How warm was 2015, how warm will 2016 be?

I correctly predicted four years of global average temperature, on IPredict before it ceased offering the market. I had to offer odds to get people to fork over their cash.

My wagers are here, which no denialists have accepted:

http://warmwagers.org/

@ Desertphile

They probably figured it involved a sneaky trick on your part. You know, like the planet warming or something like that.

@ Desertphile -- wouldn't deniers just claim NASS GISS temperatures were made up. Still, even RSS and UHA should show records this year or next year. If not, then something fishy is definitely going on.

My wagers are here, which no denialists have accepted:

Just a guess - it's harder for people to put their own money on the line in a wager like yours than it is to use the money of backers to spread the "no warming" word - and the backers won't front the dough for the wager.
It's almost as though the people behind the money that funds the loudest denialists know something their mouthpieces don't.

Yes - 2015 was warm and maybe 2016 will be even warmer.

However, what I would like to know is how much of the warming in 2015 was caused by humans and how much by nature (i.e. not humans).

I would also like to know that for the 20th century, and the 21st (I mean why not - since I am wishing).

The more warming sloshing from the ocean to the atmosphere (nature moving heat around) - the less that can be caused by human CO2 emissions.

RickA believes that if he puts money into a bank account, lets it sit there for several years, then later comes and withdraws it, that all that money is suddenly "earned income" and he sadly has to pay taxes on it.

DNFTT

RickA is a patent lawyer. Must work for a patent troll.

Brainstorms #6:

Not all of it - but certainly the interest earned over those years is earned income, and you do have to pay taxes on it.

You seem to believe that heat loaded into the ocean a 100 years ago can never slosh out and move into the atmosphere today (or in the future) - and that internal variability is always a short-term thing. How do you know that is correct?

cosmicomics #8:

That is a good one!

RickA thinks heat is leaving the ocean to warm the atmosphere.

This would mean the oceans are cooling.

Where's your data, Rick?

Craig #11:

It is called "el nino".

Greg wrote about it in this post.

It is heat leaving the ocean and moving into the atmosphere.

Or so I am told.

But no - I didn't take the temperature of the oceans before and after "el nino", if that is what you are asking.

Re. climate bets:
Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming
Abstract
We examine a series of betting strategies on the transient response of greenhouse warming, expressed by changes in 15-year mean global surface temperature from one 15-year period to the next. Over the last century, these bets are increasingly dominated by positive changes (warming), reflecting increasing greenhouse forcing... Negative 15-year changes (decreases) have not occurred since about 1970, and are still possible, but now rely on large, and therefore infrequent, natural variations. Model projections for even intermediate warming scenarios show very low likelihoods of obtaining negative 15-year changes over the coming century. Betting against greenhouse warming, even on these short time scales, is no longer a rational proposition.
rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2055/20140463

Global warming is here to stay, whichever way you look at it
Kevin Trenberth

"Some of the penetration of heat into the depths of the ocean is reversible, as it comes back in the next El Niño. But a lot is not; instead it contributes to the overall warming of the deep ocean. This means less short-term warming at the surface, but at the expense of greater long-term warming, and faster sea level rise. So this has consequences."
http://theconversation.com/global-warming-is-here-to-stay-whichever-way…

RickA, we know that heat leaves and enters the ocean on the short time scales of El Nino and La Nina, ~2-7 years.

But.. what reason is there to believe it happens on ~100-year timescales? Where would this warm pool be, that doesn't mix with cold water in that time, and what would cause it to accumulate there?

Anyone can posit something, but in science you need to go further, and demonstrate it with evidence.

And with both oceans and atmosphere warming over the last few decades, it doesn't make sense for warmth to be leaving the oceans to warm the atmosphere.

At least RickA is not repeating his fictional claim that it is not very likely that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures BEFORE mid-20th century is caused by humans.

We should be thankful for small mercies.

RickA:

But no – I didn’t take the temperature of the oceans before and after “el nino”

Glad to know you make up claims without data.

Does anybody here have a scientific model, Ouija board, or Magic Eight Ball with high enough resolution and verifiable track record for me to be able to, say, invest the shreds of my portfolio in a gambling scheme that can assure me of not having to spend my golden years under a bridge overpass eating catfood? Alternatively, I am still handy with an ax and a brush hook and my wife has a vast collection of vegetable seeds , so maybe we should be working on laying the groundwork for a new and glorious civilization/agrarian tribe.

In the mean time, I think it makes sense to devote some time and effort to looking at the two most likely events ( 1. Next year will be warmer 2. Next year will be cooler) and seeing what prognostications we can make regarding those two outcomes based on our knowledge of other laws of nature with which we may be more familiar. Here are my predictions.

1. Deniers will keep denying. They are a force of nature, and until someone comes up with a smart pill powerful enough to force people to stop trying to try the laws of physics in the court of woo, deniers will keep denying.
2. If it gets warmer, the glaciers of denial will suffer a major melt event, because that much climate change is going to be awfully hard to sweep under the rug. Rugs do not hide bodies or melt water well. This is a known fact.
3. If it gets cooler, the forces of denial will want to proclaim the end of global warming, and will reset all their charts and graphs to 2015 as a starting point, a strategy which will probably hold them another year or two.

Beyond that, I am not prepared to make a statement at the moment, other than to write that this ought to be a really really interesting year. Cheers y'all.

Well, there you go. Observational temperatures heading right for the middle of the CMIP5 forcing-adjusted range.

Once the models are forced correctly, the supposed mismatch between observed and modeled temperature largely vanishes (Schmidt et al. 2015). And so goodbye to a particularly misleading contrarian meme about climate sensitivity being over-estimated and 'the models not fit for purpose'.

And before any contrarians pipe up with the 'yes but AR5 adjusted models down by 10% out to 2035' etc, this is a small adjustment with no significant policy implications.

The UKMO has projected that:

"The global mean temperature for 2016 is expected to be between 0.72 °C and 0.96 °C above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 °C, with a central estimate of 0.84 °C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast."

That will be another record.

Source:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/global-temperatu…

cosmiccomics at #8

RickA is behaving like the heel on a patent shoe.

Excellent two parter on climate sensitivity has just appeared at RealClimate.

RickA and #12, where is El Niño getting its heat from?

#21 Lionel A

Yes. Marvel et al. (2015) is a timely and important response to the massed chorus of wrong on the topic of so-called 'observationally' derived estimates of sensitivity.

Lionel A #21:

"where is El Niño getting its heat from?"

The ocean.

RickA

And the ocean gets its heat from ..........?

Lionel A:

"And the ocean gets its heat from ……….?"

Why, La Niña of course!

I'm putting words in RickA's mouth but his argument basically boils down to this...

I would not be surprised to read that from him dhogaza, with a garbled statement about it being a "feedback loop" or some other creature.

I realise that folks here have tried to 'splain these things to the likes of RickA many times before, with little success. But for the sake of the lurkers who aren't intellectually dishonest like our RickA, here goes. RickA sez:

However, what I would like to know is how much of the warming in 2015 was caused by humans and how much by nature (i.e. not humans).

Since 1950 or so, mankind is most likely responsible for 110% of the warming:

IPCC attribution statements redux: A response to Judith Curry

I know, I know, you're asking how can it possibly be more than 100%?! The answer is to be found in the second chart in that article. From greenhouse gases (GHG), which mankind has contributed 100% of the excess, we should see the amount of warming represented by the green bar (subject to the error margins, which are admittedly large).

But the observed warming (black bar) is smaller than that. The reason for this is that mankind also contributes a rather large negative forcing in the form of aerosols (yellow OA bar in the diagram) due to activities like burning half of Indonesia to make way for palm oil plantations. This offsets the GHG warming somewhat , and the combined anthropogenic result is the orange (ANT) bar. The reason the black and orange bars are not exactly equal is due mostly to the combined uncertainties of all these factors. Note that the natural (NAT) and internal variability contributions are negligible, which addresses the 2nd part of RickA's question.

Anyway, if Judith Curry can't comprehend this (and she's a climate scientist, remember?), we probably can't expect lawyerly RickA to either; though it's likely for the same reason: their ideology won't let them. This comment is getting long, so I'll start another one for the next topic.

The second question is actually easier to answer:

Lionel A asked: “...where is El Niño getting its heat from?”
RickA sez in response: "The ocean."

Well, yes, but indirectly. How did all the heat get into the ocean in the first place? We caused it to be there, by putting vast amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All that excess heat would have escaped into space otherwise - just like it always did before we arrived on the scene and started digging up and burning fossil fuels.

All El Niño does is move around heat that's already in the system. It doesn't cause global warming. We do.

metzomagic #29:

So El Niño gets its heat from ocean.

And the ocean gets its heat from the sun.

But you want me to say that because of CO2 and other GHG's that more heat from the sun it getting into the ocean than otherwise would.

Ok - I agree that this is true.

But how much more heat is getting into the ocean than otherwise?

The truth is that nobody knows the answer to that question.

110% is just a guess - not a measurement.

Even 50% due to human caused GHG's is a guess - we just don't know.

Now some papers are written which put guesses out there - but they are just guesses.

It may turn out - once we get some measurements - that CS will turn out to be 1.5C instead of 3C (or whatever).

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 - and voila - we can measure effective CS.

I look forward to that measurement as we will no longer be guessing at that point - but will actually have some real data.

Science!

I love it.

I love it.

You enjoy what you seem to think it is, but deny what it really says. What a loser.

RickA sez:

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

No, you can't. There is an inherent lag in the system. The oceans, especially, have a lot of inertia. A certain amount of heat is always 'baked in', even if we stop emitting right now. So even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gasses the moment the CO2 concentration hit 560ppm, it would still be years/decades before you could 'measure' the ECS, because you have to wait for the system to be in equilibrium.

Like I said, RickA, what I wrote above is never going to convince the likes of you, because you refuse to learn the science. It's mainly for the lurkers.

Oh, and, almost forgot:

But how much more heat is getting into the ocean than otherwise?

The truth is that nobody knows the answer to that question.

Wrong again. About 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of energy per second. Well, about 93% of that energy goes into the oceans. But I can see where you would refuse to believe that scientists can figure that out too.

Just because we don't know everything to the last decimal point, doesn't mean we don't know enough to know we're screwing up the planet.

110% is just a guess – not a measurement.

