Global Warming is Not a Crisis

[JohnB]

That's pretty much where I was coming from when making the original comment.

 

That's roughly what I thought. The problem being that the literauture seems to go both ways at the moment and a definitive answer seems unlikely.

[swansont]

Swansont, I think I would call 10% "statistically significant" too, at least as a first approximation.

 

I meant statistically significant in terms of signal-to-noise. The best fit to the data shows an increase, but the error bar still includes zero. When you have noisy data you require longer data sets — this is the same reason descriptions of short temperature data sets will say they show no statistically significant warming, but longer ones do, even though the warming has not abated and the upward trend is apparent in the graph.

 

As to the sea-level issue, you also have to show that the areas have not seen any glacial rebound or other activity that raises the land level, and for the ones near a river, that the sedimentation (or other effect) is not the reason that they had to relocate the port.

[JohnB]

As to the sea-level issue, you also have to show that the areas have not seen any glacial rebound or other activity that raises the land level, and for the ones near a river, that the sedimentation (or other effect) is not the reason that they had to relocate the port.

 

Sorry. The point I was using them to make is that regardless of cause, sea level rise hasn't been a real problem in the past. Societies with far less resources than ours have adapted and flourished. Assuming the IPCCs projection of about 2 feet by 2100 is correct, the real question is "Will that be a problem?" Archeaological evidence is that this sort of change hasn't been a problem in the past, so why should it be considered one in the future? If it's not a problem, why worry about it?

 

It can of course be argued that it would be a problem for low lying third world nations. (While not so much for first world ones due to their greater resources.) Wouldn't this then mean that the most effective strategy would be to aid the third world nations in their development so that they have more resources and can therefore adapt the same way that first world nations can?

 

Whether natural or anthropogenically caused, climate change will always be with us, this is the reality. If it is true that first world economies can withstand such changes better than third world ones can then surely we should be doing everything we can to get as many nations as possible to first world status.

 

A bit more on hurricanes.

 

I think Wu et al 2006 helps clear things up a bit. Concerning the Pacific Basin there are three data sets, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) Tokyo (Japan) and Hong Kong Observatory (HKO; Hong Kong, China).

 

Webster et al found that "between the two consecutive 15-year periods of 1975-1989 and 1990-2004, the percentage of typhoons in the western North Pacific meeting the definition of categories 4 and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale has increased from 25% to 41% of all typhoons in that ocean basin" using the JTWC data set, yet the RSMC show a "decrease in the proportion of category 4-5 typhoons from 18% to 8% between the two periods of 1977-1989 and 1990-2004" and the HKO show a "decrease in the proportion of category 4-5 typhoons, from 32% to 16%, between 1975-1989 and 1990-2004". So your answer as whether or not Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes are increasing or not depends on the data set used. Wu go on to explain the possible reasons for the divergence;

 

One likely reason for the discrepancy in the reported trends in category 4-5 typhoons obtained from the JTWC and RSMC best track databases is the use of one-minute average wind speeds to estimate tropical cyclone intensity by JTWC and 10-minute averages by RSMC-Tokyo. This difference results in JTWC intensity estimates typically being higher for tropical cyclones with maximum winds exceeding 100 knots.

 

Another difference is that RSMC-Tokyo uses a Dvorak technique that was modified according to the study of Takemura and Osano [1989] to assess tropical cyclone intensity. This modified technique causes tropical cyclones below typhoon strength to be assessed as stronger than what the traditional Dvorak technique would give, and causes intense typhoons to be assessed as weaker. These variations already have been pointed out in the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Tropical Cyclone Forecasters Reference Guide.

 

HKO uses the Dvorak technique without modification but multiplies the one-minute wind speed by a factor of 0.9 to convert to 10-minute averages. HKO’s best track intensity estimates also take into account available observations from ships and land stations nearby as well as other information, such as ocean surface winds from the Sea-Winds scatterometer on board QuickSCAT.

 

The discrete nature of the Saffir-Simpson scale [Kantha, 2006], whereby a small difference in the maximum winds in a typhoon might cause that typhoon to be assigned a different Saffir-Simpson category, might yet be another contributing factor to the differences in trends. On satellite images, a typhoon usually is identified by the presence of an eye, whereas the assignment of intensities beyond that is probably more subjective.

 

This last bit is interesting due to Webster and others using satellite pictures to count and assign intensities to some hurricanes. I must stress that this paper concerns only the Western Pacific Basin only however similar problems possibly exist in other basins where a number of nations are involved. (The Indian and South Eastern Pacific come immediately to mind.)

 

Frankly I'm not too sure what to make of this. A 1 minute time span is more that a "gust". Does it mean that with a changing climate we are experiencing an increase in the length and severity of "gusts" but not an increase in overall strength of hurricanes? Are hurricanes changing? Are they more likely to be weaker in general but also more likely to contain a Cat 4 or 5 "burst" within them?

 

But it would appear that the answer to whether Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes are increasing or not depends on how you define a Cat 4 and 5 hurricane. Really, you'd think that by now there would be a standard definition wouldn't you?

