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
One of the highlight for me this week has been to discover the remarkable writing of Thomas Paine introduced by PeterC on an earlier thread.
The capacity to think and assess facts and write clearly is something to be appreciated as standing in serious contrast to a lot of today’s written material which seems inherently aimless and misleading.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/09/an-emergency-meeting-for-40-world-leaders-to-do-climate-deals-the-real-paris-negotiation/#comment-1741634
KK
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Keith and Peter c , thanks for mentioning thomas paine he is one of my top three all time heroes along with Nicholas Tesla and Brian Clough all maverick geniuses in their own fields.Mark Steel once did a 30 minute documentary on the life and times of Thomas Paine which is both funny and informative which i’ll post for those interested because its a better use of your leisure time than watching the crap they churn out on telly at the moment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIhcDxTU1Og
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I will watch it tomorrow morning.
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Lost it at “Slave Trading for Dummies”.
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Dave thanks, have watched the first 3 minutes and have bookmarked it to watch later. Interesting.
KK
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Thanks Doubting Dave and KK,
I loved every minute of that video.
When I read his book “AGE of Reason”, I knew nothing about Thomas Paine except what he revealed of himself in the book. From that I deduced he might be a Ratbag. Not far from the truth. According to Malcolm Steel he was a “Seditious Malcontent”
None the less he inspires me and should inspire anyone who decides to buck the system.
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On News.com, serial worrier and chief spruker of what’s good for everyone else ™ funded by ABM (Anyone but me(tm) ) Klein carries on about how nukes are not good but the world can be powered by moonbeams, rainbows and Unicorn farts
Of course Klein is talking about the sort of solar that works when it’s dark and has more than an effective 5 Watts per square meter baseload equivalent, doesn’t need 15 SQUARE km per GW and batteries that don’t yet exist and windmills that turn when there isn’t a breeze and don’t require 1/2 million kilograms of energy intensive concrete to stand up, and wont stop working in a cyclone, major hail storm, deep snow or dust storm.
Holding these views shows that Klein is clearly innumerate, why they even report on her is beyond me.
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Klein is a [snip], no doubt.
Her statement, aside from highlighting her utter stupidity, demonstrates that among the great CAGW scaremonger brigade there is no real or true perception of any danger from escalating CO2 emissions. If there were, then nuclear power wouldn’t just “make sense” to her, it would be imperative as the only way to run a modern industrialised country without the need for ever increasing use of fossil fuels. Whatever renewables could offer would at least largely have to be augmented or at least supplemented by far greater generation from nuclear sources than we have today, because without nuclear power, with present technology, fossil fuels and the highly “dangerous” CO2 it produces are here to stay.
So not only is she a card carrying [snip], she is a disingenuous [snip] at best, a malevolent and deliberately dishonest [snip] at worst.
[Please avoid name calling. Thanks.] AZ
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I agree.
Klein is a total snip!
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The reason nuclear does not make sense is that the ‘spent fuel’ is stored on site due to the expense of getting rid of it, and secondly due to the incredible emission of ultra dangerous chemicals during the refining process of uranium ores. Also: The idea that Thorium reactors are safe completely overlooks the ultra toxic refining process.
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The greatest power is the power that is not used. *Efficiency*. The world is hopelessly overpowered as it is. Like a dinosaur. The idea that more power is needed is frankly a primitive idea and down right dangerous.
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Are you out of your tree?
Hopelessly overpowered.
Where?
Tony.
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Tony,
Perhaps Mike needs to spend a year in a country that is not ” hopelessly overpowered” like Afghanistan, Yemen, Nepal or Haiti (North Korea and Ethiopia has ~ double the energy use per person compared to those countries.)
Where is Mike getting this idea? He is parroting Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and Dr. John Holdren. In their book Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, 1970, on page 323, they say
They also say on the same page
Mike has swallowed an entire jug full of Green Kool-aid from the Elite despite the fact all their dire predictions have been proven wrong.
Hey Mike — Don’t Drink The Kool-Aid
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Absolutely correct gai.
If those and other African and M.Eastern countries had plenty of cheap power we may not be witnessing the migrant/refugee problem that Europe has at present.
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When we were young, only few years ago, we could watch TV for a few hours and the consumption was around 200 watts. These days with LCD TV we can watch for 24 watts. Or sit around glued to an I-phone and use less than a watt like many already do.
The periodic need for the process of reciprocal destruction (war) is the greatest ongoing problem we face IMO.
off topic…..
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Mike,
A world reduced to subsisting on renewable energy, with the attendant poverty and breakdown in civil order, would be more or less likely to degenerate into war, civil or international or global?
The course of civilisation can only be steered toward a more harmonious coexistence by the elimination of ignorance and extreme poverty a process entirely dependent on efficient energy), that makes people vulnerable to despotism, primitive modes of interpersonal expression ( ie violence) and a careless attitude to the value of human life. The “green” eco warriors of this world are hellbent in propelling us back to the Dark Ages, an era riven by conflict, war, pestilence and disease.
Technology has the ability to steer us away from that devolutionary spiral. Your fear of nuclear power is irrational, but understandable in some ways, but your belief in fairy dust and moonbeams for energy generation is downright dangerous, and stands at odds to your last comment about what you think is the major issue confronting mankind., IMO. Burning dung to keep us warm won’t make us safer, it will propel us to conflict, bl00dshed and destruction at greater speed.
Remember also the following equation:
FUEL = FOOD + HEALTH + WEALTH + SECURITY + POPULATION CONTROL
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We could go and on for hours.
I make a distinction that is like a razorblade that clearly separates the green of new formation, or the Carbon green.
Not to be confused with the preceding general green that existed to prevent further diminished diversity of living species and is not reduced to preventing cute furry animals extinction only.
As for war and its eradication, i like this formulation from Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson.
““Result impartial mentation, p. 1183
“The sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant again
into their presences a new organ, an organ like Kundabuffer, but this time of such properties that
every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be
cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as of the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests.”
12
From the WWF’s ghosts of climate past,
Maybe they should’ve consulted Susan Crockford first before taking the pacifist approach to one of natures great carnivore hunters, it’s a choice of which end of the carbon cycle you want to visit first I guess…
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Not sure what you are smoking Mike, but me being old and totally peed off with all main stream science, for it’s stupidity for most of my life, have a tad of trouble working out what you are getting at. Truth in science left the building around 1920, it is coming up soon to a century of scientific scam, the shut up and calculate era will be soon over, much will need to be reconsidered. The deletion of information, suppression of information, the burning of books is over. The internet if it can stay free for one more decade will be the salvation of science, stay tuned.
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downright
As for the rest of it, it sounds like a ranter trying to diss Nuclear power without understanding the topic.
KK
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Are the ultra-dangerous chemicals as deadly as those released by the processes that are used in the refining and manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines?
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SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
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Kevin someone here at Jo’s posted this (Sorry I didn’t grab the name but a H/T to you.)
One of the guys I dated back in the dark ages was a chemist working on new solar panel technology. He remarked he could kill off all of NYC by dumping one of the chemicals used in the city water system.
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Interesting that you should use ‘solar panel technology’ and ‘dark ages’ in the same sentence gai, a Freudian slip perhaps?
I do hope your dating habits improved also. 😉
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Yes they did improve. I moved on to dating Physicists and Chem Engineers.
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Thank you, gai. There is a very mistaken belief that wind power is “benign”. I have seen cartoons saying turbines won’t “melt down”. No, but the stuff they make them with can, and has, poisoned areas for decades. Even better, America’s fear of nuclear sends the mining and refining to countries with virtually no environmental laws. The whole this is like the “out of sight, out of mind” behaviour that at one time humans grew out of (many adults still believe if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist). Maybe it’s time to clone saber tooth tigers and hone those observation skills in humans again……
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Mike,
Might it be better to refine it rather than leaving the radioactive thorium lying around in tailing piles once all the rare earths are extracted for windmill magnets.