It's not a "guess", it's the result of many analyses based on hard, experimentally measured physics.

You've committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

Again, you've committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

You may not "know", but professionals far more intelligent and trained than you most certainly do know.

Now some papers are written which put guesses out there – but they are just guesses.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It may turn out – once we get some measurements – that CS will turn out to be 1.5C instead of 3C (or whatever).

Or not.

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so "the global average temperature that year" would not be the final say on the matter.

And if the science is right, and ECS is 3 C, then that experiment will likely spell the end of global civilisation, and lead to the extincton of perhaps 25% or more of the species on Earth. If it was presented as an experimental protocol for consideration at a research institution you'd have no chance getting the ethics approval for that...

It's unfortunate that this aspect of human activity is basically free of ethics oversight.

[Blast.

Somehow deleted a line in the previous post...]

110% is just a guess – not a measurement.

It’s not a “guess”, it’s the result of many analyses based on hard, experimentally measured physics.

You’ve committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

Even 50% due to human caused GHG’s is a guess – we just don’t know.

Again, you’ve committed the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

You may not “know”, but professionals far more intelligent and trained than you most certainly do know.

Now some papers are written which put guesses out there – but they are just guesses.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It may turn out – once we get some measurements – that CS will turn out to be 1.5C instead of 3C (or whatever).

Or not.

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so “the global average temperature that year” would not be the final say on the matter.

And if the science is right, and ECS is 3 C, then that experiment will likely spell the end of global civilisation, and lead to the extincton of perhaps 25% or more of the species on Earth. If it was presented as an experimental protocol for consideration at a research institution you’d have no chance getting the ethics approval for that…

It’s unfortunate that this aspect of human activity is basically free of ethics oversight.

RickA:

We can obtain an effective CS by simply waiting until CO2 is 560 ppm and measuring the global average temperature that year and subtract the global average temperature from the year when CO2 was 280 – and voila – we can measure effective CS.

No. You'll still be whining that the heat is coming out of the oceans.

In RickA's world scientist is just another name for fortune teller. Only the clothes are different. Those who believe they can educate him should take this into consideration.

Bernard J. said:

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so “the global average temperature that year” would not be the final say on the matter.

Looks like our messages to RickA crossed in the post, Bernard. I suppose it shows that rational minds think alike :-)

Erm, equilibrium climate sensitivity is such that the results only fully manifest decades after the doubling has been reached, so “the global average temperature that year” would not be the final say on the matter.

To be fair, RickA did say *effective* CS, not equilibrium, but obviously we can't wait and S_eff does not account for nonlinear feedbacks...

So RickA's suggestion is roundfiled.

I suppose it shows that rational minds think alike.

It also demonstrates the point that regardless of political affiliation, agendas, and desired outcomes, rational minds conducting scientific inquiries always all get the same basic result: Reality.

Ideologues, like RickA, get whatever their agendas dictate the answer should be. And when confronted by rational minds, start spewing FUD and confusing terms and concepts to evade that Reality.

As if that works. Get a clue, RickA.

In my world - which I consider to be reality - observations trump models and guesses.

The effective CS, which is the closest we will ever get to an actual measurement for equlibrium CS, will be an actual observation - a measurement we can make in reality (i.e. the real world).

Who is more disconnected from reality:

me, who says I don't know what CS will be and wait to get an actual measurement, or

you, who pretend you know what CS is, but will change your models hundreds of times (and your answer) between now and whenever we hit 560 ppm.

In my reality, we have no idea how much warming humans are causing and need more data over much longer periods of time to tease that out of the background of constantly changing non-linear natural effects.

No thanks - I will stick with my reality and leave you guys to your model driven fantasy.

From my no-science-background the crux is this:
Climate change represents a well-documented threat to human civilization and life on Earth as we know it. According to RickA science has no predictive ability and cannot be used to assess risks. It can only involve itself in a never ending data gathering process that can first be evaluated after the fact, i.e. after significant damages have occurred and more significant damages have been locked in. RickA's science has nothing to do with science, but everything to do with perpetuating the use of fossil fuels while avoiding spending on mitigation and adaptation. It is an ethical abomination. Conducting a scientific discussion with RickA is not rational.

Three years ago some idiot USA Republican Party member politician (redundant) insisted humans were not warming the planet: the world's oceans were.

In my (scientific) world – which I consider to be reality – observations trump models and guesses.

Observations:
* CO2 concentrations have been rising rapidly since the industrial age.
* The average global surface temperature has been rising also.
* The arctic ice has been melting.
* Breeding and migration cycles have been changing.
* Droughts and flooding and other "anomalous" weather patterns have been occurring.
* Sea levels have been rising.

And one of the most important observations:
* Attempting to fit a wide variety of proposed causes of the above observations results in ONLY ONE of them producing the observations: The increase in CO2 concentrations is the only observation that explains the other observations.
* We must start to mitigate the above by cutting back/cutting off the CO2 emissions, etc. Or perish.

RickA callously and carelessly wants people to perish in order to preserve his selfish lifestyle. Ethical abomination indeed... You should be ashamed, RickA. But we know how your ideology smothers the human conscience. Please don't vote.

RickA callously and carelessly wants people to perish in order to preserve his selfish lifestyle.

I think it is simpler than that: his is incapable of understanding the science or the results of the analyses, doesn't want to admit it, so simply repeats "results' that match what he wants to believe.

Dean, I have to disagree with you there. RickA is not let off the hook by the "I'm not smart enough to understand" excuse. (I find that to be too close to the "I was just following orders" excuse...)

I think RickA does understand (sufficiently) the science, the results, etc. -- and that this understanding is exactly why he continues to play his little game: He finds the implications of his responsibilities in light of these results to be unpalatable (as though he thinks we enjoy the prospects of what must be done).

RickA realizes that mitigating the effects of AGW in order to preserve lives, property, food production, species, and economies will cost him money and will likely take away some of his creature comforts, too.

RickA desperately wants to keep things the way they are for him. He's not just "stealing from future generations" (as he's been doing all his life), he's now advocating "murdering future generations" simply in order to keep his situation unchanged.

Ethical abomination indeed...

Possibly - you have more experience with climate deniers than I do. My thought comes from dealing with the anti-vacc folks we have around West Michigan: most of them are simply dumb as a bag of broken rocks.

RickA claims to be both a lawyer (patent law) and an electrical engineer. If either is true, he's not dumb. He's crafty (especially if he's actually a lawyer, which I'm inclined to believe).

One does not make it to matriculation getting an EE degree even from a bad school without being smart enough to understand the science and analysis, and developing a trust of models (of which EE is almost 100% comprised of). He "gets" this. That's precisely why he fights it so vigorously. And so futilely.

RickA only succeeds in getting the experts on this blog to spin and refute, but they're not getting the fact that doing so is not addressing RickA's moral failures; they're addressing an intellectual failure that I don't detect.

I think we're too used to right-wing assholes who advertise their inner rot with their disagreeable diatribes. RickA and Dan the Denier are trained as silver-tongued lawyers, and are smart enough to put on the "innocent li'l ol' me, aw shucks" act so as to come across as more agreeable -- as they seek to undermine justice and righteousness by pushing FUD and misleading people.

They enjoy their little game of making the experts spin uselessly, working to make them look like what they know is questionable. That's their goal -- spread doubt and uncertainty to the maximum extent that they can. (Except of course that what the experts are saying is entirely consistent and will act to inform the truly inquisitive and the innocent. We can only hope this backfires on them on a national/global scale.)

We are not all fooled by the likes of RickA and Dan the Denier...

#41 RickA

In my reality, we have no idea how much warming humans are causing and need more data over much longer periods of time to tease that out of the background of constantly changing non-linear natural effects.

Nolinear nature effects? What nonlinear natural effects? How are they nonlinear, exactly?

* * *

What you call guesses would more accurately be described as informed estimates. When done properly, the result is always somewhere around 3C per doubling of CO2. This value is too high to allow for policy wriggle-room, so it is necessary to act now, not in several decades time when we get to 560ppm CO2.

This is very simple to understand, so I'm at a loss to why you are struggling with it. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the work that has been done on estimating (not guessing) ECS instead of wasting time posting arguments from personal incredulity on the internet.

#46
"RickA realizes that mitigating the effects of AGW in order to preserve lives, property, food production, species, and economies will cost him money and will likely take away some of his creature comforts, too."

Every serious report on the economic consequences of climate change concludes that doing nothing will be far more costly than mitigation and adaptation. The following is an excerpt from the executive summary of the latest report:

• Experts on the economics of climate change expressed higher levels of concern about climate change impacts than the general public, when asked identical survey questions.
• Economic experts believe that climate change will begin to have a net negative impact on the global economy very soon – the median estimate was “by 2025,” with 41% saying that climate change is already negatively a ecting the economy.
• Respondents believe that numerous sectors of the U.S. economy will be harmed by climate change. A majority predicted negative impacts on agriculture (94%), shing (78%), utilities (electricity, water, sanitation – 74%), forestry (73%), tourism/outdoor recreation (72%), insurance (66%), and health services (54%).
• More than three-quarters of respondents believe that climate change will have a long-term, negative impact on the growth rate of the global economy...
• On average, economic experts predicted far higher economic impacts from climate change than the estimates found in older surveys of economists and other climate experts. Respondents predicted a global GDP loss of roughly 10% if global mean temperature increases by 3°C relative to the pre-industrial era by 2090 (this increase approximates a “business as usual” emissions scenario).
• Experts believe that there is greater than a 20% likelihood that this same climate scenario would lead to a “catastrophic” economic impact (de ned as a global GDP loss of 25% or more).
http://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/ExpertConsensusReport.pdf

A brief description of the report can be found here:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per- cent/2016/jan/04/consensus-of-economists-cut-carbon-pollution

Paste problems:
"...with 41% saying that climate change is already negatively affecting the economy."

"A majority predicted negative impacts on agriculture (94%), fishing (78%)..."

"...(defined as a global GDP loss of 25% or more)."

Cosmi, I think RickA gets that choice: Pay a bunch now to avoid having to pay a whole lot more later if we don't mitigate now.

And he wants to avoid both "I have to pay" scenarios. He wants a third option: Business as Usual.

The only way he can argue, and convince politicians and policy-makers, to go with the BAU option, is to convince himself and everyone else (i.e., those making the policy decisions that will cost him money & loss of lifestyle, and, ultimately, those who will vote in those policy-makers) that BAU is the least expensive, yet still viable option.