[swansont]

Sorry. The point I was using them to make is that regardless of cause, sea level rise hasn't been a real problem in the past. Societies with far less resources than ours have adapted and flourished. Assuming the IPCCs projection of about 2 feet by 2100 is correct, the real question is "Will that be a problem?" Archeaological evidence is that this sort of change hasn't been a problem in the past, so why should it be considered one in the future? If it's not a problem, why worry about it?

 

It can of course be argued that it would be a problem for low lying third world nations. (While not so much for first world ones due to their greater resources.) Wouldn't this then mean that the most effective strategy would be to aid the third world nations in their development so that they have more resources and can therefore adapt the same way that first world nations can?

 

Whether natural or anthropogenically caused, climate change will always be with us, this is the reality. If it is true that first world economies can withstand such changes better than third world ones can then surely we should be doing everything we can to get as many nations as possible to first world status.

 

Why is "we have the resources to adapt" acceptable, but using resources to mitigate the cause is not?

[JohnB]

Why is "we have the resources to adapt" acceptable, but using resources to mitigate the cause is not?

 

Because to a great degree it is pointless. Let's say we spend squillions. We change over to a totally carbon neutral economy. Even further, due to massive research funding we find a way to extract all the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere and bring it down to 280ppm. So we've spent huge amounts and returned the atmosphere to pre industrial condition.

 

Even if we do all that so that the only forcings on the climate system are totally natural ones the climate will still change and we will still have to adapt. We could spend the entire planets GDP every year on mitigation and in the end we will still have to adapt.

 

Policy wise, I think it far more sensible to spend the money on adaptation than to spend heaps on mitigation (that may or may not work) and to then spend even more money on the inevitable adaptation. And adaptation is inevitable unless someone believes that the climate does not change due to natural causes. (And the opinions of people who live in fantasyland don't really count.)

 

It's also worthwhile remembering that the pool of money is not bottomless, most nations are already in the red. Every dollar spent on mitigation is a dollar less available to spend on development or adaptation.

 

To me it's a sort of "Give a man a fish..." type thing. Say you live in a strong house (economy) that is quite able to adapt to change but your neighbour does not. Now you're a generous person and you're worried about the future. So do you spend your money on mitigation and then help your neighbour build a better house when the inevitable need to adapt arrives, or do you help him build a strong house like yours now? That way, when the inevitable happens you are both in a good position to adapt.

 

I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly, if not let me know.

[swansont]

Because to a great degree it is pointless. Let's say we spend squillions. We change over to a totally carbon neutral economy. Even further, due to massive research funding we find a way to extract all the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere and bring it down to 280ppm. So we've spent huge amounts and returned the atmosphere to pre industrial condition.

 

Even if we do all that so that the only forcings on the climate system are totally natural ones the climate will still change and we will still have to adapt. We could spend the entire planets GDP every year on mitigation and in the end we will still have to adapt.

 

Part of the argument is not only is a modern society heading to extremes in temperature but also at an unprecedented rate. Adaptation is a lot easier if you have more time to do it and the parameters stay within narrower bounds. If they stay within bounds you've already experience, there are situations where you may not have to adapt at all.

 

It's also worthwhile remembering that the pool of money is not bottomless, most nations are already in the red. Every dollar spent on mitigation is a dollar less available to spend on development or adaptation.

 

Governments are in the red. To argue we can't spend on this is, frankly, ludicrous, given that innovation has not stopped in other areas of the economy. Why does mitigation have to be at the expense of development or adaptation, anyway? That sounds like a false dichotomy. e.g. you install wind or solar as an energy source in areas already at grid parity. That's both mitigation and development at no additional cost to anyone. But since you are using an industry that has more room to progress, it's actually deflationary (much like the computer industry has been all these years) and ends up saving money in the long run.

[iNow]

Policy wise, I think it far more sensible to spend the money on adaptation than to spend heaps on mitigation (that may or may not work) and to then spend even more money on the inevitable adaptation.

Where this point fails is in accounting for the scope of the required adaptation. A choice not to mitigate now increases the adaptation need accordingly, and hence more money will be required later than if you take steps now.

 

 

It's also worthwhile remembering that the pool of money is not bottomless, most nations are already in the red. Every dollar spent on mitigation is a dollar less available to spend on development or adaptation.

This argument fails, as well, but for a different reason. This one fails due to a flawed reading of economics. It is pretty plain to see that spending now will actually help to get us out of the red, and will ensure that we are financially better off later (if we focus our spending on employment drivers, that is). Austerity has been shown not to work, and to make long term deficits much higher. Your argument here is one of austerity, and you are somehow jumping to a non-sequitur that we'll have more money later by not spending it now. That is false.

 

Tie that in with my above point that failure to mitigate in the present will unnecessarily increase costs in the future, and you see that it doesn't really hold water.

[JohnB]

Swansont,

 

Part of the argument is not only is a modern society heading to extremes in temperature but also at an unprecedented rate. Adaptation is a lot easier if you have more time to do it and the parameters stay within narrower bounds. If they stay within bounds you've already experience, there are situations where you may not have to adapt at all.