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“…Klein said building new nuclear plants did not make any sense to her” because the goal is a return to the feudalism of the 13th century. We all know that “economies [then were] without the enormous risk that we have come to accept” today, along with our greatly extended easy lifestyle. As one of the would be Elite the idea of slaves serving my every whim is very attractive so I will do every thing in my power to prevent allowing the peasants access to cheap reliable energy generation.
That is what Naomi Klien actually meant but is not about to say. It is why Access to Energy was founded by Professor Petr Beckmann in 1973. Why he founded Golem Press in 1968 and why he published many books and pamphlets. Energy is the life blood of any civilization. It can come from nuclear, chemical, animals or slaves. Does anyone really think the elite are going back to a caveman life style to ‘save the planet?’
The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear (1976) Dr. Beckman’s book on energy generation is still the most concise comparison of health hazards across multiple electrical generating technologies. It completely knocks Namoi’s whinging out of the ring.
In 1939, when 14, Beckmann with his family fled their home in Prague, Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazis. He served in a Czech squadron of the RAF during WWII and then returned to Czechoslovakia where he received a B.Sc. in 1949, a Ph.D. in 1955, and a D.Sc. in electrical engineering.
in 1962, from Prague’s Czech Academy of Sciences.
Beckmann was an adult living in Czechoslovakia when the Communist coup d’état occurred in 1947. He defected to the United States in 1963. He had first hand experience of living under freedom and under totalitarian rule and he saw very clearly the creeping rot spreading in the USA.
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Curiously and in an unintended (and un-thought of) way, Noway Klein has hit on something, i.e. in its addiction to wind turbines the South Australian ‘Government’ ** has made it almost impossible for nuclear, or any other conventional generation, to be built in S.A.
An uncontrolled flood of wind electricity exceeding the capacity of the inter-connectors to Vic. makes it impossible for steady reliable capacity to operate. They HAVE to be shut down, at some cost. They then have to be started up, at some cost. meanwhile they generate less electricity but without any reduction in costs, so the unit price of conventional generation is pushed up, until they cannot run at a profit. At that point they usually shut down, as is happening in S.A. and the UK, and in Germany. There is no way nuclear can be economically sustainable under the current regime.
** To be fair (reluctantly) to Premier Weatherill he probably never intended a nuclear generation option. I think he was hoping for a nuclear storage and processing depot. The State being broke it was an attempt to get billions in Federal funding and to stave off the impending economic collapse, at least until the next election. I may be mistaken as the current State government seems to lack knowledge of logic, economics, integrity, honesty and the ability to think ahead, but as they did attract 47% of the 2 party preferred vote, we are stuck with them for the next 3 years.
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Sorry, I omitted to comment on the Opposition whoever they are.
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Graeme, I think you’re probably right, Weatherill and his band of incompetents masquerading as a government wouldn’t have thought about the spin-off benefits of a nuclear power industry because the number of state elections between conception, and operation of such a plant would be far too many for his pathetic staffers and ‘advisors’ to comprehend.
Much easier to be known as the radioactive rubbish dump of Australia, as well as the ‘rust belt’.
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I mean, why oh why would anyone in their right mind even consider a Nuclear Power Plant? (please Tony, don’t forget to add the /sarc)
Hey, who even cares what it costs.
One plant at one site. 2 Reactors, each powering a 1500MW Generator. Nameplate 3000MW. Yearly power delivery 24,000GWH. 50 year lifespan. Total power delivery in its life 1200TWH.
So, over that same 50 year period you will need that same 1200TWH from wind power. So that’s the same 24,000GWH a year, and working backwards from that delivered power, then that’s a Nameplate of 9100MW. Let’s pretend they actually can get them to last the full 25 years, so that’s twice that amount, or 18,200MW Nameplate for the 50 years. A huge scale wind plant will have a Nameplate of 600MW, so that’s 30 wind plants, and that 600MW will be made up of 240 individual 2.5MW wind towers, so 7,200 wind towers.
30 of those wind plants at around $2 Billion each gives us a total of $60 billion all up.
But hey, money’s no object here is it? Even so, you get the equivalent of the plant’s maximum power for only seven and a quarter hours a day on average across the whole year, while the Nuke delivers its full power 24/7/365.
See now why I said who cares about the cost of the Nuke because there’s no way the cost will be even 10% of the wind plants.
Oh and for any version of solar power, then double the cost.
Why oh why would anyone in their right mind even consider a nuclear power plant? You’d have to be crazy. (/sarc)
ONE nuclear power plant versus 7,200 wind towers.
Isn’t it strange when you make it look this bl00dy ridiculous.
Tony.
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🙂
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The sad thing about the civilian nuclear fuel cycle is that the “waste” generated and then buried still contains about 98% of the original available energy. This energy can be extracted in a fast breeder reactor and the resulting waste is relatively innocuous. It is a huge waste of energy to bury the “waste” products from the first cycle.
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Why don’t we just rocket the waste into space on a course for the sun?
Oh wait we’d be accused of celestial pollution and creating a dangerous tipping point for the fragile star and it’s glorious Ra.
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The reason Klein and her ilk do not want nuclear is because it will empower countries and the people within, by dint of efficient and cheap power. This goes against the entire ethos of taking humanity back to the cave dwelling era.
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The first person to ask a question during the @NaomiAKlein Q&A at #FODI was a climate change denier.
Audience quickly booed him off
Lauren Ingram, twitter
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Q&A “audiences” only tolerate authorised dissent.
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I saw it and liked it.
Then after a few hours I came back and it hit me.
Hints of totalitarianism.
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MGreadshaw’s new video made my weekend.
Gurdjieff: The Concept of Mind, by Gilbert Ryle.
Each to his own.
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Tried listening to it. The video is of such low resolution that a 1990s 28k modem could handle it, and the microphone is rubbish too. This is made worse by the speaker slurring his words as though under the influence of alcohol.
Given the video has just 14 hits, I would suggest Mike that you are the only one whose weekend was made.
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Agreed. The video is virtually impossible to watch. Perhaps reading about the topic will help, but the video is a complete waste.
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The case continues for CO2 increases in the atmosphere, where nitrogen is shown to aid in CO2’s ‘take-up’ by plants. Wheat crop research shows massive gains with higher atmospheric CO2. Burn more coal!
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CO2 Science has an extensive database of peer-reviewed studies on both the dry mass and photosynthesis effects of increased CO2 levels. For instance, with respect to sunflowers (Helianthus annus), there are 19 studies which estimate the impact on dry mass of a 300ppm increase in in the Air’s CO2 Concentration. The average increase is 48%, with a standard deviation of 7%. Some plants have lower responses, some much higher.
There are odd studies that show some plants have slightly reduced dry mass from higher CO2 concentrations, but these are outliers.
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CO2 Science is a great site to browse through if you like botany.
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Just noticed an article on whatsupwiththat from Lord Monckton “The Pause Lengthens yet again” in which Lord Chris uses the phrase ” THE SURFACE TAMPERATURE DATASETS” When referring to Hadcrut and Giss etc only he could change one letter of one word and yet give a completely different meaning to the land surface data, classic , hope Ken , jennifer and our hostess get plenty of use out of it when talking about BOM adjustments
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Jo-
New (49 page!) paper reviewing solar/climate research, with wonderful correlation between NH temperatures and TSI, figure 27, page 37.
http://globalwarmingsolved.com/data_files/SCC2015_preprint.pdf
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You lead me to realise that attribution of solar influences on Climate must account for the differing climates of Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Of course I should have realised that previously, but it was only your comment that led me to it. Thanks.
