JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
I didn’t want to start a discussion about the properties of co2. We all know how co2 works.Science is observation. So how hard can it be to design an experiment with correct pressure and temperature and then double the co2 level from 400 ppm to 800 ppm and observe the difference in temperature?
Science need to get back to basic. The responce to my simple question demonstrates the need for more practical , less theoretical science. We don’t care anymore about models and theory. Give us something we can see and check our selves.
Thats where science fail to day!
The co2 discussion is like sitting in a boat and arguing over the bucket we use to empty the boat of water. Is it working ok? Is the bucket 100 cl or less? When will the boat be empty?
We all know how a bucket works but nobody have ever checked that the bucket actually are emptied outside the boat.
236
Some experiments that I am aware of that have tried to determine the total absorptivity/emissivity of CO2 at various pressures are Hottel (1954), Leckner (1972), Ludwig et al (1973) amd Sarofim et al (1978).
This one point from Mark blows the whole CAGW theory out the water. No wonder warmists are using every trick in the book to try and get to appear. I love John Cook’s counter-argument though, something to the effect of ‘But any warming could produce a hotspot and anthropogenic warming is not a unique signature’. Sure, sure, but isn’t the warming over the last 50 years meant to be human-induced according to Cook? It’s so bizzare.
306
Well that part i don’t care of. I know the absorbtion and the emitting part. Thats not the problem. The problem i tried to illustrate with the boat analogy was that energy enter and leave co2. Where does it end up?
Since co2 is in the atmosphere and absorb from the atmosphere any radiation emitted to the atmosphere would not change the total level of energy in the atmosphere.
So to establish a warming of the surface we need to know if some energy leaves the atmosphere.
good absorbers are also good emmitters, but they don,t emitt more than they absorb.
A simple Planck calculator should be able to tell us what will happen when radiation from the atmosphere meet the radiation from the surface.
After reading hundred of bloggs no one has ever produced such a calculation. Propably because the answer is the surface heats the atmosphere.
They actually even dont agree if it the surface itself or the lower part of the atmosphere is supposed to warm.
In fact the earth is getting warmer is not a scientific statement. Witch part of it is suposed to warm and why?
Climate science is not science since it obey consensus and not the scientific method real science use. Sorry Jo but thats my conclusion.
1510
We do know quite a lot about that, and satellite sensors do show that slightly less is going out than coming in. However the assumption is implicit that energy can only leave the earth as infrared energy which isn’t exactly right, most of it does but by no means all of it. Until the fraction of energy shed by other means is known to
2 decimal places, the observation is meaningless.
89
Bobl: ” and satellite sensors do show that slightly less is going out than coming in.” I’m not sure that this is totally correct. From memory, Richard Lindzen’s analysis of ERBE data suggests otherwise. SKS commenters won’t agree with him of course. However I have to agree with the rest of your comment because if all energy leaving earth was in the IR portion of the electromagnetic spectrum the earth would not be visible from space apart from IR sensors.
90
Ted, it’s not just that there are forces around us much bigger than radiation. For example the potential energy of the earth above the Sun is if I recall 800 billion times more than the annual insolation of earth. If I push earth 1 mm further away from the Sun, how much energy do I store? If I push the earth faster around the Sun, how much energy do I store, if I speed up earth’s rotation… Conversely how much energy do I gain in the other direction. When heat creates thermals or pressure differences that create wind, and that wind grinds on the earth, is the winds energy lost as friction, or in pushing the earth a few femto-microns?
Remember 800 billion times more than annual energy received by radiation…
48
However the part of your comment to which I referred with regard to IR in vs IR out. I don’t see the relevance of your reply.
10
I am simply saying that the difference between incoming light and outgoing light (IR) doesn’t mean squat either way if energy is able to enter or escape the earth by other means. The assumption that light in has to equal light out is probably invalid.
52
I haven’t read all of this part of the thread but Bob has some very relevant comment.
Doing a mass, heat and momentum balance on the Earth is nigh on impossible and any variations due to the “greenhouse” effect are so small as to be unmeasurable and irrelevant when considered in terms of the real “changer of climate” : Orbital Mechanics.
The Earth has a heating/ cooling cycle with a periodicity of about 100,000 years.
Currently we are in an interglacial period whose time is almost up.
Analysis of Earths heating and cooling in terms of years or even tens of years, in light of this background, is mistaken and the last 8,000 years is undoubtedly the most stable period that the Earth could be in, and that includes the last 50 years which the IPCCCC get so uptight about.
The Global Warmers don’t have a clue.
KK.
129
Mr Petterson, the calculation from Planck’s formula gives us the figure of one quarter for the fraction of the Earth’s emitted radiation which, under ideal conditions, would fall within the range 13 to 19 microns wavelength for surface temperatures in the range -80 degrees Celsius to +40 deg C. This is a generous coverage of that absorption peak for CO2 that falls within the Earth’s emission spectrum and represents a portion of the Earth’s emission that radiates into the atmosphere as the Earth cools.
If “back-radiation” is relevant then, at most, half of the above fraction may be emitted by atmospheric CO2 back towards the Earth’s surface, that is one eighth of the Earth’s emitted radiation. Applying the standard albedo of 0.3, means that 0.7 x one eighth of the back-radiation from CO2 or less that one tenth is returned. Which means that the Earth loses at least nine-tenths of its emitted energy into the atmosphere and continues to cool.
The Earth clearly cannot have its temperature increased by this continual loss of energy. The only source of heating for the Earth’s surface is from the Sun and that only increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface for about six out of the 24 hours in the day. For the rest of the time the surface is cooling. Only radiation from a hotter source can increase the temperature of the Earth’s surface if, and only if, it is transformed from the photon, electromagnetic, energy of radiation into molecular motion at the surface which motion is measured by temperature. Radiation is not heat energy, it is electromagnetic energy that acts in accordance with Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism.
Note that every object radiates in accordance with its temperature so every object in the Universe is receiving radiation from every other object. We experience hot objects making us feel warmer but we have never been warmed by the presence of a colder object otherwise everything in the Universe would be heating everything else and it would have disappeared in a puff of energy billions of years ago. The CO2 global warming proposition is a massive fraud and will continue to be so until scientists of integrity speak out with conviction.
89
Bevan
If the output from co2 spends from -80 to + 40 the average will be minus -20! The earths average is + 15.
So according to the laws of thermodynamics the net heat flow would be from ground to co2 leaving a co2 sensetivety at 0.
28
Mr Peterson, sorry to have confused you. What I meant was that I have used the Planck’s formula to calculate the proportion of the energy emitted by the Earth’s surface at each of the surface temperatures for the wavelength range 13 to 19 microns. For example for a surface temperature of -80 deg C, the (ideal) fraction of the emission from the surface that falls within that range is 0.254, at a surface temperature of -40 deg C the fraction is 0.273, at 0 deg C the fraction is 0.263 and at +40 deg C the fraction is 0.24.
These were calculated using the Wolfram Alpha web site at http://www.wolframalpha.com. All manner of interesting calculations can be requested from the site including the Stefan Boltzmann equation, great circle distances across the Earth and much much more of which I am totally ignorant.
22
Back radiation is one of those things that sounds good but doesn’t occur.
The reason is that the temperature gradient, wherever you may be on Earth, is ALWAYS drawing Earths energy out to deep space.
Assuming Earths surface average to be 0 deg C and deep space about 1.4 c deg above absolute zero then there is one hell of a draw on the energy towards space.
From an old post:
November 1, 2012 at 6:18 am
The original Man Made Global Warming by CO2 Fantasy lasted so long because it it was presented as final
pivotal concept in the long scientific struggle to capture the essence of Earth’s Temperature change.
Focus was therefore applied to the micro functioning of CO2 as an infra red absorber and emitter and so long
as this focus remained there all was well.
The trust in the “scientists” skill and honorable behaviour was the essential obscuring cover that kept the
whole idea on the rails and allowing UN and Governments alike to funnel money to combat AGW to the friends
and backers.
But as always, the terms and conditions are always important in any transaction and this is the case with scientific analysis.
It turns out that our trust in the science had been misplaced and the terms and conditions had been obscured from view, and analysis.
All of the other factors, besides CO2, which had been assumed by the public to have been isolated and quantified had in fact been left out.
Water, for example, with all its energy transfer capacity had been totally ignored and it seems deliberately
left off the analysis, raising serious doubts as to the scientific credibility of the proponents of of CO2 AGW.
Once the doubts were raised there was anger that the good reputation of science had been used as a screen to
cover politically inspired scams and the resulting full analysis of the claims showed that the CO2 thing was
a scam and that not even a dumb but honest scientist could have been stupid enough to believe the “science”
behind the Man Made aspect of the claims.
It was always a deliberate scam for personal and group advantage.
The above Energy Budget is much the same and it can only be described as PRIMITIVE.
There are too many factors to be listed and quantified to say that there is any real chance of isolating a back radiation effect by a Difference analysis of estimated inputs and outputs.
It is a massive problem to do a mass, heat and momentum balance on the Earth.
A staggering problem that labels anyone claiming to have the complete answer as a SCIENTIFIC FOOL.
A DIFFERENCE ANALYSIS CANNOT WORK IN THIS PROBLEM where the object is to quantify one small factor.
As Jo points out, the target is so small compared with known factors and their variability let alone all the unknown ones.
The only solution is to physically measure back radiation or what ever it is that takes the fancy of Climate Scientists.
If you can’t measure it then maybe it doesn’t exist?
KK 🙂
710
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/blockbuster-earths-energy-balance-measured-models-are-wrong/#comment-1163058
38
”Back radiation is one of those things that sounds good but doesn’t occur.”
Keith,
actually it does, but AGW remains a physical impossibility. This is not because warming due to CO2 is swamped by other atmospheric processes, but because the net effect of CO2 and other radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling not warming.
Keith, Mr. Pettersen & Bobl, this may be a long comment but it does cover much that is relevant.
First definitions –
LWIR = Long wave infrared radiation.
SW = Shortwave radiation (visible light).
DWLWIR = “back radiation” from atmospheric gases.
Radiative gas = (for this discussion) an gas with fair to strong ability to absorb and emit LWIR
Blackbody = theoretical material able to absorb and emit equally at at all frequencies
Selective surface = material that has significant asymmetry between absorption(and warming) and emission(and cooling) at differing frequencies.
Hohlraum = self radiating cavity ie inside of a hollow sphere not a flat radiating surface
GHE=claimed radiative GHE
Why AGW due to CO2 is a physical impossibility.
Introduction.
Many sceptics are aware that something is very wrong with the AGW hypothesis and all models based on the hypothesis have failed against observation. What many don’t understand is why. This is not necessary the fault of sceptics, but rather that some on the warmist side are desperate that others don’t find out what is wrong. To this end they dance between definitions and descriptions of how CO2 is supposed to cause Armageddon, in a traditional Trembertian dance involving moving goal-posts and much merry hand waving.
This results in some sceptics making the following erroneous claims or true claims that misinterpret (as was intended by alarmists) the position of the warmists –
– Atmospheric back radiation does not exist. (false)
– CO2 cannot add energy to the system not supplied by the sun. (true)
– LWIR from a cold object cannot heat a warmer object. (true)
– LWIR from a colder object cannot slow the cooling rate of a warmer object. (false)
These misinterpretation stem from warmists dancing between two main definitions of what they call a radiative greenhouse effect. The foundation claim is not that CO2 directly warms but that it slows the cooling rate of the planet’s surface and/or atmosphere. Two main goal-posts are danced between in the traditional Tremberthian two-step –
1. Radiative gases in the atmosphere intercept and thermalise some LWIR radiated from the surface. DWLWIR is then back radiated to the surface slowing its cooling rate, thus allowing the sun to drive the surface to a higher temperature than it otherwise would.
2. Increased radiative gases in the atmosphere increase its LWIR opacity, thereby increasing the altitude at which LWIR emitted by the atmosphere makes it directly to space. This is also called the effective radiating level argument. It is claimed that this will cause gases at greater altitude to become warmer to radiate the same amount as before (to maintain radiative equilibrium) and if calculating back to the surface via known lapse rate, the surface will then be warmer.
Both these claims have many varied derivatives, but the foundation hypotheses remains the same. And both remain false, as can be demonstrated by empirical experiment.
Why the back radiation AGW hypothesis fails.
This radiative GHE hypothesis has three central claims that are provably false. The first is that the surface could only be heated to 255K (-18C) by solar radiation alone were it not for DWLWIR. This claim is based on the use of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and the assumption that the surface of the planet can be considered a near blackbody. This is false. The surface of the oceans covering 71% of the planets surface are an extreme SW selective surface. The sun alone could drive our oceans to an average of 335K (62C) were it not for atmospheric cooling. Given current surface average is 288K(15C) this gives a fair idea of the role of our radiatively cooled atmosphere on surface temperatures.
The second false claim is that DWLWIR can slow the cooling rate of the surface. While in Maxwellian physics LWIR from a cooler object can slow the cooling rate of a warmer object, the effect is minimised or indeed non-existent if the objects are also conductively (not just radiatively) cooled or if the material of the warmer object is IR opaque and free to evaporatively cool. 71% of our planet’s surface is covered in LWIR opaque water free to evaporatively cool and DWLWIR has no effect on its cooling rate.
The third claim relates to the first, and that is that the radiative properties of both surface and atmosphere are well known. This is false, all that is well know is emissivity settings for IR instruments for the measurement of materials in their current environment. IR instruments need to be told an emissivity of a material to derive an accurate IR temperature reading. However, there is a world of difference between apparent and effective IR emissivity of a material.
Compare a flat plate of polished aluminium to a matt black plate of aluminium both heated to 100C. To get an accurate 100C IR measurement the emissivity setting on your non-contact IR instrument should be 0.15 for polished and near 1.0 for matt black. Measuring through a observation apature in a hohlraum of each material again heated to 100C your emissivity setting should be near 1.0 for both as the materials are now self radiating. Climastrologists went substituted apparent emissivity settings for measurement within the hohlraum of our radiative atmosphere for actual effective emissivity in almost all of their failed calculations.
Why the ERL AGW hypothesis fails.
This is essentially an inane claim that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. Again there are good several reasons why this AGW hypothesis fails.
First of course the atmosphere would have no radiative cooling ability were it not for radiative gases. Therefore adding more cannot reduce it. (although there was that one time in 1995 when Pierrehumbert tried a spectacular “well initially these gases cause cooling but then the unicorn/rainbow ration reaches a tipping point blah, blah, blah” hand waving exercise. And until climate science you just thought rapid wrist action only happened at band camp…)
Second ERL fails because there is no effective or average radiating level. Go outside on differing days and hours and measure DWLWIR from the atmosphere with your IR detector. It’s constantly changing. LWIR emission is greatest (by an order of magnitude) from cloud as opposed to clear humid or clear dry sky. (Note – anyone without IR thermometer probably shouldn’t call themselves AGW sceptic. I find your efforts lukewarm).
Third fail is back calculation from fictional ERL from existing lapse rate. The problem here is lapse rate is generated mechanically by the expansion and contraction of air vertically circulating across the gravity induced pressure gradient of our atmosphere. Strong vertical circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and polar tropospheric circulation cells is half dependant on radiative subsidence of air masses from altitude. This means air masses (admittedly an arbitrary concept) lose energy, and therefore buoyancy by radiation to space. The speed of strong vertical circulation and thereby the lapse rate is dependant in part on the concentration of radiative gases. ERL is essentially a game of holding the speed of tropospheric convective circulation constant while trying to calculate the radiative effects of increasing radiative gases despite the fact that the speed of circulation and resultant lapse rate is dependant on radiative gas concentration.
Conclusion. (Never thought I’d get there did you?)
AGW is not “less than we thought”. No, warming from CO2 is not being “masked by negative feedbacks”, nor “hiding in the oceans”. AGW is not happening because there is no net radiative GHE on this ocean planet. Right now Tremberths’s “missing heat” is out past Alpha-Centari, travelling at light speed, and has expressed no interest in slowing down.