 

Except for the "Team" hockeysticks there isn't anything that shows the rate of change is "unprecedented", so it's probably happened before. The rate of change from 1850-1880 was exactly the same as from 1970-2000. Since 1850-1880 was natural there is no reason to believe that this rate isn't similar to the rates of change undergone by earlier societies that quite easily survived them. If they had to adapt to rates of change similar to ours and survived then why should we fail? So far there is nothing to indicate that the rate of change is outside the rates previously experienced.

 

Governments are in the red. To argue we can't spend on this is, frankly, ludicrous, given that innovation has not stopped in other areas of the economy. Why does mitigation have to be at the expense of development or adaptation, anyway? That sounds like a false dichotomy. e.g. you install wind or solar as an energy source in areas already at grid parity. That's both mitigation and development at no additional cost to anyone. But since you are using an industry that has more room to progress, it's actually deflationary (much like the computer industry has been all these years) and ends up saving money in the long run.

 

Solar and wind both still survive due to large subsidies, remove those and they are no longer viable. A nation is similar to a household when it comes to basics and the cost of energy supply is similar to a household power bill. The more money you drain from a purse just to keep the lights on, the less there is available for other uses. If your power bill is $20 per week and goes to $40 per week, then you have $20 per week less to spend. While it is true that you could borrow to cover the shortfall this only works in the short term, you can't keep borrowing forever. In the case of a nation, if it costs 5% of GDP to keep the lights on and this cost goes up to 7%, then this is a drain on the economy and there is less money for other things. Now if wind and solar could supply energy at similar rates to other forms of generation I wouldn't have a problem, but they don't.

 

To use Queensland as an example. I buy power at a peak rate of $0.20700/kwh and an offpeak rate of $0.12760/kwh. The feedin tariff (what the power company pays) for solar in Qld is $0.44/kwh. Check me if I'm wrong here, but the last I heard selling a product for less than half what you paid for it is generally not considered a way to stay in business. So where does that extra money come from? Striaght out of consolidated revenue and there is therefore less for roads and hospitals.

 

Should the silly "Carbon Tax" survive, which I doubt it will, by 2020 we will be sending $58 billion per year overseas to buy carbon credits just so that we can keep the lights on. This is an extra cost on top of the actual cost of generation and supply. For this "Mitigation" by 2100 world temperatures will be lowered by .0045 degrees from what they are expected to be from the model forecasts. So this is $58 billion drained from our economy every year that will make a really big difference to our adaptation requirements.

 

Like I said, if solar and wind can provide power at competitive prices then I have no problem with them. However if they cannot then the extra money has to come from somewhere, either from government coffers or the pockets of average people. Either way there will be less money for other things.

 

iNow,

 

Where this point fails is in accounting for the scope of the required adaptation. A choice not to mitigate now increases the adaptation need accordingly, and hence more money will be required later than if you take steps now.

 

Don't forget the difference in outlook here. From your POV, CO2 is the major driver of the climate and therefore mitigation attempts to cut CO2 will have an effect commensurate with their cost. From my POV, CO2 is a more minor player in the game which makes things a bit different. If you're right then reducing CO2 emissions might mitigate say 80% of future climate change (assuming CO2 is responsible for 80% of the change and we fully reverse the situation) which is obviously a good idea as it will drastically reduce the need for adaptation. However if I'm right and CO2 is a bit player (or isn't particularly relevent at all) then all the money spent on CO2 reduction will have little effect as a mitigation measure and is therefore just as obviously a waste of money and effort.

 

To spend $X billion on mitigation to prevent 80% of climate change effects is a good idea, to spend the same amount to prevent 10% of climate change effects isn't. So I think that here it is an "outlook" thing more than anything else. Virtually all of the economic articles etc I've seen on this question though do tend to find that adaptation is cheaper in the long run.

 

To put it another way. How much money would we have to spend to knock 2 inches off the sea level rise by 2100? Is that cost greater or lesser than building the sea walls 2 inches higher?

 

As with many "policy" discussions, I don't think that this area is at all cut and dried with a single definitive answer. In truth I think the future course will be similar to what mankind has done in the past. We will talk a lot about mitigation and adapt as the need arises.

 

This argument fails, as well, but for a different reason. This one fails due to a flawed reading of economics. It is pretty plain to see that spending now will actually help to get us out of the red, and will ensure that we are financially better off later (if we focus our spending on employment drivers, that is). Austerity has been shown not to work, and to make long term deficits much higher. Your argument here is one of austerity, and you are somehow jumping to a non-sequitur that we'll have more money later by not spending it now. That is false.

 

Sorry, but I don't see it as austerity at all, simply basic economics. If a gov has a $1 trillion annual budget then that is what it has available to spend. If it spends more than that it has to borrow and increase the pressure on future budgets with the repayments. If the budget is currently already allocated, then to spend money on mitigation efforts a gov must either make cuts in other areas or borrow since the money has to come from somewhere.