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The main difference being that the SH is mostly water. A very significant heat capacity difference. See Paul Vaughan’s work for more detail.
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If I am correctly informed, the Northern Hemiphere had a much larger Ice mass during the last big ice age than down south?
Suspect it was due to the greater exposure of Southn Hem to SuN in that phase?
Can anybody comment?
KK
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Don B
Oops,
I have inadvertently linked the same paper below, I had the piece waiting in the wings since Tallbloke posted it yesterday.
It is interesting how Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), the usefulness of counting sunspots, and to what degree the sun influences weather/climate are all still points of contention amongst real scholars, interested intellectuals and learned folk, and even some of the logic/knowledge challenged ivory tower outsiders like ‘climate scientists’.
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Of interest is an article written in the Globalist about Donald Trump by Alexei Bayer
The takeaways. (Nicely laid out for you to tweet) are:
GEE, and here I already though the USA was a laughingstock with the empty suit-in-chief that was ‘elected’ twice.
So who is this Alexei Bayer who is trashing Trump?
Born in Russia, Mr. Bayer has contributed to the op-ed pages of the …New York Times…. He is also a columnist for the independent Russian business newspaper, Vedomosti….
Mr. Bayer previously served as senior financial markets economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit and worked at Standard & Poor’s
Another article in the globalist is Donald Trump: The Democrats’ Best Campaign Asset
The tweetable takeaways
The authors?
Bill Humphrey looks about twenty and hosts the Arsenal For Democracy a political talk radio show, produced in Massachusetts…. The show contextualizes and explains current affairs in the United States and the world for a progressive millennial audience
Stephan Richter is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Globalist and President of The Globalist Research Center…. Prior to starting The Globalist, Mr. Richter led a global strategic communications firm based in Washington, D.C., advising governments, leading global banks and corporations, international organizations and foundations around the world.
In that capacity, he served as North American advisor to the German Economics Ministry and Vice Chancellor in the early 1990s, when he successfully shaped the “New Federal States” campaign, designed to create a dynamic brand image for the former Communist East Germany….
From 2002-08, Mr. Richter was a monthly columnist for Les Echos, the leading financial daily in France. He was also the U.S. correspondent for Rheinischer Merkur from 1990-98, as well as a monthly columnist for CEO Magazine.
……
WOW, I can not think of a better endorsement for Trump. The Progressive Globalists HATE HIM.
ALL the info on the authors is straight out of the bios.
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Unfortunately, Trump is a complete racist nutbar. The republicans can’t afford to have him as their candidate in the election, that would be a sure win for hillary. Being leftist writers doesn’t mean they are always wrong.
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Bill, is he more or less a racist nutbar than the current president?
Trump has his tendencies but I sure like the apparent fact that he isn’t in step with the current lump of worthless RINO* Republicans.
*Republican In Name Only
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agreed that Obam is also a racist, but….do you REALLY want the Donald as your POTUS? Or would you prefer somebody that is sane?
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How do you know Donald Trump is not sane? Reports in the Politically Correct, Elite Leftist controlled MSM?
You might want to try canadafreepress.com for an alternate view.
Given the choice we are being funneled into, a choice between The Twig (Jeb Bush) or Hillary or an outsider like Trump, I will take potluck with Trump.
The fact he is dumped on not only by the Liberal Press, but also by the Controlled Opposition Press, Fox News, means he is worth taking a closer look at.
I suggest you read: America’s Ruling Class from 2010
That article explains the rise in popularity of the Tea Party. In 2010 it had split the parties into 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 according to Rasmussen Polls. (Not a healthy situation when you want to control a government.) That was before the MSM pull out the hatchet using the sleazy Blair-Rockefeller poll where the answers to questions starting with “Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that….” were used to accuse the Tea Party of Racism.
Racism is their favorite PC playing card in the game of divide and conquer. They are playing it for all they are worth with Trump too. Trouble is people are darn sick and tired of being accuse of racism every time they open their mouth.
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Monthly Atmospheric CO2 Concentration and Temperature
Australia has CO2 and Temperature measuring stations at (i) Mawson, latitude 67.62S, longitude 62.87E, and at (ii) Casey, latitude 66.28S, longitude 110.53E, in the Antarctic, at (iii) Macquarie Island, latitude 54.50S, longitude 158.94E, in the Southern Ocean and at (iv) Cape Grim, latitude 40.68S, longitude 144.68E, on the North Western tip of Tasmania, all of which have operated for a sufficient time to accumulate reliable statistics for both CO2 and temperature. The temperature has not been recorded at Cape Grim but adequate data has been used from the Bureau of Meteorology station at Marrawah, latitude 40.91S, longitude 144.71E, which is 25.54 km slightly East of South from Cape Grim.
These stations have recorded rates of increase in CO2 concentration of:
(i) Mawson, rate 1.827 ppm per annum with a standard error of 0.009 ppm per annum over the period November 1990 to December 2013, data source [1],
(ii) Casey, rate 1.899 ppm per annum with a standard error of 0.008 ppm per annum over the period June 1997 to December 2013, data source [2],
(iii) Macquarie Island, rate 1.844 ppm per annum with a standard error of 0.008 ppm per annum over the period February 1991 to Dec 2013, data source [3],
(iv) Cape Grim, rate 1.679 ppm per annum with a standard error of 0.006 over the period May 1976 to January 2015, data source [4].
The differences in the rate of increase of CO2 concentration between stations is largely due to the differences in the periods of recording as the annual rate of increase in CO2 concentration has been increasing over time [5]. In fact the actual rate at any one time appears to be much the same all across the globe.
The increases in temperature were:
(i) Mawson, rate -0.014 deg C per annum with a standard error of 0.060 degree C per annum from incomplete data over the period December 1990 to December 2013,
(ii) Casey, rate 0.013 deg C per annum with a standard error of 0.081 deg C per annum from data in the period December 1996 to December 2013,
(iii) Macquarie Island , rate 0.005 deg C per annum with a standard error of 0.014 deg C per annum over the period December 1990 to December 2013,
(iv) Marrawah, proxy for Cape Grim, rate 0.016 deg C per annum with a standard error of 0.010 deg C per annum over the period January 1976 to January 2015.
Here the rate of change of temperature is quite variable and may be dependent on the unique conditions at each locality. The source of all four data files was [6].
In order to test the relationship between changes in CO2 concentration and changes in temperature, standard linear regression analysis has been applied to the monthly increments in each of the variables, that is, the monthly change in the CO2 concentration in ppm per month was compared with the monthly change in temperature in degrees C per month with the following results:
(i) Mawson, correlation coefficient -0.17, with a probability of zero correlation of 0.7%, rate -2.97 deg C/month per ppm/month, standard error 1.09,
(ii) Casey, correlation coefficient -0.23, with a probability of zero correlation of 0.2%, rate -3.29 deg C/month per ppm/month, standard error 1.06,
(iii) Macquarie Island , correlation coefficient -0.42, with a probability of zero correlation of 0.0%, rate -1.55 deg C/month per ppm/month, standard error 0.21,
(iv) Cape Grim/Marrawah, correlation coefficient – 0.35, with a probability of zero correlation of 0%, rate -2.25 deg C/month per ppm/month, standard error 0.28.
In every case there is a statistically significant negative correlation between the monthly rate of change of temperature relative to the monthly rate of change of CO2 concentration.
As an example of the seasonal variation in the far North where there is a much larger land area, the annual cycle for Barrow, Alaska, was averaged over the 21 years from 1996 to 2006, data source [7].