Radiative gases are our atmosphere’s primary cooling mechanism. Our radiatively cooled atmosphere is the surface’s primary cooling mechanism. The net effect of CO2 in our atmosphere is atmospheric cooling.
Can we detect the cooling effect of CO2? 0.04% of the atmosphere and only effective near the 15 micron band? Good luck with that.
614
Moderators, any chance of killing the previous “formatting fail” version and replacing with the “give me full HTML manual control” version?
”Back radiation is one of those things that sounds good but doesn’t occur.”
Keith,
actually it does, but AGW remains a physical impossibility. This is not because warming due to CO2 is swamped by other atmospheric processes, but because the net effect of CO2 and other radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling not warming.
Keith, Mr. Pettersen & Bobl, this may be a long comment but it does cover much that is relevant.
First definitions –
LWIR = Long wave infrared radiation.
SW = Shortwave radiation (visible light).
DWLWIR = “back radiation” from atmospheric gases.
Radiative gas = (for this discussion) an gas with fair to strong ability to absorb and emit LWIR
Blackbody = theoretical material able to absorb and emit equally at at all frequencies
Selective surface = material that has significant asymmetry between absorption(and warming) and emission(and cooling) at differing frequencies.
Hohlraum = self radiating cavity ie inside of a hollow sphere not a flat radiating surface
GHE=claimed radiative GHE
Why AGW due to CO2 is a physical impossibility.
introduction.
Many sceptics are aware that something is very wrong with the AGW hypothesis and all models based on the hypothesis have failed against observation. What many don’t understand is why. This is not necessary the fault of sceptics, but rather that some on the warmist side are desperate that others don’t find out what is wrong. To this end they dance between definitions and descriptions of how CO2 is supposed to cause Armageddon, in a traditional Trembertian dance involving moving goal-posts and much merry hand waving.
This results in some sceptics making the following erroneous claims or true claims that misinterpret (as was intended by alarmists) the position of the warmists –
– Atmospheric back radiation does not exist. (false)
– CO2 cannot add energy to the system not supplied by the sun. (true)
– LWIR from a cold object cannot heat a warmer object. (true)
– LWIR from a colder object cannot slow the cooling rate of a warmer object. (false)
These misinterpretation stem from warmists dancing between two main definitions of what they call a radiative greenhouse effect. The foundation claim is not that CO2 directly warms but that it slows the cooling rate of the planet’s surface and/or atmosphere. Two main goal-posts are danced between in the traditional Tremberthian two-step –
1. Radiative gases in the atmosphere intercept and thermalise some LWIR radiated from the surface. DWLWIR is then back radiated to the surface slowing its cooling rate, thus allowing the sun to drive the surface to a higher temperature than it otherwise would.
2. Increased radiative gases in the atmosphere increase its LWIR opacity, thereby increasing the altitude at which LWIR emitted by the atmosphere makes it directly to space. This is also called the effective radiating level argument. It is claimed that this will cause gases at greater altitude to become warmer to radiate the same amount as before (to maintain radiative equilibrium) and if calculating back to the surface via known lapse rate, the surface will then be warmer.
Both these claims have many varied derivatives, but the foundation hypotheses remains the same. And both remain false, as can be demonstrated by empirical experiment.
Why the back radiation AGW hypothesis fails.
This radiative GHE hypothesis has three central claims that are provably false. The first is that the surface could only be heated to 255K (-18C) by solar radiation alone were it not for DWLWIR. This claim is based on the use of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and the assumption that the surface of the planet can be considered a near blackbody. This is false. The surface of the oceans covering 71% of the planets surface are an extreme SW selective surface. The sun alone could drive our oceans to an average of 335K (62C) were it not for atmospheric cooling. Given current surface average is 288K(15C) this gives a fair idea of the role of our radiatively cooled atmosphere on surface temperatures.
The second false claim is that DWLWIR can slow the cooling rate of the surface. While in Maxwellian physics LWIR from a cooler object can slow the cooling rate of a warmer object, the effect is minimised or indeed non-existent if the objects are also conductively (not just radiatively) cooled or if the material of the warmer object is IR opaque and free to evaporatively cool. 71% of our planet’s surface is covered in LWIR opaque water free to evaporatively cool and DWLWIR has no effect on its cooling rate.
The third claim relates to the first, and that is that the radiative properties of both surface and atmosphere are well known. This is false, all that is well know is emissivity settings for IR instruments for the measurement of materials in their current environment. IR instruments need to be told an emissivity of a material to derive an accurate IR temperature reading. However, there is a world of difference between apparent and effective IR emissivity of a material.
Compare a flat plate of polished aluminium to a matt black plate of aluminium both heated to 100C. To get an accurate 100C IR measurement the emissivity setting on your non-contact IR instrument should be 0.15 for polished and near 1.0 for matt black. Measuring through a observation apature in a hohlraum of each material again heated to 100C your emissivity setting should be near 1.0 for both as the materials are now self radiating. Climastrologists went substituted apparent emissivity settings for measurement within the hohlraum of our radiative atmosphere for actual effective emissivity in almost all of their failed calculations.
Why the ERL AGW hypothesis fails.
This is essentially an inane claim that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. Again there are good several reasons why this AGW hypothesis fails.
First of course the atmosphere would have no radiative cooling ability were it not for radiative gases. Therefore adding more cannot reduce it. (although there was that one time in 1995 when Pierrehumbert tried a spectacular “well initially these gases cause cooling but then the unicorn/rainbow ration reaches a tipping point blah, blah, blah” hand waving exercise. And until climate science you just thought rapid wrist action only happened at band camp…)
Second ERL fails because there is no effective or average radiating level. Go outside on differing days and hours and measure DWLWIR from the atmosphere with your IR detector. It’s constantly changing. LWIR emission is greatest (by an order of magnitude) from cloud as opposed to clear humid or clear dry sky. (Note – anyone without IR thermometer probably shouldn’t call themselves AGW sceptic. I find your efforts lukewarm).
Third fail is back calculation from fictional ERL from existing lapse rate. The problem here is lapse rate is generated mechanically by the expansion and contraction of air vertically circulating across the gravity induced pressure gradient of our atmosphere. Strong vertical circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and polar tropospheric circulation cells is half dependant on radiative subsidence of air masses from altitude. This means air masses (admittedly an arbitrary concept) lose energy, and therefore buoyancy by radiation to space. The speed of strong vertical circulation and thereby the lapse rate is dependant in part on the concentration of radiative gases. ERL is essentially a game of holding the speed of tropospheric convective circulation constant while trying to calculate the radiative effects of increasing radiative gases despite the fact that the speed of circulation and resultant lapse rate is dependant on radiative gas concentration.
Conclusion. (Never thought I’d get there did you?)
AGW is not “less than we thought”. No, warming from CO2 is not being “masked by negative feedbacks”, nor “hiding in the oceans”. AGW is not happening because there is no net radiative GHE on this ocean planet. Right now Tremberths’s “missing heat” is out past Alpha-Centari, travelling at light speed, and has expressed no interest in slowing down.
Radiative gases are our atmosphere’s primary cooling mechanism. Our radiatively cooled atmosphere is the surface’s primary cooling mechanism. The net effect of CO2 in our atmosphere is atmospheric cooling.
Can we detect the cooling effect of CO2? 0.04% of the atmosphere and only effective near the 15 micron band? Good luck with that.
614
Thank you Konrad, would you please convey these thoughts to the Minister, Greg Hunt M.P. and the Australian Academy of Science, they do not seem to take any notice of me but I encourage everyone to try.
Both of their Web sites are simply plagiarisms of the IPCC reports. Clearly the Minister is not getting unbiased advice from his bureaucrats, Quote” …the Australian Government accepts the science of climate change and takes its primary advice on climate science from CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. This advice aligns with information provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other national and international scientific organisations.” end quote.
011
If light left the Earth only as IR, those intrepid astronauts would not have been able to see the Earth, nor could normal photo exercises like Landsat satellites work. If no Visible light is emitted, the eye sees only black, day and night. From the high resolution and natural colours of Google Earth images, one must assume that a respectable portion of light leaving the Earth is NOT in the IR.
Re greenhouse gases, the exercise does not stop with light beamed into a chamber containing CO2 or whatever. Sure, it can heat up. The question for $64 is, what happens to this excess energy after it has done its Arrhenius trick and is let loose in the wide wide world as Mr Pettersen notes.
110
Konrad
I think you would like to read this:
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/why-atmospheric-mass-not-radiation-p2
012
The in and out of radiation from the earth to me is a moot question, that our little blue ball in the sky is conducive to life is more important.
The big question should be why is the earth is in a glacial condition with only brief periods of warm. These so called brief interglacials are indeed brief and we are coming to the end of this one.
The other big question that needs answers are the solar cycles, it can be taken as a given that our great big fiery ball in the sky does not have an inbuilt timer, so what causes the cycles and variation in cycles, climate science needs to come to terms with these questions first before it pontificates on the cause of small variations in temperature and weather.
Something causes these major changes in the glacial cycles and it sure ain’t CO2.
40
Well put Wayne!
10
It reminds me of the way gas cookers or heaters start to splutter, just before the gas runs out.
Now isn’t that a pleasant thought?
10
Absence of the trospheric hot spot might demolish CAGW theories but apparently it is not enough to destroy the Greenhouse Gas Effect Theory amongst our Lukewarmers.
As far as I know there is no direct evidence to support the Greenhouse Theory;
Spectral observations of cold gases at low pressureshow absorbtion lines and hot gases at low pressure show emmissions lines. There are presented as evidence for the Greenhouse Effect but in fact they mean nothing, as you have elequently pointed out,
Greenhouse in a bottle demonstrations as performed by Bill Nye and Dr Maggie Aderin Pocock cannot be replicated and must have been fudged,
Anthony Watts light bulb experiment has a serious problem of methodology. In fact he could not get it to work until he modified his experiment. He thought he had succeeded in proving that reflected radiation could warm his frosted light globe. In fact what he did was shine more high temperature light ( from the filament) onto the frosted glass. It was not the infrared emmissions of the frosted glass which produced the extra warming. This is the equivalent of putting a big mirror in space and shining more sunlight on the dark side of the Earth. No one would argue that the Earth would not be warmer as a result.
816
You love labels don’t you, the so called greenhouse effect is nothing more that the ability of some substances such as mirrors to reflect energy. Clouds are a pretty good diffuse reflector of long wave energy as white walls are of shortwave energy. In the infrared range some other gases can interact with light like this. The fact that CO2 reflection works by absorption and reradiation is unimportant. Do you really deny that mirrors or lasers actually work?
104
So we have a ‘greenhouse’ with no walls, vast changes in temperature and pressure and radiation, turbulence and 2/3 with a deep water floor. What sort of Greenhouse is that? All these physics models are based on constant ultra simplistic conditions and there is no laboratory the size of a planet or as complex, from near absolute vacuum and absolute zero to a planetary core of 7,000C and pressures even at the ocean bottom of 400 atmospheres and with currents and extreme turbulence and phase changes in water alone from solid to liquid to gas and huge changes in albedo and some lunatic wants to talk about averages? Then they want accuracy of 0.01C? Nuts.
1015
I certainly have a problem even with this drawing a shell around the planet and calling it a single temperature black body radiator? The sun is only on one side and the other side gets much cooler at night. With the axis tilt, the huge changes from poles to the equator is exaggerated and one pole is in total darkness today on our Winter solstice, all day with extremely low temperatures where even CO2 becomes a solid at -78C and drops out of the air. The other can get to +25C and without a buffer with circulating water underneath, can melt almost completely. Hot air also rises, so it can radiate the heat above the CO2 (remember CO2 freezes to a solid at high altitude where other gases do not). Then no one mentions for the huge hot ball of molten metal under our feet where the temperature rises 25C per km. Only 4 metres down the temperature is always 12C. Some greenhouse.
This Greenhouse is an ultra simplistic analogy meant to suggest a phenomenon which just might have a minor impact under the right conditions but even then it is not enough to be significant, but still people want to believe this stuff is simple proven science. Why? Or do we know why?
As for averages, like broken clocks they are only true twice a day and their significance is debatable. This is all the stuff of science fantasy pushed by non scientist BAs like Al Gore, Tim Flannery, even Phil Jones (BA), journalists, economists, psychologists and hard core communists and political opportunists and the huge wind and solar and carbon industries and merchant bankers. Conspiracy? Hardly. Just a $1Bn a day picnic and political opportunity, a free for all money go round. Science? No. Pure fantasy. One real volcano or meteor and windmills would not save us.
1716
All this is notwithstanding the fact the the 50% increase in CO2 is not man made anyway. This is not skepticism or extremism but science fact which I would happily debate with any physicist so there is no AGW.
In essence you can radio carbon date the aerial CO2 and prove it is not fossil CO2. CO2 rapidly crosses the air/water boundary as evidenced as you breathe. 0.04% coming in and 10-25% going out. It is how humans live out of water. So the man released CO2 just vanishes into the massive CO2 equilibrium system controlled by Henry’s law. Whatever problem is alleged, it is not man made.
1115
Feel better now?
Nothing really wrong with anything you said except the UN and greenpiss don’t care. As long as the money-go-round is turning it’s all good.
People still make money off astrology
90
Thanks Bobl. Nothing like a good rant!
Ten years ago I was just annoyed. Now it is crazy as every tenet of AGW is broken, but still they persist. Now they want use to agree in Paris to being taxed by the UN. The Left/Green alliance would agree, but not in England any more and not in Australia and not in Canada. There is hope.
119
I cannot help but think that the ‘know-it-all’ energy in / out budget with the political fraction that is “missing,” believed “Lost” to the Ocean deeps and likely to cause unprecedented runaway global warming or failing that, a catastrophic conglomeration of climate extremes is merely a symptom of a greater malaise, namely that of not knowing all contributions and subtractions from the energy budget.
The point has been made so very well elsewhere over and over again. One cannot know with certainty that one knows ALL and, one does not know what one does not know.
40
Hello Mr P
There has already been one very public demonstration of the CO2 effect on the Myth Busters TV programme.
It was supervised by a female professor from some American university. She obviously was not an engineer.
From memory there were four large plastic covered rectangular enclosures filled with different gases and set up close to each other in a line.
Each “atmosphere had a heater set in front of it. I think that the experiment showed that the higher CO2 mix got “hotter” faster.
The fact that normal air was on one of the extreme ends and that the heaters were concentrated on the centre high CO2 mix, of course, had nothing to do with the result.
A VERY POORLY RUN EXPERIMENT, designed perhaps to give the right result?
KK
71
I hope this doesn’t contradict my comment above.
I’ll look at it later.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mythbusters+co2&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=05CE86A6ED976280B03605CE86A6ED976280B036
KK
00
00
I think there is a Lindzen paper on it. I don’t track references much. I do my own math instead, much more reliable than using heresay in papers.
10
Satellite measuements which show that the Earth is loosing slightly less energy to space through radiation than it receives from the Sun is probably an urban myth then.
19
Well this experiment and many others have the same defects. They supply the co2 from a pressurised bottle. The gass is colder than the rest of the air and compressed.
Released into a closed chamber with no pressure control it will heat, expand and thus do work.
And we all know that this will cause heat.
To do this correctly the co2 needs to be at same temperature as the room and the air in the box.
And since the idea is that heating from the earths surface is absorbed from co2 there is no need for any heat or light source.
In a simple experiment a box with 400 ppm co2 and a box with 800 ppm co2 should have different temperature. If not the idea of co2 heating is wrong.
The boxes needs to be isolated from the room or else they will loose heat to the room.
Best scenario would be placing the 2 boxes in a vacuum chamber
18
We appear to be losing the argument.
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/lowyinstitutepollinteractive/climate-change-and-energy/
20
Not at all. I took apart the last Lowy poll as loaded and pointless. Can anyone find the original?