 

I totally agree that spending money now (even if it is borrowed) can make things much better economically in the future, especially if as you say, the spending is on employment drivers. But which is a better long term employment driver? Bridges and infrastructure to allow the economy to flow more smoothly or some wind towers to supply expensive electricity?

 

I simply think that govs should live within their means. By this I don't mean "Don't borrow", I mean "Don't borrow more than you can afford to pay off". By analogy, if you can afford to pay off a home loan at $1,000/month then getting a loan that costs $1,100/month is going to get you into trouble. There is some noise being made at the moment because Oz has $240 billion in public debt but I'm not particularly concerned because that amount is well within the limits of what we can afford to pay off. I tend to use household incomes and home loans as a basic rule of thumb here. If a household can afford a homeloan of 5 times its annual income and can service that debt adequately (and just about everyone can) then so can a gov borrow up to 5 times its annual income (budget). It's only when you go too far above this limit or attempt to reduce the loan amount too quickly that austerity measures are needed.

 

US Federal tax receipts last year were $2.1 trillion. On that basis $10 trillion in public debt should not be a problem to service. That you are at about $14 trillion is a bit of a concern but with good management that amount is still quite serviceable. If it gets to $20 trillion, then I think austerity measures will become unavoidable. (Personally I think you should bump up the tax rates a bit)

 

Anyway. As to having more money later on my thinking is this. Let's say the economy grows by 1% per year so there is an extra 1% for the gov to play with each year. If that 1% is spent on mitigation efforts it won't add much to the economic growth will it? If instead the extra 1% is spent on things that encourage economic growth then the economy will grow even faster. (I'm thinking long term here not short term.) So 50 or 100 years down the track when the money is required for adaptation the economy will be bigger and stronger and can more easily pay the cost.

 

Think of it like a company with some excess profits. The company can spend the profits or reinvest them in the company to make it grow. In 70 years time the company that reinvests will be far larger than the company that has spent its profits. Being larger it will have more disposable income and a far larger ability to service debt and so will be far more able to cope with and adapt to change.

 

So it's not that by spending less now we will more money in the future. It's that by investing that money now we will have more in the future. We can invest in the development of our own nations or we can invest in the economies of developing nations. If we invest in our own development then we will have more money later to help those others when they need it. If we invest in their economies, then 70 years from now they will be developed and won't need as much help from us to do what they have to do.

 

Let's say a nation in 70 years needs $50 billion to spend on adaptation efforts. If we don't help them develop then we have to give them $50 billion. If we do help them develop then they will have a strong economy and will simply borrow the $50 billion like anybody else does because they will be able to afford it.

 

Does that make my thinking clearer?

[iNow]

Don't forget the difference in outlook here. From your POV, CO2 is the major driver of the climate and therefore mitigation attempts to cut CO2 will have an effect commensurate with their cost. From my POV, CO2 is a more minor player in the game which makes things a bit different. If you're right then reducing CO2 emissions might mitigate say 80% of future climate change (assuming CO2 is responsible for 80% of the change and we fully reverse the situation) which is obviously a good idea as it will drastically reduce the need for adaptation. However if I'm right and CO2 is a bit player (or isn't particularly relevent at all) then all the money spent on CO2 reduction will have little effect as a mitigation measure and is therefore just as obviously a waste of money and effort.

Indeed, that's quite correct, but the overwhelming evidence supports my position and shows yours to be rather lacking.

 

To put it another way. How much money would we have to spend to knock 2 inches off the sea level rise by 2100? Is that cost greater or lesser than building the sea walls 2 inches higher?

Here again, I want to suggest you remember that not all spending is a cost. Quite a fair amount of this expenditure is an investment, and with that investment will come many great returns. I fear you're continuing to look at the spending as some sort of blackhole, as opposed to something which will have a significant ROI, both fiscally and experientially.

 

Sorry, but I don't see it as austerity at all, simply basic economics. If a gov has a $1 trillion annual budget then that is what it has available to spend. If it spends more than that it has to borrow and increase the pressure on future budgets with the repayments. If the budget is currently already allocated, then to spend money on mitigation efforts a gov must either make cuts in other areas or borrow since the money has to come from somewhere.

Unless, of course, that spending brings with it a higher rate of return than the combined initial investment plus cost of interest.

 

Don't forget the difference in outlook here. From your POV, CO2 is the major driver of the climate and therefore mitigation attempts to cut CO2 will have an effect commensurate with their cost. From my POV, CO2 is a more minor player in the game which makes things a bit different. If you're right then reducing CO2 emissions might mitigate say 80% of future climate change (assuming CO2 is responsible for 80% of the change and we fully reverse the situation) which is obviously a good idea as it will drastically reduce the need for adaptation. However if I'm right and CO2 is a bit player (or isn't particularly relevent at all) then all the money spent on CO2 reduction will have little effect as a mitigation measure and is therefore just as obviously a waste of money and effort.

Indeed, but the overwhelming evidence supports my position and shows yours to be rather lacking.