And the ONLY way he can hope to achieve that is to discredit the first two options, by discrediting the science that indicates that they are, in fact, the only two options that actually exist.

He is a fool, however: To discredit science is to discredit Reality.

So go ahead, RickA: Speak to the Wind and the Waves, and command them to do as you declare!

Good luck with that.

BBD #49 asks:

Nolinear nature effects? What nonlinear natural effects?

Volcanoes are non-linear. They happen and then they effect the atmosphere for one or two years. Sometimes they happen more frequently and sometimes less so - very random and non-linear.

The sun is cyclical (11 year sun spot cycle) - but also random. Solar mass ejections or the sun's magnetic field, which impacts the heliosphere - not necessarily linear.

Are plankton blooms non-linear? I think they are exponential.

Many natural processes are exponential, or sinusoidal.

Are ice ages linear? I am no expert, but I think they are cyclical.

Is population growth linear? I don't think so - although human population growth seems to be tappering off its non-linear growth.

Are ocean currents linear - or cyclical? I think cyclical.

It seems to me that linear is something humans do to simplify the complexity of nature. We just grab any two points and draw a line - but that is not necessarily what nature does in reality.

#52
"Cosmi, I think RickA gets that choice."

You have more confidence in him than I. Love makes blind. So does extreme motivated reasoning.

"It seems to me that linear is something humans do to simplify the complexity of nature. We just grab any two points and draw a line – but that is not necessarily what nature does in reality."

It is also not what scientists who study natural systems, and human-environment interaction, do.

metzomagic #32:

You said "So even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gasses the moment the CO2 concentration hit 560ppm, it would still be years/decades before you could ‘measure’ the ECS, because you have to wait for the system to be in equilibrium."

I have been involved in this debate since 2009 and I have learned over that time period that we can never measure ECS.

What I have learned is that equilibrium may take centuries or even 1000 years - and guess what - all the other variables will change during that time so we will never be "at equilibrium".

So that begs the question - what good is ECS as a metric?

We will never be able to measure it, or use it to see who is right or wrong, or use it as a feedback to tweak the climate system.

It cannot be checked.

We will be arguing about ECS for the next 1000 years.

I was very disturbed by this, once I figured it out.

That is why I talk about effective CS - and others talk about TCR. Because ECS is pretty useless.

So I agree with you that it will take quite a while after we hit 560 ppm to even try to tease out ECS - and my thinking is it will be impossible to ever determine when we are "at equilibrium" and untangle everything which has happened between 560 and ECS, to actually measure ECS.

I say screw equilibrium and just measure once we hit 560 ppm - at least we can do that and it ought to tell us something useful.

For example, if we are at or over 3C from 1880 ish (whenever we were last at 280 ppm) then we know ECS will be greater than 3C.

If we are only at 1.4C at 560 ppm, while we will know ECS is going to be higher than 1.4C, we will surely fight over how much higher it will be, and that will be pretty useless.

Bottom line - ECS is a crappy metric.

I wish we were using something a bit more measurable.

Greg #56:

I was not trying to imply that all scientists who study nature use linear analysis - sorry about that.

I was responding to BBD who was questioning my non-linear natural effect assertion.

I totally agree that scientists often use non-linear maths to model stuff happening in nature (which are often non-linear).

Exponential decay all over the place (for example).

I wish we were using something a bit more measurable.

Then stop implying that "tallying up the deaths, the lost property values, the failed crops, the extinct species, and the droughts & floods" is an appropriate metric.

We'll do it THIS way: Begin full-scale mitigation of CO2 levels, and then measure the results of that.

I wish we were using something a bit more measurable.

Then stop implying that “tallying up the deaths, the lost property values, the failed crops, the extinct species, and the droughts & floods” is an appropriate metric.

We’ll do it THIS way: Begin full-scale mitigation of CO2 levels, and then measure the results of that.

Every morning I wake up, put on my hat and boots, stagger outside to feed the heifers, cows, bulls, horses, chickens, cats, and dogs, then stagger back inside to drink coffee and read my email. My in-box is always crammed full of people who insist Earth is flat.

I wonder how many people who deny humans have warmed and are warming Earth also deny Earth is an oblate spheroid; how many deniers think Earth is flat? A bloody hell of a lot of people I've met who deny human-caused climate change do so for religious reasons; maybe from now on I will ask them if they think Earth is flat because the Bible says so.

This morning:

"Desertphile sorry there buddy... the earth IS flat and all you have to do is look for ANY curvature.... and there is NONE whatsoever!!! The math to figure out the curvature for a ball that is 25000 miles in circumference is 8 inches times distance in miles squared or times itself!! So for 50 miles it is 8 inches times 50 times 50 and to get feet divide by 12= 1666.66 feet.... and all you have to do is look say at the horizon on lake ontario and you can see toronto from all the way over to niagara..... which is over 58 miles..... and toronto should not be visible at all!! BUT.... with zoom lenses and just the unaided human eye toronto is fully visible!! This should be IMPOSSIBLE if we were living on a ball!! Take a globe and a toy airplane and tell me why pilots dont have to point their nose down when supposedly going over the ball earth!! Also when going from the north to the south when does up become down and when do people actually fly upside down??? THINK ABOUT IT!! Its all bullshit!! You can make fun of people who are waking up all you want but the truth will always prevail!!?" -- Paul Cadorette

Brainstorms #60:

I don't know who you are quoting, but it doesn't look like me.

I am not in favor of assuming the worst and then figuring it out.

I want to know exactly what your plan is to begin full-scale mitigation.

Then I want to subject it to a complete cost/benefit analysis.

You assume that it will be cheaper to act now.

However, it may very well be that you would take action costing a trillion per year, with no benefit (or very little).

It that were the case, the opportunity cost would be great.

We may have better uses for that money now than mitigation.

Like raising the standard of living of third world people, providing clean water, and research for non-carbon producing energy production which is cheaper than oil, coal and natural gas.

However, if you consider mitigation to include building nuclear power plants - then I am with you.

I think the USA should be replacing its coal power plants as they reach end-of-life with nuclear, so that in 40 years we could be producing 75% of our energy with nuclear.

That would be mitigation - if that is the direction you are proposing.

RickA

I think it would be more correct to describe volcanism as unpredictable or random rather than nonlinear. Perhaps unnecessary confusion can be avoided.

As for your attempt to dismiss ECS, well, it's specious. Just because you don't 'like' the metric has no effect on the climate response to 2xCO2 and ECS is a useful tool for exploring this question. I don't like climate agnosia and I don't like argument from personal incredulity, which is anyway a logical fallacy.

All this is particularly irritating in the light of the fact that we know that ECS will be about 3C. Could be a bit more or a bit less, but peddlers of FUD are wrong when they pretend that there is huge uncertainty. They pretend that all values within a range of uncertainty are equally likely and ignore the (long-standing) existence of a most likely value.

This is, at best, misleading.

Since you oblige me to repeat myself by ignoring the rest of what I wrote at #49, here it is again:

What you call guesses would more accurately be described as informed estimates. When done properly, the result is always somewhere around 3C per doubling of CO2. This value is too high to allow for policy wriggle-room, so it is necessary to act now, not in several decades time when we get to 560ppm CO2.

This is very simple to understand, so I’m at a loss to why you are struggling with it. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the work that has been done on estimating (not guessing) ECS instead of wasting time posting arguments from personal incredulity on the internet.

RickA, #62 I don’t know who you are quoting, but it doesn’t look like me.

It was you, #57.

I am not in favor of assuming the worst and then figuring it out.

We're not talking about assuming the worst. We're talking about not waiting until the worst happens to "figure it out".

You assume that it will be cheaper to act now.

No, I don't. Those much wiser and knowledgeable about this than you or I have made these determinations. This was provided. See #50 for one example.

However, it may very well be that you would take action costing a trillion per year, with no benefit (or very little).

However, it may very well be that you would block taking action, costing a trillion per year (and going up from there), with no benefit (or very little) by taking a wait-and-see attitude.

You assume that it will be cheaper to not act. Let's see your cost/benefit analysis of that, with the currently-agreed on consensus that not acting will incur costs detailed by the reference in #50.

We cannot "raise the standard of living of third world people, providing clean water" if that water is lost or turned brackish by climate change because we're failing to act. That is not a "better use for that money".

You also make the argumentation fallacy that money spent mitigating is all a "loss to society". That argument pre-supposes that all the money spent already on, for example, solar and wind technologies, has been a drain on our economy and provided no benefits. This is not true -- your argument is a fallacy.

Here's a mitigation that I favor: Replace the coal plants with thorium plants.

RickA

Please see Brainstorms #64:

You assume that it will be cheaper to not act. Let’s see your cost/benefit analysis of that, with the currently-agreed on consensus that not acting will incur costs detailed by the reference in #50.

Expert consensus is that inaction will be more expensive than mitigation. Stop trying to blank this out and reverse the burden of proof. It lies with you.

"RickA against the world."

Good luck with that. We really wish you were right. (We do -- for the same reasons you wish you were correct.)

But you're not correct. And we all must start paying, like it or not. You can't argue Nature into conforming to your wishes. Even a skilled lawyer will fail at that.

Brainstorms #64:

Yes - I would like to see us do thorium plants also.

I think we agree on something!

BBD #65:

The burden of proof is always on the one advocating action.

RickA, you're advocating taking action to block those who would prevent an economic & societal disaster.

Per your (endless) argumentation, the burden of proof is always on you and the deniers to demonstrate why you should be allowed to block mitigation efforts.

Scientists have already sufficiently demonstrated that the damage to our economy and society is already in progress, justifying mitigation regulations and policies.

The burden of proof is now on you to show why action should be taken to stop mitigation of what is already happening.

Desertphile #69:

If the burden of proof had been met, we would have taken action.

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met.

Brainstorms #70:

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. This is called inertia and is the low energy state.

To stop or change course requires the application of force (energy).

Our (USA) present course, which I will call business as usual, is the low energy state - this is our default, in that if we make no changes we will keep doing what we have been doing.

To change what we have been doing to something different will require the application of force (energy).

That is why you have the burden of proof.

You have to convince 51% of the voters (at least) to vote for your plan, to get the government to change course.

Just because three people wish (or whatever minority number you conjure up) for something really hard does not make it happen.