143
As I recall you did, none of these polls really find out the truth about public opinion, to some extent Id like to crowdfund (here maybe) a real poll into Australians real opinions on climate change dint by one of the major polling outfits.
For example a very revealing question would be.
Only very minor influences on the climate can be made by taxes, it is estimated that 1 degree in temperature reduction would cost of the order of half a quadrillion dollars PA. How much are you prepared to pay to mitigate climate change – Nothing, 100 PA 1000 PA, 10000 Pa.
Asking Australians how much they are prepared to fork out is the real acid test, it’s easy to say ‘I believe’ it’s much harder to throw the cash into the plate. Indeed it was Gillard’s Carbon tax proposal and the large theft from my back pocket that was the catalyst that drove me to look into CAGW validity. Prior to the CT I was a believer, I was happy Rudd signed Kyoto. But when I did the math myself and singelhandedly disproved the whole idea was even possible with less than 5 minutes of basic arithmetic, I realised I’d been duped, lied to. I don’t like being lied to, and I’ve been a sceptic ever since
Having watched this play out since, I am reasonably convinced that the whole deal is about cementing a trillion dollar income stream to fund the UN. I call it an attempt to tax by treaty, a way for the UN to tax populations directly, bypassing legitimate sovereign government budgets via ETS schemes which guarantee the UN a slice of ETS turnover.
It’s wrong and it’s a sellout of us, the citizens
280
Bobl, it’s an obscene distribution of wealth to the obscenely unworthy.
140
An interesting survey question to be sure.
Another possible tack is: in order to decrease the temperature by one one thousandth of a degree, how many fully functioning hospitals are you willing to sacrifice? 10?, 100?, 1000?
160
Agreed, in fact I’d expand on this survey with opinions on various outcomes. For example, the increase in energy costs due to CO2 mitigation strategies has forced some people to avoid using winter heating appliances and has increased the winter death rate. 1. Do you think this is an acceptable outcome and 2. Do you think increasing the price of energy through Carbon Taxes or ETS schemes is an acceptable approach, given the undeniable detrimental effect on fuel affordability.
CO2 is a plant food and in the last 150 years the increase in CO2 has approximately double food yield. It is estimated that for each 2 PPM reduction in CO2 food yields decrease 1%. Do you think that it is wise to reduce CO2 and therefore food yields.
A good renewable substitute for coal fuel is flour, which has a similar energy content and flamability. Would you support the use of flour as a feedstock to power stations?
How about a real simple approach.
Would you rather your taxes be spent on solar panels and windmills or cancer treatment centres
Should we tackle world poverty, disease and water quality before climate change
Do you think we should tackle hurricanes in Manilla with windmills in south australia or cyclone shelters in Manilla?
Do you believe it is acceptable to deny the 2 Billion people on earth existing with minimal access to electricity access to the same cheap energy sources that have fueled the development of the western nations?
Do you believe that climate change should be fought “at all costs”
Is it acceptable for anyone to die as a result of the side effects of attempts to mitigate climate change?
141
Bobl said it so very well.
It is sad that CO2 does not restrict the exit of heat enough to lessen the impact of the next cold cycle though.
101
Thanks, sliggy, yes, CO2 is a pretty leaky blanket which is absolutely not going to save us from the next ice age.
90
Maybe we should start simple.
How knowlegeable do you feel about climate change
Very,
Some knowledge
Little knowledge
No knowledge
Do you think increased carbon dioxide from humans is warming the earth.
Yes, No, Undecided
How much
Nothing, or CO2 is reducing temperature
imperceptibly more
less than one degree per century
1-3 Degrees per century
More than 3 degrees per century
Don’t know
What effect would this warming have on mankind
Warmer climates are better for people
Little effect, about the same
Warmer climate would be slighly worse for people
Warmer climate would be catastrophically bad for people
Don’t know
Are you aware that since about 1997 there has been little or no global warming?
Agree,
Disagree.
Deny this statement is true.
Do you accept that charging more for energy can prevent this warming
Yes,No, Don’t know
What effect would warmer climate , increased rain and increased CO2 as forecast by the IPCC have on food production.
This would improve food production
No effect
This would impair food production.
Don’t know
Should we ‘fight’ climate change
Which of the following statement best describes your view
Climate change is good and does not need to be “fought”
Humans can’t control the climate and fighting it is futile
It’s too expensive to fight the climate
Fighting the climate has too many bad side effects to be worthwhile
Yes we should fight climte change
How much would you be prepared to pay to fight climate change
Nothing
Less than $1 per week
between $1 and $10 pw
between $10 and $100 pw
Greater than $100 pw
How do you normally vote
Liberal, Labour, Greens, Other.
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–
Survey questions should start a few steps before those technical climate ones –
1 – Do you know that every breath by every animal, including yourself, expels CO2, which after millions of years, has only very recently been called a toxic pollutant.
2 – Do you know that almost every lifeform on earth including yourself, is dependent on CO2 for their sustenance and preservation.
3 – Granted that these CO2 phenomena have been occurring for millions of years do you think estimates of the effect of CO2 for approx 0.000001% of this timespan into the future has any validity. (Please increase or decrease the number of zeros on whim.)
41
crowd funding is a great idea.
how about a separate post where the questions can be created and discussed?
50
Bob, indeed I started writing up some wicked questions on exactly that idea about a week ago, and I planned to float it here after I had sounded out a pro survey group for both quotes and questions.
181
Make sure you do a funding drive before, as poor as I am with my current bout of unemployment,I’ll contribute to that. PS, you know I have suggested by email to you before that we should do this.
We need an MSM outlet for the result, bolta and Michael Smith news perhaps. Who do we get to do the new York times article
40
Me too, Jo. Retirement does not a fortune make, but a good cause is always worth putting a hand in the pocket for. Count me in.
10
Bobl
Polls have been conducted in the USA recently and all show AGW is down near the bottom of worries with voters. Also one ( a Pew poll, I think) asked a question similar to the one you have proposed –ie. how much are they prepared to pay PERSONALLY towards the “problem”. The majority by far took the lowest option ( less than $100/year).
The Swiss voters about 9 months ago turned down the idea of an ETS type tax.
So you are absolutely right to suggest when it comes to “putting their money where their mouth is” most will not do so. In effect all other poll questions are just academic playthings.
40
For years the tide was running in our direction, then in 2013 it reversed. We may need to regroup and figure out what happened.
10
I nominate vastly improved propaganda.
‘Record temperatures in Australia in 2013 were almost certainly caused by man-made climate change, five separate studies have found.’
Cox / SMH
00
Jo
suggest to make own live poll on your own web. Keep this on top of your web with everyone to see the live count. Since you have high traffic this will be very representative as it will go into hundred of thousands responses after 12 months.
41
Radius,
The problem with that is that the survey becomes self selective, once activist groups start pouring in the result is not representative in any way. The best approach is that taken by professional pollsters take a representative random sample out of the phonebook. A pro poll is also much more likely to get picked up by the media and the pollsters have media outlet contacts that may pick up the poll. A Jo Nova Inc. Poll is not going to command the same attention.
10
It’s fairly typical of humans to be in favor of some etherical idea. It’s when they’re freezing to death in the winter, using candles for lighting, that reality enters. Unfortunately, by then it’s too late, but since it appears to be impossible to get energy providers to actually demonstrate what happens if you don’t use fossil fuels, it’s the way it’s going to go. We have one chance at this—shut down the fossil fuel associated businesses for a day. Then a week if no one wakes up. Otherwise, learn to love candles and fleece long handles.
Since millenials reportedly have the attention span of a nat, I’m not sure this will work unless all cell towers are shut down for a couple of weeks, too. It may look like a mess for a bit, but people would wake up.
70
If anything I see more scepticism than ever before (and better informed).
Warmist numbers can only dwindle: once someone is a sceptic (sans a warmist prediction actually turning out true) they will never go back.
40
Looking at the graph again it appears the sceptics and lukewarmers both gave up numbers to the warmists.
00
Please get some letters into The Australian following two important articles by Graham Lloyd quoting both David Stockwell and myself, regarding the legitimacy of the Bureau’s remodeling of Australian temperature data. For more information, and suggested text for your letter scroll down here… http://jennifermarohasy.com/2015/06/remember-rutherglen/
212
Unfortunately Jennifer that article is behind the Australians Paywall.
Maybe an email instead.
Jennifer, could I also point out that the report fails to deal adequately with the central issue that each adjustments needs a clear explanation so it can be audited and replicated. Indeed when I do this sort of modelling as an engineer, I follow a traditional approach – Input * transformation = Output, where the derived output remains always an input convolved with a transformation (transfer) function. That way, if there is a bug with my transformation functions (as with Rutherglen) then it’s simple to verify and fix the transformation function – it is beyond belief to me that the BOM does not use this methodology – if not just to make the data set maintainable. If what the report says is true, the data set is not well maintained at all…. it’s virtually unmaintainable.
If it is not done like this then the panel should demand it be redone properly
I have to say that while the report was in guarded political double-speak designed not to alienate the BOM I found that plenty of the recommendations were about basic data handling problems that no competent engineer would ever accept for a supposedly robust system. The report to me says – paraphrasing “we see the need for homogenisations, but we think the way you have done it is totally incompetent”.
121
Shades of HARRY_README.
The numbnuts keep trying to fit the data to their pet statistical methods. It reeks of incompetence.
101
Just visited “The Australian” and commented.
40
Jennifer, I just read the report in the Australian.
I continued to scroll down to the comments.
I wasn’t far into them when I came across this one.
What hope have we got of making “our BOM” accountable when they treat people with such contempt?
Abbott is not a warmest, that we all know.
But handing a warmest in Hunt the portfolio that could make them accountable and expecting some “action” is simply not going to happen.
“I find this report disturbing. I have collected data for the BOM on a volunteer basis for 32+ years and our family farm for 50years. The BOM stresses to meticulous keep our records – day, time and to 0.1 ml and then they “homogenise’ the data. What a lame excuse to diddle with figures!”
Antonio’s Wife
30
Hi Jennifer, just did. Thanks for your continuing efforts. Very important that persons of your stature keep on at this. They must release their data and workings so that they can be tested by competent independents.
20
While waiting for Jo & David’s update on climate.xlsm, I took matters in my own hands.
I came up with a very simple climate model, yes an other simple model.
I was inspired by the work of Dan Pangburn, and the model is based on his work.
If you are a fairly down to earth person, well be my peer and review.
You can download the model from here
20
Hi Jan
Your model unfortunately does not include the temperature reduction from 1945 to 1975,
It was very similar to that from 1880 to 1910.
Then the increase in temperature you indicate from 1977 to 1997 is exaggerated.
The increase you show from 1997 on is actually flat.
Your model is probably fine. It is the input data that is BS.
It is BS because the temperatures in 1945 were higher. They have been purposefully smashed through manipulation.
The increase to 1997 is exaggerated because it includes UHI and more manipulation.
The plateau from 1997 onward does not appear because the data has been affected by algorithms that bias it with the increase in CO2.
The end should be about minus 0.1.
I know. I was there.
61
Hi Rod,
The upswing in the 40’s and the correction in the 50’s are part of the dynamics the model can’t deal with.
These kind of deviations can also happen in the future.
As to the Hadcrut4 series, well the higher the version the better the quality?
The model can cope with the overall trend of Hadcrut3, but the deviations in the 40’s and the 50’s stand out the more.
10
Jan – I have looked at the model. The correlation is impressive.
In the download I have a lot of cells showing #REF! and I cannot be bothered to find out what is going on. However the graphs are still there.
I would be interested to see this tuned against one of the satellite records rather than HADCRUT as I believe those records have not been fiddled with as much as the earth based measurements.
In Melbourne it certainly feels like we are on the cusp of cooling as the model is predicting. Seems to be a larger number of record slow starts to summer in the NH and it is cold and/or wetter in parts of Australia than experienced for a while.
For such a simple model, with few tuning parameters, to so accurately track the temperature record over such swings would suggest it is not a good guess but a good model covering the key climate drivers. The GCMs have many more tuning parameters and quickly lose correlation outside the tuning range.
00
Rick,
The #REF! cells come from the moving average calculations referring to non existent data.
These cells are excluded from the R^2 calculations.
I fear the satellite records are too short to tune the model on.
I’ll give it a try though, if it is any good I will post the results here.
I am kinda curious myself.
Over here in the Netherlands, wont come off either previous month were too cold, June will be also.
But that’s weather, not climate.
According to the model a down tick would be eminent.
00
I see that the Senate Wind Inquiry has joined those who have been hoodwinked. The concentration has again been solely on the health aspects, and while they may be important, it sidetracks away from the real truth about Wind Power, that it fails to deliver.
South Australia is always used as the poster child for wind, and in fact it can be used specifically to point to the failings of wind power.
A little known fact is that South Australia consumes barely 6.5% of all of Australia’s power, around 13,000GWH of power.
Let’s do some Maths here, and use the Industry Standard for actual power delivery.
South Australia has the greatest amount of Wind here in Australia, and the total Nameplate for wind comes in at 1473MW.
So, the theoretical maximum power delivery from that amount of Nameplate is 12,912GWH, which is coincidentally, almost that State’s consumption total.
So, then why does Wind only supply 31% of the State’s power, something green supporters gloat about, but hey, who cares when it’s only 6.5% of Australia’s total consumption.
Ask them why it’s only 31% when they have enough to power the State. Let them actually say the words themselves.
Variability.
The Victorian Interchange supplies 16% of the State’s power, all that power from Victoria coming from brown coal burners, via a connector which is in the process of an Upgrade to take an extra 200MW next year.
They say that rooftop solar is making an impression when it’s barely managing a 13% capacity factor.
Then at the very top of the State report it says this in the first paragraph of the Executive Summary: (my bolding)
Now scroll down and look at Figure 2.
If the State does not require any new power for the next ten years, why is there the need for a proposed new wind total of 3107MW?
There is so much more which can be said about this, but it seems now that they can hide the truth in plain sight that wind is a flop, because no one has the slightest understanding of what is being stated here, and no one cares really. Greens will just SAY that wind is great, but the real truth is a complete other thing.
While health problems are indeed a serious thing, they are in fact a diversion. They scoff at those who complain of health issues, when if you asked them the correct questions, they would have no comeback at all.
Tony.
Link to Information This link will ask you to save a pdf document of 36 pages. It’s all in there.
160
This comment from Facebook is a reflection of the sad state of power engineering in Australia: (names concealed)
Later, when challenged by somebody with a clue:
I’ve checked and the name on Facebook does correspond to a “Senior Engineer” working in Tasmania. (His LinkedIn page says that he graduated with honors in 2006.)
We’re doomed.
140
That’s one Electrical Engineer not to consult.
50
Yes, there are a very few of them fortunately. Of course he fails to mention that the energy collector the size of south Australia has to be completely replaced every 15 years, that no CO2 will ever be sequestered or any food or oxygen production will ever occur in south Australia, and that it’ll only work during the day when it’s not cloudy. When he figures out where the water is going to come from for the monthly clean, and 3 times the current world reserves of lithium for the batteries please let me know.
Bat crazy… Must be a recent graduate
70
Well he does write a lot of obvious twaddle. Even those who don’t understand the engineering/science, may be taken aback but statements like
It’s like the mechanical workshop that advertises:
There’s so much obvious poppy-cock that one doesn’t even have to investigate his unsupportable claims about the state of the technology.
30
“Carnegie’s CETO technology has been under development for approximately 10 years and has had some $100 million invested in its commercialisation”
Just recently these ” senior engineers” got a grant of >13 mill of our tax dollars.
Whist I have no problems with anyone doing the renewables but commercialise without my tax dollars.
50
“I’ve seen show an area in the Sahara Desert roughly the size of SA absorbs sufficient solar irradiance capable of supplying the instantaneous average global power demand.”