 

To put it another way. How much money would we have to spend to knock 2 inches off the sea level rise by 2100? Is that cost greater or lesser than building the sea walls 2 inches higher?

Here again, I want to suggest you remember that not all spending is a cost. Quite a fair amount of this expenditure is an investment, and with that investment will come many great returns. I fear you're continuing to look at the spending as some sort of blackhole, as opposed to something which will have an ROI.

 

Sorry, but I don't see it as austerity at all, simply basic economics. If a gov has a $1 trillion annual budget then that is what it has available to spend. If it spends more than that it has to borrow and increase the pressure on future budgets with the repayments. If the budget is currently already allocated, then to spend money on mitigation efforts a gov must either make cuts in other areas or borrow since the money has to come from somewhere.

Unless, of course, that spending brings with it a higher rate of return than the combined initial investment plus interest cost.

 

I totally agree that spending money now (even if it is borrowed) can make things much better economically in the future, especially if as you say, the spending is on employment drivers. But which is a better long term employment driver? Bridges and infrastructure to allow the economy to flow more smoothly or some wind towers to supply expensive electricity?

I see this as a false choice, and none of that infrastructure and flowing of the economy will matter much if we've failed to address our behaviors enough to avoid the downstream impacts of continued warming resulting from human activities which add CO2 to the atmosphere in large amounts.

 

Does that make my thinking clearer?

To clarify, your thinking has been clear from the start. IMO, that's not really an issue. You're both clear and articulate, so no worries there. We just disagree.

[swansont]

Swansont,

 

 

 

Except for the "Team" hockeysticks there isn't anything that shows the rate of change is "unprecedented", so it's probably happened before. The rate of change from 1850-1880 was exactly the same as from 1970-2000. Since 1850-1880 was natural there is no reason to believe that this rate isn't similar to the rates of change undergone by earlier societies that quite easily survived them. If they had to adapt to rates of change similar to ours and survived then why should we fail? So far there is nothing to indicate that the rate of change is outside the rates previously experienced.

 

So once you exclude the multiple analyses that show the increase, there's nothing to show that there's been an increase. True, but meaningless.

 

 

As for the rest, I said "grid parity" for a reason. It's true that governments choose to subsidize to expand the introduction of "green" technology, but it's also true that grid parity would be a lot closer if most countries weren't collectively socializing the cost of emissions. If you account for that, then fossil fuels have been getting huge subsidies for a long time.

[JohnB]

iNow,

 

Here again, I want to suggest you remember that not all spending is a cost. Quite a fair amount of this expenditure is an investment, and with that investment will come many great returns. I fear you're continuing to look at the spending as some sort of blackhole, as opposed to something which will have an ROI.

 

Hmmm, could be.

 

I'm looking at things from the POV of increase in damage. After Katrina Dr Trenberth made some comments about it being stronger due to AGW and that therefore there was a non zero factor for "A" in there. Technically and strictly factually he was correct. If you accept that warming can increase the power of hurricanes and that humans are responsible for at least some of the warming, then humans must be responsible for at least some of the increase in power.

 

But how big is the increase? Most estimates (or comments by climatologists) I've seen put the increase at 1% or so. Let's say this is true and all of the increase was due to human actions. Katrina hit with a windspeed of 175 mph, so without warming it would have had a windspeed of 173.25 mph. Would this really have made a difference?

 

Nobody seems to be suggesting that we are going to need a new "Category 6" reference and all the estimates I've seen put future increases at less than 5% as an increase in force. Is this really noticable? Is there an effective difference between 100 mph winds and 105 mph winds? Both are going to flatten whatever they hit.

 

But you're dodging the question. How much money would we have to spend to knock 2 inches off the sea level rise by 2100? Is that cost greater or lesser than building the sea walls 2 inches higher? How much money to knock 3 mph off the top of the windspeed of a hurricane?

 

Unless mitigation is going to have a large effect, the difference for the money spent won't be noticable. If the difference isn't noticable, why spend the money? To me it's like the road toll. Oz figures show that vehicular defects are responsible for 1% of road deaths and drunks are responsible for 40%. If you have $10 miilion to spend do you spend it getting clunkers off the road or drunks? Infrastructure, land degradation, rising salinity, pollution in general, dealing with these will I believe bring a much greater ROI than spending to reduce the windspeed of hurricanes by 3 mph in 70 years time.

 

You mentioned ROI for mitigation spending. What do you think those ROIs would be? (Not a loaded question)

 

Swansont,

So once you exclude the multiple analyses that show the increase, there's nothing to show that there's been an increase. True, but meaningless.

 

No, once I exclude those that use dodgy proxies and "novel" statistical techniqes (that the statisticians say are wrong, BTW) I'm left with reconstructions that still show warming but it is no longer "unprecedented". There is a difference. Only if the warming is "unprecedented" could we assume that it will be hard to adapt. If the warming is something that earlier societies have easily survived, then we have little to fear.

