dynamics of the three signals.
The slowest is 1, the fastest is 2. Very likely 3 is in the middle. This means the data is best viewed
through a filter of some sort that best separates 3 from 1,2. Another way to think of it is the proper length
of an averaging window sliding through the data. Eliminating 1 is fairly easy as it seems to be very slowly changing.

Between 2 and 3 is the hard part and likely where people will want to draw their own boundaries. Too many people
use changes in temp over a year or two to make some point and it is meaningless. There is much written about
the proper way to pick a filter to suppress the dynamics of one known signal. If you pass a filter tailored to
suppress the signal in the time series prior to industrialization I think you would find the industrial era hockeystick
still comes through with a shape and rate that is unprecedented.

Greg do you have a favorite time series of Temp at least 500 years in length and terminating fairly recently. I would like
to try and see what it shows.