Is something ailing The Register’s Lewis Page ? Despite having access to the text of a recent research paper about the Sun’s recent output, and its short-term impact on surface temperatures on Earth, and having had plenty of time to read plain English reviews of the paper’s findings in everyday language, he still writes it up poorly (in my humble opinion). Could this be due to internal bias, I ask myself ? Or is Lewis Page being wilfully contrarian ? Who can say ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/07/solar_as_big_as_people/

“Much of recent global warming actually caused by Sun : By Lewis Page : 7th October 2010 : New data indicates that changes in the Sun’s output of energy were a major factor in the global temperature increases seen in recent years. The research will be unwelcome among hardcore green activists, as it downplays the influence of human-driven carbon emissions. As the Sun has shown decreased levels of activity during the past decade, it had been generally thought that it was warming the Earth less, not more. Thus, scientists considered that temperature rises seen in global databases must mean that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions – in particular of CO2 – must be exerting a powerful warming effect. Now, however, boffins working at Imperial College in London (and one in Boulder, Colorado) have analysed detailed sunlight readings taken from 2004 to 2007 by NASA’s Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite. They found that although the Sun was putting out less energy overall than usual, in line with observations showing decreased sunspot activity, it actually emitted more in the key visible-light and near-infrared wavelengths. These shorter wavelength forms of radiated heat penetrate the atmosphere particularly well to heat up the Earth’s surface – just as the same frequencies get in through car windows to heat up its interior. The hot seats and dashboard – in this case the seas, landmasses etc – then radiate their own increased warmth via conduction, convection and longer-wave infrared, which can’t escape the way the shortwave energy came in. This is why the car, and the planet, become so hot. Thus the Sun, though it was unusually calm in the back half of the last decade, was actually warming the planet much more strongly than before…”

Lewis Page is playing up the warming influence of the solar minimum, in my view.

Let’s take a short look at the Abstract of the paper :-

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7316/full/nature09426.html

Letter : Nature 467, 696-699 (7 October 2010)
doi:10.1038/nature09426; Published online 6 October 2010

“An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcing of climate”
Joanna D. Haigh, Ann R. Winning, Ralf Toumi & Jerald W. Harder

“Abstract : The thermal structure and composition of the atmosphere is determined fundamentally by the incoming solar irradiance. Radiation at ultraviolet wavelengths dissociates atmospheric molecules, initiating chains of chemical reactions—specifically those producing stratospheric ozone—and providing the major source of heating for the middle atmosphere, while radiation at visible and near-infrared wavelengths mainly reaches and warms the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. Thus the spectral composition of solar radiation is crucial in determining atmospheric structure, as well as surface temperature, and it follows that the response of the atmosphere to variations in solar irradiance depends on the spectrum. Daily measurements of the solar spectrum between 0.2  micrometres and 2.4 micrometres, made by the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) instrument on the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite since April 2004, have revealed that over this declining phase of the solar cycle there was a four to six times larger decline in ultraviolet than would have been predicted on the basis of our previous understanding. This reduction was partially compensated in the total solar output by an increase in radiation at visible wavelengths. Here we show that these spectral changes appear to have led to a significant decline from 2004 to 2007 in stratospheric ozone below an altitude of 45 km, with an increase above this altitude. Our results, simulated with a radiative-photochemical model, are consistent with contemporaneous measurements of ozone from the Aura-MLS satellite, although the short time period makes precise attribution to solar effects difficult. We also show, using the SIM data, that solar radiative forcing of surface climate is out of phase with solar activity. Currently there is insufficient observational evidence to validate the spectral variations observed by SIM, or to fully characterize other solar cycles, but our findings raise the possibility that the effects of solar variability on temperature throughout the atmosphere may be contrary to current expectations.”

It just doesn’t say what Lewis Page is saying.

Fiona Harvey at the Financial Times seems slightly confused, as she doesn’t appear to have realised about the difference between longer wave and shorter wave radiation, and their different impacts on the different layers of the atmosphere :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/871c589c-d164-11df-96d1-00144feabdc0.html

“Sun throws new light on global warming : By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent : Published: October 7 2010 : The sun has been behaving more curiously in the last few years than previously thought, scientists have found, in research that throws new light on global warming. Data from new satellites show that although the sun’s activity – which can be measured in part by observing sunspots – has been at an unusual low, the effect of this has not been to cool the earth, as might have been expected, but to warm it. The research challenges some accepted opinions on the effect of the sun’s activities on the climate, as it suggests that climate models may have slightly over-estimated the sun’s role in warming the earth. Scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Colorado monitored the sun’s activity from 2004-07, a period when its activity was declining. Activity on the sun waxes and wanes over an 11-year cycle, and in the declining phase the overall amount of radiation reaching the earth also declines. That should have meant that the earth would become slightly cooler. But instead, the amount of energy reaching the earth increased. This has led the scientists involved to theorise that, conversely, decreasing solar activity could slightly warm the earth. Joannah Haigh, professor at Imperial and lead author of the study, said: “These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the sun’s effect on our climate. If further studies find the same pattern over a longer period, this could suggest we may have overestimated the sun’s role in warming the planet, rather than underestimating it.” However, the amount of warming involved either way is very small. The research, published on Thursday in the peer-review journal Nature, is complex, and the authors cautioned that there were several potential explanations for their observations. They also warned that as the research had been carried out over a relatively short period, it would be wrong to extrapolate too much from it, and that more study was needed. However, the research is likely to spark further debates in climate circles. The role of the sun has been hotly disputed, with some sceptics claiming that solar activity, measured by sunspots, was the real culprit behind warming temperatures. Prof Haigh said: “This [new research] does not give comfort to climate change sceptics at all – it may suggest we do not know enough about the sun but casts no aspersions on climate models [which] would still be producing the same results without these solar effects.”

Agence France-Presse does better than Fiona :-
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jQB0_aw8czUjhiSN-o1dVpNxKfrA?docId=CNG.6f90940f6d9bb44d73f1c586d3a44fbb.8c1

“…The amount of energy in the ultraviolet part of the energy spectrum fell, the researchers found…”These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun’s effect on our climate,” said lead author Joanna Haigh, a professor at Imperial College London where she is also a member of the Grantham Institute for Climate change. “However, they only show us a snapshot of the Sun’s activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly.” Insisting on caution, Haigh said that if the Sun turned out to have a warming effect during the “waning” part of the cycle, it might also turn out to have a cooling effect during the “waxing” part of the cycle. In that case, greenhouse gases would be more to blame than thought for the perceptible rise in global temperatures over the past century. “We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period,” Haigh said. “We need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun’s activity, and the patterns that we have uncovered, on longer timescales.”… ”

The situation has not been helped by the write-up in Nature itself, sadly :-

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101006/full/news.2010.519.html

“Published online 6 October 2010 : Nature : doi:10.1038/news.2010.519 : News : Declining solar activity linked to recent warming : The Sun may have caused as much warming as carbon dioxide over three years : Quirin Schiermeier : Waning solar activity between 2004 and 2007 has unexpectedly been linked to a warmer Earth. : An analysis of satellite data challenges the intuitive idea that decreasing solar activity cools Earth, and vice versa. In fact, solar forcing of Earth’s surface climate seems to work the opposite way around — at least during the current Sun cycle…Over the three-year study period, the observed variations in the solar spectrum have caused roughly as much warming of Earth’s surface as have increases in carbon dioxide emissions, says Haigh. But because solar activity is cyclic it should have no long-term impact on climate, regardless of whether similar spectral changes have occurred during previous solar cycles. “If the climate were affected in the long term, the Sun should have produced a notable cooling in the first half of the twentieth century, which we know it didn’t,” she says…”

RealClimate dig their teeth into this and commence chewing :-

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/10/solar-spectral-stumper/

“Solar spectral stumper : gavin @ 7 October 2010 : It’s again time for one of those puzzling results that if they turn out to be true, would have some very important implications and upset a lot of relatively established science. The big issue of course is the “if”. The case in question relates to some results published this week in Nature by Joanna Haigh and colleagues. They took some ‘hot off the presses’ satellite data from the SORCE mission (which has been in operation since 2003) and ran it through a relatively complex chemistry/radiation model. These data are measurements of how the solar output varies as a function of wavelength from an instrument called “SIM” (the Spectral Irradiance Monitor). It has been known for some time that over a solar cycle, different wavelengths vary with different amplitudes. For instance, Lean (2000) showed that the UV component varied by about 10 times as much as the total solar irradiance (TSI) did over a cycle. This information (and subsequent analyses) have lent a lot of support to the idea that solar variability changes have an important amplification via changes in stratospheric ozone (Shindell et al (2001), for instance). So it is not a novel finding that the SIM results in the UV don’t look exactly like the TSI. What is a surprise is that for the visible wavelengths, SIM seems to suggest that the irradiance changes are opposite in sign to the changes in the TSI. To be clear, while the TSI has decreased since 2003 (as part of the descent into the current solar minimum), SIM seems to indicate that the UV decreases are much larger than expected, while irradiance in visible bands has actually increased! This is counter to any current understanding of what controls irradiance on solar cycle timescales. What are the implications of such a phenomena? Well, since the UV portion of the solar input is mostly absorbed in stratosphere, it is the visible and near-IR portions of the irradiance change that directly influence the lower atmosphere. Bigger changes in the UV also imply bigger changes in stratospheric ozone and temperature, and this influences the tropospheric radiative forcing too. Indeed, according to Haigh’s calculations, the combination of the two effects means that the net radiative forcing at the tropopause is opposite in sign to the TSI change. So during a solar minimum you would expect a warmer surface!…”

The Guardian has it about right – a gold star and a bonus pint goes to Damian Carrington (and there was I thinking that his only role was to write fluff) :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/06/sun-role-warming-planet

“Sun’s role in warming the planet may be overestimated, study finds : The discovery could help explain why Europe can have cold winters while the world as a whole is heating up : Damian Carrington : Wednesday 6 October 2010…Some climate change sceptics have suggested the changes in the sun’s brightness can explain the global warming seen over the past century. But Haigh said: “It does not give comfort to climate sceptics at all.” If the sun warmed the Earth less when it was at the solar maximum, then the reverse was also true, she said: “You can’t have it one way and not the other.” In addition, she said, the warming influence of rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, emitted by human activities, was at least 10 times greater than changes in the strength of the sun. Prof Mike Lockwood, a solar physicist at the University of Reading said: “We don’t have any reason at the moment to change our overall view of the contributions of changing solar radiation to climate change, not on a global scale, but there is quite a lot of evidence coming forward that these changes do matter on a regional scale and particularly to us here in Europe.” That is because the sun’s intensity plays a crucial role at mid-latitudes, where the UK sits, by controlling the jet stream winds, which in turn govern weather, he said. Changes to the jet stream are responsible for extremely cold European winters, such as the last one, and also the conditions which caused the volcanic ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano to blow southwards and ground flights in April and May…”

The trouble with science communication, is that sometimes scientists don’t communicate very well :-

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/10/thinking-youve-communicated.html

It appears that in this case, the scientists have communicated exceptionally well and the journalists have been “neutral” about the results.

I have to give Richard Black at the BBC his dues – his write-up is very reasonable and balanced :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11480916

“6 October 2010 : Solar surprise for climate issue : By Richard Black : Environment correspondent, BBC News : The view that the Sun may be driving modern-day climate change has clouded policy discussions
The Sun’s influence on modern-day global warming may have been overestimated, a study suggests…”

I think we should give New Scientist the last word :-

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727793.100-the-sun-joins-the-climate-club.html

“The sun joins the climate club : Updated 13:05 29 September 2010 by Michael Marshall : Editorial: The sun’s activity has a place in climate science : THE idea that changes in the sun’s activity can influence the climate is making a comeback, after years of scientific vilification, thanks to major advances in our understanding of the atmosphere. The findings do not suggest – as climate sceptics frequently do – that we can blame the rise of global temperatures since the early 20th century on the sun. “There are extravagant claims for the effects of the sun on global climate,” says Giles Harrison, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Reading, UK. “They are not supported.”…”

Image Credit : SOHO : Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

Predictably, sadly, Niall Firth writing for the Daily Mail, appears to have read a press briefing from Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, and proceeds to repeat errors :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html

“Royal Society issues new climate change guide that admits there are ‘uncertainties’ about the science : By NIALL FIRTH : 30th September 2010…”

First up, the reporter documents the false claim that the Royal Society was “forced” to make changes to its public guidance on Climate Change science because of the views of the sceptic-deniers. Nothing could be more flimsy an assertion :-

“…The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced to rewrite its guide on climate change and admit that it is not known how much warmer the Earth will become. The Royal Society has updated its guide after 43 of its members complained that the previous version failed to take into account the opinion of climate change sceptics…”

Well, actually, the reason the Royal Society has been persuaded to issue new Climate Change guidance is because people (including Niall Firth, apparently) do not appear to have understood the science of Climate Change, as they have been listening to the inaccuracies put forward by the sceptic-deniers.