 

As for the rest, I said "grid parity" for a reason. It's true that governments choose to subsidize to expand the introduction of "green" technology, but it's also true that grid parity would be a lot closer if most countries weren't collectively socializing the cost of emissions. If you account for that, then fossil fuels have been getting huge subsidies for a long time.

 

Solar and wind get the same R&D tax breaks as other industries, sometimes more. The infrastructure that some are counting as "subsidies" for coal etc also apply to wind and solar, boots, books and clothing. Yet they still can't compete without extra subsidies on top of that. Out of curiousity, since wind generators have been going up since the 70s on a large scale and have been sold commercially for nearly 80 years, just when will it stop being an "emerging" technology in need of help?

 

An interesting point in regard to solar as well. I don't know if other places have had the same problem or simply haven't had it yet. The idea of putting panels on homes to feed back into the grid is thought to be a great idea and at first glance it is. Queensland, being the "Sunshine State" as it is has been actively encouraging this for a while now, but we are starting to have some unexpected problems. The intrinsic design of the power grid is to take power from central generators and distribute it to the end users, it was never designed to have the power go the other way. With the large uptake of solar in some areas we are experiencing local degradation of the grid due to power going "the wrong way" as it were. Our generating authorities are recommending a ban on new solar grid feeds in certain areas and a rethink on the idea in general as it is likely we will have to totally rebuild the grid if the practice gets too widespread.

 

An electrical engineer would probably have a better idea on this but it's apparently like water. The water grid is designed to have the water flow from reservoir to household, not from household to reservoir. Obviously this doesn't effect big solar plants, just the household ones that feed into the grid from the users end. this could be an unexpected cost for an increase in solar power.

 

TBH I'm far less opposed to solar as I am to wind. We have a spare 500,000 square miles that we could cover with solar panels out in the middle of this country and I say "Go for it". I'm very adverse to the amount of land we would have to clear for a large number of wind farms, not to mention the fact that they are bird mincers and bloody ugly. (The gearboxes don't seem to last as long as advertised either.) I'd actually prefer some sort of nukes, but our "Greens" would die of apopelexy first.

Edited November 14, 2011 by JohnB

[swansont]

Solar and wind get the same R&D tax breaks as other industries, sometimes more. The infrastructure that some are counting as "subsidies" for coal etc also apply to wind and solar, boots, books and clothing. Yet they still can't compete without extra subsidies on top of that. Out of curiousity, since wind generators have been going up since the 70s on a large scale and have been sold commercially for nearly 80 years, just when will it stop being an "emerging" technology in need of help?

 

I think I said "green" rather than emerging.

 

And I also said that one reason that hurts competition is the phantom subsidy of socializing the cost of emissions from fossil fuels.

[JohnB]

When did you change the message next to the rep buttons?

 

I thought you might like to read this by Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu from last year. His bio at Wiki shows him to be a heavyweight in Arctic and climate research. It is a 57 meg pdf but is well worth the read especially since he goes through a lot of reconstructions going back a few thousand years and looks at temp trends from that perspective.

 

Personally I would think that someone who makes the ISI list of "Worlds Most Cited Authors" might know a thing or two about his field. (Although I know John Cook disagrees.)

[iNow]

I'll add another data point to the discussion.

 

 

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20111110_NewClimateDice.pdf

 

The "climate dice" describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more "loaded" during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extreme climate outliers. These extremes were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering much less than 1% of Earth's surface. Now summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology, typically cover about 10% of the land area. Thus there is no need to equivocate about the summer heat waves in Texas in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, which exceeded 3σ – it is nearly certain that they would not have occurred in the absence of global warming. If global warming is not slowed from its current pace, by mid-century 3σ events will be the new norm and 5σ events will be common.

 

<...>

 

The most important change is the emergence of the new category of "extremely hot" summers, more than 3σ warmer than climatology. The frequency of these extreme anomalies shown in Figure 5 is calculated for the entire area (land and ocean) that has data. However, for practical purposes it is more important to look at the changes over land areas, where most people live, as shown in Figure 6 for Jun-Jul-Aug temperature anomalies. "Extremely hot" (temperature anomaly exceeding +3σ) almost never occurred during 1951-1980, as shown in Figure 6 for the mid-decade years of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In the past several years the area covered with extreme anomalies, exceeding +3σ, has been of the order of 10% of the land area.

 

The increase, by more than a factor 10, of area covered by these extreme anomalies reflects the shifting of the distribution of anomalies over the past 30 years of global warming, as shown in the prior figures, most succinctly in Figure 4.

 

 

In addition:

 

The most important change of the climate dice is probably the appearance of extreme hot summer anomalies, with mean temperature at least three standard deviations greater than climatology, over about 10% of land area in recent years. These extreme temperatures were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering only a few tenths of one percent of the land area. Therefore we can say with a high degree of confidence that events such as the extreme summer heat in the Moscow region in 2010 and Texas in 2011 were a consequence of global warming. Rahmstorf (2011), using a more elegant mathematical analysis, reached a similar conclusion for the Moscow anomaly.

