Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[a_unique_person]

That's a little harsh on Prof Muller, I think, but he certainly hasn't come down to denialist expectations. Normally he says all the right things ("alarmist", "climategait", "Al Gore), and even now he says he is "surprised" at how little difference has emerged following this exercise (I wasn't), but in the end he is a scientist with integrity. More of an idiot than a villain, I think, but boy has he been branded as an apostate and heretic!

The "not a single polar bear has died to the global warming" statement was straight of denier folk lore. I think what happened is that he was fed that drivel from Watts and others, and accepted it without bothering to do some basic checks, such as comparing the satellite record to surface record, or the independent temperature records built up by people such as Zeke Hausfather and Nick Stokes.

If he done that, he would have realised that the BEST project was most likely going to be a waste of time and money, not to say a huge embarrassment to him and those who were dragged along into it.

 

[a_unique_person]

From a new paper based on coral reef cores.

As predicted, droughts and floods events are becoming more extreme.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/agu-ajh040511.php

3. Droughts and floods becoming more common in northern Australia
Rainfall variability, including the frequency of extreme floods and droughts, is increasing in northeastern Australia, a new study shows. Rainfall in Queensland is very variable from year to year, partly due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. As massive corals grow, their skeletons create yearly growth patterns, similar to tree rings, and record a wealth of proxy information about the corals' environment over several centuries. Flood events show up in nearshore annually banded coral skeletons as luminescent lines.
Lough measures luminescence intensity in 20 coral cores from the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland and uses the measurements to reconstruct a record of northeastern Queensland rainfall back to the late seventeenth century. The author finds that since the late nineteenth century, average rainfall and variability have increased. Both droughts and floods are becoming more common. The study suggests that extreme events, such as the recent flooding in Queensland, which affected hundreds of thousands of people and caused billions of dollars in damage, may occur more frequently in the future.
See related press release: http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-07.shtml
Source: Paleoceanography, paper in press:
http://www.agu.org/journals/pip/pa/2010PA002050-pip.pdf
Title: Great Barrier Reef coral luminescence reveals rainfall variability over northeastern Australia since the 17th century
Author: Janice M. Lough: Australian Institute of Marine Science, Queensland, Australia

 

[Trakar]

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110407101702.htm

The world is urbanizing which increases risk but then that also lends to concentrated mitigation strategies.....cities have enough legal power in many areas to offer leadership roles in moving to a sustainable civilization.

Portland Oregon is noteable

http://www.pdxinstitute.org/

Interesting, I live in the southern portion of Oregon, and though I was aware that Portland had numerous such projects and plans, I wasn't aware of this specific one. Thank-you for sharing!!

http://www.pdxinstitute.org/images/posi_publications/posi_2-pager.pdf

 

[macdoc]

It should be federal law in all nations that building codes are high energy efficiency and that each municipality over 150,000 have a Sustainability Dept. to coordinate green activities.

Too many municipalities are in the thrall of developers - and while many developers are green conscious it needs to be embedded in law for new buildings.

In addition very high subsidies for retro-fitting multiple dwellings for energy efficiency.

Put a lot of people to work and save a lot fossil fuel.

The plans are all here

http://www.usgbc.org/

The political will notably lacking with a few grand exceptions like Portland and oddly Bank of America's head office building.

http://inhabitat.com/the-worlds-most-sustainable-skyscraper/

Their ROI on this is spectacular and only going to get better as oil spikes.

 

[Trakar]

I fully appreciate that. I think Watts and his acolytes viewed Muller as someone who was on their side and so would come up with the answer that side wants (and probably believes in). They have found that not all scientists are like Lindzen or Christy, and Muller's one who isn't.

The denialist crowd which has come to centre around Watts displays all the elements of a cult, and it has responded to Muller exactly as a cult does when it feels betrayed. He has been anathamatised .

Judith Curry was down-playing her role right from the start; I think she knew what was coming. She used to be a scientists herself once, after all.

After reading Muller's testimony to Congress, I suspect Watts and his acolytes are more correct than those looking for the best plating technique for Muller's fecal sandwich.

http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Muller_Testimony_31_March_2011

It sounds like Watt has a lot more input into the process, according to this testimony, than any legitimate climate scientists.