The aim of this new guidance is to try to make the bare bones of Climate Change science more readable, more accessible for people like Niall Firth, who seem to find it hard to listen to warnings of real dangers.

Another reason why the Royal Society have put out new guidance on Climate Change is that they were accused of seeking to dictate governmental policy in their previous publications.

The accusation of “activists” from the sceptic-deniers appears to have stuck, and so the Royal Society have tried to separate science from policy recommendations and advocacy of particular courses of action with this new publication.

Niall Firth makes much of the “admission” of uncertainty, even though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, has repeatedly pointed out the areas of uncertainty in the science.

And Niall Firth seems to completely fail to understand that the most significant parts of the science are broadly settled :-

“The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced [...] admit that it is not known how much warmer the Earth will become….Now the new guide, called ‘Climate change: a summary of the science’, admits that there are some ‘uncertainties’ regarding the science behind climate change. And it says that it impossible to know for sure how the Earth’s climate will change in the future nor what the possible effects may be. The 19-page guide says: ’It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made. Scientists continue to work to narrow these areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.’…”

If you read the Royal Society guidance, which I guess Niall Firth has not, you can see that there is a general acceptance that the most likely outcome is more warming, although it is not clear how much more warming is coming our way.

It’s already bad. It’s going to get worse. We just don’t know exactly how much worse that worse is. Partly because we don’t know when humankind is going to stop excess Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

The Royal Society guidance allows for possible cooling influences from known and unknown sources, but its main message is that there will be increasing warmth.

Niall Firth regurgitates the views of Benny Peiser, social anthropologist, employee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, without a trace of doubt :-

“…Benny Peiser, Director of The Global Warming Policy Foundation also welcomed the Royal Society’s decision to revise….’The Royal Society now also agrees with the GWPF that the warming trend of
the 1980s and 90s has come to a halt in the last 10 years.’…”

I beg your pardon ?

I’ve read the Royal Society guidance twice, and I find no mention that backs up Benny Peiser’s claim that “the warming trend of the 1980s and 90s has come to a halt in the last 10 years”.

That, I’m afraid, is utter fabrication.

What the guidance does say in paragraph 22 is :-

“When [...] surface temperatures are averaged over periods of a decade, to remove some of the year-to-year variability, each decade since the 1970s has been clearly warmer (given known uncertainties) than the one immediately preceding it. The decade 2000-2009 was, globally, around 0.15 degrees C warmer than the decade 1990-1999.”

Niall Firth needs to make corrections, in my view.

The Royal Society today publishes its latest layman’s summary of Climate Change, and thankfully manages to avoid several representational pitfalls that sceptic-deniers could have leapt on and said “See ! We told you !”

http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

Unfortunately, to my mind, it still has a few chinks in the door that should have slammed shut and permanently sealed off the sceptic-denier “contributions” on the subject.

Let’s look at the Royal Society narrative of progress by degrees, for example.

In section 28, “Aspects of climate change on which there is wide agreement : Climate forcing by greenhouse gas changes”, it reads :-

“…Application of established physical principles shows that, even in the absence of processes that amplify or reduce climate change [...], the climate sensitivity would be around 1 degree C, for a doubling of CO2 [Carbon Dioxide] concentrations [in the atmosphere]…”

The related material in section 36, “Aspects of climate change where there is a wide consensus but continuing debate and discussion : Climate sensitivity”, goes on to talk about how global warming causes changes in the hydrological cycle, and how water vapour builds up in the atmosphere because of global warming, leading to further global warming :-

“…The more complex climate models, supported by observations, allow climate sensitivity to be calculated in the presence of processes that amplify or reduce the size of the climate response. Increases in water vapour alone, in response to warming, are estimated to approximately double the climate sensitivity from its value in the absence of amplifying processes. There nevertheless remain uncertainties in how much water vapour amounts will change, and how these changes will be distributed in the atmosphere, in response to a warming. Climate models indicate that the overall climate sensitivity (for a hypothetical doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is likely to lie in the range 2 degrees C to 4.5 degrees C; this range is mainly due to the difficulties in simulating the overall effect of the response of clouds to climate change mentioned earlier…”

Section 28 is at fault in my mind in three aspects :-

1. The IPCC Working Group 1 review of the science, which is the first of only two formal references in the new Royal Society guidance, makes clear that the likely influence of doubling Carbon Dioxide concentrations, with no other contributions included, would be a global warming of 1.2 degrees C, not 1 degree C :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2-3.html

“…In the idealised situation that the climate response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 consisted of a uniform temperature change only, with no feedbacks operating (but allowing for the enhanced radiative cooling resulting from the temperature increase), the global warming from GCMs would be around 1.2 degrees C (Hansen et al., 1984; Bony et al., 2006)…”

2. The second reason that section 28 is at fault is because of what the IPCC says directly afterwards :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2-3.html

“…The water vapour feedback, operating alone on top of this [the calculation from basic physics of the effect of doubling Carbon Dioxide], would at least double the response. The water vapour feedback is, however, closely related to the lapse rate feedback [...], and the two combined result in a feedback parameter of approximately 1 W m–2 degrees C–1 [Watts per square metre per degree Celsius], corresponding to an amplification of the basic temperature response by approximately 50%. The surface albedo feedback amplifies the basic response by about 10%, and the cloud feedback does so by 10 to 50% depending on the GCM [General Circulation Model or Global Climate Model]…”

Section 28 should at least have mentioned that more water vapour residing in the atmosphere is an inevitable result of global warming, and that this will compound the warming.

Adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere is not happening in isolation from any other effect. Because the Earth has an atmosphere, increased Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has a warming effect. This automatically and naturally has an effect on the composition of the atmosphere through changes in the cycling of water between the Earth surface, the oceans and the atmosphere. You don’t get one without the other.

It’s a bit ridiculous to suggest that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere could have an effect all by itself – it’s bound to cause an increase in the temperature of the Earth’s surface, which is bound to cause an increase in water vapour concentrations in the Atmosphere.

Global Warming from Carbon Dioxide is not going to be “in the absence of amplifying processes.”

This is established science, and should have been included in section 28, in my view.

3. The Royal Society guidance does not issue the standard caveat about “Climate sensitivity” – that by the time that mankind stops adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere, the actual increase in concentration could be a lot more than double.

If CO2 levels more than double, the calculation of the actual temperature rise from the climate sensitivity will have to be adjusted by the relevant factor.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/energy-discussion-group/browse_thread/thread/68f666ff4f69599b/59dfb3351bb432ec?q=abbess&lnk=ol&

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/energy-discussion-group/browse_thread/thread/68f666ff4f69599b/bfec36913d002b91?lnk=gst&q=abbess#bfec36913d002b91

As you can see, there are Climate Change sceptic-deniers everywhere, even in the most knowledgeable and respectable circles.

Countering Climate Change denial from so-called “sceptics” takes a lot of time and energy, and is a bump-in-the-road nuisance/irritation distraction from the main priority for human civilisation, which is how to stop being addicted to Fossil Fuels.

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date: 17/08/2010
from: jo abbess
to: Claverton Energy Research Forum

Dear Clavertonians,

If all goes according to plan, I am about to start the second year of a part-time Masters Degree in “*********************************************”.

It should come as no surprise to you that I have chosen Energy, specifically, how to manage the Low Carbon Transition, as the focus area for my original research.

I am interested in how policy and technology frameworks (including targets and standard setting) are changing the landscape for what I call the “Energy Revival”.

I am also engaged by the use of money to effect change, whether through pricing of pollution and emissions, or selectively boosting the uptake of specific technologies, through a combination of subsidy, tax breaks, rebates, regulation, monitoring and targeted investment, in infrastructure or otherwise.

Naturally enough, my tutor has told me I need to do a review of the academic literature before I begin asking documentable questions.

And this is where you, potentially, could come in.

If you know anything I should read, or guess I would find useful, please let me know the citation or reference.

Also, I have no ideas what journals and publications I should be reading regularly, so clues about that too would be welcome.

It would also be useful to have pointers to the organisations that you think are doing the best work on questions of energy investment, “green stimulus”, Green New Deal-type work, policy thinktanking and financial research.

I am interested in developing a network of contacts for the “asking the question” phase of data collection. If you think I should definitely seek the views of particular people, please say who they are. (Yes, before anyone asks, I have already started a dialogue with Gregor Czisch).

Any collaboration will be duly noted in my write-up (about one year from now) !

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17/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Jo

# Questions you may want to pursue could include:

1: Why was the IPCC mandate structured to assume Global Climate Change was anthropogenic in nature, and not a natural phenomenon, probably supplemented to some degree by anthropogenic activity?

2: Given that Dr. James Hansen says atmospheric CO2 must be decreased to less than 350 PPM and we are now at 390 and rising, is there any reasonable expectation that teh World can constrain its present CO2 emissions and remove the necessary CO2 from the atmosphere, in time to avoid GCC?

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17/08/2010
from: Dave McGrath

Jo

Just a thought. Climate change management an “how to manage the Low Carbon Transition”

A low carbon economy implies retaining fossil carbons. Suppose we took a carbon displacement strategy rather than carbon management this simple switch in emphasis changes the debate yet achieves every carbon management objective. As energy then must come locally the transfer of economic activity from exporting cash in exchange for fossils to producing it locally means the money remains within the local economy.

I could go on.

Fossils simply cannot continue to meet global energy demand which continues to rise globally

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17/08/2010
from: Julia Szajdzicka

Hello Jo is your focus international or UK? And also could I ask which university are doing this masters with?

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17/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Dear Kevin,

Thanks for your comments.

1. The massive and rapid increase in the concentrations of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere owing to mankind’s activities is the single largest factor in projections for future Global temperatures, which is why the IPCC reports focus on the impacts of this Anthropogenic radiative forcing. It is, in effect, almost directly equivalent to a sudden massive pulse of extra Greenhouse Gas in the Atmosphere, completing overriding any normal warming or cooling factors.

2. We have been dealt a very poor hand – it is unlikely that we will be able to significantly reduce the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere over the short term. I don’t see anybody being prepared to starve the world’s economy to pay for Carbon Capture and Storage. The best that we can hope for is a rapid stabilisation of emissions to air and then a phased reduction of emissions over the next few decades. Even so, the current situation means that a further warming of around 1 degree C is locked in, regardless of emissions control.

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17/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Julia,

I intend to focus quite strongly on electricity (obviously) – and there is a growing international collaboration in this area – so yes, I’m going to have some global reach, hopefully.

My place of study is *********** College, part of the University of ***************.

The MSc course is convened in the Department of *********************************, so an international flavour to my study is highly appropriate.

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17/08/2010
from: Andrew Smith

Hi Jo,

what software are you using for reference management? CiteULike, Zotero, Mendeley? I can probably export you my library metadata if that would be helpful. Email me off-board, or ring, for info.

Check out the UKERC TPA studies – their reference sections are a
goldmine of useful leads on the literature, and come in a handy grouped form – all of the papers on intermittency, in the intermittency TPA, and so on:
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=TPA%20Overview

I take it your Masters gives you a Shibboleth login to get most or all
of the papers you might want?

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17/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for all the superb offers of information.

Electrically,

jo.

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17/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Jo

QUOTE : “1. The massive and rapid increase in the concentrations of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere owing to mankind’s activities is the single largest factor in projections for future Global temperatures, which is why the IPCC reports focus on the impacts of this Anthropogenic radiative forcing. It is, in effect, almost directly equivalent to a sudden massive pulse of extra Greenhouse Gas in the Atmosphere, completing overriding any normal warming or cooling factors.”

# There have been GW and GC incidents in the past, before the influence of Man. These previous incidents seem to be cyclical in mature, and we seem to be at the point in natural cycles where Nature could be the dominant problem. Certainly, Man could be contributing, but with the absence of clear evidence that anthropogenic activity is the dominant factor, it verges on wishful thinking that mere man can out-dominate Mother Nature.