And don't bother to trot out polls with feel-good questions.

Everybody agrees that we should try to lower carbon output.

But put a dollar value on it - like would you spend $1000 to put less carbon out and the # of people who will put there money where their mouth is drops dramatically.

People's votes are where the rubber hits the road and show what people value first, second and fiftieth. Climate is pretty far down the list of issues people care about - so it doesn't really matter for voting (yet).

You will have to expend a lot of force (energy) to change that - or wait for the climate to change enough for people to want to take action.

Eight inches of sea level per century isn't going to do it.

RickA:

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met.

Thank you, Dr. Pangloss! That is very possibly the most fatuous assertion I've ever seen on a climate blog. Forget what I said about RickA's willingness to learn -- he's just unequivocally demonstrated his unshakable commitment to hardcore AGW denial.

If RickA is in a bus that is heading for a cliff, he does not want me to take action to stop it, for I have no ability, in his mind, to prove that it will in fact go over the cliff and take RickA to his death. (Its path could be, as he educates us, "non-linear" and "uncertain". Best we wait and not expend our worldly capital to "take action"...)

For after all, it is plainly evident that if the burden of proof had been met that RickA's bus will go over the cliff, then society would have already taken action and stopped it.

Quod erat demonstrandum, Dr Pangloss.

Brainstorms #74:

If it was only as simple as one person stepping on a brake.

If congress had to pass a law to stop the bus I would be doomed.

If you wanted a group of people to convince congress to pass a law to stop the bus I would be even more doomed.

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met

assuming there is no human stupidity.

How did that assumption turn out?

RickA

We know enough (see serially ignored comments on most likely value for ECS, above). We know that we *should* be acting to reduce emissions immediately. Those who oppose this have no scientific counter-argument whatsoever, nor even an economic one at this point (#50). You are arguing purely from political ideology.

It's high time that politically-motivated contrarians acknowledged that all they are doing is obstructing progress towards the lower-risk policy option. Your ideological rejection of science is now a problem on the same order as the radiative properties of CO2.

This bizarre remark illustrate the point perfectly:

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met

In formal logic, this is known as 'arse before tit'. The reason no action has been taken (in the US) is that vested interest and its political enablers on the right have prevented it.

RickA, given your employment of multiple fallacies of logic and of consistent misrepresentation of whole disciplines of science in which you obviously have no operative understanding, it's fortunate for everyone that you're (apparently) a patent lawyer and not practicing in a different area of law.

The world is a better place for it.

RickA.

As a nonscientist who is given to frequent pontification and contradiction of tens of thousands of professional scientists, you might usefully heed the words of people a little wiser than yourself:

"The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity." (Sophocles, Antigon)

"Ten gods cannot change the opinion of one fool, especially if another fool agrees with him." (Abraham Miller, Unmoral Maxims)

"There is nothing in the world so easy as giving an opinion; consequently, in general, there are few things so utterly valueless." (Charles William Day, The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos)

"At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice." (Gore Vidal, "Sex and the Law," Homage to Daniel Shays)

"The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered." (Samuel Butler, Note Books)

"The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions." (Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life)

"Look less at an opinion given, than at the character of him who pronounces it. Incalculable mischief is often done by people unreflectingly receiving as "authority" the opinions of a mere ass, on subjects with which they are imperfectly acquainted, but on which he is supposed to be better informed, yet which are often the farthest from the truth, the judgment of such a person being either swayed by the most absurd prejudices, or blinded by the most ineffable conceit." (Charles William Day, The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos)

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others." (Douglas Adams, American Atheist Magazine, winter 1998-1999)

And before you attempt one of your fallacious lawyerly rejoinders, remember that we distinguish between opinion, informed opinion, and fact. You appear to be swimming in the first of the three, and effectively unacquainted with the last two...

“The burden of proof is always on the one advocating action.” #68

RickA is a rhetorical contortionist. He will assume any shape, ignore any evidence, use any argument, no matter how insanely illogical, to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change and the necessity of rapidly reducing GHG emissions. The argument cited above turns things upside-down. Multiple studies have already proved that dealing with climate change is cheaper than not dealing with it. The “burden of proof” is no longer with those advocating action, but with those who, like RickA, wish to disprove those proofs. RickA can't do this, so instead he offers us imbecilic inanity.

Robert J. Brulle, the author of a study on denialist funding,
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-1018-7
has an op-ed in today's Washington Post entitled, America has been duped on climate change.

“Just as Congress investigated the efforts of the tobacco industry to dupe the public into believing its products were harmless, we need a full and open inquiry into the conduct of ExxonMobil and the other institutions whose misinformation campaigns about science have delayed our efforts to address climate change.
The central concern here is the moral integrity of the public sphere. The Declaration of Independence says the legitimacy of government is based on the consent of the governed. But when vested interests with outsize economic and cultural power distort the public debate by introducing falsehoods, the integrity of our deliberations is compromised.
Such seems the case today when we consider the fossil fuel industry’s role in distorting discourse on the urgent topic of climate change. If vested economic interests and public relations firms can systematically alter the national debate in favor of their own interests and against those of society as a whole, then the notion of democracy and civic morality is undermined. Congress can and should act to investigate this issue fully. Only then can we restore trust and legitimacy to American governance and fulfill our moral duty to aggressively address climate change.”
(My emphasis)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/06/america-has…

A new study has found that rightwing think tanks have intensified their attacks on climate science:
Era of climate science denial is not over, study finds
Conservative thinktanks in the US engaging in climate change have increased their attacks on science in recent years, a study of 16,000 documents finds.
The conservative thinktanks under the microscope are the main cog in the machinery of climate science denial across the globe, pushing a constant stream of material into the public domain...
McCright said the “denial machine” had since expanded from think tanks to include bloggers and fake grassroots campaigns and was now “more diverse and seemingly ubiquitous.”
He said conservative think tanks had influenced the public’s understanding of climate change and the way policymakers had reacted to it, in two ways.
First, he said in recent decades US Republicans had used thinktank materials in committee meetings and hearings “to justify inaction on climate change”.
Second, thinktank materials had been taken up as the standard talking points for conservatives.
“Indeed, I would argue that anti-environmentalism - and climate change denial more specifically - has become a central tenet of the current conservative and Republican identity.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/jan/07/era-of-cli…

One important social explanation for someone like RickA, is that libertarians recognize particular interests, especially interests that pertain to me, but not “those of society as a whole.” The result can be defending the freedom to pollute as much as I want on my land, or the right to buy energy guzzling light bulbs. With climate change the reaction can be based on a narrow, unenlightened sense of my economic responsibility to me.

Brian Angliss has written a very fine series on libertarians and climate change denialism. Here are links to two of the articles and the study behind them:

http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/12/13/libertarians-engineers-and-clim…- disruption-denial-part-1-libertarians/
http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/12/20/libertarian-values-climate-deni…
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042366

BBD #77:

The logic I am using is perfectly valid and is called modus tollens. However valid it is, it may not persuade you. And that is ok.

Everybody Else:

Thank you for all the psychoanalysis.

However, if you want to persuade people like me you will need more than insults or labelling.

First, let me make it clear that I am not against taking action.

I am against taking stupid action.

In order to take action, you first have to have a plan.

I am not clear on what the "plan" is.

Is it a carbon tax?

Is it 100% renewables?

Is it turning off all coal power plants?

I am not sure what the plan is - and that makes it impossible to even tell if it is stupid, or more importantly subjecting it to a cost benefit analysis.

It is easy to think of different plans.

Carbon tax - I am not in favor. People will just finds way around it like every tax code gimmick. New York taxes the crap out of cigarettes and people buy them in a different state or from Indian tribes. You are working against gravity (the market) and I just don't think it will work and therefore have no benefits. Just one person's opinion.

Another plan - you could propose turning off all coal power plants in the world.

We can look at the cost of this - pretty damn cheap (flipping some switches I imagine). There would be benefits also - no CO2 emitted by coal power plants, savings in CO2 emissions from not transporting coal, savings in life in not mining coal, savings in health from coal mining - so there are benefits.

But there would also be some negatives - 40% (just a guess) of the electricity in the USA comes from coal. 19% from natural gas (we could shut that off to). It would be pretty bad to just turn off 40 or 60% of the electricity in the USA - so that would be a negative.

I would not be in favor of this plan - but it is a plan.

Another plan could be to replace each coal power plant with a nuclear power plant as the coal plant reaches its end-of-life. Preferably passively cooled fourth generation reactor designs (safer).

This would cost a pretty penny and make electricity more expensive (the incremental cost of nuclear compared to replacing with a new conventional coal plant). However, it would provide the same amount (or more) of electricity and it is baseload and it has all the same benefits with respect to turning off coal plants - no CO2 emissions from each plant replaced, saving on transportation of coal, mining, health, etc.

I am in favor of this plan.

We could be done in 40 years.

I would also like to see massive research on non-CO2 producing power and power storage (grid level). Things like fusion or space based solar - both could be baseload, non-carbon producing and could provide all the electricity we need.

If we invent a new non-carbon producing energy source which is CHEAPER than coal, natural gas or oil - that would be the best solution - as economics would aid in the rollout. People (in the aggregate) always take the cheapest approach (in my opinion).

So if you want to persuade people like me, insults don't work. Analyzing how there can be people like me doesn't work. Labeling doesn't work. Whining and emotional appeals don't work.

What you need is to lay out a plan and show me it isn't stupid and that it makes sense on a cost/benefit basis.

Lets hold the temperature increase to 2C (or 1.5C) is not a plan. You (collectively) need to explain how you plan to hold the temperature increase to 2 or 1.5C so we can analyze it.

Try to be less emotional and more analytical.

Another thought.

When making a plan, why not propose one plan using 1.8C for ECS?

That is the observationally constrained value and even though it disagrees with the 3C median value based on the models, it has the advantage of being agreed to by many more people (most of the skeptics for example).

You can also propose plans based on 3C - but a 1.8C plan should be cheaper, so it is worth considering just from the standpoint of garnering more support.

RickA

Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met

And:

The logic I am using is perfectly valid and is called modus tollens. However valid it is, it may not persuade you. And that is ok.

The first premise does not depend on the second. You are arguing from assertion.