Now that’s just nonsense. At a maximum 1.4kw/m2 and even the area of the entire Sahara at 9,400,000 km (10 x SA, the top third of Africa). I get 13Billion Megawatt, so x3600 = 46.8 Terawatt hours if sun overhead 24/7. Now allow for summer/winter, night/day, angle of incidence, say 20% and you get say 10Terawatt hours, still covering the entire of Northern Africa with something and assuming 100% efficiency in collection, conversion and distribution.
World energy consumption is more than 132,000 terawatt hours.
Apart from his mysterious 100% capture, conversion and storage, for actual photovoltaic, allow 13% efficiency, so under 1 Terawatt hour. Now drop 50% in distribution, even with those incredible as yet unused advances. 0.5Terawatt hours. We are only out 250,000:1. Of course that means covering the entire of North Africa with solar panels with motors to maintain angle of incidence. Now reduce to just covering the entire of South Australia and he is only out by a million.
So if this commentator is a Tasmanian senior electrical engineer with a calculator, he can try to justify his statement, but someone said it, so it must be right. Poor Tasmania.
30
Then just the solar panels for 9,400,000km2 at $400 per m2 means a purchase cost of 400 * 9.4*10^12 = $4*10^15 or $4*10^9 Billion. So just for SA, $4*10^8 billion or $4*10^5 trillion.
If the entire GDP of Australia at $1.5Tn was dedicated to paying for these solar cells the size of only SA, this represents say 300,000 years or if only the entire Federal tax receipts, 1.2Million years. I do not include installation or cabling costs. If only the SA government paid, say 30million years. Seems reasonable. Of course nothing could live in SA as it would all be black.
20
He is not the first person to offer such a silly opinion. Our very own Climate Commissioner, Prof. Will Steffen very publicly statedVictoria received double the solar energy needed.
I checked. He was right, except we would have to live somewhere else and there would be grass or trees or animals and the cost would be in the tens of trillions. Then you get the lifespan and the cost of the cleaners. I guess you do not have to be very clever to be a Climate Commissioner or even a meteorologist, as none of them were.
30
Sorry, no grass or trees or anything much. Billions of motors though and billions of miles of cabling and huge losses and a few other matters. Still, he was right.
30
No he wasn’t – on cloudy days, and let’s face it that’s most of winter in Victoria, it requires 5-8 times the area to do this, at these times the sun falling on Victoria is only 1/3 or less of that necessary to power Victoria, therefore even at 100 % efficiency you would need to carpet an area 3 times the size of Vic to power Vic. Then of course there’s efficiemcy, losses, and storage…
40
Agreed. He assumed sunny days, every day. However in gross terms it was right. My point was that even if it was arguable, it was absurd. You cannot harvest solar without creating shadow. This shadow would cover the state. Plus the cost would be in the trillions and the building time in the thousand year bracket. This is a PhD Chemist proposing something so ridiculous it beggars the imagination, which shows why the Climate Council is totally dysfunctional.
20
This is why I have declared Will Steffan math challenged. At the Ipswich climate conversation Will Steffan said both of
A. Global warming will be about 3 degrees for a doubling ( TAKING ABOUT 125 YEARS) AND B. that it would be 5 degrees by 2100 (6-7 degrees for a doubling). At least one of those numbers was a bald faced lie, and most likely both!
It’s where I learned Will Steffan PHD has no clue and can’t manage some simple arithmetic. The Gaffe about Victoria demonstrates his ineptness with math and complete ignorance regarding the dimensioning of solar power systems even more.
10
This leads me back to my oft-repeated comments about profoundly disturbing levels of illiteracy and innumeracy in Tasmania. Not to poke fun at Tasmanians, such as us mainlanders sometimes like to do, but to highlight a genuine problem – one which always seems far less important than certain other topics in the news, for one reason or another.
10
Tony:
There are so many problems with that document that I have given up on it. Too many simple arithmetic errors for a start. e.g. the CF for solar is 14.1%. The overall tone is “the Minister wants us to show all is well”.
They assume that consumption is going to decrease. Must be the only State wanting economic decline! Then they assume that the summer peak demand will be lower as well.
Then that there will be plenty of capacity available by increasing the “reliable” percentage of wind output. We both know what that meant in practice, the coal station running flat out and the interconnectors to Vic. running hot (literally).
In the near future the capacity from coal will disappear, and the interconnector upgrade will only add 35% of that lost capacity (assuming that in the heat it can run at maximum capacity). There is no more gas generation in the pipeline.
If the peak demand is the same as last year, then once the Coal station shuts down, the reliable generation capacity + the maximum rate from Vic. (assuming it is available) will be LESS than needed. In other words, no wind then blackouts.
50
I would guess that the CF for solar is just a little dependent on where the solar panel is young Murgatroyd!
And frankly it’s much much WORSE than Tony makes out. CF doesn’t account inverter, storage or transmission losses of up to 30% nor does it account for the fact that solar just doesn’t work very well on cloudy days. If what you want to do is replace coal then you need to judge capacity factor not on a mythical annual basis but over the period of storage you have.
Capacity factor is five times lower on that basis. I have calculated that a 1 GW reliable solar plant needs 15, square kilometers stripped of vegetation and tiled with solar panels. Solar power is practically useless, the carbon abatement you lose by stripping the vegetation under the panels is more than the abatement the panels produce
Before you start waving your hands, I should warn you that I and Jo’s other half are both EEs. We “do” math!
If you want to abate CO2 Mr Murgatroyd, plant mango trees or bananas, it’s the yummy way to abate!
30
Bobl:
Tis I, the computer has a mind of its own when it comes to remembering stale jokes.
The 14.1% figure is what is used in the report, not mine. Mythical it is, but it is not my myth.
Does your estimate include access roads? Experience with either Solar PV or solar heat indicates that 50% of the land is needed for maintenance, cleaning etc. not to mention avoiding shadowing the next unit. The bloke “Senior Engineer” doesn’t seem to realise that most solar heat plants are proving very poor. Ivanpah needs 4 hours of gas turbines time every morning.
P.S. far too cold here in SA this morning for mangoes or bananas. Fairly heavy frost, must be due to all that global warming.
40
No, when I said 15 Square km tiled with solar panels then I meant TILED not a sunbeam uncaught.
It also really doesn’t matter if it’s PV or bird frying mirrors, there is only so much incident energy.
Even at 100% efficiency and 100% capture so that it’s dark like night underneath, you’d still need 3 square km per GW for reliable solar
10
So then, allow me to make a totally useless point.
The whole State of South Australia currently consumes around 13,000GWH of power each year.
In that State there are:
One currently operational coal fired power plant. (Northern with 2 units, slated to close in three years)
One coal fired plant available on 90 days notice. (Playford with one unit, most probably never to deliver power again, now older than 50 years)
Five Gas Turbine plants (both OCGT and CCGT, operational as constant suppliers and as peak power suppliers)
Three other Gas turbine plants used sporadically.
16 Wind plants with around 700 plus towers.
Bayswater ….. JUST THIS ONE PLANT ….. with four units delivers more power each year than the whole of the State of South Australia consumes. Bayswater could supply all of South Australia, and sell the remaining power into Victoria via one or both of the Interchanges. Even with just three units in operation, it would still cover all consumption just for South Australia.
Total CO2 emissions would also be less as well.
The cost for this one plant would be far and away just a fraction of what they have paid for all those wind plants, and South Australia would have reliable electricity always there at a constant and cheap price.
See what I mean. What a totally ridiculous point to make.
Tony.
70
And, if I’m not mistaken, Bayswater’s reliability is about 98.5%. Correct me if I am wrong.
10
I wonder what happened to the court case where someone tried to have Bayswater shut down for emitting CO2, as it contravened an Act of some sort. The shoe-throwing chap, Peter Gray started this case, I think…?
00
Can anyone who believes in the ‘back radiation’ theory behind the idea of ‘greenhouse gases’. making the atmosphere close to the earth’s surface 33 degrees hotter than it would be if there were no such greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, point me in the direction of some experimental research that shows that a cold body can radiate energy at a higher level than a nearby hotter body already exhibits. Such is a necessary condition if the hotter body is to become hotter still as a result of energy transmitted to it from the colder body. I don’t really expect any such reference to be forthcoming, because I think it most unlikely that any such work has ever been done.
Any body with a temperature greater the zero Kelvin radiates energy, so the existence of back radiation from a colder body to a hotter one is not a problem. However the hot body is radiating at the same time and the net exchange of energy flows from hot to cold, with the unsurprising result that the hot body cools and the colder body warms up!
If heat could actually flow from cold to hot we would have the right conditions for a perpetual motion machine, and I think that someone a lot smarter than me would have patented the idea a long time ago.
84
David, you fall into a common trap. Back radiation is a totally unnecessary concept that climate scientists are invoking to explain the behaviour within the defined boundary of the system. It is as good an explanation as any. Traditionally in thermodynamics we define a boundary – say top of atmosphere and then we describe the net inflow/outflow across that boundary. If what is inside the boundary changes then the net outflow can change and the interior can become hotter to maintain the required flow across the boundary. An example.
Let’s say I have a lightbulb, there is 100 W of electrical power going into it. As a result there is then 100W of light and heat going out of the lightbulb. Now let’s say I coat the inside of the glass with aluminium paint. 97 % of the energy out of the lightbulb gets reflected and only 3% gets emitted, but there is still 100 W in, but this means the power in > power out, and the interior of the lighbulb heats up untill the emission reaches 100W again. Over time the Watt-hours in must equal the watt-hours emitted plus the watt-hours contained in the globe envelope in the form of heat – law of conservation of energy. Usually the bulb doesn’t survive and the filament melts or the glass breaks.
Effectively what you have done is prevented the filament from radiatively cooling, so in that case the temperature will rise. CO2 and water work the same way, they diffuse the energy at certain wavelengths returning some of it, or convert it to latent heat (kinetic energy) warming the atmosphere.
Problem though is that if you take that slightly raised surface temperature, all frequency emission rises according to the cube of the surface temperature thats a huge negative feedback. Any warming is quickly counteracted by increased emission at other wavelenghths.
111
Ooops. Replied at 1.1.1.2.1 above by accident.
10
Are you sure the bulb gets hotter because of radiation? If you put it in glass the total surface to radiate from gets larger..
The bulb will loose its capability to loose heat by convection and evaporation inside the glass and thus maby get hotter.
Butt if your 100w bulb have a surface area of 1 square meters it only needs to radiate
100w/m2
If you put it in the glass and the surface of the glass is lets say 10 square meters it only have to radiate 10w/m2
So the surface of the larger glass is colder yet transports the same amount of energy.
The radiation escaping wil always be the same since the energy suplied are the same. And radiation is the energy present in the forth power. And theenergy innput hasn’t changes so the radiatio can’t change.
01
It doesn’t matter – the defined boundary is the outside of the glass, that’s why I painted inside, however the inside of the globe over all must get hotter because it can’t shed energy which can neither be created or destroyed ( well outside of turning it into mass. In the limit we can reduce the reflector to just more than the size of the filament – the filament must get hotter if conservation is to be obeyed
In the short term the power from the globe can fall below 100 watts, but the gap goes into heating the inside of the globe, this continues until in the long term the inside of the reflector is hot enough to overcome the loss of emissivity and once again emits 100,joules per second, IE 100 watts.
30
The carbon dioxide, water vapour and all of the other so-called greenhouse gases absorb energy emitted from the earth’s surface at the energy frequency emitted by that surface. They cannot send it back at a higher frequency (unless they have a magic mirror or maybe a steel greenhouse?), so cannot cause the earth’s surface to reach a higher temperature as a result
01
David.
There is no fixed frequency of energy emitted from the surface. It is a wide range frequency response that changes according to how the Planck curve is perverted by it not being a black body and by reflection of atmospheric filtered light. For example visible sunlight reflected from ice or water. Also CO2 has peak absorbtion bands. Also Co2 absorbtion capacity is nonlinear accoring to the chart here. http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/4-carbon-dioxide-is-already-absorbing-almost-all-it-can/
This seems to make your first sentence wrong multiple ways. Can you please provide some evidence for your claim.
00
I think where every one gets stuck is why the filament should be hotter when the glass absorbs the energy.
If it was heat transfer through conduction then everyone would agree that the rate of heat transfer from the filament to the glass would depend on the temperature difference between the glass and the filament. If the former gets hotter then the latter needs to get hotter so as to have the net rate of heat loss from the filament to go back to 100W.
Why can’t people accept that its the same as for the net flow of photons when there is a vacuum between them?
The real problem is that if the Earth’s atmosphere was anything like this we should see the top of the atmosphere warm much faster than the surface and see a hot spot, as the glass warms up more than the filament.
10
Yes, it’s not particularly intuitive but it isn’t hard to visualise. If I take a bunch of thermal energy and I concentrate that energy into a smaller space then the smaller space gets hotter. This is what heat pumps do, in heating mode they suck heat out of a wide diffuse area and concentrate it into a smaller space. Think of it this way, photons are pouring out of the filament, the bounce all around the now reflective globe until finally they intersect with the filament, these “old” photons combine with new photons being created by the filament increasing the filament temperature.
Also there is a concept of radiation temperature, but radiation temperature isn’t temperature at all it’s a frequency, or rather a range of frequencies that a substance emits at a given temperature. The radiation temperature defines the photon energies ( frequency or color) but not the brightness. The amount of energy being emitted is a function of the frequency AND the brightness.
10
“Backradiation” is NOT “as good an explanation as any.” The radiation transfer theorists use it because it is needed to balance the supposed blackbody radiation (390 W/m^2 at 288K) they claim the Earth’s surface emits, and scientists like Roy Spencer believe in it because their radiation meters allow them to think they are actually measuring such radiation, when they are only reading the temperature expressed as the equivalent in blackbody radiation. Raymond Pierrehumbert, a leading voice for the radiation transfer theory, writes (in “Physics Today”, Jan. 2011, for example) with perfect assurance, that the Earth’s surface radiates like a blackbody at 288K; but in a competent scientific community he couldn’t get away with that for a second. A blackbody maintained at 288K and surrounded by vacuum–and thus only able to lose heat by radiation–will radiate 390 W/m^2; the Earth’s surface, at a mean temperature of 288K, loses heat not just from radiation but through the atmosphere by conduction and convection, and thus CANNOT radiate 390 W/m^2. To get around this, but incompetently, they invented backradiation to negate most of that imagined 390 W/m^2; in doing so, however, they deliberately choose to ignore the fact that their “explanation” involves a gross violation of the conservation of energy, as 390 W/m^2 (and the “backradiation” as well) is larger than the mean incident solar intensity (of 342 W/m^2) that is the input energy to the system. It is only the deep belief and intellectual investment in the radiation transfer theory that has kept the “lukewarmer” skeptics from becoming total deniers of the false greenhouse effect, as they should. Roy Spencer (or Anthony Watts, or Jo Nova, or etc.) is a good example of the intransigence of opinion, even among skeptics, of “greenhouse effect” believers against those of us who KNOW, based upon observed and verifiable facts, that there IS NO greenhouse effect whatsoever.
[Deniers is the word that got you into moderation. It isn’t prohibited but calling anyone a denier, either directly or indirectly or suggesting becoming one as you did, will not pass. We do not deny global warming or climate change on this site. We’re skeptical because no one presents empirical evidence to support it.] AZ
613
I believe you are wrong, because you don’t take account of time. Watts are NOT conserved Watt-hours (Joules) are. Watts are the time derivative of energy the rate of energy loss/gain.
CO2 and H20 are diffuse reflectors of IR energy as anyone who has ever compared the surface temperature of a cloudy night compared to a still clear night will tell you.
Back radiation is just describing the recycling of energy between the reflector (cloud / CO2) and the surface and it demonstrably happens and is real, but in classical thermodynamics it’s irrelevant because all that matters really is the rate of energy transfer out of the system vs the rate of energy into the system. How the energy is kept in the system is really irrelevant.
Please be careful not to mix up power (watts) and energy (Joules or Watt hours).