It showed that the CO2 concentration increased during Autumn as the temperature fell to a minimum of -29.7 degrees C in Winter but a maximum in CO2 concentration of 379.4 ppm. Then temperature rose and on reaching zero degrees C, ice changes state to water and the seasonal life forms proliferate, consuming CO2 as they do so. During Spring and on into Summer, the CO2 concentration fell sharply as it was consumed in the regeneration of the season life forms whereby the Summer temperature rose to a maximum of 6.2 degrees C and the CO2 concentration fell to a minimum of 361.1 ppm.
Linear regression gave a correlation coefficient of -0.74 with zero probability of the coefficient being zero. Cross correlation gave the CO2 concentration lagging the temperature by 153 days for a maximum correlation coefficient of +0.83. These results are completely contrary to the IPCC claim that increasing CO2 concentration causes an increase in global temperature.
Note that the range for the CO2 concentration was 18.3 ppm, all within an average year. This can be compared with the recent rate of increase in annual CO2 concentration over the five year period January 2010 to January 2015, of 2.0 ppm per annum at the Mauna Loa Observatory, data source [8]. As the annual range of CO2 concentration at Barrow is of the order of 10 time the rate for the latest five year period it is obvious that biogenic CO2 is a major factor, if not the major factor, in the generation of CO2 in the atmosphere with no indication of any contribution from mankind.
It would appear that the IPCC is underestimating of the extent of the biogenic contribution to the CO2 concentration and cannot admit to the fact that CO2 concentration falls as temperature rises yet to deny that fact is to deny that life on Earth exists at all.
In last week’s note it was shown that the atmospheric temperature has varied from cooling in the South Polar region to heating in the North Polar region and stable in the Tropics. Meanwhile the CO2 concentration has been relatively even across the globe but increasing with time in marked contrast to these temperature changes. In this note it has been shown that biogenic CO2 is a major factor in the rise and fall of atmospheric CO2 concentration with an inverse relationship to temperature, that is, temperature rise causes CO2 to fall through the natural seasonal life process. All of this is contrary to the IPCC claims of mankind causing dangerous global temperature warming through the industrial generation of CO2 whose amplitude was not evident in any of the data studied here.
Both notes to date have relied on a statistical synthesis of data records of what has actually taken place while climate scientists have been imagining other scenarios through speculation, theory and computer modelling.
References:
[1] http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/wdcgg/pub/data/current/co2/monthly/maa767s00.csiro.as.fl.co2.nl.mo.dat
[2] http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/wdcgg/pub/data/current/co2/monthly/cya766s00.csiro.as.fl.co2.nl.mo.dat
[3] http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/wdcgg/pub/data/current/co2/monthly/mqa554s00.csiro.as.fl.co2.nl.mo.dat
[4] http://www.csiro.au/greenhouse-gases/
[5] https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2015/02/12/is-the-rate-of-co2-growth-slowing-or-speeding-up/
[6] http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/?ref=ftr
[7] http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/wdcgg/pub/data/current/co2/monthly/brw471n00.noaa.as.fl.co2.nl.mo.dat
[8] http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/atmospheric_co2
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Bevan Dockery,
Many thanks (again) for you clear sighted concentration in showing that the UN-IPCC’s ideas are once again wrong as atmospheric gases are anything but ‘well mixed’.
As the hardened drinker, or the gastronomic glutton at the party knows, locality trumps mixing well.
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For those wishing to read the original document with data plots, please see:
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/unfccc-public-submissions/BD_Submission_2.pdf
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Brilliant Bevan.
CO2 is a dependent variable and follows temperature changes, not the other way around. That is the same result as the ice core data, but more precise data and using contemporary measuements. So it is not “different this time”.
Judging by the ticks, only a few people read your entry, possibly because of the length. Maybe be Jo might consider it as a guest post with diagrams and illustrations.
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Thank you Peter C.
If you looked at my original document, the part I really like is the graph for Barrow, Alaska, where the CO2 concentration drops like a stone as soon as the temperature has passed through 0 degrees C and the ice changes state to water. Obviously the Federal Government inquiry into Renewable Energy Targets took no notice which is why I am posting abbreviated versions here.
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To help explain climate change myths to children: http://climate4kids.blogspot.com
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Link to actual post: http://climate4kids.blogspot.com/2015/09/climate-change-answers.html
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Science of Doom,
In part 2 of this series, I described some of the techniques used by SoD to promote the Greenhouse Effect ®. Logical fallacies and rhetorical tools were found to be part and parcel of that explanation. Today’s entry in the series will describe a logical fallacy combined with a factual error used by all AGW ™ promoters to construct the so-called ‘Earth’s Energy Budget ®’. This error is the link between the ‘Budget’ and the ‘GHE’. Understanding how this link is flawed destroys both the Budget and the GHE once and for all.
Science of Doom Describes Outbound Longwave Radiation From Earth’s Surface – part 4
24
Huh? 😮
Where did it go?
Arrggghhhh! I guess I’ll have to retype what I had. Oh well.
Abe
20
I’ve retyped my original comment and posted the new comment below. It doesn’t look like what I originally had but I think it get’s the point across.
Abe
11
Jo and Dr Evans,
You may be interested to see that a paper called “Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century” by Willie Soon, Ronan Connolly, Michael Connolly. has been released. A pre-publication version is available at Tallbloke Talkshop
An interesting quote —
60
I posted this comment in reply to Bernd Flesche’s comment about urban pollution being not what it used to be. Since it’s buried in a big (now old )thread I want to repost it because this is a recurring misinformation in the media today (not aimed at you Jo):
I see conflation of urban (often seasonal) air pollution with co2 emissions being made all the time. At least once a week by somebody in the news media since Obama announced his clean power plan. Such scientific ignorance on public display…..
As you point out urban air pollution and urban smog is hardly the problem it once was.
The big change was two fold. Catalytic converters that completed combustion of auto exhaust gases, and electronic fuel injection with computerized engine management.
The only significant emissions from newer autos became water vapor and co2 by 1990s. Interesting how co2 became the new devil during the 90s. Who would of thought that co2 could become taxed? Easier to tax than water vapor I guess.
90
Where you are maybe. I’ve been to China.
20
As China becomes more prosperous, due to the availability of cheap and plentiful energy, pollution and smog levels will drop.
90
Thanks for agreeing that they are high as I pointed out
03
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/09/news-2-6-billion-lost-trees-found-whole-world-owes-carbon-credits-to-whole-world/#comment-1742556
20
The other emissions control device introduced since the 1970’s related to the control of fuel vapours. First was the charcoal canisters to collect evaporative emissions of fuel at the engine. Subsequently, fuel tanks were required to provide an expansion volume of gas before venting to atmosphere. In Europe, some regions also mandated fuel filler nozzles that drew in the fuel vapours while the car was being refuelled.
BTW: A large proportion of urban air pollution used to be from poorly controlled combustion of wood, coal, oil and to a lesser extent, gas. While some cities enjoyed district heating, it was often poorly managed, especially where it was free to consumers where people tended to regulate the temperature inside the home by opening a window slightly.
40
“The Weekend … yay :D”
This weekend will not be a BBQ weekend 🙁 kinda disappointed , coz it’s raining here in Utah..
you’d think with 392-426 ppm CO2 levels we’d get some consistent hot weather …. Fall must be just around the corner.. Brrr!
Anyway Obama has been in the news , his trip to Alaska (promoting you know what) prompted me to look at ice for some reason and as my friend who has visited Alaska explained to me that it is very beautiful but cold.. therefore it peaked my interest.