Diversionary bollocks aside, the problem is exactly as stated at #77 and ignored by you:

We know enough (see serially ignored comments on most likely value for ECS, above). We know that we *should* be acting to reduce emissions immediately. Those who oppose this have no scientific counter-argument whatsoever, nor even an economic one at this point (#50). You are arguing purely from political ideology.

It’s high time that politically-motivated contrarians acknowledged that all they are doing is obstructing progress towards the lower-risk policy option. Your ideological rejection of science is now a problem on the same order as the radiative properties of CO2.

I can see why others here are fed up with you, RickA. Ignoring the major part of someone's argument and focusing on an irrelevance is a transparent evasion tactic. It derails rather than furthers discussion of the major issue at hand, which is the obstruction of the democratic process in the US by vested interest and the political right.

RickA

When making a plan, why not propose one plan using 1.8C for ECS?

That is the observationally constrained value and even though it disagrees with the 3C median value based on the models, it has the advantage of being agreed to by many more people (most of the skeptics for example).

It is an outlier produced by limitations in the methodology that produced it. It is NOT an 'observationally constrained' value - that is misleading rhetorical framing used by 'sceptics'. Please see the discussion of Marvel et al. (2015) here and Knutti & Rugenstein (2015) Feedbacks, climate sensitivity and the limits of linear models.

What the 'sceptics' believe is largely irrelevant to most discussions of the science.

"Try to be less emotional and more analytical."

Back at ya. Or perhaps the word you were looking for was either 'hyperbolic' or 'aggressive'. If you weren't so comfortably set in your ways, I'd suggest what I'd suggest to anybody, that honest self-reflection helps you ward off motivated reasoning.

Emotion doesn't have to be demonstrative to be misleading. And yanking people's chains and then cynically complaining about the reaction is just trolling.

Any way you look at it, you could probably use some analysis youself.

Try to be less emotional and more analytical.

What a hypocrite you are RickA. If you were analytical then you would not, in response to:

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” claim that:

"This means that it is NOT very likely that most (> 50%) of the observed increase in global average temperatures BEFORE mid-20th century (before 1950) is caused by humans."

The statement upon which you are basing your claim does not mean that. It just means they do not want to claim that most of the observed increase in global average temperature in the first half of the 20th century is very likely (>90% IPCC definition) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. It just means they are not making any claims about likelihood in that period. That doesn’t mean they are making a claim about proportions in that period. They’re just leaving that open with the proviso that the anthropogenic part is (significantly) greater than zero.

Instead we just get a non-analytical claim from you, in spite of your cries to be more analytical.

“More than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010 is very likely due to the observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.”

From RickA: Now I read this statement as saying that it is not very likely that more than 1/2 of the warming before 1950 is anthropogenic.

Let’s give RickA the benefit of the doubt for the moment, and assume that he’s correct. Now let’s see where that leads us:

Ninety-nine percent (99%) is truly “more than half”, so we have no contradiction…

Then, to continue RickA’s logic, “… it is not very likely that more than 99% of the warming before 1950 is anthropogenic.”

Hence, if RickA is correct, he is pointing out that only 1% of the warming before 1950 is likely to be other than human-caused…

Ergo, per RickA, it is overwhelmingly probable that nearly all the warming before 1950 is caused by human activity.

There. We were analytical, as requested.

OA, Chris and Brainstorms:

Do you have a plan?

If not - what do you think the plan is - or should be?

Oh, goodie! The Plan! The Plan!

I've seen this one before; used notably to thread clogging effect over at RealClimate by the commenter named DIOGENES. Basically it can be linked to a lukewarmer strategy as a diversion. You troll the science by blurring the lines between science and policy and then ostensibly troll policy. It basically exploits people's unfamiliarity with how policy is formulated, and shifts the burden onto individual commenters to instantaneously formulate a complete plan sans consensus.

Nice try.

RickA

I agree with OA #92 and Chris O'N #93. You are trying to place an impossible burden on other commenters and so immobilise the conversation without ever withdrawing your many misrepresentations of the science.

So, to specifics:

1/ Where is is your acknowledgement that all warming post-1950 is anthropogenic?

2/ Where is your acknowledgement that the most likely value for ECS to 2 x CO2 is about 3C?

3/ Given those, where is your acknowledgement that it is necessary to act to reduce emissions *now* and not decades down the line when it will be too late to avoid >2C warming?

BBD #94:

I have made no misrepresentations of science.

It is just that my science disagrees with your science.

That happens in science.

Not all climate scientists agree.

As to your specifics:

1. Cannot agree. This is merely a hypothesis and not proven yet. It makes no sense to me (as a lay person).

2. Cannot agree. All of the models which spit out 3C seem to be overly warm compared to reality (observations). The likely value seems to be about 1.8C (or even lower).

3. Act how? Do what? Tell me what you want to do and I will tell you whether I will oppose it or support it. I already told you I would support replacing coal with nuclear and support additional Federal research into non-carbon producing power which is cheaper than hydrocarbon based power, as well as power storage - is that good enough for you?

RickA

I have made no misrepresentations of science.

It is just that my science disagrees with your science.

There is only *the* science, and your apparent understanding diverges from the norm. You DO NOT own your own facts and your opinion is worthless.

Your 'answers' completely ignore what has been said on this and other threads, which is indicative of bad faith on your part.

1/ You: wrong. There is no evidence of natural forcing playing a significant role in modern warming but ample evidence from basic physics on up that CO2 is the principal cause.

2/ You don't need models to derive a best estimate of~3C. Earlier this thread I suggested you do some reading on the topic instead of being incessantly wrong about it. Try Hansen & Sato (2012) for an *empirical* estimate of ECS. The lowball estimate by Lewis is an artefact of his methodology, as explained earlier. Please RTFRs at #87 instead of repeating your errors as if nothing had been said.

3/ Read the question properly. You are being asked to acknowledge in the light of (1) and (2) that there is a need to act, not to supply the specifics of the action.

I have made no misrepresentations of science.

Every time you refer to scientific estimates of anything as guesses you misrepresent the science.

I am getting rather tired of your nonsense. Please stop it.

It is just that my science disagrees with your science.

Yes, it does. And as famously noted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own scientific facts.”

"Your" science is notScience.

You cannot dictate Reality as the spoils of a political victory. And that's what you (and other deniers) continue to attempt to do.

You are only entitled to your own opinion, and that means "what you would like mitigation policy to be". You are not entitled to your own climate science.

RickA's game is to try to throw up roadblocks to emissions reduction and adaptation any way he can, while trying to maintain a facade of reason. His refusal to accept the need to reduce carbon emissions without a "plan" is another roadblock. His own “plans” consist largely of an easily rejected strawman, a proposal that's in conflict with his cost-benefit criteria, and solutions that have no chance of being deployed at scale within the necessary time frame.

One plan he suggests is "turning off all coal power plants in the world.”
No one would accept this. What we can do is replace coal plants as quickly as possible, but RickA insists on presenting a false choice. Score one for coal.

Note that, even though he can see some negative costs related to using coal, he leaves out the positive environmental and health effects of lowering emissions, and he has consistently refused to acknowledge a social cost of carbon when comparing coal to other power sources. Score two for coal.

RickA wants “a new non-carbon producing energy source which is CHEAPER than coal, natural gas or oil” and “makes sense on a cost/benefit basis.” He then proposes nuclear power, which he acknowledges is considerably more expensive. In other words, when talking about his preferred option, price no longer matters. Also, as it takes years to plan, license and build a nuclear facility, there's no way that nuclear power could be deployed quickly enough to address our acute crisis, or quickly reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

And what readily deployable non-carbon solutions does RickA choose to leave out? Primarily wind and solar, but also hydro and geothermal. Space based solar is mentioned, but not the available and increasingly price competitive solar we have today. Why not? Perhaps because space based solar can't replace fossil fuels. The same probably goes for as yet non-existent fusion energy.

Both wind and solar work. Both can be quickly deployed. With a good wind resource onshore wind is already cheaper than coal – even without the inclusion of a social cost of carbon, and with the cost of a backup. RickA should be aware of this, because I've mentioned it before.

Just as there are reports showing that reducing emissions will save money, there are reports showing that it's possible to transform to an energy system based on 80-100% renewables by 2050. All of these reports have been written by experts. All – without argument – are rejected by RickA. Just as he replaces climate science with "your science is as good as mine," he replaces the energy plans of experts with his own obfuscatory schemes.

Multiple lines of evidence:

1. RickA rejects the climate science of consensus climate scientists.
2. RickA rejects the cost-benefit assessments of economic experts.
3. RickA rejects the energy plans of energy experts.

BBD #96:

Your link didn't work for me.

I used google scholar to try to find the paper and found "Perception of climate change" by Hansen and Sato from 2012 - is that the correct paper?

If so, I didn't see it as an empirical estimate of ECS. I searched the paper and the SI and couldn't find ECS, equilibrium, sensitivity or 3C anywhere.

This paper looks like an an empirical approach to showing that extreme weather evens are more common now than in the past - and seems to have nothing to do with ECS (so me anyway).

cosmicomics #99:

I am not playing a game.

I am not trying to block anything.

I am talking to you, and OA and others about climate change.

I disagree with many of the assertions you make, because they are opinions not fact.

Yes - I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date.

Your economic experts are relying on faulty climate science for their analysis. Garbage in, garbage out.

Most energy experts I have read cite major problems utilizing renewables on the grid as the percentage of renewable energy rises - without some sort of grid level power storage. We have not invented that yet.

Try to get Germany to cut off all source of power outside Germany and see what happens. They use power from other countries (power provided by nuclear and other baseload power plants)now to smooth out the vagaries of wind and solar (wind and solar is intermittent - not baseload).

That won't work if everybody used only renewable power.

Hydro is tapped out in the USA - we have dammed every river we can and in fact are undamming rivers for environmental reasons.

I cite baseload power solutions because that is what we need - although we could use renewable at high percentages if we could invent grid level storage - which I am in favor of increased research for.

I wish I had the power you cede to me - as if one persons opinion could stop climate warmists in their tracks.

I am merely talking - and I am not sure anyone is listening to me.

Certainly no one on this blog is (as far as I can tell).

#102
"Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date."

Not supported by which observations?

Notice how RickA is not the "layman" he claims to be.

And note how he has been very consistent in painting science he can't challenge as "opinion and not fact", that which he thinks he can challenge as "uncertain" and "non-linear", and all around making everything we know and everything we do as questionable in the eyes of true laymen as he can.