170
You are confusing CO2 (gas) and water vapour (gas), with cloud (liquid).
Clouds should not be conflated with so called greenhouse gases
11
Harry has not responded to my reply a week ago. Since the beginning of the year he has commented here on at least 3 occasions and did not respond to anyone’s replies. I have figured Harry does not monitor his comments on other web sites to see if anyone replies to them.
No comments from anyone appear on his own blog posts after 20 April, and I’ve certainly tried in 3 different ways over the last 4 days with no effect. It would appear comments are no longer possible on his blog.
Putting the above two facts together, one may surmise its because he isn’t interested in debating or learning, only lecturing people.
Whilst I realise the mistakes in his own reasoning do not absolve other people of their errors, it is at least ironic that Harry continues to complain about other people violating conservation of energy while his Venus argument is leaking Joules all over the space.
Similarly, I admit one strictly cannot judge the merits of his present backradiation objections by considering the wide array of other conventional scientific beliefs that he rejects. When you know all the answers it becomes quite clear that: no mutations are random, continents have never moved, the earth’s axis does not precess, there have never been ice ages, and there is no backradiation from atmospheric gases. It’s all very clear to Harry.
Further, based on his Amazon book descriptions, we’re all merely unenlightened algae-eaters compared to someone who has “discovered” “the great world design of the gods“, in which “Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Holy Grail, and many other fabulous ancient mysteries deemed forever unanswerable by science and religion alike, are here explained by the great design, encompassing not only the Earth but the whole solar system.” Undoubtedly the complete precise description of the physics of our climate must reside in Harry’s book somewhere, he is just teasing us by telling us how the climate does not work, rather than revealing the full details of how it does work, which he could do at any time now that he is in possession of “the great world design of the gods…encompassing not only the Earth but the whole solar system”. But such earth-shattering paradigm-busting knowledge does not come cheap. Oh no, it was arrived at by great personal effort and painstaking research and thus can only be yours for the exorbitant charge of 35 bucks. The secrets of the gods for the price of eight café lattés, and you know… if you order this weekend I reckon he might even throw in the Brooklyn Bridge for free.
But as amusing as a trip to Amazon can be, that doesn’t help us with testing the existence of backradiation.
So it’s lucky backradiation has been measured hundreds of times in dozens of places.
You will notice there are no comments from Harry Huffman on that web page either (nor on Part 2 or Part 3 of that series), despite the page on DLR measurements having existed on that relatively well known blog for five years, and despite it being the #1 search result for “measurements of DLR backradiation”.
Backradiation was even tested by Anthony Watts on WUWT two years ago, finding observational support for the proposition that a cold mirror can increase the temperature of the emitter. There are also no comments by Harry Huffman on that page.
So no comments by Harry on these two web pages, popular in the climate skeptic realm and containing evidence of backradiation. I could guess why, but I’d only be repeating myself.
Jeff Id describes this phenomenon quite well with a new word.
150
Andrew, I consider it a worthwhile use if my time to ensure that other are not taken in by scientifiky sounding rubbish.
The sky dragons aren’t right either, it is really quite simple, all natural systems are ultimately bounded by negative feedback. It doesn’t matter much how much CO2 is in the atmosphere because the temperature on the surface is ultimately controlled by the distance from the Sun and the depth of our atmosphere. Around that norm, only small variations are possible simply because E=k*t2/t1 cubed. The poor light globe doesn’t have to get 33 times hotter to emit 100 Watts again, it only needs to get 3 times hotter
38
Bobl @ 5.2.1
Absolutely! But it’s nice to understand the underlying processes and whether plunging the Earth back to the Age before Fire is a sensible solution?
I understand GHG theory and acknowledge its theoretical forcing effect. I also understand the ideas related to the adiabatic lapse rate from the practical perspective as a pilot and from the more academic perspective of the ‘slayers’ theory that proposes or restates the idea that gravitational ‘forcing’ drives the giant atmospheric heat engine that additionally may also be subject to tidal, lunar and solar gravitational influence.
What I struggle to understand (or simply don’t know) is whether atmospheric modeling and the planetary energy budget take into account (or do they need to?) these so called or proposed ‘gravitational’ drivers? It seems to me that current models and energy budgets appear to exclude this effect entirely, or perhaps its handled in a different way with different nomenclature? If so, why? Is the proposed delta t gravitational forcing irrelevant when compared with GHG effect?
Can anyone clarify please or simply point to a clutch of helpful links ?
Grateful.
03
It’s hard to say, as I understand it lapse rate is taken into account in the models but strictly speaking the lapse rate is set by the depth of the atmosphere and gravity. It should be 1/3 more than it is and by rights the earth should be hotter than it is. For the uninitiated if the atmosphere is stationary (not receiving outside energy) then at any height the potential energy plus the kinetic energy (temperature) should add up to the same total – energy conservation. If we don’t add any energy then as the height rises, the kinetic energy (temperature) must fall. This means that planets with dense atmospheres must be hot. Because the atmosphere is constantly channeling energy out, the atmosphere IS constantly receiving energy, this results in the total KE + PE increasing with height and a lower lapse rate than expected and a cooler earth.
This behavior is combined into an experimentally defined value called the lapse rate, it accounts both the gravitational effect and the average energy flows through the atmosphere. Personally I think it would be better to keep the two components separate, but that’s not how it’s done.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, because in the stratosphere the atmosphere is dominated by solar UV warming so the KE + PE relationship breaks down as KE becomes independent of PE.
I’m pretty sure this is right but if you are a meteorologist, feel free to correct me.
13
Thank you Bobl…no not a meteorologist, just elementary met for flying and gliding exams. If I understand you correctly, then in part at least, the temperature gradient associated with pressure/density altitude is properly accounted for energetically and includes solar and lunar gravitational influences?
As the atmosphere is not within a contained vessel, presumably it expands freely with rising temperature…so at the tropics / equator we see a deeper, less dense atmosphere and at the poles we see a less deep, denser atmosphere, with the consequential changes in the lapse rate?
Presumably the change in radius of the Earth, being greater at the equator with centripetal forces being greater also has an effect of the density altitude of the atmosphere that is accounted for in a Boyle’s Law manner, eg. temperature ?
13
I don’t think I’d go so far as to say properly accounted for. Will Kinimonth thinks they have got evaporation grossly wrong, and no, to my knowledge the models don’t account for expansion or localised lapse rate variations, or tidal effects of the Moon and sun or friction from the jet stream or vaporisation from wave energy. Nor do they even take account of the lag in feedbacks. They think they can just add up feedback effects that have different lags and get a scalar climate sensitivity! They are primitive scalar models, trying to model a dynamic feedback system using averages and guesses.
This is akin to trying to define the AC response of an amplifier using the DC analysis with half the components missing from the model.
13
A couple of links which have some equations on lapse rate:
• http://scienceofdoom.com/2012/08/12/temperature-profile-in-the-atmosphere-the-lapse-rate/
• http://moyhu.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/calculating-environmental-lapse-rate.html
This page has a complete derivation of lapse rate, barometric formula, and the adiabatic exponent of Poisson’s equation, of both Earth and Venus, and starting from only fundamental constants.
• http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/the-homework-problem-to-end-all.html
In all these explanations of lapse rate the local gravitational acceleration does play a part, in both the weight of the gas in a “hydrostatic equilibrium” context and also calculating the energy transport of rising air parcels, but check those pages as I was only skimming.
130
Thanks Andrew – your links range in utility, largely dependent on my math ability. In particular, I enjoyed the Science of Doom.
130
Andrew, here is an excellent essay on the whole alarmist diatribe, including the “greenhouse gas” theory.
312
Last one out, please switch off the lights, thanks. /sarc
Humans could vanish in worst mass extinction event since dinosaurs, scientists say
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/06/20/06/26/humanity-facing-sixth-great-mass-extinction-event
When you’re in the doomsayer business, if you make enough predictions of disaster like Paul Ehrlich has then eventually one of them by chance will become true.
Three things have bothered me about the “6th great extinction” claims. Firstly how do they know there’s a net loss when it’s more difficult to discover new species than to lose track of extant ones? Secondly how do they know the past rate of extinction when the conditions for fossilisation are very rare? Thirdly how do they know how many are actually going extinct today? This concern rates a mention, but a lot more digging would be needed to find out how they reach these conclusions:
Uhuh, so it’s a hockey stick of extinction. Where have we heard that one before?
On the other hand, if we think humans aren’t going to become extinct soon, what strategy do we actually have in place today for ensuring that desirable outcome?
I don’t think the situation has to get nearly as bad as “sixth great extinction” level to realise that replacing natural biomes with houses and agriculture is going to kill off species that can’t adapt to other niches. To some extent there is an objective basis to conserving biodiversity, because the network of ecological dependencies that support our food and timber involves a multitude of critters that don’t immediately spring to mind when you think “steak”. Preserving biodiversity is universally self-serving up to that point, or in other words it’s a common need regardless of whether you know it.
Beyond that point it is all about aesthetics, critter cuddliness, or other Star Trek-like fundamentalist policies of non-interference. People can certainly place no value on such things if they wish. We’re again left with the dilemma of resolving competing interests in society for finite or unique resources. The answer is ultimately to end human population growth, as zero is the only sustainable rate of growth of any real world quantity. That is the only way that recycling can become the normal source of materials. By having a (nearly) closed cycle on materials we can then have (nearly) zero new forest clearings, dams, mines, and cities, because aside from energy we’ll already have every resource we’ll ever need stockpiled within the human economy. That is the only way to sustain our industrial civilisation, therefore it is inevitable, it’s only a question of precisely how and when.
Preserving biodiversity is therefore a side-effect of the only solution for preserving our civilisation. To save the wildlife we only need to save ourselves.
Paul Ehrlich was correct that there are limits to growth, but he was wrong that this limit would only be reached via an imminent massive disaster. We’re smart and we can understand what is inevitable in the two different options available (sustainable versus unsustainable). We’re just weak at acting on the products of our intellect, mainly due to our economic “future discount rate” plus the Prisoner’s Dilemma that arises amongst industries and nations when trying to use collective action to avoid the classic “tragedy of the commons” scenario. It seems human nature that when “everybody” is responsible, nobody acts responsibly.
It’s a big problem, so let’s divide and conquer. Selling every square metre of land and ocean to private owners, under the assumption that people always take care of what is personally theirs, seems like a good bet but is a very long way off from being politically plausible in a world of pro-Big Government parties.
I think preserving distinct sovereign nations instead of having them all “free-trade suicide pact” themselves out of existence will be preferable to seeing them all absorbed into a giant UN World State. A World State can screw up everything, but a single country can only screw up itself. If countries believe that what they’ve got now is all they will ever have, they are more likely to preserve it. This also implies that keeping the international peace militarily is important to biodiversity conservation, as that way countries don’t seek to capture and misuse resources similar to what they’ve already squandered at home.
It’s amazing the sorts of ideas that such a crappy ninemsn wafer-thin AFP article can conjure up.
Anyhow, basically, people want to save industrial civilisation and that implies saving the critters too.
30
Talk about switching off the lights. Isn’t it a bit ironic that Sydney has a Vivid Festival and Melbourne has the White Night Festival and now this is extolled (by The Age of things): http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/winter-solstice-2015-a-12hour-journey-through-melbourne-at-night-20150616-ghmiph.html. What happened to Earth Hour?
60
Thanks to an entertaining Facebook discussion started by someone I know, I posed this to someone of a distinct “(western) humans are evil, and we must save the world from them” mentality, to see what response I would get:
What should “the climate” be doing now if it was definitively left to its own devices? Where does “natural variability” end, and “human influence” begin? Why have we never seen any alarming graphs showing just how far away the Earths climate is from natural variability? Surely we cannot reasonably expect to quantify the human impact on the climate without some reference to work with?
Needless to say, I didn’t get a response, aside from “we should all lower our carbon footprint, because that’s the right thing to do”.
Then, it made me think, just because I have never seen such a model, does not mean it hasn’t been attempted, and whilst I read a bit on the subject, I do have my own area of expertise, and a social life of sorts which takes up my time, so I am far from being close to being an ‘expert’. If it has been done, why would such a model have any more credibility than those done to predict the ‘world is doomed’ future?
60
I once had dinner with some warmists I know and I said, you know, our government is spending 10 Billion on climate change yet can’t find 100 Million for a proton beam cancer treatment facility at woolongong university, how can you justify that.
To my surprise they said, all the people with cancer should just be left to die because the worlds population is too high. This floored me because the person who said it has a mother who is a cancer survivor… They were effectively saying that they was happy to sacrifice their own mother/mother-in-law on the altar of climate change…. I was pretty shocked.
121
Grr, were not was, I should proofread my edits better
20
And Bobl, Wollongong is a bit like the Mickey Mouse Club theme song:
Wo llo ngong
Mickey Mouse.
Forever let us hold our banner high
High
High
High.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5ZOcIc_pKk
00
If you want to drop the world’s population by 6.5 billion, you can’t be very picky about who’s going to have to take one for the team. And they call themselves “compassionate”.
80
I know how you feel, Bobl. I can’t even talk to my two daughters or their (in law) families about it as the venom that gets directed my way, even by my own flesh and blood, is very upsetting. It is so sad, as I am not even able to engage in a reasonable conversation to express my point of view and discuss theirs. It is going to come as a major shock to them when this all blows apart. I just hope I live to see it. I guess I have 25 years left (I am just on 75). What do you reckon my chances are?
121
I have noticed that as well. When one attempts a discussion with the previous generation, there are two possible outcomes:
a) The other party refuses to discuss. Either too busy or too involved with a cell phone or some other electronic gadget.
b) Rather than argue a point, the other party becomes verbally violent, cursing and swearing and name-calling in a manner that would make a welder blush.
So far as I can see, the reason for this is pretty will explained by Diana West in “The Death of the Grown-up”.
61
“that would make a welder blush.” what the F^%K is that supposed to mean? 😉
The inability of overzealous believers to discuss anything rationally reminds me of a Santayana quote from The Life of Reason,
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.
30
My apologies.
I had originally written “make a sailor blush” and changed it.
It made me sound like an old fart (which I am).
Having made a career out of gas turbines used on pipelines, I am well aware of the colourful language employed on the typical pipeline spread.
It was a poor choice of words. It obviously does not apply to ALL welders. If it’s any consolation, pipeline welders are among my favourite people.
50
No problems Rod, all in good fun, some of my favorite people are old farts. 🙂
50
A bit ironic that this has just been posted on the Catallaxy Files.
“It is now commonly said that the first person in an argument to invoke the Nazism comparison loses. I would like to propose that use of the ‘vested interest’ defence should be similarly treated.
Anyone who engages in public debate has a ‘vested interest’.
Leftists seem to be blind to the fact that ‘vested interests’ are not just financial. They can equally be ideological.
Pope Francis’ recent encyclical is a case in point.”
30
Well the average person has a ‘vested interest’ in any decisions made by elected powers or otherwise, as it affects their lives no matter how plebian or insignificant it’s deemed to be by the blind arrogance of those who have lost vision of the real world.
The true beauty of liberty is the empowerment of anyone to better their existence and those that hold the same belief, anyone that suppresses this empowerment does so only to serve themselves or whatever enslavement ideal they embrace out of poor character.
20
Dunno Peter, I’m fighting to get there myself.
Advice start simple, say the argument, if we lower CO2 to preindustrial 270 PPM we had when the world had 1.8 Billion people food production would fall about 50% in a world of 7.billion people, The resulting famine would kill more people than even existed then!
It’s a simple dependency argument, mankind is dependent on C02. reducing supply of something you are critically dependent on for survival is madness.
Another initial argument that seems to get them thinking is. How insane is it to mitigate CO2 by charging more for the very commodity that man ultimately uses to insulate himself from climate variation – IE energy. How many people in the US north last winter would have died if they couldn’t heat their homes? how many people are you prepared to deprive of winter heating or summer aircon
Go along with them and ultimately say, the only way to safely abate CO2, is to turn it into oxygen and food by feeding it to more plants. Gives them a harmless objective. They can keep their religion, and be hollier than their peers with that.
