Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

My bold

Answered in post #2407

What exactly does the Union of concerned scientists have to do with this?

If, as an example, you are looking for the probability of a temperature at a particular point to exceed 30 deg C. The area under the bell curve to the right of the 30 deg C point, represents the probability that it will exceed that value. If the mean is shifted by (again, just an example) 0.5 deg C, then it shifts the bell curve to the right and the area under the curve where T>30 deg C increases, the probability is higher. That's just really basic (and glossed over) statistics. The actual values for the mean, standard deviation, etc are dependent on the location. The curve (and how it changes over time) is climate, the data points making up the curve is weather.

Nonsense. If that were the case weather events would be well shifted towards the Summer and towards the equator as was mentioned before.

This is a relative shift. From probabilities standpoint 1 in 30 is the same as 10 in 300.

 

[Trakar]

My bold

Answered in post #2407

If, as an example, you are looking for the probability of a temperature at a particular point to exceed 30 deg C. The area under the bell curve to the right of the 30 deg C point, represents the probability that it will exceed that value. If the mean is shifted by (again, just an example) 0.5 deg C, then it shifts the bell curve to the right and the area under the curve where T>30 deg C increases, the probability is higher. That's just really basic (and glossed over) statistics. The actual values for the mean, standard deviation, etc are dependent on the location. The curve (and how it changes over time) is climate, the data points making up the curve is weather.

Perhaps you meant #2408?

 

[Furcifer]

Who (except you) mentioned cherry picking?
And you are still wrong:

• The increase in CO2 is non-linear. ANy high school student can see that just usung a ruler.

• 
  
  They don't need a ruler, the set of points is basically a line at 0.5% or 1% as is used in simulations.
  
  You insist on changing this discussion from the percentage increase to the the ppm increase in order to make your failed point. I've shown you the facts, it's quite a common practise to use a 1% increase, over, and over and over, for about 70-80 years.
  
  

  [*]The % increase per year is not linear because the best fis is quadratic.

  
  Nonsense. If you have a quadratic equation let's see it.
  
  

  There is no "best way " in A better method is to model the amount of CO2 under various scenarios as done in several papers and summarized by the IPCC AR4 report.

  
  You've run out of points and are just arguing now. Of course there is no "best way", there are only better. We don't disagree here.
  

  The fact is that assuming a 1% increase in CO2 per year is the worst way. It ignores the real world, i.e. that the increas in CO2 over the last 30 years was not exponential (a % increase per year). Talking about a "1% per year" is wrong at best and delusional at worst.

  
  You don't know what you're talking about. The scientists use it, your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
  
  

  So now the reduction of CO2 emission by electric vehicles is less speculative than them increasing CO2 emissions.

  
  I guess so, I don't know what you're trying to say. If I had to speculate I'd say electric cars produce less CO2 than cars with ICE. That's a fairly safe bet. How much or more importantly if it's actually better than other options is another matter entirely.
  It isn't as simple as you're trying to make it seem. I'd say this is typical of alarmist thinking. If it's something they're onboard with they don't use any critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the problem.

 

[DC]

They don't need a ruler, the set of points is basically a line at 0.5% or 1% as is used in simulations.

You insist on changing this discussion from the percentage increase to the the ppm increase in order to make your failed point. I've shown you the facts, it's quite a common practise to use a 1% increase, over, and over and over, for about 70-80 years.


Nonsense. If you have a quadratic equation let's see it.

There is no "best way " in A better method is to model the amount of CO2 under various scenarios as done in several papers and summarized by the IPCC AR4 report.

You've run out of points and are just arguing now. Of course there is no "best way", there are only better. We don't disagree here.

You don't know what you're talking about. The scientists use it, your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

I guess so, I don't know what you're trying to say. If I had to speculate I'd say electric cars produce less CO2 than cars with ICE. That's a fairly safe bet. How much or more importantly if it's actually better than other options is another matter entirely.
It isn't as simple as you're trying to make it seem. I'd say this is typical of alarmist thinking. If it's something they're onboard with they don't use any critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the problem.

source?