So…
I was looking at pictures of glacial flows far North of us , and obviously there are many that are receding (that’s what you get with an Oil industry and a whore house, heat is generated), certainly Bear Glacier (where Obama visited) is one, but The Hubbard Glacier which is on the same latitude , in the same state (Alaska), and only a few miles East of Bear Glacier… is NOT !
Such conflicting data you might think, and you’d be right … makes the climate Models go “Thermal” 😀
However , for CAGWers melting glaciers is a catastrophe , they want ice and snow and sub zero temperatures.. and they want their grass to have the texture of concrete.. and they want 33% of the Earth’s land mass to remain “permanently” uninhabitable…. (very demanding these people :()
But it occurred to me that when I looked at the glaciers retreating , there were huge areas of grassland , waterways, and new vegetation left behind…. so all this “potential” had opened up due to the diminishing presence of the Glaciers .. cool ! 😀
enjoy the weekend everyone .. 😀
90
I wonder what is in science daily today.
00
They have invented a wormhole in space and there is a story on heatwaves. ‘More than 2,500 people died during a heat wave that gripped India in late May. A European heat wave in 2003 claimed about 70,000 victims, many of them seniors and children.’
40
Hi,
This looks very interesting. Remarkable in its implications for the renewables bandwagon.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540991/meltdown-proof-nuclear-reactors-get-a-safety-check-in-europe/
It’s not that molten salt reactors are a new concept, it’s that the Europeans (of all people) seem to be moving forward with the technology.
The green crowd were talking about natural gas being a bridge fuel to a renewable paradise a little while back. I would laugh long and loud if renewables come to be seen as a bridge fuel to a nuclear future.:)
40
Jo
FYI
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/true-green/
30
When the late 20th century warming ended, we had never seen South Park, The Practice or Ally McBeal. (Who remember the McBeal pilot?) And while we had heard of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that was only as a movie not the TV show.
20
@ Tony from Oz, and others.
My apologies if these have already been posted,
From WUWT: Going Solar: System Requirements For 100% U.S. Solar Generated Utility Baseload Electricity
and a Q & A with Tom Tamarkin: 2060 and Lights Out
30
It’s amazing how maths can so effectively shoot down any green dream.
This should be required reading for everyone.
Just one quick snippet here.
If they can reduce the manufacturing time for the solar PV panels down to just one second per panel, then it would only take 930 years to make all the panels needed to supply the U.S. with the required electrical power.
Hmm! pity the panels only have a lifespan of 25 years eh!
I’m still chuckling.
The green dreamers would be indignant because they just know for sure that the battery technology is, you know, just around the corner, and that the batteries will be thousands of times cheaper, and will last forever ….. just within our reach ….. almost there now.
Mendacious statements, all of this article, they would say.
Next time you see a greenie, ask them for next Saturday’s Lotto numbers. They have them too.
Thanks NoFixedAddress. Great article.
Tony.
100
Yes Tony,
“Hmm! pity the panels only have a lifespan of 25 years eh!”
But that optimum lifespan is only if —
1. They are manufactured and installed correctly on a stable structure.
2. Suffer no bad weather, e.g. too cold, too hot, very high winds, hail, etc…
3. Are regularly maintained (all connections inspected and tightened as required, etc.) and kept dust free.
Apart from that they should last a lifetime — the short chaotic lifetime the UN-IPCC are trying to ensure you have!
50
And hope your home never catches fire or is in a flood, as firies and emergency services people are told not to go near them.
Tony.
60
Interesting article.
Basically shows that solar won’t work, but the greenies will claim that wind will make the difference. The old “the wind is always blowing somewhere” claim appears in the Comments section, despite several studies in Europe, Australia and the USA saying otherwise.
50
Something to note here, not really related to the article, is that, with respect to solar power, the fundament has virtually completely fallen out of CSP, (Concentrating Solar, usually referred to as Solar Thermal) and all the concentration is now on Solar PV.
They just cannot make CSP work anywhere near the scale required.
It was supposed to be the saviour for renewable power, the hoped for true replacement for large scale thermal power which can run 24/7/365.
The current World average Capacity Factor for CSP is running at around 28%, even lower than Wind Power.
They can still only effectively drive the turbine to run a 50MW generator, and that’s without heat diversion. As soon as they place heat diversion into the mix, it falls away dramatically, and the best currently operational is a 20MW unit, and even that shuts down for three or four Months a year.
They have tried a 125MW unit (at the failing Ivanpah plant) but that has no heat diversion and still needs Natural gas as part of its operation to drive the unit up to speed until the solar factor can take over.
There are three or four different methods they have tried and they are all about as useless as each other. The only real difference is that each new method is a quantum level more expensive than the last one.
When I even try and explain the engineering drawback of CSP, I get howled down.
These green acolytes still think they can hook a 500MW generator up to a few mirrors and run the thing 24/7/365. They just WILL NOT believe it’s an engineering impossibility. I saw a dull paper (of 344 pages no less) released 12 or so years back that speculated that they would be able to run a 250MW generator full time by 2008, and a 500MW generator full time by 2012.
Not even close. If people have been working solidly on this engineering for so long, and the best they have is Ivanpah at 125MW for barely three hours a day on average, and they spent Billions on that, then I can’t see them getting much better in either the near or long term.
Hence, there’s now the change of conversation back to Solar PV, which was once going to be the very much smaller cousin to CSP and virtually just used for rooftops, but has now taken over the solar debate. I’ve actually seen some modelling which quotes a (lifetime) Capacity Factor for PV up around 22/23%. And there’s always some miracle battery just around the bend ahead.
Worldwide, currently solar PV is operating at around 13%, and the further away from the Equator you go, the lower that is and some plants and rooftop systems are actually HAPPY with 8 or 9% CF.
And they howl me down.
They’ll believe whatever they want to believe.
Tony.
70
The wind is always blowing somewhere. The question is “Do you want millions of miles of high voltage transmission lines covering the planet”?
40
@Tony
In that second article I referenced he discusses CSP.
Also dismisses wind ‘out of hand’.
Interesting person and an interesting web site.
20
Happy Fathers Day to all those brave souls that naïvely ventured into the nether regions only to emerge with more than they bargained for with the hapless life changing afflictions to social interactions and fashion.
50
Hopefully this is not one policeman’s understanding of a new law and it is the real thing
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3223109/Anti-fracking-protesters-labelled-extremists-police-thanks-Government-terror-strategy.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490
30
6 Sept: ABC: Rosemary Bolger: Tasmanian Liberals to consider Uber and AirBNB at state council, a day after debating climate change
Yesterday the party passed a motion urging the Federal Government to focus on adaptation to climate change “should it occur”, rather than reduce carbon emissions.
Some members described climate change as a “furphy”.
In moving the motion, Dr John Reid told fellow members there was no evidence of climate change.
“The whole thing has become a huge international hysteria and we have all this stuff about alternative energy and so on as if we’re in some sort of desperate situation where we cannot go on using fossil fuel. This is not true,” he said.
“What it really is, is green propaganda but it seems to have caught on with everyone, it feeds into people’s preconceptions of capitalist greed and about humans wrecking the planet, but there is no scientific basis for it.
“Just because scientists say doesn’t mean it’s true. You need to have evidence and there is no evidence.”
Liberal member Stefan Vogel, an oceanography researcher the University of Tasmania, spoke against the motion.
“The scientific consensus around the world is that climate change is real. It’s a fact.”
The original motion also called for CSIRO to stop “promoting climate change as an ideological position” but this was deleted from the motion that was eventually carried by the majority of delegates…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-06/liberal-party-members-urged-to-back-online-sharing-services/6753048
5 Sept: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Yet another Met Office ‘warmer, drier summer’ left us shivering in the rain
August proved that the Met Office is indeed a national disaster
And the reason is always the same. The climate change-obsessed “experts” at the Met Office, led by its chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, whom we pay nearly £250,000 a year, have programmed their £33 million “super-computer” to share their belief that the world is in the grip of runaway global warming.