20
I like the way you think Bobl.
I’m a bit trepidatious about the ease with which one could assume that an increase in CO2 concentration from 270 ppmv to 400 is a result of fossil fuel use to any significant extent.
I know that is not what you meant, but it could be interpreted that way.
20
That’s a technical argument but in cult deprogramming you need to start by dismantling the emotional attachment the cultee has to the cult while offering a sane olive branch they can hang on to. Whether the increase in CO2 is natural or not is only relevant to you.
They believe man can change it, your mission is to show that in the miniscule chance they actually succeed the outcome/cure would be worse than the disease. On the IPCC numbers going back to 270 PPM would reduce temperature by 1 degree making it colder than the little ice age and decrease food production to 50% of today’s… This is what their belief says! It doesn’t take a great mind to see the threat in that. This is why I see Obama’s drive to reduce CO2 as unconstitutional – on his own numbers… He is threatening to starve most of the population and make Alaska unihabitable.
Argument: let’s say you are right and moreover lets say that we succeed in reducing CO2 back to 270 PPM on an IPCC 3.3 degree per doubling basis, what happens. Temperature falls 1.2 degrees to 0.5 degrees below LIA temperature, crops fail in Europe and North America due to shortened growing seasons, Alaska, Russia and northern Europe and Asia start to glaciate, crop yields elsewhere fall 50% due to CO2 deprivation, people die.
It’s all happened before.
41
Fair enough.
starve most of the population and make Alaska unihabitable
00
Bobl,
Eugenics is a word that describes a similar philosophy.
Nazism is word that describes similar political views.
Socialism is a simile for that political philosophy.
71
And the green blob aspires to all the above with the ultimate aim of human genocide unparalleled in history.
In the next 20 years people will talk about the right to reproduce unless green inspired eg mass poisoning of water won,t happen first.
41
Dariusz,
Absolutely correct.
Now I’d like to draw you attention to the red thumb each of us recently achieved, from the typical socialist bedwetter, and no better example than this to be getting on with – how the green/socialist/left wing luvvies shout and scream in support of such things as secularism – separate state from religious institutions, they cry and litigate, and then they protest and rally to demand that people of different religions and beliefs are equal before the law.
They demean our Prime Minister as the ‘Mad Monk’ because of his religion then turn around and demand he listen to the Pope because of his encyclical that included support for action on climate change.
They demand that everyone be treated equally yet demand that specific minority groups and fanatic religions be treated favourably.
They demand action to protect endangered wildlife yet ignore the horrendous toll on native birds taken by wind farms.
It’s crazy, tossed up, never come down again world.
101
Personally, I am very sceptical of this “horrendous toll on native birds” you mention. Aren’t you?
02
Why?
10
Craig,
All is not lost, at least you are sceptical of something.
20
Craig,
And I may have some links to cure you raging scepticism of all things supporting a null hypothesis and risks to bird life:
Start with your ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/bird-strikes-at-wind-farms/4668750
Then move on to your Labor Government’s Policy
http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/2d42fcbd-31ea-4739-b109-b420571338a3/files/wind-farm-bird-risk.pdf
And finally a link from your Smithsonian
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/?no-ist
30
I guy who went to mass in Canberra tonight told me it was as hot as hell.
He has it on good authority from a very high source, that it is going to get even hotter.
Still, I guess Saturday night mass in Canberra in June has always been very warm?
70
NOT
20
Hell must have high humidity then.
Or a strong Westerly wind blowing from across the desert.
Perhaps Hell has both 🙂
10
Canberra, a place full of rent seeking politicians that make critical decisions that affect our daily lives sounds like hell on earth to me…
30
The forecast for Canberra tonight is minus five.
You reckon that it might freeze some sense into those turkeys?
30
Hell hath no fury like a warmist scorned?
20
I hope some qualified science communicator somewhere someday would write a book about the true facts of these issues for children which children could understand.
40
A snake eating its tail.
Expecting to get fat.
A snake eating your tail.
Expecting to eat still more.
No snake. No you. No more.
There are makers and takers. The takers want to eat their cake. Then take your cake and eat it too. When they have no more cake to eat, they blame you, the maker, for not having more cake for them to take.
90
You just described government in a nut shell (or nut-shell).
11
…which children AND POLITICIANS could understand.
20
“A warm and sunny, blue sky weekend”
This weekend it will another blue sky and warm 92F (102F on Sunday)
It is great weather.. wishing everyone the same 😀
20
Gee…thanks! It is freezing here….there is a goodly frost outside and the heater is struggling to keep us warm!
10
Annie it’s very icy here this morning so I checked the BOM observations, -3.7°C @ 07:30 I couldn’t open the car door without hosing down the car, couldn’t use the hose because the water was frozen in the pipes, luckily my pipes weren’t frozen so it got a hit of yonnie-freeze, great success!
30
Well done Yonnie! It was so cold here all day that there was ice on the above ground swimming pool that couldn’t melt. Family and friends in England find this hard to believe as they have this picture of Australia that is always sunny, hot, blue skies, beaches and bbqs! Ha Ha…I think not.
10
A sunny blue sky here in Tasmania as well.
Minus 3.5 this morning and anticipating a high of ten.
Firewood inventory has been diminished so far by about one fifth of capacity.
At this rate the contents of the woodshed won’t last until mid September.
Enjoy yourself in Utah. It’s probably air conditioned in one of those “dry” bars.
30
97 degrees with a lot of humidity here
hope someone likes it
00
Some thoughts on UN tentacles
https://hro001.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/catching-up-a-trip-down-memory-lane/
10
Global warming theorists – a modest suggestion”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/global-warming-theorists-a-modest-suggestion/
20
Re power and the poor
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/6/17/ippr-admits-renewables-hit-the-poor-hardest.html#comments
20
Sun-Climate 101 in the context of marine air & sea surface temperature (MAT & SST) adjustments (ICOADS, ERSST, HadNMAT):
• ☼ • ☼ • ☼ •
http://s12.postimg.org/cjk19opyl/Sun_ERSST_ICOADS_Had_NMAT_Solar_Cycle_Sunspots.gif
• ☼ • ☼ • ☼ •
I’ve outlined step-by-step how NOAA’s lowess filter failed at the abrupt 1940 WWII step.
I’ve added a step-by-step walk-through of how the filter corrupts the last 30 years (…something which probably interests people more than the EOF/PC corruption that’s advisably of broader concern).
Everyone please have a look at the step-by-step notes on the 1940 WWII bias spike and the unjustified 1985-2015 decadal “bias” (no such thing exists) “corrections”.
If anything is unclear — for example to Bob Tisdale who tries to sensibly advise the broader community about this record falsification issue — let’s please quickly get it cleared up before I redirect my focus back to heavier spatiotemporal diagnostics.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/noaa-tries-to-make-global-warming-slowdown-vanish/
Thanks
I know people here don’t want them rewriting history like that.
51
97% Doomsday Global Warming ‘Humour’:
May, 2014, The Guardian: Great climate change comedy moments in video clips
Saturday 20 June 2015, The Guardian: Handle with humor: why we want you to laugh about climate change
. . .
There is nothing funny about the morbid 97% global warming doomsday, unless laughing at the failed 97% doomsday believers and their failed apocalypse predictions.
31
with Ehrlich back in the news, to coincide with the Papal (Bull) Encyclical, Lloyds/Anglia Ruskin/Club of Rome/FCO add their bit to the cause:
16 June: Lloyd’s: Food system shock: The insurance impacts of acute disruption to global food supply
This report is intended to help underwriters operating in the Lloyd’s market identify previously unconsidered food security impacts on insurance and risk.
LINK: Food system shock: The insurance impacts of acute disruption to global food supply (764.71 KB, pdf)
The scenario – developed by experts in food security and sustainable development economics – was peer-reviewed by a diverse group of leading academics, before being presented to insurance industry practitioners for assessment at two workshops.
The scenario described in this report is not a prediction; it is an exploration of what might happen based on past events and scientific, social and economic theory…
(LINK: Executive Summary
includes: Lloyd’s developed the scenario and its likely impacts with researchers from Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in conjunction with members of the UK/US Task Force on Resilience of the Global Food Supply Chain to Extreme Events, supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.)
http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/risk-insight/library/society-and-security/food-system-shock
Anglia Ruskin University: Global Sustainability Institute (GSI)
Global Resources & Risk
Resource constraints
In 1972 the Club of Rome produced a report the Limits to Growth. This used systems dynamics theory and computer modelling to analyze the long term causes and consequences of growth in the world’s population and material economy…
See below for projects falling under this theme.
Climate change, resource scarcity & conflict…
LINK: Climate change, resource scarcity & conflict(798 Kb)
http://ww2.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/global_sustainability_institute/our_research/resource_management.html
01
ClickGreen on the Lloyd’s report:
16 June: ClickGreenUK: Lloyd’s report finds global food system is threatened by climate change
by ClickGreen staff
Launched today at Expo Milano 2015, the study shows how three events – El Nino, the spread of windblown wheat rust in Russia and warmer temperatures in South America – could lead to wheat, maize, soybean and rice prices quadrupling, significant losses on European and US stock markets, food riots and wider political instability.
The key findings of the report include:
• A combination of just three catastrophic weather events could lead to …..
http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/analysis/business-analysis/126166-lloyds-report-finds-global-food-system-is-threatened-by-climate-change.html
11
The Green Pope Encyclical update: Hell Freezes Over
Right-Wingers Claim Texas Flooding Caused Not by Climate Change but Witchcraft and Sodomy
~ ~ ~
Semitic religions are the root cause of global warming: RSS leader Suresh Soni
~ ~ ~
Cold weather in the United States is a punishment sent by God for “our sinful failure to take care of the Creation”
In a recent column, theology professor Susan Thistlethwaite explained that “frigid weather” was an “example of the kind of violent and abrupt climate change that results from global warming.
Hell is normally depicted as a “lake of fire,” as in Revelation 20:10.
The future prospects are chilling.
10
A MUST-READ:
20 June: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: The Pope joins the EU in a sad world of make-believe
There are two great acts of political make-believe in our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they are having on our lives
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11688994/The-Pope-joins-the-EU-in-a-sad-world-of-make-believe.html
20 June: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: Test-case wind turbine will ruin cathedral view, say Lincoln locals
Lincoln Cathedral, an imposing building set on a hill in a county renowned for its lack of gradients, has defined the local landscape for hundreds of years. But plans for a wind farm on the nearby estate of vacuum-cleaner tycoon Sir James Dyson, with turbines twice as high as the cathedral, have raised fears that the area’s unique character could be destroyed.
The proposed wind farm near the village of Nocton, eight miles south-east of Lincoln, would be one of the biggest in the country, made up of 20 turbines, each 149.5 metres high…
Local people fear it would be noisy, damage property prices and threaten wildlife such as endangered lapwings and Marsh harriers. But their biggest concern, it seems, is the damage it could do to the view.
“Lincoln Cathedral defines the landscape for miles in each direction,” said Melvin Grosvenor, who lives in the village of Baumber, 10 miles west of the proposed site. “This [wind farm] would spoil the long-distance view that has existed for a thousand years and change the character of the whole area.
***The development would also set back the cathedral’s campaign to become a UNESCO World Heritage site, he said…
Lord Cormac, a life peer who lives next door to Lincoln Cathedral, is, if anything, even more strongly opposed to the development than Mr Grosvenor.
“I believe onshore wind farms in general are unreliable, uneconomic and very unsightly. But this one, of 20 turbines roughly twice the height of Lincoln Cathedral, placed in an area of quiet natural beauty, is a ghastly and monstrous proposal,” he told The Independent on Sunday. “It would completely ruin centuries- old views of one of the most majestic buildings in Europe.”…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/testcase-wind-turbine-will-ruin-cathedral-view-say-lincoln-locals-10334229.html
21
Spiked’s O’Neill with an amusing take on the encyclical at Reason:
20 June: Reason: Brendan O’Neill: Pope Francis Embraces Green Theology to Demonize the Modern World
The pontiff adopts the gospel according to Greenpeace
Pope Francis’s eco-encyclical, issued to great fanfare this week, might be hyperbolic, anti-progress, and seemingly keen to bring the hotness of hell up to Earth. (How else do we explain its mad aside against air-conditioning, which the pontiff brands as one of humanity’s “harmful habits”? Clearly he wants to heat us up in preparation for our eternal frying for all the eco-sins we’ve committed.) But we should nonetheless be grateful that, for all its dottiness, this humanity-lecturing letter has been published. For it shows in black and white—and green—what a colossal amount in common there is between environmentalism and Catholicism…
He instinctively recognises that environmentalism represents the greatest challenge to what he no doubt views as the error of Enlightenment. And he’s right. Those of us who still believe in progress, and in humanity, and who think Prometheus had the right idea, will need to wage war on green thinking as determinedly as those Enlightenment greats stood up to the humanity-binding mysticism of their eras.
https://reason.com/archives/2015/06/20/pope-francis-embraces-green-theology-to
NYT prefers a serious, philosophical defense of carbon dioxide emissions trading!
20 June: NYT: Joseph Heath: Pope Francis’ Climate Error
(Joseph Heath is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto)
TORONTO — AMONG environmental activists, the international market for carbon credits is often compared to the medieval sale of indulgences. Pope Francis presides over the Roman Catholic church, the institution that created the market for indulgences, so you might expect him to be more sympathetic on this issue…
I find nothing objectionable about the pope’s moralizing tone and language of “sin.” But his skepticism about market-based solutions to climate change is rooted in a misunderstanding. A market-based approach to controlling greenhouse-gas emissions — through carbon taxes or tradable emissions permits — does, in fact, reflect moral conviction. The pope gets carried away condemning the “efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy,” overlooking the fact that efficiency, in this context, is a moral principle…
For countries that rely on nuclear power, like France, or burn very little coal, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions is enormously costly. By contrast, China can achieve reductions at a small fraction of the cost. So it makes sense for the reductions to happen in China, not France. This is what emissions trading allows….
The problem of climate change is so urgent that we cannot wait around for people to come to some kind of spiritual agreement. What we can demand, here and now, is that people pay the full cost that their consumption imposes on others, including future generations.
This is what carbon pricing achieves. This market-based solution, precisely because it is liberal, is the only one that has any chance of serving as a basis for global cooperation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/opinion/pope-francis-climate-error.html?_r=0
00
The end of the pause should soon see a lot of egg on face.
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/02/24/global-warming-likely-to-accelerate-after-pause-say-scientists/
31
el Comedio, if you hadn’t noticed the pause has already given a lot of egg on face – to those that failed to predict it.
But now we are promised even more warming, purely on the /assumption/ that the sensitivity of co2 is big enough to cause catastrophic warming.
40
The Klimatariat failed to predict the pause and the warmist support group have come up with more than fifty reasons why.
They are zealots and feel no shame.
The average person in the street may not be too aware of the pause, but they know its stopped and that can’t be a bad thing.
12
And if it doesn’t accelerate el gordo??????????
What if the pause doesn’t end as is predicted from the current ElNino.
And don’t forget that even if it does get warmer from the ElNino, when it cools from the almost certain LaNina the pause is back, perhaps more than just a pause.
You might just need to get some practice in to dodging cackleberries.
10
It won’t accelerate, we already know that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming.
If the pause doesn’t end within a decade the lukewarmers win.
El Nino looks like a non starter, so its anyone’s guess where its going from here. My money is on a global cooling tipping point.
32
Eating your own? Give the gal a break!
10
I don’t have a gender identity problem.
So the north goes ahead, congrats.
00
Been a hard slog over the years. Egg on the detractors.
00
That’s true, but at this late stage they won’t be admitting they lacked political vision.