QUOTE : “2. We have been dealt a very poor hand – it is unlikely that we will be able to significantly reduce the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere over the short term. I don’t see anybody being prepared to starve the world’s economy to pay for Carbon Capture and Storage. The best that we can hope for is a rapid stabilisation of emissions to air and then a phased reduction of emissions over the next few decades. Even so, the current situation means that a further warming of around 1 degree C is locked in, regardless of emissions control.”

# Doing what is advocated as being necessary will result in an unprecedented re-direction of resources. With the World Economy being in its present state, and “down” looking more likely than “up”, it is difficult imagining that the Governments and Peoples of the World will actually commit significant resources to do what the Climate Change People want done.

# Climate Change can be good for some parts of the World, and bad for others. Climate Change is bad for the Status Quo. Are the resources of the World better placed by finding ways to adapt to Climate Change, rather than attempting to prevent it?

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17/08/2010
from: Neil Crumpton

Jo,

Re your point 2 – why do you see CCS as more expensive than most renewables and new-build nuclear – that’s certainly not many people’s view of relative costs and surely its too early to say.

The world will probably have a much better idea of relative and actual costs of the various new energy technologies by around 2015 when hopefully less than three EPRs have been built *, a few CCS demos will have been built and giving their first operational results and many new, fast-developing RES technologies (from aluminium-mirror CSP manufacture, solar PV efficiency, yields of next-gen biomass to deep-water offshore wind turbine designs) will have been demonstrated and more accurate and probably lower mid-term costs can be projected at global scale.

Indeed, if next-gen biomass shows promise (eg algae cultivation in arid zone / desert greenhouses) then quite a few poor countries may have a valuable indigenous and export product. And biomass with CCS may be one of the most cost-effective way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations – or extract to reach 350 ppm.

Lets get some demos built.. CCS, seawater greenhouses, bio-gasifiers (inc cold-plasma), deep water WTs etc – to compare with shale-gas CCGT, underground coal gasification (both with CCS !) and the new EPRs (inc interim storage, repositories and full costs – think BP – accident insurance).

* extract from : http://shepperdineagainstnuclearenergy.blogspot.com/2010/07/olkiluto-4-years-behindflammanville.html

There are two European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) being built in Europe right now, one in Olkiluoto in Finland and one in Flamanville in France. Designed by French nuclear giant AREVA, the third generation so-called state of the art design is supposedly about to usher in the nuclear ‘renaissance’ across the planet. We emphasise the ‘supposedly’. How are things looking?
The Olkiluoto-3 reactor is four years late (and counting) and a massive 2.7 billion Euros over budget (and counting). It has been the scene of thousands of construction defects and safety violations. The project has rapidly devoured AREVA’s profits. The farce at Olkiluoto made page 3 of Le Monde last week.
It’s now been revealed that Olkiluoto-3’s sister reactor, Flamanville-3, is two years behind schedule. It’s only been under construction for three. The project is also at least 20% over budget.

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17/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Kevin,

You wrote : “# There have been GW and GC incidents in the past, before the influence of Man. These previous incidents seem to be cyclical in mature, and we seem to be at the point in natural cycles where Nature could be the dominant problem. Certainly, Man could be contributing, but with the absence of clear evidence that anthropogenic activity is the dominant factor, it verges on wishful thinking that mere man can out-dominate Mother Nature.”

Allow me to point you to this :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/08/17/the-sum-of-complexity/

You wrote : “# Doing what is advocated as being necessary will result in an unprecedented re-direction of resources. With the World Economy being in its present state, and “down” looking more likely than “up”, it is difficult imagining that the Governments and Peoples of the World will actually commit significant resources to do what the Climate Change People want done.”

Indeed ! We do need to re-direct the world’s economic resources – into environmentally-protective activities. The current World Economy, based as it is on damaging environmental businesses cannot sustain itself, as the damages outstrip the wealth-creation. It is indeed going “down”. I personally find it easy to imagine that the Governments and Peoples of the World are smart enough to make a firm, regulation-based decision to turn the world economy round to green power and low Carbon transportation.

You wrote : “# Climate Change can be good for some parts of the World, and bad for others. Climate Change is bad for the Status Quo. Are the resources of the World better placed by finding ways to adapt to Climate Change, rather than attempting to prevent it?”

Adaptation will never be enough without Mitigation, reduction in emissions :-

http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Good-The-Bad-and-The-Ugly-Effects-of-Climate-Change.html

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/kloor-calls-me-hypocrite.html

Respectfully

jo.

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17/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Neil,

Carbon Capture and Storage is always going to be expensive – the rule of thumb I use is based on the Laws of Thermodynamics – the more chemical and energy changes in a process, the less and less efficient and therefore more expensive it becomes. Burning stuff to release Carbon Dioxide is energy-positive, but making that CO2 re-combine with other stuff to make it Global-Warming neutral, now, that’s more difficult. As for pumping it back underground, and hoping it stays there, well, that’s a simple energy-process inefficiency. Why dig it up in the first place ? Why not use lovely, free wind and sunlight to make your energy ? Much cheaper in the long run.

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17/08/2010
from: Chris Cook

Hi Jo

In my view we are currently going through a transition to a decentralised and networked economy.

The current market system is irretrievably broken, and complementary mechanisms are emerging under the radar – based upon direct instantaneous ‘Peer to Peer’ connections – which will in due course see the existing model wither on the vine.

My take is here

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/economic-systems-thinking230710

and re energy in particular, here

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/energy-pools-scottish-energy-institute-11-11-2009

Best Regards

Chris Cook

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17/08/2010
from: Jérôme Guillet

CCS doesn’t exist, it makes no industrial sense and would cost massively more than any other technology if it could ever be implemented. CCS is just a way to channel subsidies to the legacy utilities (or to dither until there is no choice but to extend/replace the existing coal-fired plants). After years of touting CCS, there still are zero (as in: none) demonstrators, let alone commercial CCS projects, and things will remain that way for a long time, I expect
EPR – think of it as the Gillette business model: give the razor away for free and make your money on the blades. Areva quoted a very low price to make sure the plant would get built, and gets a 50-year fuel supply contract (their real business). A couple billion in apparent cost overruns in the beginning is not a real problem for them.

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17/08/2010
from: Neil Crumpton

Jo,

‘Expensive’ compared to what – unabated fossil generation, offshore wind, new-build nuclear ? And how much more expensive 1% , 20 % 50 % or less expensive 1%, 10% 50 %. The word is simplistic and emotive – it needs qualifying in relative quantity, time, place, circumstance and non-costable outcomes.

You seem very sure of yourself but I can assure you that wind and solar generated energy, and I have been a strong wind and solar advocate for many years, is not free.

Also biomass is using sunlight to make (and store) energy. Storing the carbon dioxide released in biomass energy generation may be one of the most-costeffective was to achieve safe levels of atmospheric concentrations ‘in the longer run’ – especially if such levels are below the current 392 ppm. Then renewables without CCS could have their full day.

Digging up energy (eg natural gas) does suggest that it has been trapped below ground for some time (eg, for millions of years – usually mixed in various concentrations with carbon-dioxide ).

There are the Laws of Thermodynamics and there are established trends of economics – like who cares about how many chemical changes in a process if it cheaper and does the job, or as cheap but does a better job or even more expensive but does a job other things don’t or cannot do.

If Kevin’s anthropogenic warming scepticism turns out to be essentially true then the CCS switch can at least be switched to off and the pipeline infrastructure recycled. That would probably leave any new nuclear station economics high and very dry.

I trust that we will know much more by 2015 about what is a safe atmospheric CO2 concentration and what the likely costs and capabilities of the various new energy technologies are. Doing research which includes such uncertainties in the meantime seems a very useful area for research.

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17/08/2010
from: Dave McGrath

I concur with Chris on this.

You have an opportunity follow historical energy paradigms or try anticipating the future which I think will be substantially different from what people are portraying. There is enough historical industrial precedent to show what and how things can change.

But this is scary prospect for linear thinkers which is what most politicians and most of society actually are. Most cannot do this.

The future is being shaped in no particular order by
* Explosive growth in clean tech.
* Recognition CO2 is a bigger issue and more urgent than previously
* growing world population, economic growth in developing countries and subsequent energy demand growth
* global fossil production constraints
* ageing energy infrastructure in developed economies
* A dozen other variables
Take the conventional UK approach to things and it is possible your study conclusions are over taken by external events

CCS as solution to carbon discharges?. Consider 186 million barrels of oil equivalent is discharged every single day across the world. Fossil supplies will deal with CO2 discharge much faster than CCS ever could come near to. Uk consumes 20mtoe every year. On a global scale it is irrelevant. So for me looking at the bigger picture CCS is utterly irrelevant, of course I may not be right but I have a right to that view

For simple balance of payments arguments alone fossil displacement seems to me a better bet

Time and tide wait or no one and we have yet to recognise the tide has turned and now rushing in figuratively and literally if the Greenland melts are to be believed.

But what is right for your study. Whatever you decide is right for you is the right thing to do. You will never get every one to agree with whatever you choose to do; 50% would be remarkable. So ignore that which does not sit right with you or you cannot believe in and do not bullied by the likes of us.

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17/08/2010
from: Nick Balmer

Hello Dave,

You make a very important point here about the nature and swiftness of
the change about to occur here.

I have been trying to get this point over to my bosses, colleagues and
staff, and I think it is a situation a bit like 1840 on the roads.

I live off the Great North Road (A1) in a former coaching town. If you
had been living here then and your son was considering his future
career, you would almost certainly have looked to the many stage
coaches, horses (600+) and inns in the town and you would have put it
very high on the list of jobs with potential.

However just a few short years later gangs of Navvies came tearing up
the hedges and fields, and shortly afterwards those new fangled trains
arrived. No doubt everybody in the town had heard of them, and had
discounted their potential, but within a decade the coaching trade had
collapsed, the hotels and inns were in very real trouble and the
future was on the rails.

These changes from one technology to another, when large vested
interests and industries long so big and powerful that they can never
be expected to go away or fail nearly always come with startling
rapidity, especially when globalisation occurs.

Think of the huge effect Indian muslins and cotton had on woollen
textile producers in the 1680′s. They caused riots and mass
unemployment here.

The same thing happened in reverse to Indian textile workers in the
Carnatic and Bengal with the development of the great textile mills in
Manchester and Lancashire in the 1815 to 1830 period.

The implications of these changes are going to be fascinating.

For instance…

Has anybody ever worked out what the governments tax take on all the
imported coal and uranium?

The government takes more tax revenue off a barrel of oil (as sold as
petrol) than the Saudi Government does from that same barrel.

If your instance it did prove possible to solve the intermittentancy
issues for wind turbines (and I think solutions are very much closer
than many believe) and Passiv building technologies come to the fore,
how would government cope with a 40% or more % fall in taxation
revenues from imported energy fuels?

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17/08/2010
from: Roy Morrison

I agree CCS is long term scam to extract research money in hope of unlikely low cost capture technology and storage while the band plays once work is bankrolled and supported globally by big coal mining and using nations Australia, China, U.S., Russia, Germany, Britain and supported by long-range projections that it will be cost effective.Best solution is to leave coal sequestered where it is before mining.
You could gasify material and use Fischer-tropes process to grab carbon and burn hydrogen.But why bother? It’s hardly likely to be cost effective.
Renewable transformation is the challenge and the opportunity.

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18/08/2010
from: Ed Sears

Hello Jo

Just finished my masters last thursday (MSc Climate Change at UEA) and my dissertation was on ‘Life Cycle Assessment of biochar from the UEA BIOMASS gasification CHP power plant’. Part of my results was a comparison of energy balance and greenhouse gas emissions for biomass (woodchip in this case) gasification CHP with biochar production vs other biochar, bioenergy and fossil power production methods. I didn’t look at the economics. I need to negotiate with the university on the exact status of my report – some of its contents may be commercially sensitive. However, the figures I was comparing against are all available in the literature (Google scholar and an athens/shibboleth login are your friends here – other research search engines also available) – the work was mainly by Elsayed and Mortimer. Try Elsayed et al 2003, BEAT2 (Biomass energy assessment tool) 2008, and maybe Mortimer et al 2009.

I’ll get back to you about energy transition scenario references (and some of the other things you mentioned), because I need to look into that area myself.