 

[lomiller]

From PopularTechnology.net




I wonder when we can expect retractions from The Carbon Brief, as well as everybody who quoted them?

Just FYI the blog you cited is run by loon who used to post here but was repeatedly banned and finally permanently banned. He compiled his “list” in response to people here pointing out all the evidence is on the side of warming.
It was discussed extensively here, but the long and short is that most of the supposed papers were published in “Energy and Environment”, the climate science equivalent of “UFO today” and those that were not didn’t actually support his position.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156813&highlight=poptech+list
Even by their standards Poptech really managed to find some epic fails. Not the discussion in the thread where one of his “papers” claims CO2 isn’t causing global warming because it’s really being caused by the neutron star inside the Sun. No I’m not joking.

Greenfryer has an even more extensive debunkning then the one we conducted

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/poptart-gets-burned-again-900-times/
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/poptarts-450-climate-change-denier-lies/

 

[Mikemcc]

What exactly does the Union of concerned scientists have to do with this?



Nonsense. If that were the case weather events would be well shifted towards the Summer and towards the equator as was mentioned before.

This is a relative shift. From probabilities standpoint 1 in 30 is the same as 10 in 300.

My apologies. As pointed out, I meant post #2408...

It's not nonsense, when do you think heatwaves occur? I would think 'remotely, verging on never' in winter.

 

[Furcifer]

The issue isn't bedded yet, but "at the least, 'exponential'," seems a pretty good estimate from my perspective. Here is a more recent paper that seems to make a decent case and seems pretty definitive in ruling out a linear rate of increase

"Evidence for super-exponentially accelerating atmospheric carbon dioxide growth" - http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1101/1101.2832v3.pdf



36.2exp[0.693(T-1958)/32.5] looks like an interesting non-linear equation.

Amusing, this has been drawn out to the point of alarmism.

Apparently it's isn't alarming enough to say the rate of growth is increasing at a "linear" rate of 1% per year. Instead we need to speed 3 weeks driving home the point that the ppm growth rate is "exponential".

So far we've managed to gloss of the point; either what we are doing is maintaining the 1% growth or it isn't or it isn't enough or we're just not capable of measuring it for whatever reasons.

If it is growing at an alarming rate perhaps the focus should be on figuring out why what we're doing and the money we're spending isn't having any effect.

 

[Trakar]

...Nonsense. If that were the case weather events would be well shifted towards the Summer and towards the equator as was mentioned before...

What leads you to this conclusion/consideration?

The most extreme/energetic weather events tend to happen in the transitional seasons (spring and fall) when the hemispheric air masses are shifting to new states, seeking equilibrium. This is when you tend(trend) toward having more unsettled masses of high and low pressure shifting position creating the steep gradients in the boundaries between these moving masses of air.

 

[Furcifer]

Perhaps you meant #2408?

What "bell curve" of possible weather events? Sounds made up. So does a mean temperature increase pushing it in any direction. So "evidence"?

There's a few papers cited in AR4 I might check out in the mean time.

 

[Trakar]

They don't need a ruler, the set of points is basically a line at 0.5% or 1% as is used in simulations.

You insist on changing this discussion from the percentage increase to the the ppm increase in order to make your failed point. I've shown you the facts, it's quite a common practise to use a 1% increase, over, and over and over, for about 70-80 years.
...

This is all, quite remarkably, incorrect.

linear equations produce a straight line, if the line isn't straight, the equation is not linear. That said not all lines that appear straight are linear functions, sometimes the curve is so slight that it isn't readily apparent at all scales of examination, then we must rely upon precision measurements and/or different scales of examination to understand its true nature and form. From many places on the surface of the Earth, it appears to be a flat level plane. Elevate yourself a few miles above the Earth's surface, however, and it's spherical nature becomes much more apparent. With the Mauna Loa data, if you look at a small sample, or use extremely crude approximations of the data, it can appear linear. With the application of more precise measurements or over longer spans of time, however, the curved/non-linear nature of the CO2 measurements becomes much more apparent.