00
What we do know is that if we place CO2 in an infrared transparent glass jar in a laboratory, the CO2 will be opaque to certain narrow bandwidths of IR. I don’t know if subsequent secondary radiation from the CO2 in that glass jar has been measured, and if so what is the rate of secondary radiation. I would think that once it has absorbed X amount of IR that it would no longer appear to be opaque because it would be radiating as well as absorbing.
The truth is I’m speculating I just don’t know. Just what happens in the atmosphere I assume nobody knows with certainty. With inter-molecular collisions taking place, just what happens to those photons?
Then enter convection, what then? Yes I’ve seen all the diagrams with values inserted, and maybe they are mostly right, but they won’t be perfect. Some of the parameters are not able to be measured with sufficient precision.
Then of course there’s political and monetary incentives, throw in a bit of speculation and the natural human resistance to admitting that you were wrong.
20
Small detail…I assume the gaseous composition within the lab jar = the atmosphere?
If only CO2 rather than air, there will be an obvious problem of comparison?
00
Will solar PV survive? NOTE that the payback time now exceeds the life of the panels.
The Spanish government wants to impose new fees on consumers that use batteries to store electric power produced by their own solar panels. In early June, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism released a draft of proposed legislation designed to discourage the use of solar charged batteries by people who produce their own electricity. Under the proposed legislation, consumers that owned small solar-plus-storage systems would be forced to pay about $10 per kilowatt (kW) of installed capacity. In the residential sector, the fee would nearly double the payback period from 16 years to about 31 years for solar plus storage systems. Consumers that owned larger solar-plus-storage systems (i.e., > 15 kW) would be charged about $41 per kW. To add insult to injury, the proposed legislation also says that anyone who violates the self-consumption rules would be subject to fines of as much as $68 million. The fee would not apply to off-grid solar plus storage systems or instantaneous consumption of power generated by solar equipment. Even with these limitations, the proposed legislation would effectively destroy the Spanish market for cutting-edge products like Tesla’s Powerwall battery if it is approved.
AND
For 30 years, local power companies have had to buy excess electricity from Minnesota homeowners who have solar panels on their roofs and farmers with small wind turbines. The utilities must also sell electricity to those customers when they need it. The arrange-ment is known as net metering. Beginning next month, however, a municipal utility or a co-op can begin charging new net metering customers a “reasonable and appropriate” fee simply for being part of their electric grid system. The change was part of a larger jobs and energy bill that lawmakers passed in last week’s special session. It was needed, said Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, chair of the House panel that deals with energy issues. “Under the current system, people who have distributed generation, solar panels on the roof or their own personal windmills, they’re able to use the grid without charge and this means higher rates for other consumers,” he said. “We fixed that so it will no longer be a problem moving forward.”
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Note here that no matter what you are told at the front end, there will always be changes to the rules and conditions later on.
A 31 year payback for rooftop solar panels.
Wonderful! That’s, umm, 6 years longer than the absolute best case scenario for the life of the panels.
Oh dear!
Tony.
20
I noticed from another website that Maurice Strong who was a head honcho who started the ball rolling for U.N. and international climate warming controversy is now living in Beijing, China.
00
On Mr Strong, the key phrases seem to be “$988,850.00” “Tongsun Park” “UN Oil-For-Food scandal”.
20
not sure where to reply on the idea of organising a survey, so shall add some thoughts here.
first, there is no point doing such a survey without first providing some facts and figures for those being questioned.
for example, official acknowledgement of the pause & how it proves the IPCC projections were wrong.
the additional co2 emissions being factored in for China and India.
the real costs of solar and wind, including the requirement for backup baseload energy.
the trillions of dollars UNFCCC & others claim will be required.
the public has been so mis-informed, they need facts and figures on which to base their responses.
second, all questions should then be about manmade global warming, not climate change.
only then would a poll on the subject have any meaning.
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I concur, especially that man made global warming should be used as the topic. While you mean well giving the facts can be interpreted as an attempt to skew the result.
It could go like this though, where you ask for the opinion before and after offering the fact.
Has the temperature risen perceptably over the last 17 years?
…
Scientists now admit there has been no significant warming over the last 17 years, assuming this is true in your opinion how does this change the need to act.
Doesn’t change,
More reason to act
Less reason to act
21
Hi Bobl, as a layman I follow all these discussions as best I can which is to say I miss much. 🙂 I have a question; how come CO2 molecules in the atmosphere are absolved from warming by CONDUCTION from all the kinetic collisions with surrounding air molecules?
14
Good point Richard
I believe that the temporary increase in temp of CO2 molecules is only for a fraction of a second it takes to interact with other nearby molecules; and as you suggest, this includes transfer of energy by collision.
Energy does not collect in the CO2 population exclusively. I suspect that this is the condition used by warmers to claim that energy can be radiated back to Earth as “back radiation”.
In fact back radiation of a sort must occur, jusrt as there is sideways and forward radiation in a spherical distribution but it doesn’t go very far. Microns!
23
Microns? Maybe I am misunderstanding. The radiation travels at the speed of light until it hits something. Why microns? That will make for a very long process for energy absorbed by the earth to be emitted back to space if it proceeds in microns with a spherical re-emittance at each step.
10
Quick answer is that they aren’t but when a CO2 molecule gets hit by a photon a number of different things can happen. For the most part the likely result is either an electron somewhere gets elevated, or one of the bonds in the molecule starts to vibrate. This excited state can only exist for a short time. It’s possible that the excitation might interact with another nearby molecule imparting kinetic energy to it (warming it up) but the most likely outcome is that the CO2 molecule will emit a photon of IR in a random direction. There is a slightly less thaan 50% chance that this photon will be directed at the ground. This flux is what they call back-radiation. I just call it diffuse reflection. The mechanism is rather similar for water vapour and clouds, though in clouds wich are droplets of water, the scattering of lught is mostly due to refraction rather than absorption and re-emission.
In the case where heat is carried to the CO2 molecule by convection and conduction, Heat = Kinetic energy = the speed of the molecule (since the mass is constant). The heat (KE) itself if above certain thresholds can make the bonds vibrate (ie through a collision with the fast moving (hot) molecule). Note that temperature in a liquid or gas is a distribution, even at relatively low temperatures a few molecules are still very fast (hot).
Once in this excited state, the temperature (KE) of the molecule falls, but the molecule is excited and able to emit a photon. This is how the earth cools.
Interestingly this brings about a problem, if convection is not rate limiting, then having more CO2 or water molecules emitting in the upper atmsophere aught to increase the average rate that convectively transferred heat can be shed from the earth, that is, intuitively I think it should cause net cooling? I’m not particularly confident about that insight, but it seems logical to me.
31
Thanks Bobl. Your insight is my insight. 🙂 If 99.9% of atmospheric molecules can warm up via kinetic collision with a warmer surface then surely the remaining 0.1% also warms up else it would be left on the surface.
Thus CO2 molecules will have the same average kinetic speed of the local air temperature else again being a ‘massy’ molecule they would end up on the surface. A cold gas will descend.
The idea that a CO2 molecule can only respond to IR photons to change it’s ‘vibrational’ level I find hard to accept. Because if that was the case we have a magic situation where IR in the 13 to 17 micron band increases the vibrational level of the CO2 molecule which then warms up surrounding air molecules above local air temperature???
Phooey I say, that is against all thermodynamic laws, double phooey!
99.9% of the atmosphere cannot cool by radiation, it is the remaining junk does it.
Most people believe warm air rises and cools. Think about that. Where did the energy go? It must go somewhere else First Law is meaningless.
16
I haven’t got the space here to correct all the problems in your comment, but I’ll address the two main ones.
Yes, vibration modes can be activated or deactivated in a collision, so CO2 moleculesmcan convert heat to IR and vice-versa.
Heat (kinetic energy) doesn’t go anywhere as the air rises, it merely is converted into the potential energy of the molecule (mass x height). Assuming no energy loss or gain through emission, the KE + PE of a molecule is a constant
01
Even this latenin the game someone will jump on my error/ambiguity, PE is proportional to mass x height (=mgh).
00
Totally agree Bobl,
Lots of evidence that the water cycle causes cooling. Wet or humid places are cooler on average than dry deserts at the same latitude.
Reed Coray gave a mathematical proof on this website that the Willis Eschenbach steel shell greenhouse would be cooler if there were conductive threads between the inner sphere and the outer shell. Convection provides the threads!
04
I’m sorry if someone else has mentioned this –Data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that May 2015 was the hottest may in HISTORY.
30
And 2015 destined to be the hottest year on record despite NOAA reservations in making predictions. In fact this is not a prediction but a certainty. Where NOAA and BoM are involved the data is guaranteed to fit the models through the magic of homogenisation:
http://www.rickwill.bigpondhosting.com/Scatter_Plot.png
71
It seems highly suspicious to me that one can announce, first in April I believe, and then again in June, that 2015 is on track to be the hottest year on record (noting, of course, we don’t have records very far back, so there could have been many, many hotter years) this is completely unscientific and reckless. There is NO possible way anyone can tell if this is going to be the hottest year ever unless (1) a truly reliable psychic has been hired or (2) they intend to massage the data into whatever they want out of it. This is so terribly dishonest and unscientific, it boggles the mind. Even more disturbing are those who will believe this. (That would be the same people who still believed Sylvia Browne, the psychic, after she pronounced a missing child was dead and then he was found alive. After all, anyone can make a mistake, right? And another and another and another……)
60
Is there really a place named History? Where is it, and what’s the URL for its temperature records?
90
I bet 1879 had a hotter May, but they don’t recognise the spike because it was before Stevenson Screens.
41
21 June: UK Daily Mail: Martin Delgado: What a solar-powered hypocrite: Millionaire MP tells Commons massive wind farm will ‘desecrate’ countryside… hours later he gets permission for his own solar farm
Richard Drax complained wind power project 25 miles away from his land in Dorset was ‘too big and too close’
He warned Parliament the scheme ‘will desecrate one of the most beautiful parts of our country’
Later that day his plans for a solar farm on 106 acres of land was approved
A Conservative MP has been accused of hypocrisy after he condemned an offshore wind power project as a ‘desecration’ of the British coastline – while on the very same day his plans for a vast solar farm on his country estate were approved, despite the objections of hundreds of conservationists and residents.
The Mapperton solar farm near picturesque Almer in Dorset will consume 106 acres of prime agricultural land – equivalent to 70 soccer pitches – owned by Richard Drax.
Protesters say the planned 90,000 solar panels have no place on the landscape which was immortalised as the fictitious county of Wessex in Thomas Hardy’s works…
East Dorset district council has received over 700 written objections to the project – which would include the construction of an electricity substation – compared with fewer than 70 in support…
Katharine Butler, whose family home is only yards from the solar farm site, said: ‘Mr Drax stands to earn a substantial sum of money from leasing his land.
‘The motivation for this scheme is financial and nothing to do with solving Britain’s energy problems…
The Campaign to Protect Rural England has described the Mapperton proposal as a ‘blot on the landscape’…
It has been estimated that Good Energy could make up to £3 million a year from the development in sales of electricity to the National Grid and subsidies from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DoECC), although it is not clear what proportion of this income Mr Drax would receive…
The £3.5 billion Navitus project is a joint venture between Dutch firm ENECO and French utilities giant EDF….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132871/What-solar-powered-hypocrite-Millionaire-MP-tells-Commons-massive-wind-farm-desecrate-countryside-hours-later-gets-permission-solar-farm.html
41
Solar panels in the UK. Really? I didn’t think the sun shone frequently enough 🙂
10
Antarctic sea ice traveling well.
https://sunshinehours.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/antarctic_sea_ice_extent_zoomed_2015_day_169_1981-2010.png
20
There are many good and insightful comment at the thread currently trending at The Australian about homogenization of the Australian temp. records… http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/questions-remain-on-bom-records/story-e6frg6xf-1227406502994#social-comments . About 160 comments in all.
At the beginning of the weekend the article was difficult to find online. But now, Sunday night in Australia, it seems to have made it to the front of the online page…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
52
Will the BoM now think that they need a Public Relations Department? Or will they ignore the problem in the hope that the Paris Conference will give them an excuse to continue?
And I think we should wonder why the BoM should be the de facto Dept. of Climate? If the collection of data was separate from the manipulation, would it be an easier target?
22
It strikes me that a serious paradigm shift may have begun with decision of the Pope to pontificate on the myths of CO2 and climate change. The nature of the “science” of climate change may have, at last, been recognised as belonging more to the world of religion than that of science. Both are based on a belief system requiring mass obedience to a set of rules which have little basis in verifiable fact.
In practical terms, the willingness of both the Pope and the watermelons to sacrifice the poor and disadvantaged on the altar of obedience to an arbitrary belief system is breathtaking in its arrogance. It is also disgustingly immoral. Having the connection between these two forces made manifest may give encouragment to the rational and compassionate among us in out efforts to have the benefits of modern development made available to all.
51
I agree in a way, but not with the word “serious”
It’s certainly a shift in emphasis towards the mystic, superstitious mumbo-jumbo of religion (even conflating the concepts of Gai and God … neo-Pantheism ?)
Consequently, I expect the MSM to downplay this episode as its’ denizens slowly come to realise the damage it does to “rational” scientific concepts
20
How about “significant”?
00
Sorry, read “our efforts”
00
On the wind power front
http://pickeringpost.com/story/it-s-more-than-a-quixotic-calamity/5023
00
So, the average life of a wind turbine now drops from 25 years to umm, 10 to 12 years.
And all the LCOE charts you ever see give wind power a 30 year life span. They justify it by saying it creates a level playing field.
So, let’s see now, a level playing field ….. where wind is quoted at 30 years when it is actually 10 to 12 years, and coal fired power is quoted at 30 years, when it is actually 50 years.
Level playing field! Hmm!
Tony.
LCOE – Levelised Cost Of Energy (or Electricity)
60
I don’t understand Richard’s point near the top of this thread (4:43 am):
‘
(John Cook).
Cook is correct in that the alleged hotspot would be an indication of strongly positive water vapour feedback in any warming episode, not necessarily human-caused.
If strong positive water vapour feedback were part of the climate system we would be here to wonder about it.
00
…we wouldn’t be here …
00
SMH is doing a series on climate change.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference
I’m in the mood for debunking.
20
throw in some links to your past predictions!
30
I’ll pay that one…
14
They are probably in the Deltoid archives, if you have the time to search.
10
Here is one I got right.
May 17, 2010
On the surface all looks normal, but just below the surface the temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have gone seriously cold. We can expect La Nina to dominate over the coming decade and large floods in the land of Oz.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
20
Do you know about the problem of multiple comparisons?
It is a serious point of contention in statistical treatments of scientific data. Although it is complicated in some ways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_comparisons_problem one can simplify it to being a problem of when enough predictions are tested some will be supported statistically by chance, not as a result of the hypothesis under consideration. Getting something “right” is no indication that the reason you got it right is right.
00
We know the mechanisms involved and I spotted them earlier, this is not a game of chance.
But I am disturbed by the hiatus, it has this unnatural air about it, temperatures should have fallen a bit more by now. Even if it fell by 0.3C (similar to 1880-1915) it would give me heart.
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So your assumption is that a priori you are correct and yet you admit that the current temperatures are not corresponding to what you expect from the mechanisms that “we” know and that you spotted? So if you are correct it must be the temperatures that are wrong. Why not go with that? Then you can still have heart.
btw… the comment you responded to solves all your problems.
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El Gordo
On what data do you determine that temperatures have not in fact fallen a bit more by now?
Of one thing you can be absolutely certain. No one knows for sure that temperatures have risen or fallen. The data used by the GHCN has been so badly abused, not only by the BOM in this country, but by the NOAA (who bias the raw data with an algorithm that relfects CO2), the UK Met Office, the WMO, even the Swiss have been caught our buggering the figures. There is not such thing as a “mean global air surface temperature”.
While you may well be troubled that UAH and RSS suggest only a slight cooling, just keep in mind that, while they may be the best quantified indicator we have, they can be accurate one within limits.