 

People who deny the global warming cause of these extreme events usually offer instead a meteorological "explanation". For example, it is said that the Moscow heat wave was caused by an atmospheric "blocking" situation, or the Texas heat wave was caused by La Nina ocean temperature patterns. Of course the locations of the extreme anomalies in any given season are determined by the specific weather patterns. However, blocking patterns and La Ninas have always been common, yet the large areas of extreme warming have come into existence only with large global warming. Today's extreme anomalies occur because of simultaneous contributions of specific weather patterns and global warming. For example, places experiencing an extended period of high atmospheric pressure will tend to develop drought conditions that are amplified by the ubiquitous warming effect of elevated greenhouse gas amounts.

 

<...>

 

Science does show that business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions will cause atmospheric CO2 to continue to increase rapidly. The increasing greenhouse gases will cause the rapid global warming of the past three decades to continue, and this warming will cause the climate dice to become more and more loaded with greater and greater extreme events. The probability that this conclusion is wrong is about as close to zero as one can get.

[kitkat]

I'll add another data point to the discussion.

 

 

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20111110_NewClimateDice.pdf

 

 

 

 

In addition:

 

Then why is this not broadcasted on every media outlet with an actual number of scientists standing behind these facts?

[iNow]

Then why is this not broadcasted on every media outlet with an actual number of scientists standing behind these facts?

How is this relevant to the data I shared?

 

Or, to the discussion taking place?

[Essay]

Which would make it hard to claim that the incidence is increasing with warming, wouldn't you agree?

Yes, hence my point about not basing GW theory on short-term weather or temp trends.

 

I'd like to see some cites about the Eocene soils not being able to support current life. (Not being picky, I'd really like to read them.) Given the changes in Continental layout I think it would be very hard to make too strong a comparison with that time (Sea currents would be wildly different for a start) but let's have a look.

....Plants. Plenty of trees and grasses. Looks like they were everywhere in fact. Fauna.

Evolution of mammals, modern birds appearing, plenty of reptiles, and insects. Life must have been very difficult. The Oceans....

So, lots of plants, grasses and trees. Lots of animal life and the seas "teeming" with fish. What exactly are you concerned about?

Mostly I'm concerned about how our present biodiversity will cope with a radically changing, "teeming" world. Bacteria and Fungi will be teeming too, y'know; if not teaming up to co-opt our monocultural agrosystem for food production.

 

In a way this strikes me as similar to the comment I sometimes hear that "Manmade Global Warming has prevented the next Ice Age" or similar. I'm still trying to work out exactly why it is bad that Europe and the northern United States won't be covered by a mile or two of ice in 30,000 years. Can anybody tell me why this is considered a problem?

It's not about returning to glacial conditions, but it is about maintaining the "near glacial" conditions, which sustain the biodiversity that evolved over the past 5 million years.

===

 

But thanks for that picture! I'm now using it in my "new paradigms in the carbon cycle" presentation. It is very catchy.

 

However, I think India had hit Asia by ~40 Mya, so that neat global map/picture must be of around the PETM time, 50+ Mya; though your point about how the continents affect currents and weather is still perfectly valid. They especially affect weather patterns within any given climate mode, but not as much as a "unipolar" world [which your picture/link illustrates] will directly determine a climate mode.

 

And just 20 Mya, in a Miocene world (this wiki picture), the climate was dominated by "unipolar glaciation."

 

"The deep-time record uniquely archives the processes and feedbacks that influence the hydrological cycle in a warmer world, including the effect of high-latitude unipolar glaciation or ice-free conditions on regional precipitation patterns in lower latitudes." -p.10 (Understanding Earth's Deep Past: Lessons for Our Climate Future (2011) National Academies Press)

http://www.nap.edu/o...record_id=13111 ~(Free to Read!!)

 

...and remember: "By the end of this century, without a reduction in emissions, atmospheric CO2 is projected to increase to levels that Earth has not experienced for more than 30 million years." --p.5

===

 

Also, re: "Sources" about "tropical" vs. "temperate" soils (& the ability of our C4 cereal crops to continue growing productivly); and btw....

 

"Thirty millions years" worth of change to our atmosphere puts it long before our agricultural crops evolved. Do you think our crops will adapt (especially in the "third world") within just a century?

 

http://www.jstor.org.../10.1086/515906

Stepwise Climate Change Recorded in Eocene-Oligocene Paleosol Sequences from Central Oregon

"The change from Ultisol-like paleosols formed in near-tropical climate to Alfisol-like paleosols formed in subtropical climate between 42.8 and 43 Ma corresponds to a global cooling trend after the mid-Eocene climatic optimum. The Eocene-Oligocene boundary (~34 Ma) is marked by the change from subtropical Ultisol-like paleosols to Alfisol-like paleosols formed in temperate humid climate. Global cooling during the mid-Oligocene (~30 Ma) is reflected in a change from non-calcareous, Alfisol-like paleosols to calcareous Andisol-like paleosols formed in sub-humid temperate conditions. These mid-Tertiary paleosol sequences are evidence of stepwise terrestrial climate change that was strongly coupled with marine events."