 

[Reality Check]

The Mauna Loa CO2 data does not vary linearly

They don't need a ruler, the set of points is basically a line at 0.5% or 1% as is used in simulations.

You still have basic misconceptions about the concept of linear and the Mauna Loa CO2 concentration data.

You can fit a line to any set of data (a linear fit). The question is whether that fit is a good fit.
This is obviously untrue for the Mauna Loa since any straight line will lie outside of most of the data. That is the point about using a ruler to see this.

I cited CO2 shame way back on the 9th of May 2011 but you seem to have not read the blog entry. The author takes the data (the first graph) and plots the difference per year (the second graph). He then fits a straight line to the difference data. That line would be flat if the original data was linear. The line is not flat.

The Mauna Loa concentrations are not linear. The data starts with one slope and ends with a bigger slope.

So we have ruled out a linear change in the Mauna Loa CO2 data. The next question is: Is the nonlinear change in CO2 concentration a constant % per year.
Remember that by definition a constant % change (your 0.5% or 1%) is a non-linear change in CO2!

The answer is probabaly not: The difference data above indictaes that the fit is quadratic: x = a + bY + cy².

Simulations used to use a linear increase in CO2 concentrations before it became clear that the increase was not linear.
Simulations now use different scenarios for the future future CO2 concentrations.
The amount of CO2 under various scenarios as done in several papers and summarized by the IPCC AR4 report.

The greenhouse gas forcing used by the AR4 models are derived from SRES emissions scenarios. The SRES report discusses emissions projections produced by a range of Integrated Assessment Models for a range of socio-economic storylines. Four `marker scenarios' are recommended as the basis of climate model projections, together with two further `illustrative scenarios':
A1 (A1B)
A2
B1
B2
A1T
A1FI
The projected emissions for the marker scenarios and other scenarios discussed in the SRES report are available here. Note that the A1FI set of scenarios was formed as a union of the A1G and A1C scenario groups: in some documents the A1FI MINICAM illustrative scenario is referred to as the A1G MINICAM scenario.

Thses are the scenerios used since about 2000.

 

[Reality Check]

You insist on changing this discussion from the percentage increase to the the ppm increase in order to make your failed point. I've shown you the facts, it's quite a common practise to use a 1% increase, over, and over and over, for about 70-80 years.

I mention both in order to try to educate you about what a linear fit means.

• The ppm increase is nonlinear because a line cannot fit teh data (anyone capable of using a ruler can see this).
• A "percentage increase" is either
  • An average over the entire dataset and so not a fit to the data or
  • A % increase per year which is by definition not linear since a linear increase is a constant increase per year and a % increase per year increases each year (think compound interest).

We are talking about the measured CO2 data, specifically the Mauna Loa data. That has been measured only for 30 years.

It may have been a common practice to use a constant % increase (non linear change in CO2) in predictions using older models.
It is no longer common practice: A better method is to model the amount of CO2 under various scenarios as done in several papers and summarized by the IPCC AR4 report.

Nonsense. If you have a quadratic equation let's see it.

Here you go: x = a + by + c y²

You don't know what you're talking about. The scientists use it, your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

Yes I do.
The scientists do not use it, read Carbon Dioxide: Projected emissions and concentrations. They use predictions of future CO2 emissions based on various scenarios.
If you are lucky one of them may be your nonlinear 'compound interest' scenario of a certain % per year.

I guess so, I don't know what you're trying to say. If I had to speculate I'd say electric cars produce less CO2 than cars with ICE. That's a fairly safe bet. How much or more importantly if it's actually better than other options is another matter entirely.