May I suggest that the Earth itself offers plenty of clues? Record cold temperatures in both hemispheres. Growing ice at both poles. Ice in the Great Lakes to the extent that it has been decades since ice of this magnitude has stayed in the lakes this late?
The one thing you can trust are your own observations.
I remember well about thirty years ago I was talking to an old Indian in a pub in Northern British Columbia. He offered, with a look of the wisdom gained from many generations, that there would be a damned cold winter ahead of us. Curious about ancient wood lore, I asked inquisitively what signs led to his conclusion? He responded that there were many things, but most importantly he had seen a white man the other day with bloody big load of firewood!
Trust the world around you.
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Its possible to predict the behavior of ENSO in advance, but because of the chaotic nature of weather its also possible to get that wrong.
If the hiatus continues for another decade I maybe forced to join the Lukewarmers.
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Thanks Rod, that was a good yarn and the slight cooling gives me hope.
I’m a keen observer, when the winters are particularly cold in the high country the Currawong come down and clean out the Starlings in my roof. Its on again.
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Of course its only anecdotal evidence, but I remain confident that my cool/wet seasonal forecast will trump BoMs warm/dry prediction for south east Oz.
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Interesting comment about the currawong. We’ve had a lot around lately and I was lately musing to myself about the fact that they are much more prevalent in the winter hereabouts.
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And when the bark of the Candle Bark (E. rubida) turns very red in the Autumn you can expect that to happen.
http://step.asn.au/step-garden/tree-species/candlebark/
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I didn’t know that, lovely colours.
Also the Currawong call back and forth to each other when a southerly buster is expected.
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WaPo gloats over censorship…dinosaur media in its death throes:
20 June: WaPo: How climate-change doubters lost a papal fight
By Anthony Faiola and Chris Mooney
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was about to take a major step backing the science behind human-driven global warming, and Philippe de Larminat was determined to change his mind.
A French doubter who authored a book arguing that solar activity — not greenhouse gases — was driving global warming, de Larminat sought a spot at a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences…
After securing a high-level meeting at the Vatican, he was told that, space permitting, he could join. He bought a plane ticket from Paris to Rome. But five days before the April 28 summit, de Larminat said, he received an e-mail saying there was no space left. It came after other scientists — as well as the powerful Vatican bureaucrat in charge of the academy — insisted he had no business being there.
“They did not want to hear an off note,” de Larminat said…
***The incident highlights how climate-change doubters tried and failed to alter the landmark papal document unveiled last week — one that saw the leader of 1 billion Catholics ***fuse faith and reason and come to the conclusion that “denial” is wrong….
“This was their Waterloo,” said Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, who has been tracking climate-change deniers for years. “They wanted the encyclical not to happen. And it happened.”…
For advice, he turned to a number of scientific advisers who support the consensus that human activity is warming the Earth. They included Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
A professed atheist, Schellnhuber nevertheless saw a chance for a massive coup in the climate debate if a sitting pope issued an ode to Earth and the ills of carbon emissions…
He said he was stunned to hear that de Larminat, the French doubter, almost made it to the key Vatican climate summit in April. To him, it showed that “even within the Vatican, there were some people who would like to see something that presented both sides.”…
(Mooney reported from Washington. Michelle Boorstein in Washington, Virgile Demoustier in Paris and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/how-climate-change-doubters-lost-a-papal-fight/2015/06/20/86af3182-15ce-11e5-8457-4b431bf7ed4c_story.html
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19 June: Solar Server (Global Solar Industry Website): Club of Rome welcomes the Papal climate and environment encyclical; Humanity needs transition towards renewable energy
PHOTO CAPTION: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a member of the Club of Rome, presented Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment together with Cardinal Turkson on June 18th, in Rome.
The Papal encyclical on the environment is especially welcome at the Club of Rome which introduced the idea of “Limits to Growth” in the 1970s.
“The Pope makes points that are indistinguishable from those that the Club of Rome has been making for years”, says Roberto Peccei, Vice President. Like the Vatican, the Club of Rome says that to solve the global climate problems and build a fairer society, nature and society must be placed before economics and short term profit.
Both the Pope and the Club of Rome also agree that politicians need to do what they are elected to do – which means regulate, especially emissions and the finance sector…
The Club is currently working to answer the question: how can humanity shift to a better economic system without collapse? “Many people are trying to define a better economic system,” says Graeme Maxton the Secretary General, “but that is not much use if we cannot move from where we are without making the situation worse. We are on a treadmill of environmental destruction and widening inequality.”
The Club argues that humanity needs a 20 year transition towards a better system based on renewable energy, more efficient resource use and different production systems that eliminate waste: “We need to redefine work, create new jobs in emerging sectors, redistribute work and wealth and should limit trade when it is in the interests of society.”
http://www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/2015/kw25/club-of-rome-welcomes-the-papal-climate-and-environment-encyclical-humanity-needs-transition-towards-renewable-energy.html
Wikipedia: Climate Investment Funds
The Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) were designed by developed and developing countries and are implemented with the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to bridge the financing and learning gap between now and the next international climate change agreement. CIFs are two distinct funds: the Clean Technology Fund and the Strategic Climate Fund…
The funds were approved by the World Bank Board of Directors in July 2008 and on September 26, 2008 received pledges of US$6.5 billion///
***Solar thermal power provides a useful illustration because it shows promise as a renewable option for baseload power. A recent study indicates that under a carbon pricing scheme with charges consistent with the low-end of requirements for safe atmospheric carbon loading, public financing through the CTF Fund could close the cost gap between solar thermal and coal-fired power in a 5 to 10-year program that expands capacity at 500-1000 MW/year…
The Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Program (SREP) in Low Income Countries, approved in May 2009, is aimed at demonstrating the economic, social and environmental viability of low carbon development pathways in the energy sector by creating new economic opportunities and increasing energy access through the use of renewable energy…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Investment_Funds
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READ ALL:
21 June: Daily Signal: Kevin Mooney: Is EPA Helping Green Groups Raise Funds in Exchange for Favorable Research?
A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change said researchers had found that if rules being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce carbon emissions were enacted, it would mean 3,500 fewer premature deaths per year.
This was a necessary piece of the puzzle for the EPA as it works to implement regulations it says would, by 2030, reduce carbon emissions to 30 percent below their levels in 2005. Industry experts say these regulations would drive a final nail into the coal industry, which currently supplies almost half the nation’s electricity. So, to justify the regulations, significant health benefits must be demonstrated…
Researchers from Harvard University, Syracuse University and four other institutions used climate models to predict the impact the EPA’s proposed carbon emissions reductions would have on human health…
Jonathan Buonocore, a research fellow at Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, told U.S. News the EPA did not participate in the study or interact with its authors.
But it seems the agency did participate and did interact with the authors…
***LINK: Emails discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request by Steve Milloy, a former editor at JunkScience.com, found a string of correspondence to set up meetings and conference calls to, in the words of one such email, “discuss methods for our next set of analyses.”…
Despite the fact the study’s authors “received or were involved in $45 million worth of research grants from the EPA,” The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press described the researchers “simply and innocuously” as researchers and scientists, Milloy lamented in a recent post at JunkScience.com…
http://dailysignal.com/2015/06/21/is-epa-helping-green-groups-raise-funds-in-exchange-for-favorable-research/
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19 June: CarbonBrief: Sophie Yeo: In-depth: the science behind the papal encyclical
But the seeds of the idea were planted long before. Back in 1990, before the UN had set up a body dedicated to climate change, Pope John Paul II was urging Catholics to take care of their natural environment.
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, was nicknamed the first “green pope” due to his exhortations to protect the natural world and his own efforts to cut carbon emissions, including purchasing carbon credits and installing solar panels, making the Vatican the first fully carbon neutral country.
Under his watch, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released the “Ten Commandments of the Environment” in 2005, while another of its academic bodies held a workshop on the retreat of mountain glaciers in 2011.
Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says that a Vatican City project initiated under Benedict fed into the encyclical released yesterday…
Under Pope Francis, Edenhofer was called to the Vatican City in his capacity as co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on mitigation…
Cardinal Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice, wrote the first draft, with Francis steering it into its final shape, taking a week in March to finesse the final edition.
Along the way, he also met with scientists of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences so they could present their reports to him (“He’s every bit as charismatic and attractive and wonderful a person as implied,” says Raven) (Peter Raven, president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences since 1990)…
He (Pope Francis) shows himself to be plugged into various topics, including, for example, the economy…
Renewable energy:
“Taking advantage of abundant solar energy will require the establishment of mechanisms and subsidies which allow developing countries access to technology transfer, technical assistance and financial resources.”…
And the fossil fuel industry:
“We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels – ***especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay.”…
At the request of the Vatican, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute, who was also heavily involved in the scientific background to the encyclical, wrote a reportto accompany its release…
Global commons
But the most important element of the encyclical is where science and morality merge in the presentation of the atmosphere as a “global commons”, says Edenhofer…
Limits of science
The encyclical is a case of the Pope doing what science cannot…
The fact that the Pope has done a “pretty balanced job” of incorporating the input of scientists reinforces the authority of the encyclical, says astronomer (Martin) Rees…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/06/in-depth-the-science-behind-the-papal-encyclical/
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Is this a case of “where there is smoke there is fire ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11689611/David-Cameron-threatened-to-close-down-BBC-Nick-Robinson-claims.html
Maybe Cameron and Abbott should compare notes.
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‘Australia’s black and brown coal resources are low-sulphur and hence pollution-free. In contrast to windfarms they do not require vast tracts of land and disfigure the natural environment. Nor do they impose the detrimental health effects from low frequency noise and infrasound that, according to the Senate Committee on Wind Turbines, appear to affect 10 to 15 per cent of the population.’
Alan Moran / Fin Review
21
google this – victorian brown coal mines from the air – to see pictures of the unmatched beauty of tiny tracts of undisfigured land.
btw low sulphur means low but easily managed pollution, not “pollution-free” (at least with respect to this form of pollution- never mind many others).
01
List them – and remember you are talking about LaTrobe lignite deposits
And don’t dodge the question, thank you
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sure… does visual pollution count? How about one offs? http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/morwell-residents-scared-to-stay-but-unable-to-leave-as-coalmine-fire-burns-on-20140226-33ii1.html
Particulates and dust (strong winds)?
Just the mine or the power station too? Oxidised nitrous materials, dioxins, furans. It releases boron and chlorinated gases.
Take a roam around this web site http://www.npi.gov.au/npidata/action/load/individual-facility-detail/criteria/jurisdiction-facility/00004337/state/VIC/year/2013
I’m sure you can google to find somewhere this is all collated by someone who can explain it better than an anonymous leaf. But thanks for asking.
00
fyi Ian… a data table is in moderation. Some chemicals are best not to release in public, especially the sulphur containing ones.
00
I’ve taken the opportunity to number your list so that replies are sensible and coherent
1) Coal fires are rare, although not necessarily “one-off”. Many peat bogs have been lit by lightning without help from homo sapiens, and the Aus bush goes up every decade. I hate such fires deeply (pollution damage, property damage, risk of physical injury in putting them out) and advise what measures I know to reduce the likelihood – but they are no worse, and rarer than, large bushfires, which you don’t mention although they too are burning plant material
2) Dust pollution levels are monitored to EPA levels. If wind strengths are causing increases in dust levels beyond EPA limits, various sprays are used to dampen the levels down
3) NOx gas emissions from the power station are monitored constantly. The quality of the raw coal feed is controlled carefully. The result is that NOx emissions are almost always below EPA limits. Exactly the same comments pertain to BOx and trace chlorinated gases. These emissions are rigorously controlled through both raw feed monitoring and power station exhaust. You didn’t mention statutory EPA limits, although they are policed with zealotry.
Dioxins and furans are contrived chemical compounds, not found as natural constituents of coal deposits (either brown or black coal), nor in naturally occurring plant material. Traces in herbicides perhaps, but that plays no part in the mining/power generation cycles. Still, you didn’t mention that fact, did you ?
4) The website you waffle on about simply unemotionally records the various situations listed above. Similar lists are compiled for most industrial activity, including the manufacture of solar gadgets and windmills. The key is monitoring and control to EPA limits. Not perfect, but not uncontrolled. Still, you didn’t mention that fact, did you ?
5) I don’t need to google stuff like that, the EPA records are readily available, as are minesite records for mining personnel. We already have actual, factual records
Oh, and LaTrobe supplies about 80% of Melbourne’s power, 24/7/365. Your cheap sarcasm doesn’t turn on the lights, the ATM’s, the hospitals, the wide-scale refrigeration for food, constant emergency top-up for SA etc. Supply of life-sustaining services like these inevitably have costs – the adult view is to control them to acceptable levels, set by a third party (in this case, the EPA)
TonyOz has set out the base load parameters many, many times. No one here has presented alternatives with actual GWh numbers (22-23GWh per 24 hours is the current key need for Aus). I’ve tried to set out the factual constraints for raw fuel feed to the power stations. Complaining about the process while clinging to the products/services is childish, although I expect that won’t change either
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All fascinating. If you knew this why the eff ask a random to provide information that you knew. Was it a trap or something otherwise disingenuous?
So you asked… I provided some info that you already knew (that brown coal produces pollution during the mining to electricity process). So my statement was correct. Now what of it?
You still produced the invective that you planned from the start that we both knew was the reason for your comment.
Why not just not waste each other’s time and shut up?
00
here is the data
Substance Air Total (kg)
Ammonia (total) 22,000
Arsenic & compounds 52
Beryllium & compounds 29
Boron & compounds 110,000
Cadmium & compounds 43
Carbon monoxide 7,100,000
Chlorine & compounds
Chromium (III) compounds 160
Chromium (VI) compounds 110
Copper & compounds 110
Cumene (1-methylethylbenzene) 1.5
Ethylbenzene 63
Fluoride compounds 8,300
Hydrochloric acid 8,000,000
Lead & compounds 140
Manganese & compounds 3,600
Mercury & compounds 450
Nickel & compounds 590
Oxides of Nitrogen 25,000,000
Particulate Matter 10.0 um 3,000,000
Particulate Matter 2.5 um 550,000
Polychlorinated dioxins and furans (TEQ) 0.0016
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (B[a]Peq) 16
Sulfur dioxide 13,000,000
Sulfuric acid 28,000
Total Volatile Organic Compounds 350,000
Xylenes (individual or mixed isomers) 64
Zinc and compounds 1,200
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See my reply above
and:
You do realise that the numbers you regurgitated require both units (mass/volume and time) and delivery methods ? Else they are meaningless
And you also need to look at the proximate and ultimate analyses of woody plants to compare by-products from natural forest attrition. This is so as to reduce the scary-bear factor you are relying on
Then you need to compare the actual units (mass/volume and time) with the EPA-enforced limits
It’s just easier to scream, though, isn’t it ?
10
Regurgitated are your words.Their explanation is easily found on the site I referenced and the relevance is that the numbers are non-zero so they are pollutants whatever the other parameters.
00
Did I list them?
Did I dodge?
Did you care whether I did these things?
Did you already know the answer?
Did you just agree that Latrobe Valley lignite produces pollution during electricity production?
Was that fact unimportant to you compared with making a different point?
Were you honest with your original question?
Did I know what you were doing?
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Cool wet summer returns to Scotland.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/june-on-track-to-be-coldest-summer-for-40-years.129399539
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This is only weather. Weather varies and it gets cold at times.
It is yet to be homogenised to be suitable as climate data that confirms the manmade climate disruption.
20
Thank goodness we have Mark Steyn to set matters straight on what must surely be the high point of the Medieval Warm Period, Viking winemaking in Greenland .
00
Reading between the lines the BoM is preparing to recant on a warm/dry winter in the south east.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-23/weather-forecaster-says-el-nino-misunderstood/6566230
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Jo,
With reference to your comment here, that article will soon be closed for commenting and will therefore reply here.
Abe
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Ooops!
Your comment here.
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