Typical lawyerly tactics. Obfuscate, confuse, mislead, undermine, mis-label, impugn, mis-characterize, create false equivalences, create false balances, strawman arguments, etc. -- he's probably touched on every one of the sleazy tactics that lawyers use to undermine and defeat Truth & Justice in our nation's courts...

I think he's just "practicing". And enjoying it.

#102
"Most energy experts I have read cite major problems utilizing renewables on the grid as the percentage of renewable energy rises – without some sort of grid level power storage. We have not invented that yet."

In 2014 Iowa got 28% of its power from wind. Denmark now gets more than 40%. By 2020 we'll be up to 60% and more than 80% of our power will come from renewable sources. At present our experts are focusing on the optimization of our wind resource by coordinating it better with our cogeneration system through the addition of large heat pumps. The electrification of transportation will enable vehicles to become an integrated part of the energy system, and there are other options, one (in Danish – varmepatroner) might be called heat capacitators in English. In addition, we collaborate with other countries, primarily Norway, that can store surplus wind energy as pumped hydro. The problems you mention can be solved, and are over-exaggerated by those who oppose renewable energy.

I might add, that as electric motors are far more efficient than ICE, our transition means that we'll be using less energy, but more electricity.

Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date.

You've said a great number of stupid things. This is near the top of the list.

But Dean, note that such a statement is not "stupid" when used in a trial -- in fact, it's very effective. No wonder he laughs when he hears these responses.

RickA is not piqued by any of these characterizations -- as he has explicitly told us -- because this is one of his "winning formulas". He's not ashamed of saying these things, they're the tools of his trade.

And based on how everyone here is being hooked by his tactics, yet fails to meet his criteria for defeat, it's being effective here, in what he has made "a court that's trying Science".

Don't allow him to try Science. Put him on trial instead. (After all, he's the guilty party, so he should be the Defendant, not the Defense Lawyer.)

cosmicomics #103:

http://climateaudit.org/2016/01/05/update-of-model-observation-comparis…

RickA:

And not supported by observations to date.

And outright lie.

"And outright lie.
#109

Or an expression of unadulterated ignorance.

#101 RickA

Your link didn’t work for me.

Sorry, my fault - it's not clear - click the first item in the Google search results list: 'Download sample pages1 - Springer' for the full pdf.

Or use this link for a draft version of the paper at arxiv: Hansen & Sato (2012) Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change. It's a very interesting study and I recommend reading from the beginning when you have time, but you will find the relevant discussion in section 3 (3.2)

* * *

#108

As usual, the Auditor is playing tricks. There are two cherry-picks in the comparison he presents:

1/ He uses HADCRUT4, which is the 'coolest' of the global temperature data sets and demonstrably cool-biased (see Cowtan & Way 2014).

2/ he should be using the forcing-adjusted CMIP5 model spread, not the AR5 one which is obsolete. Look at the figure in the OP and see #15 (the reference should be Schmidt et al. (2014) btw - sorry).

McI is being deliberately misleading. Yet you place your trust in him despite the information in the OP and on this thread regarding the exaggeration of the model-obs mismatch. That is, as they say, illogical, captain.

Yes – I disagree with consensus climate science you cite as fact. It is not fact, but hypothesis. And not supported by observations to date.

You've been rightly criticised for this above so I won't pile on, but this pattern of rejectionism and bias is dismaying. Once again, science deals in probability, and the probability of eg. ECS being close to 3C is much greater than for lower values based on a full evaluation of all the available evidence.

RickA isn't able to refute my description of his modus operandi in #99, so he simply postulates that he's not interested in blocking anything. He claims that climate science isn't supported by observations, and his proof is a crap source, Climate Audit, that reduces climate science to climate models and shows no understanding of what climate models are and what their limits are. There's not a word about observed melting glaciers, sea level rise, the collapse of Arctic sea ice, the destabilization of the west Antarctic ice sheet, changing melt and growth seasons, the migration of flora and fauna to cooler locations, the geographical spread of vector borne diseases, changes in precipitation patterns, the increased incidence and intensity of heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires. Not a word that surface temperatures aren't linear, but that the trend has continued upward and that the observed global temperature now is in the middle of model projections:

“The recent observations are back in the middle of the plume after a few years on the low side.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/2015-global-temp-record
https://www.wmo.int/media/content/wmo-2015-likely-be-warmest-record-201…

Moreover:

“The UAH data is out for the lower troposphere for December. For three months in a row, the lower troposphere has had the hottest months - the hottest October, the hottest November and the hottest December in the record (since 1979).”
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2016/01/three-hottest-evers-in-succession-fo…

As for the reliability of models:

“Are the models, in fact, untestable? Are they unable to make valid predictions? Let's review the record. Global Climate Models have successfully predicted:

That the globe would warm, and about how fast, and about how much. That the troposphere would warm and the stratosphere would cool. That nighttime temperatures would increase more than daytime temperatures. That winter temperatures would increase more than summer temperatures.

Polar amplification (greater temperature increase as you move toward the poles). That the Arctic would warm faster than the Antarctic. The magnitude (0.3 K) and duration (two years) of the cooling from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

They made a retrodiction for Last Glacial Maximum sea surface temperatures which was inconsistent with the paleo evidence, and better paleo evidence showed the models were right.

They predicted a trend significantly different and differently signed from UAH satellite temperatures, and then a bug was found in the satellite data. The amount of water vapor feedback due to ENSO. The response of southern ocean winds to the ozone hole.

The expansion of the Hadley cells.

The poleward movement of storm tracks. The rising of the tropopause and the effective radiating altitude. The clear sky super greenhouse effect from increased water vapor in the tropics. The near constancy of relative humidity on global average. That coastal upwelling of ocean water would increase.
Seventeen correct predictions? Looks like a pretty good track record to me. Are there problems with the models, and areas where they haven't gotten it right yet? Sure there are. The double Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone which shows up in some coupled models, ENSO variability, insufficiently sensitive sea ice, diurnal cycles of moist convection, and the exact response of climate to clouds are all
areas of ongoing research. But the models are still the best thing we have for climate prediction under different scenarios, and there is no reason at all to think they're getting the overall picture wrong.”
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ModelsReliable.html

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n9/full/nclimate2310.html
http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskyCMIP5.html
http://environmentalforest.blogspot.dk/2014/07/risbey-et-al-2014.html
https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm

https://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-o…
https://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-o…

Given a choice between reliable sources, written by scientists, based on papers by climate scientists, and crap sources written by wannabes without scientific qualifications, RickA consistently chooses the latter. When it comes to climate economics, he uses the same crap to motivate his rejection of expertise:

“Your economic experts are relying on faulty climate science for their analysis. Garbage in, garbage out.” #102

When it comes to energy, the situation appears to be the same, and his attempt to sketch his own energy plan is a display of manipulation and ignorance. #83, #99.

By the way, I've seen a lot of balloons fall up. Gravity? Your guess is as good as mine.

Link error: should be Cowtan & Way (2013).

RickA

Contrarian emphasis on the supposed model-observational divergence in recent years tends to exclude a very important point about what is being shown.

The 'ensemble mean' is derived from a large number of individual model runs. The Earth climate system is a single instance. Obviously, the averaging of many model runs smooths out the natural variability visible in individual runs. So comparing an individual run - or the single instance of the actual Earth climate - with the mean is relatively uninformative over short timescales (eg. 1 - 2 decades).

So just because natural variability causes a transient (1 - 2 decade) period when warming is below the modelled average doesn't mean that 'the models are wrong'. It's just what happens when you compare an average (inherently smoothed) with the actual Earth climate.

That's why you can't use a transient excursion above or below the ensemble mean as evidence that the centennial trend estimate is wrong. Yet contrarians do this every single day.

There's a useful illustration of the non-significance of natural variability on longer timescales here, where two identically-forced model runs are compared. You can see that very different short term behaviour recedes into the noise of natural variability on the centennial scale.

When people tell you that the models are wrong - especially if they use misleading graphs in the telling - you should be sceptical.

#111
“As usual, the Auditor is playing tricks.”

I'm wondering about something that I'm not qualified to figure out, but that might be another “Auditor trick.” From the Climate Audit link #108:

“Lower Troposphere (TLT)
Next, here are corresponding graphics for the lower troposphere, using the RSS series preferred by warmists (data is available through December).”

A HotWhopper comment by metzomagic may be relevant here:

“The article I found below by Roy Spencer seems to buttress what tamino found: divergence [from GISS] starting about 2000, and getting worse over time. It might well be due to the decaying orbit of the NOAA-15 satellite - on which the RSS record is based - not being corrected for... well, correctly. See:

On the Divergence Between the UAH and RSS Global Temperature Records

Quotes of interest from that article:

As can be seen, in the last 10 years or so the RSS temperatures have been cooling relative to the UAH temperatures (or UAH warming relative to RSS... same thing). The discrepancy is pretty substantial…since 1998, the divergence is over 50% of the long-term temperature trends seen in both datasets.

And:

Anyway, my UAH cohort and boss John Christy, who does the detailed matching between satellites, is pretty convinced that the RSS data is undergoing spurious cooling because RSS is still using the old NOAA-15 satellite which has a decaying orbit, to which they are then applying a diurnal cycle drift correction based upon a climate model, which does not quite match reality. We have not used NOAA-15 for trend information in years... we use the NASA Aqua AMSU, since that satellite carries extra fuel to maintain a precise orbit.
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2016/01/the-surface-compared-with-lower.html…

Is “the Auditor's” use of RSS data “preferred by warmists” another trick, or am I comparing apples and oranges?

#111
Re. #115

Carl Mears has a comment in Spencer's blog which I'll quote in its entirety:

"Carl Mears says:
July 8, 2011 at 6:23 AM

Hi Roy

Like you and John, I am interested in understanding the differences between our datasets. But your explanation does not make much sense because our trends went DOWN between V3.2 and V3.3. The difference between 3.2 and 3.3 is that we added data from AQUA, MetopA, and NOAA18. If NOAA15 were the cause of the relative cooling, I would have expected the opposite to occur.

To me, arguing about the differences in trends in GLOBAL averages between our TLT datasets is much ado about nothing and serves to obscure the true differences. There is much more discrepancy between TMT trends, and between TLT trends in the tropics.