What I am trying to say is that there is evidence that electric cras produce less CO2 than ICE over their lifetime.
The discussion is not whether it is better than other options. It is whether there is any reduction on CO2 by replacing ICE by electric cars. The evidence (not much though!) is yes: Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles

It isn't as simple as you're trying to make it seem. I'd say this is typical of alarmist thinking. If it's something they're onboard with they don't use any critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating the problem.

The simplicity is only in the operational bit: replace X cars with X cars producing less CO2 and you reduce the mount of CO2 emitted by those X cars!
I do not deny the complexity of evaluationg the impact over the entire lifetime of the vehicles.

And there you go again with the alarmist delusion: I am not an alarmist.

I agree with you: Alarmists and deniers cannot set aside their personal prejudices or political biases and critically think about the scientific evidence.

 

[Mikemcc]

What "bell curve" of possible weather events? Sounds made up. So does a mean temperature increase pushing it in any direction. So "evidence"?

There's a few papers cited in AR4 I might check out in the mean time.

Any natural probability distribution will follow a bell curve unless there are other external forcings to to shift them to other probability profiles. Do you have any evidence to show that climate does not follow simple gaussian distribution on global levels?

If the average sea level at the Thames Barrier rises by 1m happens (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/sea-levels-set-to-rise-by-up-to-a-metre-report-2288087.html), are you seriously really suggesting that the chances of braching the barrier are the same than if that rise had not happenened? Now that is ridiculous.

 

[Furcifer]

I mention both in order to try to educate you about what a linear fit means.

• The ppm increase is nonlinear because a line cannot fit teh data (anyone capable of using a ruler can see this).
• A "percentage increase" is either
  • An average over the entire dataset and so not a fit to the data or
  • A % increase per year which is by definition not linear since a linear increase is a constant increase per year and a % increase per year increases each year (think compound interest).

We are talking about the measured CO2 data, specifically the Mauna Loa data. That has been measured only for 30 years.

This is just desperate hand waving. As I've mentioned plot it: 1990-1991 1%, 91-92 1%, 92-93 1%,

Keep going until you get it. I don't care if you have to get a ruler.

It may have been a common practice to use a constant % increase (non linear change in CO2) in predictions using older models.
It is no longer common practice: A better method is to model the amount of CO2 under various scenarios as done in several papers and summarized by the IPCC AR4 report.

This is just incorrect. There's nothing in that report that says it's no longer used, just that it's not the best method. This will be helpful in the coming years if the trending follows but right now we don't know. And it doesn't seem to account for any changes we've been making.
Anyhow it's a rough estimate of the way it's been going for the last 30 years, which in case you've forgot was my original point.

Here you go: x = a + by + c y²

This isn't a quadratic equation, this is the general form of one. Try again.

The scientists do not use it, read Carbon Dioxide: Projected emissions and concentrations. They use predictions of future CO2 emissions based on various scenarios.
If you are lucky one of them may be your nonlinear 'compound interest' scenario of a certain % per year.

No. this just says there's a better method, it doesn't say anything about the usage. I don't disagree that it's not the best method or the most accurate, but I will contest your generalization.

How about you cite specific models that didn't use the standard 1% increase, not ones specific to modelling the increase, but just general models, and we'll go from there?

What I am trying to say is that there is evidence that electric cras produce less CO2 than ICE over their lifetime.

I don't disagree. I think it stands to reason they do (or don't as it were). However, that doesn't say anything about their efficacy in relation to all of the other alternatives.

The discussion is not whether it is better than other options. It is whether there is any reduction on CO2 by replacing ICE by electric cars. The evidence (not much though!) is yes: Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles

Nonsense. If money is being spent to lower CO2 then it needs to be accounted for, not as simply reducing CO2 but at to what extent and at what cost. I thin that's more important. You can spend 500K on solar panels and a wind turbine but if it takes you 50 years to do so I don't really see the point. Other than bragging about how much you're doing.
Coming from Vancouver, I can imagine all of the people breaking their own arms patting themselves on the back about how great they are for buying a Prius, but at the end of the day it's probably the homeless pushing shopping carts around collecting their recyclables that probably do more for the environment.