To Kevin, if you are reading, take a look at the impact of human activity on the planet: we are currently the largest geological force active on the surface of the Earth, we are carrying out a Great Extinction (biodiversity loss), depleting the oceans of fish and lowering the pH of the water (via carbon dioxide emissions), use 20% of the land area directly and another 40% for grazing, have created a hole in the ozone layer via ozone-depleting chemicals and so on. The argument that we, the little innocuous humans, cannot influence the atmosphere (the troposphere, the bit with the weather in it, is about 10km thick) is ludicrous. We are measurably changing the composition of the atmosphere via land use change and emitting greenhouse gasses and other pollutants, and not surprisingly this is having a noticeable effect, with the entirely resonable projection of larger changes if we make a greater impact through increasing emissions. Maxing out on coal power stations to provide for the energy requirements of a world population of 9 billion in 2050 is an extremely bad idea, both in terms of climate change and local air pollution. Therefore, we seek another way, therefore Claverton and these posts.

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18/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Ed

QUOTE : “To Kevin, if you are reading, take a look at the impact of human activity on the planet: we are currently the largest geological force active on the surface of the Earth, we are carrying out a Great Extinction (biodiversity loss), depleting the oceans of fish and lowering the pH of the water (via carbon dioxide emissions), use 20% of the land area directly and another 40% for grazing, have created a hole in the ozone layer via ozone-depleting chemicals and so on. The argument that we, the little innocuous humans, cannot influence the atmosphere (the troposphere, the bit with the weather in it, is about 10km thick) is ludicrous. We are measurably changing the composition of the atmosphere via land use change and emitting greenhouse gasses and other pollutants, and not surprisingly this is having a noticeable effect, with the entirely resonable projection of larger changes if we make a greater impact through increasing emissions. ”

# There is no question that Man has had an impact on the Earth. There is also no question that Mother Nature has had an impact on the Earth. CO2 levels in the Atmosphere have been as much as 8,000 PPM, about 20 times as much as now, yet the Earth has survived. Certainly, there were times where it was inconvenient and even deadly for plants, animals, and humans, but Mother Nature will always win Her game. Global Warming is ALWAYS followed by Global Warming, and also, Global Warming is ALWAYS followed by Global Cooling. That is the nature of cycles. Human Population has exploded since the Maunder Minimum 1645 to 1715, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum ) and Dalton Minimum 1790 to 1830 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum ), because of Global Warming, enabling people to live in more places and grow more food. GW since then has been good, if we equate population growth as “good”. However, too much of a good thing can certainly be bad. Mother Nature can be counted on to send us a corrective message. However, if the IPCC simply ASSUMES that Man is the cause of the problem, which they have by refusing to acknowledge the possibility that Mother Nature “has the controls”, their whole premise is faulted.

QUOTE : “Maxing out on coal power stations to provide for the energy requirements of a world population of 9 billion in 2050 is an extremely bad idea, both in terms of climate change and local air pollution. Therefore, we seek another way, therefore Claverton and these posts.”

# Of course it is an extremely bad idea! The first rule, when you are in a hole, is to stop digging. We are messing around with futile and pointless tactics, such as Carbon Credits, which cannot reduce atmospheric CO2, even if the Carbon Credit Scheme is 100% adopted. What it accomplishes is to allow coal plants to be maxed out. Only through a reduction in the fossil CO2 being sent to the biosphere can we reduce the atmospheric CO2 Levels. A lot of money will change hands, through Carbon Credits… thats the driver. There must be a world scale reduction in the mining of coal and the flowing of oil and natural gas, if there is to be any hope for a reduction in atmospheric CO2.
# Can you see any way that the people of the World can be motivated to reduce their annual fossil fuel consumption?

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Dear Ed,

Thanks very much for getting back to me with some ideas and clues.

Will be awaiting your reply on energy transition scenarios.

…

Hope your Masters gets the toppest marks !

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Dear Chris,

Thanks very much for your thoughts and links.

I am thinking “cusp-ish” just as you are, as regards tipping into the New Generation in Energy.

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Dave,

Thanks for you very interesting reply.

I entirely follow your “re-localisation” of the economy argument about displacing Fossil Fuel use with Local Renewable Power.

The efforts of the Clean Development Mechanism and the Carbon Trading shambles to permit “outsourcing” of Carbon Emissions reductions through the usual model of “globalisation” simply isn’t working. The industrialised countries must, as a necessity, commit to strong Carbon Emissions reductions at home, whilst keeping up their economies through the use of Energy. This essentially moves us through to Renewables.

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Neil,

1. Regarding the use of the word “expensive”

By using this word I mean that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will always be relatively more costly than “proper” Carbon mitigation, in whichever economic “climate” the technology finds itself in.

How can I be sure of that ? CCS is a “remediation” technology. In other words, you create Carbon Dioxide by burning Fossil Fuels or Biomass for Energy and then you burn a bit more Fossil Fuel or Biomass to provide the Energy to pump all that Carbon Dioxide underground (or make some hard core or cement-like stuff with it) to lock it away. So there’s always going to be an Energy penalty for building CCS into a power plant – so it’s always going to be more expensive than the unabated Fossil Fuel or Biomass generation in a like-for-like economic situation.

Long and complicated process chains always incur higher costs – that’s why a massive new round of Nuclear Energy would be too “expensive” for the current poor health of the global economy – or rather the appetite of the financiers.

2. Can CCS draw down Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere ?

Although Biomass burning (all types) could theoretically Carbon-negative, the thresholds are questionable in some cases – for example in the production chain of BioFuels, where studies have shown Carbon-positive BioEthanol, and BioDiesel has been shown to replace rainforest Carbon Sinks with short-lived oil palm, as we want to buy it cheap from South East Asia . Biomass+CCS could tip the balance over into Carbon-positive (and you can’t really do BioFuels+CCS – how are you going to capture all that CO2 from all the tailpipe exhausts around the world ?)

3. The cost of Renewable Energy

I agree that the total cost of Renewable Energy systems is not negligible, especially in the investment phase, but I cannot see anyone trying to impose a price on wind and sunlight – that makes the “fuel” free.

4. Anthropogenic Global Warming scepticism

The world goes through a long, complicated process to report on all the best Science on Climate Change, and Kevin is sceptical about it ? Has Kevin read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report ? Does he know what is “robust” and “uncertain” in that report ? It’s clearly spelled out, so nobody should be quibbling, now, surely, after 25 solid years of research and evidence gathering ?

Global Warming is a basic fact of Physics – put more Carbon Dioxide in the air and the Earth heats up. Obsessing about the near-surface air temperatures shields most sceptics from what’s going on in the oceans, which is where it’s all at – 90% of the heat ends up there.

You write “I trust that we will know much more by 2015 about what is a safe atmospheric CO2 concentration…” My view is we don’t really have the luxury of time to be more certain about those things that the IPCC still has in the “uncertain” box. We already know the Earth’s Climate is sensitive to Global Warming, and the damages are racking up and the temperature’s only gone up by around 0.6 to 0.8 degrees C.

5. On the Laws of Thermodynamics

I know, I know. People do things on the cheap, even if they are quick and dirty. But there are consequences, as environmental damages become unacceptable, and with good regulation, the pollution can be contained – although prices will rise a bit.

6. On demonstration plants

The Nuclear industry and the Carbon Capture and Storage “think tanks” have been bargaining for taxpayer money at every level of government for many years now – the nukers want their new “Generation X” funded explicitly, the CCS people want their “demonstration” plants financed. There are plans to take a percentage from the Emissions Trading Scheme revenues for CCS, for example.

If companies are not prepared to put their own capital into something, and want a “stimulus” or a “bailout” to do so – such as the governments putting forward huge sums for the insurance costs of both new Nuclear and CCS (think – massive clouds of CO2, anyone ?) – then surely the companies know that these things are not “economic” ?

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

BJ Jerome,

En effet, le CCS est propose avec le but de donner legitimite aux bruleurs de charbon, non ?

Le rapport special du IPCC en 2005 – avec tous ses rechercheurs et editeurs des societes fossilisees…

Le roi est nu.

‘fin,

jo.

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Dave,

I see a trip point (or “tipping” point) in the way our society views Energy – things will click into place quickly once they start to move. The factors you outline are part of my thinking.

The “energy security” argument, couched in terms of “relocalising energy” is a strong one – as moves to displace or remove carbon can have very dramatic and immediate effects. It starts with a company, for example, installing a green roof and then finding their total electricity bill drops away because of the lesser need for heating and cooling in the office space. And the facilities manager thinks….wow ! And eventually the chief executives will realise that with hugely lower energy bills facilities don’t need to have staff in them all the time to make it worth the company’s while to heat and cool the building…and then you start getting remote working and more flexible working with all the energy efficiencies that can be gained there, too, and everything becomes much more efficient ! And then you can start looking at how you can convert to green power produced onsite, because you’re not using so much brought-in energy as you were before so the physics of the situation have ameliorated…hey presto – a leveraged Carbon reduction plan. Scaling this up means less national imports and all the inefficiency and insecurity surrounding that. Plus, conservation and relocalising energy makes energy costs more stable – making economic planning more efficient. And so on…

Don’t worry. I want to hear from everyone about clues, references, ideas, resources, but I shall follow my own nose on this one !

With a couple of fellow students, I gave a presentation to my class on “Sustainable Business” in March, asking the question “Is BP a sustainable business ?” looking at issues to do with Peak Oil, difficult deepwater drilling, lack of Renewables investment, environmental fines and the like. I asked my fellow students to consider the implications of having really deep subsea wells. BP was selling up the fact that they could engineer wells at such depths, but we thought they were in denial about the risks. The next month was April…and we all know what BP did in April, don’t we ?

I have shown I can be “on the money”, so I shall just carry on in the same vein…

Thanking you,

jo.

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Nick,

You make a very good point about the tax take from energy and the risks to that from changing the status quo.

One factor is that for those countries that are in oil and gas depletion, such as the UK, the tax take from indigenous energy is probably already dropping away. Is that one of the reasons why the UK Government want to re-open the coalmines ? Something for me to look into…

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18/08/2010
from: dave andrews

Jo – i think you will find we have used all the coal up! see article on claverton site

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18/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Jo

QUOTE : “2. Can CCS draw down Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere ?”

# The important thing is the “new carbon added to the biosphere.” Fossil fuels are new, or additional carbon additions to the biosphere, when they are burned. Biofuels, at their very best, are “carbon positive”, definitely not neutral or negative. This is because of the fossil fuel required for their harvesting, transport, and preparation for burning. However, if biomass is pyrolysed to produce charcoal and pyrolysis gases, with the charcoal being sequestered, carbon can definitely be removed from the biosphere. Charcoal in soil seems to last well in excess of 1000 years. For a given weight of bone dry biomass, the charcoal recovery is about 30% of the starting weight. The energy distribution is about 50-50, between the sequestered charcoal, and the pyrolysis gases. If waste biomass cost say $50 per bone dry tonne ready for retorting, and the charcoal yield was about 30%, the material cost for the charcoal, excluding capital and operating costs, would be about $50/.3 = $166 per tonne of charcoal. It sort of works out that 1 tonne of charcoal has sufficient Carbon content to equal about 3 tonnes CO2, ie, $166/3 = $55 per tonne of CO2 equivalent sequestered. Hopefully, the energy in teh pyrolysis gases, about 9 MJ pre tonne of wood pyrolysed, could run the process, and provide an energy surplus that could be used productively outside the Pyrolysis System.

QUOTE : “4. Anthropogenic Global Warming scepticism : The world goes through a long, complicated process to report on all the best Science on Climate Change, and Kevin is sceptical about it ? Has Kevin read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report ? Does he know what is “robust” and “uncertain” in that report ? It’s clearly spelled out, so nobody should be quibbling, now, surely, after 25 solid years of research and evidence gathering ?”

# I think it was Josef Stalin, who once said “I don’t care what the answer is, as long as they are asking the wrong questions.” If they investigated the possibility of “Natural GW” (NGW) with the vigour that they are promoting Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) their efforts would be credible. Invariably, one gets the wrong answer when one looks at only one side of the story.

QUOTE : “Global Warming is a basic fact of Physics – put more Carbon Dioxide in the air and the Earth heats up. Obsessing about the near-surface air temperatures shields most sceptics from what’s going on in the oceans, which is where it’s all at – 90% of the heat ends up there.”

# Here is an article on CO2 equivalency..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_equivalent

# Here is another one showing that water vapor is 3 to 4 times as potent a greenhouse gas as is CO2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

# Don’t you think the entire matter is being seriously distorted by ignoring the effect of water vapor, as a greenhouse gas?