 

I wonder if sending our atmosphere back 30 million years will lead to any "marine events."

 

...but also....

http://en.wikipedia....story_of_plants

"The latest major group of plants to evolve were the grasses, which became important in the mid Tertiary, from around 40 million years ago. The grasses, as well as many other groups, evolved new mechanisms of metabolism to survive the low CO2 and warm, dry conditions of the tropics over the last 10 million years."

 

I'm sure you can imagine how the rise to dominance of the Grasses (& Mammals/ruminants), over the past few tens-of-millions of years, has produced vast amounts of "modern" temperate soil.

....Then 5 Mya, when the glacial cycling began, the soils... fire... agriculture... the "Green Revolution," "Dead Zones," & nitrogen over-use... ...and so, here we are today!

 

"Marine events" can be affected by both temperature and pH, y'know; both strongly linked to CO2 levels. If we don't mitigate this CO2 problem down to a manageable level, it seems we won't have a chance to adapt.

 

~

Edited November 15, 2011 by Essay

[JustinW]

One thing I have never heard mentioned are the BTU's given off by a living being and if it would have an affect on the worlds average temperature. An average person gives off between 350-1800 BTU's per hour depending on activity. The worlds population has now exceeded 7 billion. I'm not good at math so if I tried I would probably get it wrong, but added together would it have an affect to a degree of a rising average of 1 or two degrees?

 

 

[JohnB]

It's not about returning to glacial conditions, but it is about maintaining the "near glacial" conditions, which sustain the biodiversity that evolved over the past 5 million years.

===

 

But thanks for that picture! I'm now using it in my "new paradigms in the carbon cycle" presentation. It is very catchy.

 

Do you mean the world map or the mental picture? Either way you're welcome.

 

Re the presentation. Do you have it stored somewhere as a PPT or similar? I'd love to read it. Either that or get it filmed and post it on youtube, I'm sure it would be worth watching.

 

(Back to reading now)

[superball]

Greeting all.

 

New to your thread, not to add fuel to the fire, err pun intended.

 

I found some useful information that may give more insight?

 

The PDF gives some good information for you to consider.

 

The ozone hole anomaly I also included. Some research on the role ozone, or lack there of plays in our global system.

 

http://www.theozonehole.com/2011.htm

 

http://www.ipcc.ch/p...nic-2009-09.pdf

 

Penetrating radiation from the sun does effect the system to a great degree. Food for thought.

 

http://www.wyndham.c...eather/main.wnt

 

A lack of upper level ozone effects the system, but The major determining factor leading to global climate change will never be agreed upon by all the scientists.

 

Investigation, and observation will continue to increase. Eventually this will lead to a better understanding in the future.

 

have a good day..

Edited November 16, 2011 by superball

[matty]

A breaking newsbit I'm sorry, I haven't as yet had a chance to give it the read it deserves, least, if I remember, some here share my interest in like Science Daily?..

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111124150827.htm

 

"... A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies -- and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007. Authors of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation's Paleoclimate Program and published online this week in the journal Science, say that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric CO 2 will have multiple serious impacts. However, the most Draconian projections of temperature increases from the doubling of CO 2 are unlikely.

 

"Many previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate date, especially on a global scale," said Andreas Schmittner, an Oregon State University researcher and lead author on the Science article. "When you reconstruct sea and land surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago -- which is referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum -- and compare it with climate model simulations of that period, you get a much different picture..."

 

 

 

The cited reference at bottom...

 

http://m.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/11/22/science.1203513

[iNow]

...and if you keep reading, it closes with a less biased summary:

 

 

"It shows that even very small changes in the ocean's surface temperature can have an enormous impact elsewhere, particularly over land areas at mid- to high-latitudes," he added.

 

Schmittner said continued unabated fossil fuel use could lead to similar warming of the sea surface as reconstruction shows happened between the Last Glacial Maximum and today.

 

"Hence, drastic changes over land can be expected," he said. "However, our study implies that we still have time to prevent that from happening, if we make a concerted effort to change course soon."

[matty]

Hi, iNow, not to make any pretense in harboring no bias of my own, but I do occasionally break for good posture;).-- I'm sure my excerpting here didn't do my intention justice, I'd only been offering a hopeful in the progression of an arduous debate.

 

But here, another break?--'the corpse is twitching'...

 

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/11/30/durban-talks-kyoto-protocol-alive/

 

Canada's anti-Kyoto stance angers China-- http://www.montrealgazette.com/touch/story.html?id=5792370

Edited December 2, 2011 by matty

[iNow]

Do you have a point, or is incoherence just a common component of climate change denial?

[FarmForest Research]

It may not be a crisis to the folks reading the papers in their airconditioned apartments but it certainly is to the Inuit in the Arctic and the poor polar bears which are hunting for seals on non-existent ice. For the poor insects that are out of kilter with emerging food plants and the birds that arrive to find no insects to feed on. The whole argument is being settled in your garden if you care to look outside.