The simplicity is only in the operational bit: replace X cars with X cars producing less CO2 and you reduce the mount of CO2 emitted by those X cars!
I do not deny the complexity of evaluationg the impact over the entire lifetime of the vehicles.

And yet we seem to be arguing about it.

And there you go again with the alarmist delusion: I am not an alarmist.

So far I've identified a few behaviors that would seem to indicate otherwise. We'll see.

I agree with you: Alarmists and deniers cannot set aside their personal prejudices or political biases and critically think about the scientific evidence.

Well at least in this sense I don't find you alarmist. At least you look at the science and try to make sense of it. I do question your objectivity but I'm sure you question mine. Such is life.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by 3bodyproblem
...Nonsense. If that were the case weather events would be well shifted towards the Summer and towards the equator as was mentioned before...

someone clearly has no concept of gradients. Extreme weather events are the product of large gradients between air masses, water air, or dry and moist.

If one increases the moisture content of the air by way of AGW then when the resulting air mass hits the inevitable cold dry continental high produced in the northern continents by lack of sunlight......then you get abnormal amounts of snow.

The same saturated air mass hitting the Himalaya's will give you abnormal amounts of rain.

This is very basic atmospheric physics.....that you fail to comprehend that is almost as astonishing as your notion of cold water releasing more C02 instead of absorbing more.

suggested remedial reading

http://wufs.wustl.edu/pathfinder/path201_07/notes/notes_11_13_07.htm

 

[Trakar]

What "bell curve" of possible weather events? Sounds made up. So does a mean temperature increase pushing it in any direction. So "evidence"?

There's a few papers cited in AR4 I might check out in the mean time.

If you haven't already focussed on them, its probably better to focus on more modern papers. Anything included in AR4 was published no later than, I believe Dec. 31, 2004, which means that AR4 was based on a restrictive subset of data that is now nearly a decade out of date (at the least) with the most current mainstream climate data and understandings.

Might try the papers cited in the Copenhagen Diagnosis, they are at least a bit more current.

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/download/default.html

 

[macdoc]

Nobel Laureates Speak Out

Filed under:

• Communicating Climate

— stefan @ 21 May 2011
On Wednesday, 17 Nobel laureates who gathered in Stockholm have published a remarkable memorandum, asking for “fundamental transformation and innovation in all spheres and at all scales in order to stop and reverse global environmental change”. The Stockholm Memorandum concludes that we have entered a new geological era: the Anthropocene, where humanity has become the main driver of global change. The document states:

Science makes clear that we are transgressing planetary boundaries that have kept civilization safe for the past 10,000 years. [...]
We can no longer exclude the possibility that our collective actions will trigger tipping points, risking abrupt and irreversible consequences for human communities and ecological systems.
We cannot continue on our current path. The time for procrastination is over. We cannot afford the luxury of denial.​

continues
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/05/nobel-laureates-speak-out-2/

 

[Furcifer]

You still have basic misconceptions about the concept of linear and the Mauna Loa CO2 concentration data.

You can fit a line to any set of data (a linear fit). The question is whether that fit is a good fit.
This is obviously untrue for the Mauna Loa since any straight line will lie outside of most of the data. That is the point about using a ruler to see this.

I cited CO2 shame way back on the 9th of May 2011 but you seem to have not read the blog entry. The author takes the data (the first graph) and plots the difference per year (the second graph). He then fits a straight line to the difference data. That line would be flat if the original data was linear. The line is not flat.

The Mauna Loa concentrations are not linear. The data starts with one slope and ends with a bigger slope.

So we have ruled out a linear change in the Mauna Loa CO2 data. The next question is: Is the nonlinear change in CO2 concentration a constant % per year.
Remember that by definition a constant % change (your 0.5% or 1%) is a non-linear change in CO2!