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18/08/2010
from: Herbert Eppel

Dave

I’m not sure about “used all the coal up” (can you provide a link to the
article on the Claverton site you referred to?), but an article in the
September issue of Scientific American ( see http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-much-is-left ) has this to say on the matter:

“Unlike oil, coal is widely thought to be virtually inexhaustible. Not
so, says David Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology.
Governments routinely overestimate their reserves by a factor of four or
more on the assumption that hard-to-reach seams will one day open up to
new technology. Mature coal mines show that this has not been the case.
The U.K.—the birthplace of coal mining— offers an example. Production
grew through the 19th and early 20th centuries, then fell as supplies
were depleted. Cumulative production curves in the U.K. and other mature
regions have followed a predictable S shape. By extrapolating to the
rest of the world’s coal fields, Rutledge concludes that the world will
extract 90 percent of available coal by 2072.”

I’m taking the liberty of attaching the article (I have a Scientific
American subscription) in the hope that I don’t end up in prison for
breaching some copyright.

The interactive version of the article referred to in the PDF file
doesn’t appear to be available at http://www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=multimedia yet.

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18/08/2010
from: Neil Crumpton

Jo,

some responses within text

QUOTE : “So there’s always going to be an Energy penalty for building CCS into a power plant – so it’s always going to be more expensive than the unabated Fossil Fuel or Biomass generation in a like-for-like economic situation.”

The energy penalty bit is obvious – but reducing the CO2 emissions saves money on future climate impacts (see your point 4) do you not factor this as a comparative expense between abated and unabated fossil ?

Anyway we were talking about the RELATIVE expense compared to other energy generation sources. Cost will influence investor choices (as shareholders will tend to choose the best pay-back investments for their money be it energy generation or hotel chains). If abated coal or gas were costing say £ 60 MWh to generate and offshore wind were £ 80 and solar PV £ 90 what would you choose as quickest low-carbon path. I’m all for RES (16 years as a front line energy campaigner for FOE) but given commercial and industrial inertias and complexities then IF CCS does achieve the low cost its various proponents claim (eg around 15% energy penalty – comparatively less if CHP added ) then it may be marginally cheaper than much of the UKs exploitable RES resources (mainly offshore wind wave, tidal, and limited indigenous biomass ). If the CCS infrastructure can progressively be used for biomass sequestration then that opens a cheaper emergency option for reducing UK emissions.

QUOTE : “2. Can CCS draw down Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere ?”

I’m not suggesting current biofuel technologies – see my email re desert algae etc. That would probably be significantly C-neg as the biomass would be pretty low-C (inc solar CSP inputs to fans and pumps) and possibly relatively cheap to produce.

QUOTE : “3. The cost of Renewable Energy”

but is not coal and gas more or less free in the same analogy, indeed some coal seams are barely beneath the ground surface and many oil and gas resources sometimes deliver themselves to the utility under a fair amount of pressure too

anyone no one is suggesting imposing a price on wind etc are they ?

QUOTE : “You write “I trust that we will know much more by 2015 about what is a safe atmospheric CO2 concentration…” My view is we don’t really have the luxury of time to be more certain about those things that the IPCC still has in the “uncertain” box. We already know the Earth’s Climate is sensitive to Global Warming, and the damages are racking up and the temperature’s only gone up by around 0.6 to 0.8 degrees C.”

Your response is a non-sequiter. I trust ongoing climate research does better define what levels are safe in the coming years (eg what degree of risk is posed by say 450 ppm or 350 ppm). If 450 ppm is fine then RES alone may be OK. If 350 ppm is considered safe (low risk from significant impacts) then biomass with CCS may be one of the few possible routes to achieve such significant absolute ppm reductions (IPCC regard BECCS as a potential key technology). Possibly biochar or direct air-capture and storage (DACS) may also achieve such reductions – they need testing too.

We don’t have the luxury of time to ignore possible ppm reduction technology options which we could demonstrate by 2015 and also closely define probable wide deployment costs. No one said anything about waiting except those who oppose CCS who would see us waiting for ever for CCS knowledge. I am suggesting something is done very quickly – ie populations in developed world pay a very small percentage of their wealth to demonstrate a small number of CCS schemes around the world. Private companies are responsible to their shareholders – I wish it were different but I don’t expect that world order to change anytime soon (eg certainly not by 2015). Consumers in some developed countries would pay the difference in price (contract-for-differences) for the at least partially shared learning from their country’s CCS demos. Also some CO2 would get buried (is that not worth anything in your view ?) and some strategic CO2 pipeline assets would be deployed for a range of companies, etc to use (even RES companies want low cost grid connections – eg offshore HVDC grid).

QUOTE : “6. On demonstration plants”

Good re some funds for CCS (see above). Actually some eNGOs (think-tanks) have been calling for CCS demos

Renewables of course have required no funds for demonstration – right ? Indeed, biomass with CCS could be considered a very very low-carbon renewable.

QUOTE : “If companies are not prepared to put their own capital into something, and want a “stimulus” or a “bailout” to do so – such as the governments putting forward huge sums for the insurance costs of both new Nuclear and CCS (think – massive clouds of CO2, anyone ?) – then surely the companies know that these things are not “economic” ?”

Would you also propose that ROCs are removed for RES technologies also ? Surely the RES companies know that their things are “economic”.

And at this point I will cease to put the case for my different point of view – I could spend a long time debating with you.

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18/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Dear Kevin,

1. Water Vapour

Yes, I agree with you. Water vapour is indeed a major Greenhouse Gas.

Increasing water vapour in the Atmosphere also happens to be a positive feedback from the Global Warming we are now experiencing which has been caused by the exponentially rising Carbon Dioxide concentrations.

Please get your eggs and your chickens in the correct order.

2. Natural Global Warming

Yes, I agree with you. There are many ways in which the Earth can heat up.

Why, only the other day, I was reading part of a fine book by Bryan Lovell called “Challenged by Carbon” in which he describes how magma plumes from the Earth’s interior have contributed to warming of the surface of the planet.

And as the Earth spins and tilts and shifts the ellipsicity of its orbit around Sol, yes, insolation changes, and cooling and warming take place.

Even further, oscillations in the coupled atmospheric-oceanic climatic cells have been shown to change local and regional temperatures, shift rain bands, storm tracks and so on and so on.

But fine scientists with pedigrees longer than my dog’s have determined through studies in “Detection and Attribution” that the current bout of Global Warming in the last 50 years is for the most part due to the increased radiative forcing from the rising levels of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere caused by increasing emissions from humankind’s activities.

Have you read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report ? They have made a good effort to write in an easy way to describe all the things they have found in their review of the Science.

Please stop reciting to me the worn-out and frankly ridiculous, debunked and discredited pseudo-theories of the Climate Change sceptic-deniers. Please start reading the Science.

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19/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Herb and Dave,

I have been in correspondence with David Rutledge before now, and I put his theories to Ron Oxburgh of the CCS Association at a conference :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2009/03/26/carbon-capture-and-storage-merely-an-elastoplast-technology/

I have also in the last day done my own little calculations on remaining reserves – all terribly ballpark – trying to show that a heating planet with lots of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere produced lots of lifeforms, and then killed them with catastrophic Global Warming and the catastrophically dead things sedimentised to become the Coal, Oil and Natural Gas we in a much cooler Climate so love, dig up and burn, putting all that Carbon right back in the Atmosphere from which it originally came – heating the planet up again…I feel a Sixth Great Extinction coming on with nothing left with a sufficiently good brain to document what happens afterwards and make sure it never happens again, unless we get a grip on the scale of what’s happening and make the appropriate big changes with Energy :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/08/18/judith-curry-carbon-lockdown/

Don’t call me Cassandra – but if you do, remember she was always right :-

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,712113,00.html

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19/08/2010
from: Herbert Eppel

Hi Jo

Thanks for your reply.

Please note that I was by no means suggesting that we should endeavour to dig up and burn all the coal that is left in the ground. Having been actively involved with Friends of the Earth etc. for 20 years I am, of course, well aware that there are indeed very good arguments for leaving the coal where it is. I was merely responding to Dave’s comment that we have already “used all the coal up”.

As for the Spiegel article – I was about to post it myself as recommended reading for Kevin Chisholm, who may also find this article of interest: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/15/bad-science-global-warming-deniers-are-a-liability-to-the-conservative-cause/#ixzz0uIrxcAqA

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19/8/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Jo

QUOTE : “Please get your eggs and your chickens in the correct order.”

# You have a good point, as far as you go, but you don’t go far enough. When one digitizes your generalities, we are led to a different conclusion.

# Firstly, you may have your eggs and chickens in the wrong order. You ASSUME that GW is of an anthropogenic origin, as does the IPCC; it simply ignores the possibility of “Natural Cause.” Their “anthropogenic hammer” sees only anthropogenic CO2 as the nails causing GCC, and by following their approach, you are making eh same mistake they are. On several occasions, I brought up this point, and you slough over it.

# Secondly, In teh range of about 45 F to 60 F, 100% saturated air will hold between 44 and 78 grains of moisture per pound of dry air. That is, the incremental change is about 34/15 = 2.26 grains per 1 deg F change in temperature. At 45 Degrees F, saturated air holds 44 grains of moisture, ie, 44/7000 parts moisture per part air, or roughly 6,300 PPM moisture. As mentioned previously, water vapor is 3 to 4 times as powerful a “greenhouse gas” as is CO2. If you do some arithmetic, you can clearly see that water vapor has a much greater “Greenhouse Effect” than does CO2, at a mere 390 PPM, about 1/16 as much. The Greenhouse Effect caused by water vapor is very much more than that which is caused by CO2. If there was any tendancy to “Natural Global Warming”, the water vapor already present is far more effective in exaggerating it than would be CO2

QUOTE : “2. Natural Global Warming…But fine scientists with pedigrees longer than my dog’s have determined through studies in “Detection and Attribution” that the current bout of Global Warming in the last 50 years is for the most part due to the increased radiative forcing from the rising levels of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere caused by increasing emissions from humankind’s activities.”

If trehse pedigreed folks are of teh IPCC Mindset, then they may very well have been misdirecting their efforts. If they observe GW or GCC, and if they are only allowed to attribute the cause to Humankind, then they blame Mankind. What other explanation are tehy permitted to publish?

QUOTE : “Have you read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report ? They have made a good effort to write in an easy way to describe all the things they have found in their review of the Science.”

# No. I have not read it because it is faulted, by refusing to acknowledge the possibility of naturally caused GW or CC. How can you have true science when you eliminate a possible cause from consideration? The IPCC Work is called “Consensus Science.” That means it is based on opinion and not fact. It was Consensus Science that got Galileo into trouble when he had teh gall to suggest that the Earth rotated around the Sun.

QUOTE : “Please stop reciting to me the worn-out and frankly ridiculous, debunked and discredited pseudo-theories of the Climate Change sceptic-deniers. Please start reading the Science.”

# That is very unscientific of you, and is all too typical of people who are worried about being on shakey ground. They switch to ad hominum attacks, rather than dealing with the facts or science of the matter. That is bad form.

# Do you have any palpable evidence that the present GCC situation is NOT the result of natural causes?

Best wishes,

Kevin Chisholm, MD, DD, LLD

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19/8/2010
from: David McGrath
subject: Just a thought

As we get hot and bothered about the stance we take on whatever it is remember it is only our interpretation; which we choose. We can and do portray data in whatever way we choose.

Consider www.dhmo.org

Every thing stated is actually factually correct. It is presented in a particular way to tell a story, in this case to achieve an outcome, entertainment as it happens for the perpetrators.

Lets have the courage to question our own views, motives and interpretations remaining rational, logical, generous of the views of others, open to alternative concepts and devoid of acrimony

We may be looking out different windows as we argue over the view we see, and both right in describing what we are looking at.

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19/08/2010
from: Richard Hellen

Very well put Dave.

The enthusiastic, even passionate promotion of the insights we have and therefore wish to share with others should never lead to personal insult.

And if others seem to not account for our crystal clear understanding of the issues and the inevitable solution we see, then we can always choose to disengage. Something about, there are none so blind as those who will not see.

It is well recognised in psychological circles that what we see is often what we want to believe. If you want an example together with a bit of a chuckle at the end have a look at http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception.html and by the way, take a few minutes to scan around TED if you have not come across it before – there are some interesting energy / environment related presentations.

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19/08/2010
from: George Wallis

Dear Kevin

Could you please explain the phrase ‘digitizes your generalities’ since I find it somewhat confusing? Perhaps it is jargon of which I am not aware?