 

[macdoc]

Battle lines forming up -.....informative article and good move

Why We're Merging to Form a Climate Change Supergroup

* Bill McKibbenBill McKibben
Author

This morning, two powerhouse climate change advocacy organizations, 1Sky and 350.org, announced they would be merging. This is a guest post written by occasional contributor Bill McKibben, chair of 350.org, and Betsy Taylor, former chair of 1Sky. —Ben Jervey

If you spend a little time as an environmentalist, one thing you’ll hear eventually from friends and family: “I wish there weren’t so many groups. It’s confusing—I don’t know who to volunteer for. Wouldn’t it work better if you all got together?”

This isn’t quite as obvious as it sounds. Different groups have sprung up at different times to fill different niches—you wouldn’t look out at a marsh and say “it would be much nicer if there was just one kind of frog to keep track of.” Diversity has some very real purposes.

But there are moments, and this is one of them, when unity is essential. We’re up against the most sustained assault on the environment ever: in the last few weeks our oldest environmental groups have had to play nonstop defense just to keep Congress from gutting the Clean Air Act. A president elected on the promise of transformational energy change has reverted to opening vast tracts of Wyoming to new coal-mining. A Tea-Party House of Representatives has actually voted to deny the science of global warming.

Behind all this is a very unified fossil-fuel industry. Working through the Koch Brothers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and a couple of other fronts they’re busy buying votes and supplying disinformation. And they’re winning. To fight back effectively, we need a much louder voice.

more

http://www.good.is/post/why-we-re-m..._campaign=Feed:+good/lbvp+(GOOD+Main+RSS+Feed)

 

[a_unique_person]

Willis Eschenback, the regular commentator from Whats Up With That and hard core denier, complains about Mullers testimony to Congress at Judith Curry's website.

Willis Eschenbach | April 6, 2011 at 1:53 pm | Reply
Gene | April 6, 2011 at 8:54 am |

I agree that the furor is overblown. Regardless of the outcome, it seems like Muller and his team are going about things the right way. I hate to see them attacked for it (particularly when it seems that a lot of those attacks are misinformed).
​

Gene, I’m not attacking Muller or BEST for their scientific work on the temperature dataset. We haven’t seen any of that yet, there’s nothing to discuss. I look forward to their presenting of the data in an accessible form, along with the publishing of the code they will use to do the analysis.
The issue is Muller testifying to Congress about his analysis of the confidential data given to him by Anthony Watts.

What is this confidential, secret data that Watts has?

 

[CapelDodger]

The "not a single polar bear has died to the global warming" statement was straight of denier folk lore. I think what happened is that he was fed that drivel from Watts and others, and accepted it without bothering to do some basic checks, such as comparing the satellite record to surface record, or the independent temperature records built up by people such as Zeke Hausfather and Nick Stokes.

The "not a single polar bear" claim did stand out for idiocy. I'm surprised Curry didn't pull him up for lack of uncertainty .

I think he wandered into the swamp without paying much attention, but enjoying the approval and attention he was getting. There aren't so many scientists in the denialist cult that each one isn't a star, after all.

If he done that, he would have realised that the BEST project was most likely going to be a waste of time and money, not to say a huge embarrassment to him and those who were dragged along into it.

As I've mentioned, Curry backpedalled from the get-go. I doubt Muller had a clue about how denialists really treat the outside world - and he's an outsider now, absent some major act of redemption.

 

[Mikemcc]

Willis Eschenback, the regular commentator from Whats Up With That and hard core denier, complains about Mullers testimony to Congress at Judith Curry's website.




What is this confidential, secret data that Watts has?

And why does Eschenback and Watts expect it to be confidential after complaining about a supposed lack of open-ness from CRU, NOAA, GISS, etc?

 

[CapelDodger]

And why does Eschenback and Watts expect it to be confidential after complaining about a supposed lack of open-ness from CRU, NOAA, GISS, etc?

Cute, isn't it? The Watts brigade are also bemoaning Mann's pursuit of Tim Ball through the Canadian courts, when Tim Ball was the first to take that route (with disastrous blow-back). Hypocrisy is very much their thing.

Of course, Watts has no special information : he's a not-very-bright, retired TV weather presenter with a blog. Eschenback seems to have had a senior moment there.