The answer is probabaly not: The difference data above indictaes that the fit is quadratic: x = a + bY + cy².

Simulations used to use a linear increase in CO2 concentrations before it became clear that the increase was not linear.
Simulations now use different scenarios for the future future CO2 concentrations.
The amount of CO2 under various scenarios as done in several papers and summarized by the IPCC AR4 report.

Thses are the scenerios used since about 2000.

*sigh

I saw the graph, the second graph shows a straight line. STRAIGHT LINE.

I've capitalized two words in the above because they are important. They define a linear trend. It's basic math, we've been over this a hundred times and you continue to look at a straight line and see a curve.

I'm really speechless. I keep saying, in 10 different ways "Look at the second graph it's a straight line" and you keep talking about the first graph. It's just bizarre.

And I have to say this again, my point was the slope on the second graph isn't as steep as it should be. At least under a "business as usual" fantasy. Now maybe it is or maybe it isn't, it's hard to say. That's worth discussing and yet here we are some 3 weeks or so later and I'm still trying to explain what a straight line on a graph means.

 

[Cuddles]

*sigh

I saw the graph, the second graph shows a straight line. STRAIGHT LINE.

I've capitalized two words in the above because they are important. They define a linear trend. It's basic math, we've been over this a hundred times and you continue to look at a straight line and see a curve.

I'm really speechless. I keep saying, in 10 different ways "Look at the second graph it's a straight line" and you keep talking about the first graph. It's just bizarre.

It is indeed bizarre. You keep claiming that the rate of increase is linear. But the second graph you're shouting about here is not plotting the rate of increase, it's plotting the increase in the rate of increase. That is, it's showing that the gradient of the line is changing, which means that the rate of increase is not linear by definition. By agreeing that the increase in gradient is linear, you've just successfully debunked your own bizarre claim that the gradient is constant, yet you're still trying to insult everyone else. I don't know who you think you're fooling, but I very much doubt it's anyone other than yourself.

 

[Reality Check]

I saw the graph, the second graph shows a straight line. STRAIGHT LINE.

A pity that you have no idea what the second graph is: It is the rate of increase per year. The STRAIGHT LINE is sloped.
Its basic math - the graph shows an increase in the increase per year.
The Mauna Loa CO2 data does not vary linearly

I'm really speechless. I keep saying, in 10 different ways "Look at the second graph it's a straight line" and you keep talking about the first graph. It's just bizarre.

I am totally speechless because as far as I recall, you have never mentioned the second graph to me.
It is totally bizarre that you cannot understand that the second graph shows that there is an increase in the increase of CO2.

And I have to say this again, my point was the slope on the second graph isn't as steep as it should be.

What value do you think it should be?
How did you calculate it?
Can you cite where previously you stated the value?

Do you realize that any slope on the second graph means that there is an increase in the increase of CO2?

How about some basic maths. In a quadratic fit to data we have x = a + by + cy². Here

a is the intercept with the x axis ay y = 0.
b is the slope of a straight line fitted to the data.
c is the slope of a straight line fitted to the differences of the data. In this case the annual change in CO2.
​

At least under a "business as usual" fantasy. Now maybe it is or maybe it isn't, it's hard to say. That's worth discussing and yet here we are some 3 weeks or so later and I'm still trying to explain what a straight line on a graph means.

You really have no idea what the graph is about: It is a graph from the Mauna Loa data. There is no BAU. it is the actual data.

Here we are some 3 weeks or so later and you still cannot understand that

1. The Mauna Loa data is not linear (use a ruler!)
2. A % increase over the all of the data is not a trend. It is an average.
3. Any % increase per year is not linear. It is the same as compound interest where a future value (FV) comes from an percentage (i)applied to each value starting from a present value (PV) periodically for n periods
   

   

   (the continuous limit of this is an exponential function)