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19/08/2010
from: Peter Rowberry

This is the last post on the subject which I will make to the list, as the argument is in danger of becoming unscientific diatribe, but

Kevin,

What question about climate science would you have us ask? Your assertion that natural effects of global warming is not being investigated as thoroughly as anthropogenic change is unfounded and flies in the face of the facts. The fossil fuel industry has been spending large amounts on research and public relations to downplay the effects of climate change. There may be vested interests in climate change acedemia, but these are more than balanced by the industry perspective. In a celebrated recent case, the UK the climate change unit at the Univeristy of East Anglia was criticised for bias in its publications and emails, but after investigation none of the charges aaginst them was found to have any foundation, It was not a surprise that these “revelations” came in the run up to the climate change conference.

I am sorry Kevin, but you obviously have not taken the time to read the Grist site that I refered to in my previous email. If you want to do this you will find the difference between water vapour as a feedback effect and CO2 as a forcing agent explained http://www.grist.org/article/water-vapor-accounts-for-almost-all-of-the-greenhouse-effect/. The historic levels of CO2 and how it is measured are explained. The claim that no consensus exists is rebutted. All of the questions which I can ever remember being asked by climate change sceptics are addressed with many references to support their views. For those climate change sceptics that demand proof of the link between mans’ activities and climate change I can only say that the only science which can offer such certainty is mathematics. Since Heisenberg put forward his uncertainty principle we know that we cannot even predict both the position of a particle and its momentum. The fact that climate change models accurately predict the record of climate change in the recent past means that if nothing else changes their predictions for the future are likely to be reliable.

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19/08/2010
from: Andrew Smith

QUOTE: “If they investigated the possibility of “Natural GW” (NGW) with the vigour that they are promoting Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) their efforts would be credible.”

That has been investigated, for decades. Where on earth did you get the idea that it hadn’t? All of the authoritative overviews of the subject – IPCC reports and others – cover these issues.

QUOTE : “Don’t you think the entire matter is being seriously distorted by ignoring the effect of water vapor, as a greenhouse gas?”

Again, this has been studied for decades, and it’s thoroughly explored in the scientific literature. So wherever you’ve been getting your information is a deeply unreliable source.

QUOTE : “No. I have not read it [IPCC 4] because it is faulted, by refusing to acknowledge the possibility of naturally caused GW or CC”

How on earth do you know what it contains if you haven’t read it?

And what is it in “MD, DD, LLD” that gives you a particular insight into
climate science that you believe has escaped all of the world’s climate
scientists for the past 40 years? I’m struggling to see how a Doctorate
in Divinity is relevant.

Ah, wait a minute. Water vapour, “Doctor of Divinity”, North American
spellings Is there a theme, here, Kevin? Are you by any chance a fan of
Dr Roy Spencer? And there was I thinking that you just had a Bachelors
in Mechanical Engineering. Well, congratulations on the additional
training in medicine, divinity and law – you have been busy. Might one
ask as to the names of the fine institutions that granted these degrees?

And so, finally, to Roy Spencer. For those who don’t know of him, Roy’s
a creationist with a whizzo theory that God has given the Earth a
natural thermostat so that we won’t make a mess of things with global
warming. He thinks it may be something to do with water vapour, even
though this is completely contradicted by empirical data; but then, I
hear that for those people of faith, it trumps the real world.

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19/08/2010
from: jo abbess

Hey Andrew,

Not everybody who has religion denies real world data !

And not everyone who says that they believe real world data actually knows what the real world data is evidence for !

Like Sir John Houghton and John Cook of SkepticalScience.com I have a Christian faith, but the form that it takes has enough room for Science. My faith’s scriptures contain very important guidance for the treatment of the people and environment around us, and you can’t be a proper “Steward of Creation” as the scriptures urge, without empirical data.

The Bible is full of Climate Change, including the story of the famine in Egypt, which Joseph is narrated to have managed by building grain silos…but I’m not going to preach religion, since my version of my faith includes social tolerance not “holier than thou” isolationism. I believe that God speaks to each person directly through what they learn, so I don’t need to tell them what to believe, and I can work with anyone who does Science, regardless of what they believe about spiritual matters.

We are left with the blessings and curses of Moses in Deuteronomy, slightly updated, which include direct mention of Climate Changes : we have the option : follow the evidence and choose to protect Life on Earth; or ignore the Laws of Nature and choose chaotic, possibly catastrophic Climate Change.

Peace & Fried Plantain,

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19/08/2010
from: Bill Bordass

A lovely quote from Infosys, the Indian IT company.

“In God I trust. Everybody else must bring data.”

The evidence clearly supports the man-made climate change hypothesis. But even if it didn’t, there are lots of other good reasons for stopping using fossil fuels.

With good wishes

Bill

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19/08/2010
from: Andrew Smith

Hey Jo,

in this particular context, *those* people of faith I referred to were
creationists. I apologise for having separated the relevant clauses by
so much intervening text that that particular line of argument became
obscured:

QUOTE : “And so, finally, to Roy Spencer. For those who don’t know of him, Roy’s a creationist … I hear that for those people of faith, it trumps the real world.”

Such a position necessitates denial of empirical data that does not
conform to a pre-judged position, even where it means rejecting
fundamental aspects of physics, chemistry and geology.

No comment was intended on those people whose faith does not contradict known science.

Kind regards,
Andrew

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03:03
from: Dave McGrath

Kevin,

May I urge some temperance. Personal attacks are unbecoming

GW may be drive by human activity and natural events. Probably a combination of both % attribution? impossible to say. Some suggest AGW is countering a natural cooling period, who knows. Remember the big numbers 186mboe every single day. Instantaneous release (geologically) of geologically sequestered carbon. This represents for me discontinuity. Nature responds harshly to discontinuities

But interestingly you state “water vapour is 3 to 4 times as powerful a “greenhouse gas” Consider the implication of this statement. As fuel is combusted the carbon is releases as CO2 the hydrogen as H2O So the sequestered hydrogen is being re-released as H2O which does not decompose. It is released as water vapour. Thus the GW impact of each kG of CO2 discharge is in fact amplified 2-5 fold depending on he volumes of water vapour released.

Fun to speculate and I am sure we can create any story we like around it, I shall not though.

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19/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Dave

QUOTE : “Kevin, May I urge some temperance. Personal attacks are unbecoming”

# I do agree with you. Please speak to Jo about “…Please stop reciting to me the worn-out and frankly ridiculous, debunked and discredited pseudo-theories of the Climate Change sceptic-deniers. Please start reading the Science….”

I thought my reply to her dismissive comment was temperate

QUOTE : “GW may be driven by human activity and natural events. Probably a combination of both % attribution? impossible to say. Some suggest AGW is countering a natural cooling period, who knows. Remember the big numbers 186mboe every single day. Instantaneous release (geologically) of geologically sequestered carbon. This represents for me discontinuity. Nature responds harshly to discontinuities.”

# It is my feeling that Global Climate Change is probably driven by both Anthropogenic and Natural Causes. By ignoring the possibility of Natural Causes as a possibile contributor, the IPCC places undue weight on the Anthropogenic contribution, and, as a consequence, undue weight on the ability of Anthropogenic Activity to reverse GCC

QUOTE : “But interestingly you state “water vapour is 3 to 4 times as powerful a “greenhouse gas” Consider the implication of this statement. As fuel is combusted the carbon is releases as CO2 the hydrogen as H2O So the sequestered hydrogen is being re-released as H2O which does not decompose. It is released as water vapour. Thus the GW impact of each kG of CO2 discharge is in fact amplified 2-5 fold depending on he volumes of water vapour released.”

# Yes, indeed. However, the “increment of water vapor” will quickly drop out of the atmosphere, if the atmospheric temperature drops below condensation temperature. The important thing here, however, is that with temperatures as they are now, the “equilibrium water vapor content” is such that its greenhouse effefct is much larger than the effect from CO2

QUOTE : “Fun to speculate and I am sure we can create any story we like around it, I shall not though.”

# Sadly, if we have a premise that is based on Consensus, rather than Science, we cannot be confident that we really are working toward the best solution for dealing with Global Climate Change.

Best wishes,

Kevin

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19/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear Herbert

QUOTE : “As for the Spiegel article – I was about to post it myself as recommended reading for Kevin Chisholm, who may also find this article of interest: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/15/bad-science-global-warming-deniers-are-a-liability-to-the-conservative-cause/#ixzz0uIrxcAqA”

# I read the article, and did find it interesting. It is basically an Editorial Opinion that “people on the fringe” can act irresponsibly if they have views that go contrary to “the mainstream.”

# Perhaps GCC is 100% caused by Anthropogenic Activity, and perhaps it can indeed be reversed in a sensible and affordable manner. I do not know. However, I do know that when the IPCC eliminiates the possibility of natural causes from consideration, their basic premise is faulted. Certainly, there are some skeptics who advocate silly positions, and the “Entirely Anthropogenic” supporters are quick to dismiss them with fact but they then go on to dismiss all skeptics as “deniers” and “dis-believers”. Science is based on fact, not belief. Dismissing skeptics because they are “dis-believers” is not at all scientific. The IPCC work is based on “Consensus Science”, and this term itself was promoted by the IPCC itself. True Science is based on fact and truth, while Consensus Science is based on belief and agreement. “Consensus Science” is an oxymoron.

# At this point in time, I feel we have three fundamental choices:
1: Do nothing.
2: Assume we can reverse GCC, and direct our resources and activities toward reversing GCC.
3: Assume we cannot reverse GCC, and direct our resources and activities toward adapting to GCC.

# What do you feel is the most sensible way for the World to proceed?

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19/08/2010
from: Kevin Chisholm

Dear George

QUOTE : “Could you please explain the phrase ‘digitizes your generalities’ since I find it somewhat confusing? Perhaps it is jargon of which I am not aware?”

# That is a term of my own coinization”

QUOTE: “What the phrase means is basically “provide specific fact and numbers to support your generalized statement”.”

# For example, I can say “Photo-voltaic power is too expensive.” If I am connected to a Utility, providing power at say $.15 per kw-hr, then this statement is true. However, if I am operating a communications relay tower that was:
* 4 miles from an Utility line,
* had only seasonal road access,
* was in an area subject to icing,
* and need only a peak solar output of 2 kW to keep my batteries charged,
then, when I costed things out, I would find that PV Power was the most sensible alternative.

# I hope this clears things up.

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19/08/2010
from: Herbert Eppel

Dear Kevin

Thank you for your reply.

You commented on the National Post article but not the Spiegel article Jo had sent – any comments?

As for the three fundamental choices you offered, option 1 is certainly not the most sensible way for the World to proceed.

I’ll send a more detailed reply on my view of the most sensible way forward in due course, but I need to get a few translation jobs out of the way first.

Meanwhile, I hope you will find this short video entertaining: http://blogs.news.com.au/couriermail/greenblog/index.php/couriermail/comments/walking_the_dinosaur#63248

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19/08/2010
from: Dave Elliott

I’ve been following this discussion and felt I’d add my comments briefly.

1 IPCC accept that natural climate processes are responsibe for some warming (and coollng) – last time I looked I think they said 20%. The rest seems to be down to us, since no other smoking gun can be identified.

2. If they are right, whatever we do now we will need a massive adapations across the world- its not either adapatation or mitigation, we need both.

3. But it makes sense to deal with the problems at source and reduce emissions- to put in simply we cant just keep building higher dikes /flood defences,as sea levels continually rise, or evacuate more and more central belt zones as temperatures rise.

Much of the debate is about what mix of mitigation and adpatation we need and can afford . Mitigation can involve investment which will take time to pay off in climate terms ; adapation can deal with immediate problems, but doesn’t help much long term.

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19/08/2010
from: Andrew Smith

QUOTE : “Dave Elliott wrote…Much of the debate is about what mix of mitigation and adpatation we need and can afford . Mitigation can involve investment which will take time to pay off in climate terms ; adapation can deal with immediate problems, but doesn’t help much long term.”

And an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That is to say,
money spent on mitigation now saves a fortune in adaptation later.

Furthermore, within the power sector, everything we have to do for
mitigation, we have to do at some point anyway, because the fossil fuel supply is finite.

So, at a conference somewhere, a renewables presentation ends with the summary:
* Clean, safe, endless energy
* No more resource depletion
* Huge reductions in local and global pollution
* Traffic much quieter
* Air much cleaner
* higher energy security
* freedom from strategic dependences on fuel imports
… and at the back, a voice squeaks: “but what if global warming is a
giant conspiracy, and we’ve built a better world for nothing?”