 

[macdoc]

a must read -

ScienceInsider - breaking news and analysis from the world of science policy
Live Hearing: NASA's Schmidt, Pew's Gulledge, and Science's Kintisch on Climate (Transcript)
by Eli Kintisch on 31 March 2011, 10:00 AM | Permanent Link | 3 Comments

A hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee (live feed at their site) tomorrow at 10 a.m. EST will explore the science behind the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's effort to regulate greenhouse gases.

NASA's Gavin Schmidt and Jay Gulledge of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change joins ScienceInsider's Eli Kintisch in liveblogging the event. It appears there will be five majority witnesses, one witness chosen by the Democrats. Come join us, send comments, questions!

Gavin is brilliant and there is a ton of good info and links

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/03/live-hearing-nasas-schmidt-pews.html

 

[macdoc]

12 April 2011 Last updated at 17:10 GMT

Shale gas 'worse than coal' for climate
Richard Black By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
A core of shale rock Gas is a natural by-product of shale rock
ates

The new kid on the energy block, shale gas, may be worse in climate change terms than coal, a study concludes.

Drawn from rock through a controversial "fracking" process, some hail the gas as a "stepping stone" to a low-carbon future and a route to energy security.

But US researchers found that shale gas wells leak substantial amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

This makes its climate impact worse than conventional gas, they say - and probably worse than coal as well.

"Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon, and is comparable over 100 years," they write in a paper to be published shortly in the journal Climatic Change.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053040

TANSTAAFL

 

[macdoc]

and the consequences

AAAS 2011: Climate change poses challenge to food safety

Sid Perkins

WASHINGTON, DC – Climate change will pose a number of challenges to food safety in the coming decades, from boosting the rates of food- and water-borne illnesses to enabling the spread of pathogens, researchers reported Monday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Depending on the greenhouse gas emissions scenario, global average temperature is expected to rise between 1.1° and 6.8° Celsius by the end of the century. And warmer temperatures are known to increase rates of some diseases: According to a recent study of salmonellosis in Europe, frequency of the ailment rises about 12 percent for every 1°C that air temperature increases beyond a baseline of 6°C, said Cristina Tirado, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. The precise cause for this trend isn’t clear, said Ewen Todd, a bacteriologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. It’s possible that warmer temperatures cause bacteria to grow more quickly, or people may prepare food differently in warmer weather (grilling outdoors vis-à-vis cooking in a kitchen, for example).

Climate change can increase disease risks in several ways, Tirado added. The concentration of methyl mercury in fish increases about 3.5 percent for every 1°C rise in water temperature. Warmer sea-surface temperatures can boost the frequency of harmful algal blooms, leading to an increased incidence of paralytic shellfish poisoning. Higher water temperatures also enable the spread of pathogens to higher latitudes: An outbreak of vibriosis on an Alaskan cruise ship in 2005, later linked to oysters that had been harvested near one of the ship’s ports of call, represents the spread of the disease-causing Vibrio parahaemolyticus to a locale more than 1,000 kilometers north of its previous known range. Dust storms, which are expected to increase in some regions due to climate change, could wreak their own havoc, because iron-rich mineral dust can drive a 10- to 1,000-fold increase in the growth rate of Vibrio bacteria.

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/

 

[Zeuzzz]

So instead of the usual scare tactics and carbon taxes that are never going to work what scientific solutions have been proposed to combat global warming? Obviously if it gets severe enough for countries to loose out major, major money to it they will invest in various ways of solving it. Its obviously way too early for such an investment, at the moment the cost of doing nothing must far outweigh the cost of action, even if people argue that the long term cost might be more.

Saw a documentary a while back that proposed about 10 different solutions to global warming. Sending satellites near the sun with huge 'sails' to literally block out light and heat from the source, using huge reflective panels in deserts and barren land to reflect heat, stream emitting boats to create clouds or something to get rid of the heat, etc.

 

[BenBurch]

... what scientific solutions have been proposed to combat global warming? ...

We need to build about 10,000 500 MW nuclear power stations.

 

[CapelDodger]

So instead of the usual scare tactics and carbon taxes that are never going to work what scientific solutions have been proposed to combat global warming?

There are no "scientific solutions". Any solutions would be technological, economic and political.