This was why, on July 1, the Met Office gleefully trumpeted that it had been the “hottest July day ever”, simply because one solitary temperature gauge next to a runway at Heathrow got momentarily caught in a blast of hot air from a passing airliner.
Dame Julia’s response to the fact that once again her computer got it wrong is to claim that we must buy the Met Office an even more “super” computer, for a mere £97 million…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11847036/Yet-another-Met-Office-warmer-drier-summer-left-us-shivering-in-the-rain.html
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the muzzling of CAGW sceptics.
followup re ABC/Bolger Tassie Libs Conference/climate sceptics’ story.
note ABC only posted the article about 20mins before I posted the link (tho it’s been in moderation for an hour or two). article’s headline merely tacks CC on to the end of a completely different story today, plus CC is not even in the URL. the article itself is not on ABC News homepage, so is therefore nowhere in the listings of “most popular” at the bottom of the News page.
the only other mention I have found online was the final paragraph of a Fairfax Examiner article, which I didn’t find on the Examiner’s homepage:
5 Sept: Examiner (Fairfax): Mixed reaction to jobs, investment scheme
(final para) ‘A push to abolish stamp duty was quashed, while debate on the federal government’s response to climate change drew heated debate among Liberal delegates about whether global warming was real or just “green propaganda”’.
http://www.examiner.com.au/story/3329682/mixed-reaction-to-jobs-investment-scheme/
Hobart Mercury (News Ltd) apparently has NOT reported the CAGW sceptic exchanges. have found nothing from them online.
MSM simply won’t give coverage of sceptic views.
50
Well caught Pat. I do a regular scan of the ABC Just In site, but only advance beyond the two line summary if that attracts my interest, so completely missed what I see as the probably the biggest story in the Australian politics of CAGW.
The bias and obfuscation of the ABC’s reporting is disgusting. And alarming.
Many thanks.
40
Science of Doom,
In part 2 of this series, I described some of the techniques used by SoD to promote the Greenhouse Effect ®. Logical fallacies and rhetorical tools were found to be part and parcel of that explanation. Today’s entry in the series will describe a logical fallacy combined with a factual error used by all AGW ™ promoters to construct the so-called ‘Earth’s Energy Budget ®’. This error is the link between the ‘Budget’ and the ‘GHE’. Understanding how this link is flawed destroys both the Budget and the GHE once and for all.
Science of Doom Describes Outbound Longwave Radiation From Earth’s Surface – part 4
In the SoD article there’s a section called, ‘4. Your Radiation Numbers are Wrong’. That section describes where the 390W/m^2 outbound long-wave radiation number comes from.
There have been objections put forward to using the Stefan-Boltzman equation for this purpose in this case but those objections are irrelevant, as we shall see*. The real problem stems from the fact that the 390/W^2 figure is derived and not measured.
The surface temperature around the globe is measured by thermometers. I’m going to concentrate on the land-based measurements only because that’s all that’s necessary to prove my point.
Land-based surface temperatures are measured at about 1.5 meters above the surface. This means that we’re measuring the air temperature near the surface. i.e. this temperature represents the lower tropospheric temperature. Air temperature not surface temperature.
The casual reader may ask, “Why should this make any difference?, and “Why is this distinction of any importance?”
Put as simply as possible, if we’re measuring air temperature 1.5 meters above the surface, and this temperature tells us that the air at 1.5 meters is radiating long-wave radiation to the tune of ~390/W^2, then we cannot conclude that incoming long-wave radiation is what caused the air to radiate at that temperature, because . . .
IOW, the air at 1.5 meters above the surface has the temperature that it has because of ‘many other effects’, not by radiation alone! 😮
Abe
*It may be true that using Stefan-Boltzman is wrong for this purpose. Once we know that the air temperature at 1.5 meters above the surface was achieved primarily by convection etc. then why should I care?
74
J-A-G,
If you’re trying to communicate specifically to SoD then you should be posting your counter-arguments on SoD’s site instead of plastering Jo’s blog. SoD is much less likely to see your messages here than on his own blog.
Regardless of what SoD says I’d like to have a go at answering it.
If you think the quoted global average surface OLR is bogus because “the 390/W^2 figure is derived and not measured” then just ignore the calculations and look at the real world measurements of surface OLR. They are routinely measured at a bunch of places using instruments like these.
For example, pick some of NOAA’s sites (all USA obviously) and look at the measured values of surface OLR. Just judging them by eye…
•At Table Mountain the surface OLR is typically 300W/m^2 in winter and 420W/m^2 in summer. Avg ~ 360.
•Goodwin Creek, Mississippi, ~380W/m^2 winter, 450 in summer. Avg ~ 415.
•Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 325 in winter, 450 in summer. Avg ~ 387.
•At Desert Rock it’s ~380W/m^2 in winter, 510 in summer. Avg ~ 445.
The average of those 4 site averages is 401 W/m^2. That does not precisely match Trenberth’s quoted figure of 396 but it is very close in magnitude, suprisingly close considering these were gauged by eye from just 4 sites. It is certainly much higher than the satellite-measured global OLR at TOA (about 235W/m^2 for total sky and 267 for cloudless sky).
There is more radiative flux density seen leaving the surface (401) than the net total power seen from space (235), and much more total surface power when you consider the unknown component of surface convection. Yet for any integrative time period the energy must be conserved, so the challenge is to explain the difference within the other physical constraints we know.
This discrepancy between surface and TOA is much more than can be explained with the inverse square law, as the difference in global average flux density for the same surface power is simply the ratio of surface areas of spheres 6400km and 6500km radius, or only 0.97, which is vastly different to the observed ratio of 0.59.
There are also plenty of ways for energy to manifest itself that do not involve an increase in temperature, such as cracking rocks, making waves on the ocean, moving wind and water currents around the planet and so forth. However this would decrease the fraction of incoming solar that is translated into surface OLR. The data above are measurements of the resulting outgoing radiation, so all those other non-temperature forces and processes are implicitly accounted for already. We still have to explain why the outgoing surface flux density is much larger than the TOA flux density.
The obvious way to adhere to the law of conservation of energy is to hypothesise that at least (401*0.97-235= ) ~153W/m^2 of all power leaving the surface is being returned to the surface (including some energy from convection being partially returned to the surface by radiation). That would be the GHE basically. So check whether this hypothetical 153+ W/m^2 radiation from the sky exists by checking the real world measurements. As the observed 200+ W/m^2 DWIR is greater than the required 153 the observations are consistent with a radiative GHE. The excess above 153 is probably the partial return of the unknown convection component which was not part of the surface OLR measurements but certainly occurs, such as when clouds condense from water vapour and emit the latent heat as IR in all directions.
It’s fine to treat hypothetical calculations as insufficient for establishing the credibility of the GHE, but only as long as you then proceed to apply the scientific method by actually checking the real world measurements.
50
Except Andrew, the atmosphere does not just lose energy to various other systems it also gains energy from friction as the fluids on our planet (core, oceans and atmosphere) slosh around under the influence of the moon, sun and planets. The oceans for example can give up as much as 36kW of energy per square meter in a 2m swell. While incoming solar energy is only 1kW per square meter. That 36 kW is dissipated somewhere? How much goes in heat energy?
42
Andrew McRae,
You’ve made a variety of observations in your comment. I prefer to address each one, (or at most two), of them seperately. This will help to keep the conversation on topic.