(not my joke – I nicked it from someone at a presentation at
Cambridge Energy Systems week – Nafees Meah from DECC I think – sorry Nafees)

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20/8/2010
from: jo abbess

Hi Clavertonians,

Just a note about consensus and independence.

http://www.joabbess.com/2010/08/20/on-consensus/

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20/8/2010
from: Peter Ravine

Well said Jo! You have a gift for making common sense understandable. Thanks.
Regards, Peter Ravine.

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from: Herbert Eppel

QUOTE : “… and at the back, a voice squeaks: “but what if global warming is a giant conspiracy, and we’ve built a better world for nothing?”

Excellent!

See also this video, which demonstrates in a rather simplistic but
pretty clear way that non-action re. climate change would be plain
stupid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=related

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from: David McGrath

Mitigation, adaptation…

Lets add displacement to the lexicon

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Specimen A

Simon Hoggart pronounces on Climate Change Science despite not knowing a thing about it. I do not understand how this piece of writing was published, as it contains a number of inaccuracies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/feb/06/climate-change-simon-hoggarts-week

“Is climate change the new faith? : Fanatics must stop playing fast and loose with global warming data : Simon Hoggart : The Guardian, Saturday 6 February 2010 : As a climate change agnostic – and I suspect most of us are, especially now, and more especially after the Guardian series this week – I’ve been bothered by two aspects of the argument. The first is the religious overtone. Humankind has always wanted to blame its own behaviour for natural events, whether Noah’s flood, plagues of frogs, or volcanos which demonstrate that the gods are angry. Three years ago a British bishop announced that gay marriage had caused our floods. I’ve often wondered whether global warming is another example of this, an irrational belief designed for a rationalist world. And there is an element of religious faith in the true believers. Those who disagree are “deniers”, with its echo of fanatics who don’t believe in the Holocaust. Years ago I saw a sceptic howled down at a British Association meeting; scientists shouldn’t behave like that. If people disagree with you they might not be morally wrong, or agents of Satan. (Or big oil, as the believers often claim.) This ties in with my second worry. Clearly many believers have played fast and loose with the data: since what they believe is true beyond doubt, they have a right – no, a moral duty – to suppress any evidence that might contradict them. Years ago I cowrote a book, Bizarre Beliefs, about various crazy things people believe in, such as astrology, the Bermuda Triangle and spiritualism. Most of them generated vast amounts of data from which believers simply cherry-picked whatever suited their case. The world’s climate produces millions upon millions of facts and figures, and it’s very easy to select the ones that suit you and ignore all the rest. Of course I don’t know who’s right. But I’m not surprised to see the true believers struggling.”

How could anybody claim to be a “climate change agnostic” ? Climate Change Science is not something you need to have a kind of blind faith in. Debates are going on all the time within the Climate Change Science community about how to test theories and interpret data. However, if you care to look at the facts, you could not remain on the fence. That you have not looked at the facts makes your statements invalid.

Excuse me ? What “religious overtone” ? When Climate Change Scientists try to put together a Media briefing, since most of the journalists have no idea what the Scientific evidence means, the Scientists try to explain things in ways that the journalists could possibly understand – rivers drying out, rains failing, extreme weather. This isn’t Moses prophesying plagues, this is trying to use ordinary language to explain potential change. Attempting to use descriptive means to interpret the data. Climate Change Scientists are not “fanatics”, they don’t hold “irrational beliefs”. Of course you “don’t know who’s right”, Simon, you say you haven’t a clue, so stop thinking you have the right to comment. I would suggest you get a proper Climate Change Science education before making judgements that appear to be ridiculous !

Nobody’s “played fast and loose with the data” – that’s just totally incorrect. If you want to see who the real “cherry pickers” are, go read the Climate Change Denier-Sceptics.

Sceptics are people who are genuinely not sure. Deniers are people who attack the Climate Change Science with a well-known set of fallacious arguments. You need to learn the difference. You need to know how deep the deniers will dig for even an iota of muck to rub in the faces of those who are valiantly trying to do their jobs and promote the truth.

Climate Change poses huge risks that can be estimated in terms of large numbers. This is not a trifling problem, and the Science that recounts the emerging data encompasses a raft of disciplines.

The “true believers” aren’t “struggling”. They just realise there’s no point in trying to come back at those who are wasting their time with endless, pointless non-arguments.

Specimen B

The Guardian editorial team appear to be dancing to the Climate Change Sceptic tune – falling right into their meaningless narrative and dubious agenda. Phil Jones’ e-mails do not indicate failure to comply with Freedom of Information Requests. Phil Jones’ work is important, but his e-mails are not. How the Guardian top ranks seem to have had their heads completely spun by this Climategate nonsense !

You would have thought that the last 200 years of Science has been proved unfounded. When you’ve finished showing that Geology is wrong, Chemistry is wrong, The Laws of Physics are wrong, then you might have a case. Until then, it’s all spin from the Climate Science Obstructers. Nothing’s changed since November. The world is still warming, on average, and faster than it did 30 years ago. It’s still humans that are to blame and it’s still the job of the governments to regulate Carbon Energy out of the economies without leaving us all poor, cold, hungry and unemployed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/01/climate-change-university-east-anglia

“Global warming: Undeniable evidence : Editorial : The Guardian, Monday 1 February 2010 : The unwillingness of scientists at the University of East Anglia to release climate data to people who choose not to believe in climate change was a mistake. Science advances through openness, through the ability of others to replicate the same findings or demonstrate error in discovery and interpretation. Reluctance to disclose – revealed last week in the wake of the release of private email exchanges between climate researchers – invites suspicion. The hacked email exchanges were an embarrassment, and the refusal to disclose data was a bad call, but neither episode casts much doubt upon the science of global warming…There is plenty of room for argument about the rate at which the world is warming, the degree to which humans are culpable, the likely outcomes and the most effective steps to be taken…”

The Guardian editorial team have been completely sucked in by the agenda of the Climate Science Obstructers, those who seek to pervert the course of Climate Change Science. The CRU at the UEA was subject to an unreasonable level of harrassment by Freedom of Information requests, and they were not given the means to deal with this as effectively as George Monbiot thinks they should have done. That’s not saying that the research teams were not prepared to be “open”. Here’s what the CRU at the UEA say to the accusation that the research teams were not “open” :-

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/guardianstatement

There’s not “plenty of room for argument about the rate at which the world is warming”. For somebody to make that statement means they don’t know what they’re talking about. There is plenty of data that shows a narrow band of values for Global Warming. It really is getting hotter, and it really is a problem.

And as for “the degree to which humans are culpable”, this has been well established as being closely correlated in a causal fashion with accumulation of Carbon Dioxide and other Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere, which can only be explained by net emissions from mankind’s activities. All other proposals for mechanisms have been ruled out. “What about water vapour ?” I hear you ask. Well, water vapour concentrations in the atmosphere and the change of water vapour at different levels of the atmosphere are feedbacks from Global Warming on the Earth system as a whole.

I don’t know why The Guardian wants to appear to be somehow treading a middle ground between conflicting social perceptions of the Science.

The Guardian’s responsibility is to relay the truth, not suggest compromises, particularly if they don’t have any scientists on their reporting team.

What can the editorial team at The Guardian possibly know about Climate Change Science, if they don’t even know enough to make accurate statements ?

He’s come out loud and proud, defending himself, his Science and his institution, and he’s being backed up by his boss, too :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/climate-professor-leaked-emails-uea

Meanwhile…the Scientific American magazine uncovers a genuine cover-up in Climate Science :-

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-cover-up-you-better-2009-11-24

“Nov 24, 2009 : Climate change cover-up? You better believe it : By David Biello…”

As some readers of this post will know, some time in the recent past, a person or persons unknown allegedly took some files from a computer server belonging to the CRU, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

They may have been “hackers”, “stealing” the files. They may have fabricated them. That is a matter for the Police and authorities yet to decide. The files may have been taken/invented last week : another fact open to investigation.

These alleged files allegedly contained information and e-mails pertaining to work by Climate Change scientists spanning a number of years.

Those who acquired/created the files posted them on the Internet and proceeded to inform the Climate Change sceptic network of their presence, since which there has been a flurry of Internet and Media activity asking questions of the character, motives and actions of Climate Change scientists, based on the contents of the supposed e-mails.

Nigel Lawson is even calling for an independent inquiry into allegations that Climate Change scientists manipulated data :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6634282/Lord-Lawson-calls-for-public-inquiry-into-UEA-global-warming-data-manipulation.html

I think there should be an inquiry, but it should cover other aspects of this incident.

I was only wondering the other day where the Climate Change deniers and sceptics were hiding, as I hadn’t heard a peep from them for a while.

And then last week, several people who write on Climate Change, who write weblogs or run news services, found that their webservers were being subjected to heavy traffic.

It is suggested that there was possibly a coordinated attempt to perhaps upload the real/fake e-mail files onto the personal websites of Climate Change scientists and webloggers, from remote servers, presumably as an attempt to smear them for having copies of this information.

In addition, people have been reporting that they have been under DoS (Denial of Service) style attacks, where automated computer programmes have been accessing websites in great volumes in order to drag down their speed and squeeze out their availability.

My own webhost contacted me to let me know that the slow speed of my personal website was due to the fact that it was under a DoS style attack, apparently from a webserver in China, which has now been blocked.

This appears to be showing that the Climate Change deniers and sceptics are all acting in a coordinated fashion to bring Climate Change Science into disrepute and to deny reasonable, intellectual commentary on it.

I would propose we give this a name : scepticaemia, a poison in the blood of a global brotherhood that seek to stop action on Climate Change.

They’ve already shown they are prepared to commit possibly criminal acts in taking/faking information that is not theirs. They are busy waging a propaganda war against Science. They are clearly highly networked. Are they strongly coordinated ? Did they plan this “Climategate”, as James Delingpole puts it, so unoriginally ? Was there any group behind it ? Any particular people ?

I would like to ask you to take part in a few suggestions for action :-

1. Call for an investigation into the behaviour of the Climate Change Sceptics in light of this potentially criminal, certainly destabilising, incident. Use the Media channels.

2. Assert your personal acceptance of the Climate Change Science, and dismiss the accusations of bad scientist behaviour coming from the sceptics.

3. Post copies of e-mail traffic that you have had with Climate Change sceptics on your websites, with some analysis of their communications techniques. After all, Climate Change scientists may have been tempted to badmouth their opponents, but they are not the only people who may be tempted to badmouth their opponents. I think we should see publicly what sceptics have been writing in their e-mails, particularly if they may have been plotting. If it’s anything like the e-mails and comments I have received on this weblog and in forums and my Inbox, then it can be very abusive, mendacious, conspiratorial, manipulative and insulting. Oh, and threatening, too; even some that I would consider “hate crime”.

4. Refuse to answer the sceptic accusations against Climate Change scientists. You will only end up in long, detailed, heated arguments, which nobody has time for.

The Climate Change Sceptics have shot themselves in the foot with this ridiculous and underhand manoeuvre regarding CRU. People aren’t going to listen to them for very much longer if they continue to behave like this. The plot (if it is a plot) has failed.