Obviously if it gets severe enough for countries to loose out major, major money to it they will invest in various ways of solving it.

The problem is that countries, however much they're hurting and however much they have to invest, can't solve global warming.

Its obviously way too early for such an investment, at the moment the cost of doing nothing must far outweigh the cost of action, even if people argue that the long term cost might be more.

It makes no sense to value an investment without taking account of the long-term. On that basis no investment would ever be worthwhile. Why defer consumption if you've no sense of tomorrow?

Saw a documentary a while back that proposed about 10 different solutions to global warming. Sending satellites near the sun with huge 'sails' to literally block out light and heat from the source, using huge reflective panels in deserts and barren land to reflect heat, stream emitting boats to create clouds or something to get rid of the heat, etc.

None of these are scientific, of course. They may be more or less practical (mostly not at all) and conform to the Laws of Physics as we know them, but they are not scientific.

Rest assured that the only solutions pursued will be to the problems thrown up by AGW, not solutions to AGW itself. When you're up to your arse in alligators, draining the swamp can wait. So we'll have the opportunity to see what costs what in the next few decades, and perhaps get a better sense of when spending more would have paid dividends.

 

[CapelDodger]

We need to build about 10,000 500 MW nuclear power stations.

Or we could invade the Hollow Earth and freeze Hell over, which would also do the trick. It's a toss-up.

It'll take a lot of money in either case, which means the Persian Gulf and East Asia. Forget East Asian investment in anything nuclear in the medium-term (at least), and nuclear programs around the Persian Gulf are often regarded as problematic. See Iran, for instance.

So moving on ... there is some momentum building up in renewables. Not fast enough to make any significant difference in the medium-term, of course, but a harbinger I think.

 

[Trakar]

So instead of the usual scare tactics and carbon taxes that are never going to work what scientific solutions have been proposed to combat global warming?...

Saying that the world we know is ending isn't a scare tactic, it is quite simply the best available facts as they are known, and there is no "solution" to these facts. Carbon taxes are the best and most efficient means of accounting for the externality costs of carbon emissions upon the economy, that you don't "like" taxes is irrelevent to the economics of the situation. Finally, global warming isn't something we can declare war on and defeat (like so many other failed "wars on concepts and practices"), the best we can hope for is to try to survive the changes and minimize the changes the next 20-300 generations will have to endure due to the actions of the last couple of centuries.

 

[Trakar]

We need to build about 10,000 500 MW nuclear power stations.

LOL, well, even as a staunch advocate and supporter of nuclear power, that would be a bit large of a horse-pill to swallow all in one gulp! Let's look at just substituting for the current coal generation plants. That's 614 (some-odd) coal powered electricity generating facilities, containing some 1,522 coal-fired generating units providing a total of some 335,831 MW power. If we allow half of those to become gas-fired generation facilities (an interim step - gas emits CO2, but it is cleaner than coal) and focus on establishing a solid base of nuclear power generation, we could add an average 7 (10-15 would be better and appropriately "visionary" - IMO) reactors per state (1-2 nuclear power facilities) over the next couple of decades and take a huge step towards reducing the US's contribution to the problem. Of course this is going to require additional efforts to include and exploit alternative generation systems where-ever possible and continuous improvements in the efficiency of power utilization, just to keep up with increasing demands that will push towards doubling while we are phasing out coal and building a new generational foundation of nuclear baseload power.

 

[Trakar]

...Rest assured that the only solutions pursued will be to the problems thrown up by AGW, not solutions to AGW itself. When you're up to your arse in alligators, draining the swamp can wait. So we'll have the opportunity to see what costs what in the next few decades, and perhaps get a better sense of when spending more would have paid dividends.

Just a rough guesstimate, but many of the economic models seem to indicate that if these issues had been taken seriously and acted upon with dedication in the sixties or even up to the late seventies, we might have transitioned into an economy that smoothly integrated alternative technologies without more than a slight speed-bump, the last ~50 years, however, seems to have taken us beyond the point where any easy and relatively pain-free options of mitigation are available, and quite possibly completely beyond any reasonable considerations of mitigation at all.

Once you step off the ledge, flailing about for options other than the accelerating approach of the sidewalk are largely without merit.