It’s true that my comment has SoD in the heading at the top, but my intention is not to communicate with SoD on his site. My main intention is to:
1. Show some of the many discrepancies and errors in SoD’s desctiption of GHE to the readers of this site, not to the readers of SoD. Weekend Unthreaded is an open thread and so I can do this here without distracting anyone from the content that Jo publishes in her other articles.
This means that your characterization of my making a legitimate comment to open up a legitimate discussion with the readers of this blog as ‘plastering Jo’s blog’ is both incorrect and unwarranted.
Furthermore, let me remind you that it was you who refered me to SoD’s site to ‘learn about the GHE’ and upon responding to you with my objections to being referred to SoD, it was SoD who responded right here on Jo’s blog. And he did so a mere 3 hours (aprox) after my response to you. So, being that SoD was so quick to respond to my criticisms here, on Jo’s blog, the last time around, my secondary intention is to:
2. Have SoD respond to my criticisms here, on Jo’s blog. He’s done so quite promptly in the past, he can do so again now.
I would also like to add that when I conclusively refuted SoD’s remarks the last time, he never bothered to respond. In fact, the only direct response to what I said back then was, “It’s a simple article.” All the rest of his statements were irrelevant and completely off the mark in that they didn’t address the one and only point I made in that comment. To wit:
“How do you justify comparing W/m^2 at TOA to W/m^2 at the surface of the planet in light of the inverse square law? Simple question.”
And, because . . .
. . . there’s no justification in telling me ‘It’s a simple article’. If the Inverse square law is ‘simple enough’ to mention for radiation coming from the sun to the Earth, then it’s also simple enough to mention for radiation leaving the surface of the earth.
Final note. The denizens of JoNova often discuss articles that appear on other sites. In fact we do so almost every single day! 😮 Are you implying that articles on SoD’s web-site are somehow off-limits?
Abe
25
Andrew McRae,
Thank you for falling into the trap. Had you tried to comprehend what I said in my comment, you would have seen that it doesn’t matter whether you calculate or measure outgoing long-wave radiation at the surface.
If the instruments that you linked to above are giving you aprox. the same value for outgoing long-wave radiation as the calculated value derived from the air temperature at 1.5 meters above the surface of the Earth, then they’ve ignored convection etc. IOW, we know the Earth’s surface is losing heat by convection. In fact, convection is the primary source of heat loss from the surface. So maybe you can do the impossible and explain to me how radiative heat loss can be measured to be the same as calculated air temperature at 1.5 meters above the surface of the Earth, when we know that air temperature at 1.5 meters above the surface of the Earth got that hot primarily, (almost exclusively) by convection?
How?
Abe
04
If we measure the temperature ON the surface, not 1.5 meters above, then we are also measuring the absorption qualities of the surface more so that at 1.5 meters. The surface itself produces heat due to volcanic and other undergroung phenomena. Ice measures at a different temperature than 1.5 meters above it. I cannot see how measuring the surface would be any less problematic.
If you are arguing that temperature is notoriosly difficult to quantify in any meaningful way other than the current reading on one’s thermometer, I would agree. There are many, many variables that go into the measurements and homogenizing only makes the mess messier. It’s all noise.
21
Sheri,
I would prefer to use the ‘temperature OF the surface’ and ‘absorbs‘ rather than produces but you’re right, by measuring that temperature we would have no way to determine how much each of the components contributes to it’s value. That’s the problem to constructing an energy budget for our planet. At almost every step, there will be two or more contributing factors to whatever measurement you get for any of the individual variables.
I think that if you want to construct an Earths energy budget, then you’re right. Measuring the surface would present the same types of problems as measuring the air at 1.5 meters above the surface. That’s why I don’t propose that measuring the surface would solve the problems. All I’m trying to point out is that using the air temperature measurements at 1.5 meters above the surface to determine outward long-wave radiation for the Earth’s surface is not only problematic, but the way it’s used for constructing the so-called ‘Earth’s energy budget’ is flawed. Full stop. (i.e. I offer no alternative here.)
Therefore, using that energy budget as proof that GHE is valid is also flawed. Full stop. (i.e. I offer no alternative here either.)
As a syllogism:
The Earth’s energy budget is flawed.
The GHE uses Earth’s energy budget as evidence for it’s validity.
Therefore, the GHE is flawed.
I think that there’s a misunderstanding among many skeptics that in order to prove that a given hypothesis is wrong, one needs to propose some new hypothesis to take it’s place. This isn’t true. In order to prove that a given hypothesis is wrong, all you need to do is, well, prove it wrong. One may want to propose a better hypothesis, but it’s not necessary to do so.
Abe
14
No, I don’t in any way believe you need a new hypothesis to get rid of a bad. I have commented that here in the past. The only thing you need to get rid of an hypothesis is data that shows it to be wrong.
I have difficulty with the entire GHE theory. I do not buy that you can “average” the temperature range that is seen on earth and have any meaningful number. Nor do I believe that anomalies “fix” the problem. Global climate in and of itself is an absurd notion. The earth is too vast and too varied for most things to be global.
The Earth’s energy budget is another matter. I have questioned this, but not because of temperature measurement, but rather the questionable assumption that what applies to one part of the earth applies to all parts. It also assumes we know ALL factors. It is a natural development when one is trying to prove CO2 affects climate, but it is a possibly flawed theory. Even if it is correct, what produced the “imbalance” is not determined by the budget itself. It also gives the impression that more heat comes from the planet than the sun—I actuallly was told that in an online class. We both know this is virtually impossible unless the earth heats itself.
Back radiation is a tricker concept. It can be shown to exist. One calculates the value for how much is going on (as one calculates literally millions of values in science, since direct measurement is often not possible or practical). The problem is that back radiation in and of itself is not a big deal. What matters is the difference between outgoing and incoming—net energy change, not flux.
10
“Just-A-Guy” first said:
“Just-A-Guy” then said:
First the lack of OLR measurement was “the real problem”, then when shown OLR measurements existed which matched the quoted value, suddenly the measurement data “doesn’t matter”.
There was no actual trap, you are just incoherent on the topic. But since you now admit bait-and-switch was your original intention then it shows you’re interested only in trolling, not in genuinely figuring out how the climate works. Plus you have again avoided attributing any meaning or explanatory power to the measurements of OLR and DLR.
Consequently this will be the last time I ever respond to any of your comments.
You are disputing the validity of the method by which Trenberth and company derived “the 390W/m^2 outbound long-wave radiation number”. I will rely on SoD’s brief description of Trenberth’s paper which you quoted. Your invocation of “calculated air temperature” is a strawman because the air temperature was measured, not calculated. Your “impossible” question is impossible for a good reason – it supposes an event which didn’t occur.
The quantified mix of conduction, convection, and radiation which heat the boundary layer air is relevant to understanding climate but is not relevant to deriving boundary air OLR. The OLR from the air boundary layer is due to its temperature and composition, so at that point the history of how the temperature became that value is irrelevant to what radiation it will emit. The radiative transfer models can predict the OLR from the measured temperature and gas composition.
No more.
40
Andrew McRae (in absentia),
Internal contradiction. I don’t need to know anything about how these measurement are made or even if they’re accurate to see that your statements contradict each other. So which is it?
Is convective energy transfer from the surface included in the 153 W/m^2 or is it the excess above 153W/m^2?
Do you even know? (rhetorical question).
Abe
04
Andrew McRae defending the GHE ® hypothesis,
You hypothesise that the 153/Wm^2 difference between OLR at the surface and OLR at TOA might be attributable to ‘power leaving the surface being returned to the surface’.
The Hypothesis: The difference between the observed OLR leaving the surface of the Earth and the observed OLR leaving the TOA is being returned to the surface.
The Null Hypothesis: The difference between the observed OLR leaving the surface of the Earth and the observed OLR leaving the TOA is not being returned to the surface. So far so good.