Some of the links to the news and commentary on this matter :-

Climateer Views
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
http://climatedenial.org/2009/11/22/swiftboating-the-climate-scientists/
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/on_those_stolen_cru_emails.php
http://www.desmogblog.com/climategate-perspective-featuring-isaac-newton
http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/21/hacked-emails-ncar-kevin-trenberth/
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-20-skeptics-claim-global-warming-fake-scientists-emails-CRU/

Denier Views
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/20/cru_climate_hack/
http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2009/11/21/climate-change-comes-under-heavy-fire-in-the-blogosphere/
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Climate-change-conspiracy-busted-by-computer-hackers–Links-to-important-reports-here
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/those-cru-emails-2.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017451/climategate-how-the-msm-reported-the-greatest-scandal-in-modern-science/
http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Who-leaked-the-Hadley-CRU-files-and-why
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17102
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230122/How-climate-change-scientists-dodged-sceptics.html

Please submit your own links to articles and commentary on this mess in the comments section below. (Keep it clean or it will be wiped and tidied, I assure you.)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735769.htm

“Rudd wages war on Coalition climate deniers : By online parliamentary correspondent Emma Rodgers : Posted Fri Nov 6, 2009 : Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has upped the pressure on the Opposition over its emissions trading stance, accusing it of being full of climate change deniers intent on delaying action. In a speech to the Lowy Institute today Mr Rudd launched a strongly worded attack on the Opposition and climate change sceptics worldwide for holding up countries’ efforts to combat climate change. “It is time to be totally blunt about the agenda of the climate change sceptics in all their colours, some more sophisticated than others,” he said. “It is to destroy the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at home and it is to destroy agreed global action on climate change abroad. And our children’s fate – our grandchildren’s fate – will lie entirely with them. It is time to remove any polite veneer from this debate; the stakes are that high. The clock is ticking for the planet, but the climate change sceptics simply do not care.”… Mr Rudd accused those who question climate change science of “holding the world to ransom. Climate change sceptics, the climate change deniers, the opponents of climate change action are active in every country,” he said. “They are a minority. They are however powerful and invariably they are driven by vested interests [and are] powerful enough to so far block domestic legislation in Australia.” Quoting several Opposition frontbenchers at length as proof of scepticism and a “do-nothing” attitude within the Coalition, Mr Rudd accused the Opposition of political cowardice and a “failure of logic” in so far refusing to pass the scheme. “The tentacles of the climate change sceptics reach deep into the ranks of the Liberal Party and once you add the National party it’s plain the sceptics and the deniers are a major force,” he said…”

I expected the American right-wing free-trade lunatics to try and chew him up :-

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/australia-mainmenu-34/2267-australian-prime-minister-goes-hysterical-over-global-warming

“Australian Prime Minister Goes Hysterical Over Global Warming : Written by William F. Jasper : Monday, 09 November 2009…”

But I was still surprised to find that the Wall Street Journal was so nasty-mean about Kevin Rudd, written anonymously as far as I can see, and using evidence from what I think could well be a dubious opinion poll :-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525031879821944.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

“NOVEMBER 9, 2009 : Climate-Change Panic Down Under : Kevin Rudd’s attack on ‘skeptics’ is instructive-and bodes poorly for Copenhagen. Tough economic times have a way of clarifying political priorities and forcing people to distinguish among needs, wishes—and fantasies. So you might think a politician as canny as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would know better than to blame his country’s new-found skepticism about the risks of global warming on something other than an evil conspiracy. In a speech in Sydney on Friday, Mr. Rudd claimed “climate-change skeptics, the climate-change deniers, the opponents of climate-change action are active in every country.” The prime minister then linked this global conspiracy to “vested interests” bent on “slowing and if possible destroying the momentum towards a global deal on climate change.” Mr. Rudd went on to attack, by name, “the vocal group of conservatives who do not accept the scientific consensus”; opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, who has questioned the wisdom of taxing the most productive sectors of Australia’s economy during the downturn; and “world government conspiracy theorists” who worry about devolving tax-and-spend powers to unaccountable United Nations bureaucrats. Well, who’s left? Inconveniently for Mr. Rudd, who based his election in 2007 on his environmental bona fides, the public. Electorates all over the world are starting to question the climate-change received wisdom. A recent poll by the Lowy Institute—where Mr. Rudd gave his speech Friday—showed climate-change had fallen to the seventh “most important” foreign-policy goal for the public—down from first two years ago. There is receding support in the U.S. and Europe too, which is why next month’s Copenhagen confab is expected to be such a dud. Like the U.S., Australia is ignoring this common sense and pushing ahead to impose an expensive cap-and-trade regime on its economy. At the very least, such a fundamental change deserves a lively debate, not a defensive denunciation of anyone who disagrees with Mr. Rudd.”

But then I read this :-

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/09/2737160.htm

“Murdoch blasts ABC’s global ‘didgeridoos’ plan : By communications reporter Michael Rowland : Posted Mon Nov 9, 2009 : Mr Murdoch is confident he’ll be able to work out a way of charging people for online content. News Corporation’s media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been in town and he has had a lot to get off his chest, opening up on everything from the treatment of asylum seekers to Kevin Rudd’s personality. Mr Murdoch gave expansive and remarkably candid interviews with The Australian and Melbourne’s Herald Sun… Mr Murdoch also took a swipe at US President Barack Obama, saying he was “going badly”. But his comments on the Prime Minister were the most striking. Mr Murdoch described Mr Rudd as “delusional” for thinking he could shift global thinking on climate change, and accused him of being over-sensitive to criticism. He also said Mr Rudd seemed more interested in running the world and not Australia. It is no secret that Mr Rudd and News Limited papers have been at odds of late, but Mr Murdoch says this simply goes with the territory and effectively told Mr Rudd to harden up…”

Who owns the Wall Street Journal ? Wikipedia tells me, Dow Jones, of course. And who owns Dow Jones ? News Corporation. And who owns News Corporation ? Why, strangely, Rupert Murdoch.

Image Credit : Rahmstorf et al. (2007)

When is Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister going to appear on TV and tell it to us straight ?

Climate Change is real, and it’s happening now, and the sceptics, deniers, delayers and cynics are all wrong. And somebody with some kind of respect needs to be saying that, regularly, with backup, in all the media channels.

It’s time that scepticism, denialism, delayism and cynicism were ruled out of order.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/04/network-climate-change-scepticism

“…It has almost reached the point at which Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband could state that the colour red has a wavelength of about 650 nanometres and a large group would immediately rise up to contradict him. And the regular mention of higher levels of green taxation doesn’t help – it just emphasises that the battle against climate change seems to be quite closely associated with giving governments more control over what we do and how we do it…Whether we like it or not, we will not get substantive action unless the growing scepticism in the electorate is addressed. This means a much greater willingness to engage in debate and discussion…”

I don’t think there’s room for debate or discussion.

You can’t have a debate with a Climate Change sceptic, as they won’t see reason, as they most often don’t know anything about the science, only some psychological gameplaying they picked up off the Internet, or the TV or a tabloid newspaper they found discarded on a train.

The Media isn’t helping as they continue to give a platform to Climate Change sceptical views, not knowing the fallacies on which they are based. Because they don’t hire journalists with a science or engineering background. Journalists are, on the whole, great with wordplay, but hopeless at spotting when they’re been hoodwinked.

I wouldn’t trust a bunch of ideas that principally come from Fossil Fuel industry sponsored doubt manufacturers, but journalists do, because they can’t tell the difference between an authentic factual statement and spin on science. And neither can their editors. It seems.

For example, a relative of mine pointed me to this today :-

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14743441

“A changing climate : SIR – Indur Goklany questioned whether global warming has caused an increase in droughts and floods (Letters, October 10th). In fact, the answer is already well settled. That question was examined thoroughly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its 2001 report, one chapter, titled “Has climate variability, or have climate extremes, changed?”, concluded that there was no discernible increase in storms, hurricanes, floods or droughts. A re-examination of that issue therefore seemed unnecessary in the IPCC’s 2007 report. Concerning rising sea levels, this is a more complex issue since a natural increase of 1-2mm a year has been occurring for many centuries. However, over the past few decades no anthropogenic signal in sea-level changes has been detected. This is firmly backed up by precise satellite altimetry. Meanwhile it was just last month that Professor Mojib Latif of the University of Kiel in Germany, a renowned climate expert and IPCC author, presented his latest work at the World Climate Conference in Geneva. His findings show that the mean global temperature has actually declined since 2001. Moreover, his computer models predict a further temperature drop over the coming decades. All of this beckons the question: just where are the supposedly detrimental effects of anthropogenic CO2? Horst-Joachim Luedecke, Retired professor of physics, Heidelberg, Germany”

My relative was a bit confused, thinking that there was some foundation in the retired physics professor’s views.

Fact check it.

Let me start with sea level rise :-

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_TS.pdf
UNFCCC IPCC AR4 WGI Technical Summary : see Table TS.3

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL036010.shtml

“…January 2004 to December 2007…we find that the sum of steric sea level and the ocean mass component has a trend of 1.5 ± 1.0 mm/a over the period, in agreement with the total sea level rise observed by either Jason-1 (2.4 ± 1.1 mm/a) or Envisat (2.7 ± 1.5 mm/a) within a 95% confidence interval….”

http://www.imedea.uib.es/goifis/OTROS/VANIMEDAT/documentos/intranet/Bibliography/Church_SeaLevelAcceleration_20century.pdf

“A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise : John A. Church and Neil J. White : Received 6 October 2005; revised 22 November 2005; accepted 1 December 2005; published 6 January 2006. Multi-century sea-level records and climate models indicate an acceleration of sea-level rise, but no 20th century acceleration has previously been detected. A reconstruction of global sea level using tide-gauge data from 1950 to 2000 indicates a larger rate of rise after 1993 and other periods of rapid sea-level rise but no significant acceleration over this period. Here, we extend the reconstruction of global mean sea level back to 1870 and find a sea-level rise from January 1870 to December 2004 of 195 mm, a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr-1 and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise
of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm yr-2. This acceleration is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which show an acceleration not previously observed. If this acceleration remained constant then the 1990 to 2100 rise would range from 280 to 340 mm, consistent with projections in the IPCC TAR. Citation: Church, J. A., and N. J. White (2006), A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826.”

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1135456

“A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise : Stefan Rahmstorf : A semi-empirical relation is presented that connects global sea-level rise to global mean surface temperature. It is proposed that, for time scales relevant to anthropogenic warming, the rate of sea-level rise is roughly proportional to the magnitude of warming above the temperatures of the pre–Industrial Age. This holds to good approximation for temperature and sea-level changes during the 20th century, with a proportionality constant of 3.4 millimeters/year per °C. When applied to future warming scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this relationship results in a projected sea-level rise in 2100 of 0.5 to 1.4 meters above the 1990 level.”

That’s a bit different from the last few centuries. I wonder why that is ?

And as for Mojib Latif’s comments, try this :-

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610

I showed this video to my relative who said “The sceptics can’t read graphs”.

So there you have it. Easily nailed.

It appears to me from the following blog post :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climates_magnetic_attraction.html

that Richard Black is either (a) entirely ignorant of the relevant science or is (b) deliberately not including the relevant science.

He does not include the well-known counterpoints to Piers Corbyn’s theories on Global Warming.

He poses a challenge to Climate Change scientists that has already been answered in the literature.

In order to restore accuracy to the piece, people would need to contribute comments that informed Richard Black of the relevant science, that he should know about anyway, and should have cited.

Richard Black is thus wasting peoples’ time in my view, either intentionally or accidentally.

He has a position as a senior environmental writer for the BBC Online team, and so in my view, he should have at least some understanding of why Piers Corbyn’s theories are not mainstream science, and how they have been already discredited.

If he does not know this kind of information, he should at least be conscious that it might exist, and he should at least make an attempt to find out, and report his findings.

I remain perplexed that people without any relevant scientific training are writing for the environmental reporting section of BBC Online.

They are good writers, but they appear to lack a depth and range in their knowledge of the state of the science.

I am surprised that Richard Black bothered to attend the presentation by Piers Corbyn, as he should have easily been able to find out why it could be counted as pseudo-science.

My demand is that environmental writers for the BBC Online should undertake a course in Climate Change science, so that it is clear that they understand what they are reporting on, and recognise which views are non-science.

The section I am concerned about is this :-

…Now, doubtless many of you will have views on the science and everything else in this post, and I look forward to reading them.

But the responses I would particularly invite are from working scientists – physicists, climatologists, and those in related fields.

At the beginning of this post, I suggested working scientists might like to read to the end – and here’s why.

Piers Corbyn hasn’t given you a scientific paper here but I hope I have relayed the main elements, and you can see his presentation for more details.

So please – have a look around. Some of you know about this stuff – orbital precession, solar cycles, Fourier transforms, magnetic dipoles – far, far better than I do. When you have a free moment or two, don’t turn to Tetris, but have a play with this box of toys.

The datasets Mr Corbyn used are publically available, as is information on cycles of lunar nodes and such like.

Do the numbers and mechanisms stack up? Is the theory plausible? Compelling? Completely nuts? What do you think?

As of now, does it even qualify as a theory?

I’m certainly not qualified to pronounce judgement – but some of you may be.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with… and so, I’m sure, will everyone anxious to make sure that negotiators in Copenhagen are armed only with the best scientific evidence.

Although Richard Black asserts that he is not qualified to pronounce judgement, which appears unbiased, he has not made an attempt to explain alternative viewpoints or report them.

He is also laying out for the reader the position of Piers Corbyn, and asking the reader to put some effort in to either confirm or deny this.

However, a simple perusal of the literature would show that Piers Corbyn’s views on Global Warming are easily challenged, and have been done so quite regularly and successfully.

Thus, this blog post for me is biased, unreasonable and provocative and I would call it unacceptable.