Carl
Remote Sensing Systems

metzomagic may be off, but is the choice of RSS data justified?

#116 cosmicomics

No authority whatsoever to speak on that question, but :-)

1/ The surface temperature gridded reconstructions are more reliable than the satellite data and should therefore be used in preference to it.

2/ I think Mears is right to direct attention to the discrepancy between RSS and UAH when it comes to tropical temperature, both TMT and TLT. Let's see how the fairly recent (but undocumented) beta of UAH LT v6.0 shakes out under public scrutiny. It may well be that it... minimises tropical warming at TLT and TMT in ways that do not prove to be robust.

As Mears said all the way back in 2011, *that's* the interesting area of divergence between RSS and UAH. Given that it was Mears (and colleague Frank Wentz) who nailed Christy & Spencer's Big Bork back in 2005, I pay close attention to what he says about UAH.

I also sometimes remind 'sceptics' that - for all their mistrust of the surface data - the only major temperature reconstruction that has ever been withdrawn and subject to major revision was UAH, curated by noted contrarians Christy & Spencer.

BBD #114:

I am sceptical of both sides and that is why I read RealClimate, Greg Laden and Ken Rice (ATTP), in addition to ClimateAudit, Climate Etc. and others.

Because climate change is politicized I treat climate science papers like I would a legal brief. Dr. Mann's papers (for example) are written to present the evidence in the light most favorable to his desired policy actions.

So I have to read climate audit to see the other sides brief.

That is the only way to tease out the truth in an adversarial system (which climate science has become).

Neither side is putting out objective evidence, disclosing all the evidence which they are aware of which detracts from their hypothesis - each side is writing to persuade an audience.

Unfortunate, but true (in my opinion).

I am a lawyer to I deal with this in every case and every dispute. There are always two sides to every story and I like to read both sides.

Even though you probably vehemently disagree with Climate Audit - I recommend you read it to see the "other side" of various climate science papers.

No matter what you ultimately conclude - you will come away from the exercise better informed.

RickA

Neither side is putting out objective evidence, disclosing all the evidence which they are aware of which detracts from their hypothesis – each side is writing to persuade an audience.

That's not true of climate science no matter how often you assert it. Climate science is carried out in the reviewed literature and is about evidence and hypothesis testing.

See, for example, #87. Only Nic Lewis has been tirelessly active on the internet pushing his results as the last word, despite the fact they obviously aren't. We don't see Marvel, Knutti, etc teaming up with the GWPF, do we?

Only contrarians fail to present the full picture and misrepresent their arguments as being more than they actually are Rick.

Now, please respond substantively to #111 and #114 - after reading the links, of course.

What do you think Realclimate is - if not to tirelessly push their point of view on teh internet.

I don't know specifically about Marvel, Knutti etc. but I have to disagree with you.

BBD #119:

I don't have a response to 111 or 114 yet.

I have to do some homework.

All I know is I cited by support for my position and you disagree with it - which is ok.

But at least realize that I have cited support for my position - whether you disagree with it or not.

I find Chris throwing around the "lie" word to be tiresome.

I may turn out to be wrong (backing the wrong horse) - but I am certainly not lying.

#120 RickA

What do you think Realclimate is – if not to tirelessly push their point of view on teh internet.

That is a blatant misrepresentation. RC reviews and discusses developments in climate science. It does not 'push' its own POV. Except insofar as it presents an accurate picture of the state of the art in climate science.

I don’t know specifically about Marvel, Knutti etc. but I have to disagree with you.

Reflexively and groundlessly, since you admit you don't even know what I am talking about. That would be because (despite repeated urging) you still haven't bothered to RTFRs at #87.

Nic Lewis's wholly unscientific self-promotion is a matter of fact. See eg. here.

Note the *political* claim that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science - itself pretty much a conspiracy theory.

The GWPF is a UK-based political lobby group and promoter of inaccurate information about climate science.

#121 RickA

All I know is I cited by support for my position and you disagree with it – which is ok.

But at least realize that I have cited support for my position – whether you disagree with it or not.

If you read my comments, you would know that not only to I acknowledge your references, but I have explained why they are misleading. See eg. #87 #96 #111 #114. You can't complain that you aren't being listened to, RickA. That would be a travesty.

So realclimate has no point of view, even though it was set up in response to Climate Audit?

I don't remember saying that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science - but it is a political organization.

The summary of each report is certainly a political document.

The lead writers of each chapter do the best job they can - but everybody has biases - that is human nature.

Certain lead writers are advocates and have made statements about trying to keep certain papers out and rush certain papers so they can be in - that is an effort to "spin" the chapter.

I still read realclimate and I still recommend you read ClimateAudit.

They complement each other.

BBD #123:

Ok - I won't complain that I am not being listened to.

I do feel I am the only person on this site representing the skeptical side - so sometimes I feel like I am a bit of an echo chamber and ganged up on.

However, I do enjoy engaging and it is probably good for those who read this site to see at least one person's point of view from the other side of the debate.

RickA continues his attempts to discredit climate science by intentionally confounding scientific processes with political processes.

Call him stupid, but I see it as a crafty, intentional ploy to undermine the work of those who are quantifying and qualifying the effects of AGW in order to confuse the public and politicians who are responsible for setting policy so that they will not act to mitigate the effects we have already started seeing.

He knows he can't dispute the science... So he instead seeks to discredit and undermine the layman's confidence.

He knows he can’t dispute the science

He certainly tries to misrepresent the science, e.g. trying to conclude that an IPCC statement means:

This means that it is NOT very likely that most (> 50%) of the observed increase in global average temperatures BEFORE mid-20th century (before 1950) is caused by humans.

A blatant misrepresentation if ever there was one. Perhaps he thinks a "balanced" representation includes some misrepresentation.

#124 RickA

So realclimate has no point of view, even though it was set up in response to Climate Audit?

RC was set up in response to misinformation about science promoted at CA. RC is - as I have already said - a site that reviews and discusses the science. It does not promote a political position.

I don’t remember saying that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science – but it is a political organization.

At #122 I wrote that Nic Lewis claimed that the IPCC is engaged in a conspiracy to misrepresent science. Not you. I also dispute that the IPCC is political; I strongly dispute that WG1 is political.

The summary of each report is certainly a political document.

The summaries are for policy-makers, but that does not make them political. They are summaries of the reports. It is up to policy-makers to determine public policy.

The lead writers of each chapter do the best job they can – but everybody has biases – that is human nature.

Insinuating that there is a (political) bias that distorts the presentation of science by the IPCC is baseless and false, RickA.

Certain lead writers are advocates and have made statements about trying to keep certain papers out and rush certain papers so they can be in – that is an effort to “spin” the chapter.

This is a distortion of what actually happened which you have picked up from CA and I'm not going to re-fight the Hockey Stick Wars with you.

I still read realclimate and I still recommend you read ClimateAudit.

I do, on occasion, but CA is essentially a sustained distortion of the facts, so it irritates the piss out of me.

They complement each other.

Not really. The point here is that there is the science, and there is misrepresentation of the science. The former stands alone while the latter is usually an expression of a political prior commitment to the status quo ante. You relentlessly pursue the latter while asserting that the science is politicised. It is not. You are projecting.

RickA:

"They complement each other."

In the same sense that Answers in Genesis complements Panda's Thumb ...

Chris #128:

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree - because I think my logic on this issue is correct.

Maybe BBD can explain it to you.

"They complement each other."

Yeah, given that RickA has been knocking around this subject for years, and given his touted professional skills, he sould be way past playing the false balance card, posing indecisively while claiming impartiality, and saying weird things like: "Since we have not taken action, the burden of proof was not met."

OA #132:

What "touted professional skills".

When discussing legal matters I have said I was a patent lawyer - because I am.

I have also said I have a B.S.E.E. (electrical engineering), I think when I was being attacked for using the word baseload (and I am an electrical engineer).

Neither of those makes me a climate scientist.

I am not making any appeal to my authority - just sometimes claiming a passing knowledge of that which I am opining on.

I consider myself a layperson when it comes to climate science - and just read what other people have to say about climate science (and some of the papers).

But my combining burden of proof and action was awkward - I will agree with that.

What I was trying to say is that I think we all agree that nothing has happened legislatively in the USA.

The president has done some stuff via executive order and by rulemaking and vetoed the Canadian oil pipeline.

But no laws have been passed.

So whatever is required to pass a law has not been accomplished.

Even when the democrats controlled both the house and senate and the white house, they still couldn't get an energy bill through. So not enough democrats were convinced to take action to take action, when it would have been much easier than it is today.

That is what I mean.

Your side is going to have to change hearts and minds (in my opinion) in order to get something done.

Just saying the science is right is not a plan and does nothing.

I was just trying to help by pointing out that people like me (the ones your side will have to convince) want to see a plan laid out. Then we want to see a cost benefit analysis to show that it is worth the cost and will not make things worse and that the benefits outweigh the costs.

So far I am not clear on what plan is being proposed to solve the problem, how much it will cost, what the benefits will be, what the unintended consequences might be and so forth.

RickA

Just saying the science is wrong is not a plan and does nothing except distort the public (and so political) discourse about climate change.

BBD #134:

I agree that just saying the science is wrong is not a plan.

However, I have laid out several plans on this site.

My favorite would be replacing each coal power plant with a 4th generation passively cooled nuclear power plant as they reach end of life. This would boost the USA's nuclear from 20% to 60% in about 40 years.

We could also tackle natural gas power, which would get us to 80% (comparable to France).

I would also increase funding for energy research to invent a non-carbon producing energy source which is cheaper than coal, oil and natural gas.

I would also increase funding for grid level power storage research.

That is my plan.

RickA

It's more constructive to discuss energy policy that argue about the science. There really is a debate to be had about the most efficient strategies for decarbonisation.

Why not, from now on, engage only in that debate?

Why not, from now on, engage only in that debate?

He's only interested in that debate if decarbonisation is cheaper anyway or if there is some proof (to him) that decarbonisation is going to be lower net cost.

#138
Please see #99:
"RickA wants “a new non-carbon producing energy source which is CHEAPER than coal, natural gas or oil” and “makes sense on a cost/benefit basis.” He then proposes nuclear power, which he acknowledges is considerably more expensive. In other words, when talking about his preferred option, price no longer matters."