Yes, I understand that this statement refers to the measurements taken at the Earth’s surface of OLR. But you can use the scientific method to measure how much long-wave radiation (what you call down-welling infra-red or DWIR for short) is actually hitting the surface of the planet. In fact this would be the perfect experiment to perform in order to provide evidence in support of the hypothesis. Clearly if we measure DWIR and it turns out to be ~153 W/m^2 then that would be a pretty good piece of empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesis, right?
The Experiment: Measure the amount of long-wave radiation hitting the surface of the planet to see if this is the same amount as predicted by the hypothesis.
This experiment has been carried out, and you’ve linked to a web-site that gives us the results of these measurements and a link to a web-site that describes some of the instruments that perform these measurements.
When we look at the actual data and analyze the results, we find that the actual difference is ~200 W/m^2. So . . .
Data Gathering and Analysis: DWIR (how much long-wave radiation is hitting the Earth’s surface) is ~200 W/m^2.
Hmm. The predicted amount doesn’t match the observed amount.
This explains, according to you (and, of course, SoD and GHE), the discrepency between the predicted DWIR and the observed DWIR. And so . . .
The Conclusion: The evidence (empirically observed data) tells us that the hypothesis has been verified, (tentatively, as is true in all of science), because although there is a discrepency between the predicted result of the experiment and the observed result of the experiment, that discrepancy “. . . is probably the partial return of the unknown convection component which was not part of the surface OLR measurements but certainly occurs . . .”. 😮
You talk about the scientific method but you don’t apply the scientific method. Let me remind you that if the observations don’t match the theory then the theory is wrong. You can’t propose a new hypothesis to explain away the discrepancy. Especially if that new hypothesis contadicts the original hypothesis. The original hypothesis includes convection, it’s part of the ~153 W/m^2, but the results exclude convection, it’s not part of the ~153 W/m^2. 😮
Two fails for the price of one! 🙂
Abe
03
Apparently, the Pacific islands are going to criticize Australia and New Zealand for not doing enough to stop climate change:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/06/australias-inaction-on-climate-change-set-to-dominate-pacific-island-talks
20
At least the Pacific islands now have plenty of airstrips to take off from !! 🙂
20
If the cult makes all the right noises and goes through all the right motions then one day John Frum will return in the cargo plane bringing bountiful climate reparations funds from the West just in time to stop the post-glaciation rise in global sea level. The type of science which supports this cargo cult would be called… ah, you know.
40
To a certain degree, this derives from Banimarama seeing an opportunity to get even, over him being excommunicated by the grownups, during the last coup.
It is not political, it is all personal.
00
Warmist crusader David Appell at NoTricksZone:
20
David the Apalling is busy over at Dr Roy Spencer’s too:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/09/uah-v6-0-global-temperature-update-for-aug-2015-0-28-c/
10
One thing’s for sure; he could never get a job selling sports equipment.
10
What about Sumo Wrestlers? They must buy their “attire” somewhere.
10
Yes, put I would think they have better fashion sense.
http://outsiderjapan.pbworks.com/f/1225238466/Sumo%20Spring%202008_044.JPG
http://outsiderjapan.pbworks.com/f/1225289384/r205969_784485.jpg
http://outsiderjapan.pbworks.com/f/1225154681/sumo.jpg
00
Just-a-guy’s comment on SoD reminded me—on a very old thread, Harry Twinotter was saying that Carl Mears from RSS believes land based temperatures are more accurate than satellite (which Mears does say this on the RSS site). Now, consider if this were the real world and not government propaganda machines. Suppose you work for Ford selling Fords. You show up to work in a Subaru and write a blog on which you say Subarus are better than Ford. In the real world, the minute anyone sees that blog and knows you work at Ford, you no longer work at Ford. Selling the competition, or as we like to call it “spitting in the face of the company that writes your paycheck” is rewarded with loss of job. In the propaganda world, you can say anything, knock any product or division as long as you keep with the “evil CO2 meme”. I consider Carl Mears to be selling the competition because that gave the answer the government wanted. That’s not science, but in propaganda, it is salesmanship. Says “really bad science”, but this is not about science, we all know.
40
Something interesting I found: http://www.businessinsider.com/sharks-found-swimming-near-active-underwater-volcano-2015-7
It seems we do not know nearly as much about adaption and how the earth works as some seem to think.
10
Even sharks have to go somewhere on vacation.
00
My “forecast” as below was archived 22 August 2011 …
“From 2003 the effect of El Niño had passed and a slightly declining trend has been observed. This is the net effect of the 60-year cycle starting to decline whilst the 934 year cycle is still rising.”
Both cycles were going up until about 1998-2003. Now the 60 year one is declining until at least 2028, but the ~1,000 year one will still rise for up to about 100 years, maybe peaking in the 2030’s though.
Carbon dioxide has absolutely nothing to do with it. Greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor and a dash of CO2) water down the temperature gradient (making it less steep) and they do this by way of inter-molecular radiation which, as every engineer knows, has a temperature leveling effect. That effect works against the gravitationally induced temperature gradient. The latter is a direct result of the force of gravity acting upon molecules moving between collisions. The Second Law tells us entropy will tend towards a maximum – it does not say anything about temperature, because entropy is far more embracing of all kinds of internal energy, including gravitational potential energy, whereas temperature is proportional to molecular kinetic energy, nothing else.
Modern day experiments with centrifugal force have proved that Josef Loschmidt was right about a force field like gravity producing a temperature gradient. Robert Brown tried to help Anthony refute this with a pathetic article that I have refuted on the “WUWT errors” page of my website climate-change-theory dot com and Brown is clearly proven wrong by the experiments and evidence in all planetary tropospheres, with or without surfaces at their base.
So the “lapse rate” is not formed by rising “parcels” of air molecules. Indeed, such “parcels” (and all the Stephen Wilde nonsense) are complete figments of the imagination with nothing to stop molecules moving outside their imaginary boundaries. The gravitationally induced temperature gradient is the reason why air is cooler at higher altitudes in the troposphere. The tropopause and stratosphere do not refute this, because they are in hydrostatic equilibrium (not thermodynamic equilibrium) due to the excessive absorption of solar energy some of which makes its way downwards from the stratosphere to the troposphere through the “temperature valley” of the tropopause.
Until you all come to grips with what the Second Law entropy maximization tells us, you will understand nothing about planetary temperatures.
04
‘Denialism is defined as “the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.” In climate the problem is those who label others deniers are the real deniers. They don’t even acknowledge there is a debate to deny.’
Tim Ball guest post at Watts.
00
This is correct. The debate has ended. The Consensus has been formed and the time is long passed to talk of “options for mitigation and adaptation.”
The IPCC’s ROLE
00
‘Latest statistics from the Met Office confirm this summer has been cooler and wetter than average
‘Despite a dry and sunny June and a brief ‘heat-wave’ at the start of July, summer overall has been cooler than average and cooler than either summer 2013 or 2014. It has also been wetter than average, despite near average sunshine.’
UK Met
——–
Cool wet summers and freezing winters are a sign of regional cooling.
10
If the NAO continues negative it will be a brutal European winter.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html
10
A long Indian Summer is predicted for the UK over the next three months, primarily based on a strengthening El Nino.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-temperatures-soar-29c-6393988
00
Booker takes a swipe at the Mets prediction for a warmer and drier summer than average.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11847036/Yet-another-Met-Office-warmer-drier-summer-left-us-shivering-in-the-rain.html
00
‘Next time waves are battering my home & my grandkids are scared, I’ll ask Peter Dutton to come over, and we’ll see if he is still laughing.’
Tony de Brum
01