This inconsistency is also politically interesting. RickA's comments lead me to believe that he's a libertarian, yet he prefers the energy source that necessitates more state control than any other. Also, as is the case with space based solar and nuclear fusion, his choice of generation IV reactors indicates a preference for technologies that don't yet exist or aren't commercially viable, and that therefore can't be used to ameliorate our problem now. He pleads for energy plans, but he shows no knowledge of or interest in the plans that show we can transition away from fossil fuels with already existing technologies. This energy "wait and see" is parallel to his view of climate sensitivity: we shouldn't do anything until we have enough data, and we won't have enough data until CO2 is up to 560 ppm. The red thread running through RickA is motivated reasoning to prevent anything from being done that can divert us from our current path.

Sounds as though RickA's actual goal is the destruction of earth's ability to support life as we know it.

That's about the only thing consistent in what he's posted over the last many months.

I am willing to pay something to start working on the problem now.

That is why I am willing to switch coal to nuclear over the next 40 years - which will not be cheaper, but more expensive.

My guess is that once we standardized on a fourth generation model design and started building them in bulk, the costs would come down - and who knows, in time it may be just as cheap to build nuclear as to replace the coal plant with another.

However, it would easiest to switch to a non-carbon producing energy source which was cheaper than coal, oil and natural gas. It would be in everybody's economic interest to do so.

So I also favour research to invent this - plus research for grid level power storage, which is necessary to use higher levels of intermittent power.

Cosmicomics,

I may have explained this way back when I was demonstrating that RickA is not an EE, but since the thread is still going...

You have to understand that terms like "libertarian" and "free market" have been subject to re-definition through a propaganda campaign that started after WWII and has advanced more recently.

Free market does not mean "no government intervention, so corporations are 'free' to create monopolies and cheat consumers".

Au contraire, it means government strongly regulates the markets so that buyers and sellers have roughly equivalent market power. That's where the "magic of the invisible hand" comes from; it's something like evolution, where there's no direction or purpose, but the allocation of resources is optimized. This was elementary HS economics when I was a kid.

RickA supports feudalism, or in modern terms, fascism, where there is a corporate-government partnership to maintain control for elites. But again, the definitions have been distorted-- black is white, up is down, and so on.

An actual free market libertarian like myself would argue that you only need two things with respect to electricity generation, if we begin with the goal of reducing CO2:

1. A cost for generating CO2-- fee and dividend, whatever.
2. A free market, meaning that anyone can buy or sell electricity, and it is delivered by a grid regulated as a common carrier or operated by government. Meaning, you get your electricity picked up and delivered like you do with UPS and packages.

So, it's that simple. N-plants may be built to replace coal plants if they can compete with other reduced CO2 modalities, but people like RickA will have to risk their capital if they think they can make a profit.

How 'bout it guys. Any objections?

zebra

I do wonder if the scale and cost of decarbonisation in developed economies is such that it will require public policy and government initiatives to make it happen fast enough.

I think it is.

And that concerns me greatly.

BBD and Brainstorms,

But a carbon tax or fee and dividend or some such is exactly that public policy you are asking for. If you want it to go faster, make the fee higher.

And it is not inconsistent with free market libertarian thinking that the government would also

1. Transfer all existing FF subsidies to alternatives.
2. For electricity, invest some of the monies collected to bring the grid into compliance; the analogy with the interstates and airlines is pretty clear. It's a natural monopoly.

The point is that it is pointless to argue about which alternative is "best"; that is going to vary by geography and other factors. The market will sort it out.

#140
That's not his intention, but that is the consequence.

zebra

The point is that it is pointless to argue about which alternative is “best”; that is going to vary by geography and other factors.

I do dislike arguments about '100%' this or that, as the rational decarbonisation policy is, as you say, an holistic and pragmatic one.

But I remain unconvinced that fee and dividend alone plus the invisible hand will do the trick.

The market will sort it out.

If such a thing as a free market actually existed, then - perhaps - this might be the case, but since there are no free markets, I wonder if we have the time to create them.

Is there such a thing as 'the grid' in the US? I was under the impression that there was no unified national grid (as in the UK), but this may be mistaken.

The market will sort it out.

That's the part that concerns me. The market will likely either take much too long to correct it, or (more likely) will seek to evade it -- due to too much investment in FF and therefore the ploys to evade losing that investment, hence preserving the status quo, which is not "sorting it out" but perpetuating it. Which is because, as BBD points out, there is no such thing as the mythical, revered "free market".

Ergo, it will require public policy and government initiatives to make it happen fast enough. Which, given the lack of political spine in the world, concerns me greatly.

#142, 143

Kevin Anderson has written a short (2 pages) piece on the shortcomings of the Paris agreement. One of the more interesting passages is this:

"But move away from the cosy tenets of contemporary economics and a suite of alternative opportunities for delivering the deep and early reductions in emissions necessary to stay within 2°C budgets come into focus. Demand-side technologies, behaviours and habits all are amenable to significant and rapid change – and guided by stringent policies could drive emissions down in the near- term. Combine this with an understanding that just 10% of the global population are responsible for around 50% of total emissions and the rate and scope of what is possible if we genuinely thought climate change was an important issue becomes evident.
Imagine the Paris 2°C goal was sacrosanct. A 30% reduction in global emissions could be delivered in under a year, simply by constraining the emissions of that 10% responsible for half of all global CO2 to the level of a typical European. Clearly such a level is far from impoverished, and certainly for 2°C reductions in energy demand would need to go much further and be complemented with a Marshall-style transition to zero- carbon energy supply."
http://kevinanderson.info/blog/the-hidden-agenda-how-veiled-techno-utop…

As you know, Anderson is one of the scientists who, for lack of a better word, has been most "alarmist" in his writings, and as you also know, he doesn't believe that addressing climate change is compatible with an agenda of economic growth. I agree with him.

I also agree with Zebra that some kind of price on carbon is necessary, but I don't think that will be enough. Considering the enormity of the danger and how quickly it has to be dealt with, I believe that a belt, suspenders, and almost anything else that can keep our pants up is required. I don't think "a Marshall-style transition to zero- carbon energy supply" is saying too much, and such a transition cannot be accomplished by market forces alone.

Denmark started reducing oil consumption after the first energy crisis in 1973. Among the initiatives that have been taken are the construction and expansion of a cogeneration network, mandated and or subsidized weatherization, and programs to support new forms of energy. Coal consumption has also gone down, and today more than 40% of our power comes from wind. The EU carbon market that we're part of was established at a historically unfortunate time, the price was too low, the quotas too high, so it hasn't had the desired effect. In any case, the progress we've made has taken us 40 years, we still have a long way to go, and we don't have the luxury of doing things at our convenience.

In order for us to be successful, and at this point successful means limiting rather than avoiding catastrophes, our governments will have to work with the market to phase out high energy products and replace them with low energy equivalents, reorganize our communities so that where possible they encourage walking, cycling, and mass transit, adopt low energy building codes, encourage lower meat consumption, guarantee low interest loans for energy reduction and transition projects, support relevant research, etc. Above all, just as WWII meant fewer cars and more tanks and planes, our economies will have to be reprioritized. I would argue that while this would limit our choices as consumers, it's the only way we can preserve our long-term freedom.

#149 cosmicomics

First, I agree with Kevin Anderson - hard not to when average European energy consumption is 125kWh/day/person, average UK energy consumption is 125kWh/day/person and average US energy consumption is 250kWh/day/person (source).

But I share Brainstorm's concerns. Second, since you bring KA's article up, there's the elephant in the room: that 'unquestioned reliance on negative emission technologies' implicit in the Paris goals.

There's a lot to sort out and time is getting short.

cosmicomics (and others)

" such a transition cannot be accomplished by market forces alone"

That's a misinterpretation of what I said.

It isn't up to the market to "accomplish the transition". What I said was that the market would "sort out" or optimize resource allocation among the choices for alternative generation modalities (which would include negawatts or conservation), once you disincentivize CO2 production.

So, if you can keep that distinction clear, your question appears to be how well the disincentive works. A price on CO2 is of course a market force, since it internalizes what used to be an externality. And it seems to work fine, given that Europeans do in fact use half the energy of people in the USA, primarily because energy is more expensive, whether electricity or petrol or ng for heating. Other evidence would be how US auto buying patterns follow the price of gas-- in ways I find insane, but there it is. People buy new cars every few years like buying the latest clothes fashion.

So again, why doesn't increasing the price on CO2 speed up the transition?

#150
"But I share Brainstorm’s concerns."

So do I (Brainstorm's comment was posted while I was writing), and indications thus far have not been good. Anderson's article also contains the following:

"Tentative reflections a fortnight on
Here we are a fortnight or so on from Paris – and the dust has all but settled. Turn on the radio and the BBC is reporting on whether the UK should expand its London airport capacity at Gatwick or Heathrow. No reference to Paris, CO2 emissions or the plight of millions who will suffer the consequences of such decisions, but will only ever see aircraft streaking across the sky 35000 feet above. Next up, the BBC reports on how the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, its Chief Scientific Advisor and the UK’s Environment Agency all enthusiastically support the development of indigenous shale gas - and yet all forget to mention that the UK Government has just reneged on its support for carbon capture and storage."

My own government, which, by the way, has eliminated poverty by abolishing the poverty line, is intent on squeezing out as much North Sea oil as possible, has cut funding for energy research, reduced Denmark's official energy goal, and is more concerned with its heavy industrial and agricultural constituents than with what needs to be done. It, too, has declared an interest in developing shale gas.

The political impasse in the U.S. is well know, and in the EU we have Poland. Higher aims also require acceptance from Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, etc.

One way to avoid BECCs might be to underline reality by demanding land allocations from different countries. Another might be for the consequences of climate change to hit so many so severely that we finally face up to the reality that fossil fuels must be left in the ground.

#151
"So again, why doesn’t increasing the price on CO2 speed up the transition?"

It would. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.

cosmicomics #152,

But now you are changing the question.

I am saying a very simple thing: "If you have a government that is committed to reducing CO2, this is how it is more likely to succeed." Particularly in the USA.

Telling me that your government is no longer committed is an entirely different topic.

And arguing with trolls like RickA about nuclear vs renewables yadda yadda and so on is moving the conversation away from that critical problem. Which is why they do it.

So again, why doesn’t increasing the price on CO2 speed up the transition?

Unless I've missed something, nobody said it wouldn't.

Nobody said it wouldn't.