Posts by Wilco 1 224 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Sep 2009
Actually I am in the UK. Hint: predictions for the UK as a whole are not accurate for most people, watching the weather on the news is useless except for whole country predictions such as big storms or snow. Get predictions for where you actually live on BBC weather. And yes, it does rain pretty much when the forecast says it does, so I use it to decide whether to cycle to work or not.
The question is what do you call a short period? There is no doubt the climate will eventually stabilise itself (we won't see runaway warming), but it may take many thousands of years. In the meantime we have to live with it.
Also can you point us to a strong negative feedback machanism that will kick in shortly? So far there aren't any signs of strong negative feedbacks, but there are signs that the existing negative feedbacks (such as CO2 absorption by oceans, ice/snow coverage) are turning into positive feedbacks (as ocean temperature rises, it absorbs less CO2, and snow/ice coverage is declining fast, eg. arctic ice).
Actually many of the feedbacks happen to be positive. Negative feedbacks primarily slow down the speed of warming, but they cannot stop it (in the short term) due to being overwhelmed by our emissions. For example increased absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere by oceans and extra plant growth only removes 50% of the CO2 we emit. As the ocean heats up it can take on less CO2 - ie. effectively becomes a positive feedback. Other feedbacks such as water vapour can be both positive and negative, with the effects almost cancelling each other out.
Over many thousands of years, assuming humans have either stopped emitting CO2 or existing, negative feedbacks will eventually catch up and slowly stabilise the climate again. But that's not relevant, what matters is they are too weak to reverse the current warming trend over the next 100 years.
Could it be because weather and climate are 2 completely different things? I can accurately predict that it will be colder in the winter than in the summer this year, next year and any year afterwards. That's climate.
Predicting where a particular rain cloud will go over the next few days based on satellite photos is much harder. This is weather. Weather predictions are nowadays amazingly accurate 3-4 days in advance and predict rain and sunshine with about an hour of accuracy.
If the pond isn't even the most dangerous part then I'd rather not know what is... Who knows where else some of the large amounts of plutonium they accidentally lost are still lurking. Cumbria is nice for holidays but given their track record ever since the WindScale disaster I wouldn't want to live near Sellafield.
Yes it's partially a result of the atom bomb projects, but that's not an excuse for the way we have dealt with nuclear power in the UK. There never even was a plan for safety or waste disposal. Cockcroft's folly - air filters which avoided a Chernobyl like disaster in WindScale - were deemed a waste of money by the very engineers who built it! With that kind of insane attitude to safety among nuclear engineers, how can we ever trust people designing and building nuclear power stations?
Indeed, if only we did apply our knowledge about nuclear power and its dangers. Unfortunately humans have an amazing capability of messing everything up.
Not massively. There is no denying that we need to improve the grid. But electric cars can actually help with stabilizing it rather than causing it to fall apart.
Firstly remember at night power consumption is low so even the current grid can be used to charge a few million cars overnight. Secondly assuming a range of 150-200 miles most people would need to recharge only once or twice a week. So only a fraction of electric cars will need charging from empty to full. Finally any plugged in car can become part of a smart grid and provide temporary storage to smooth out peaks in demand.
The thing is there aren't really massive amounts of energy available to us, so there is little opportunity to allow for large increases in the amount of energy we use. The oil price has gone up 5x since the 90's, and production has stagnated. I very much doubt we can provide enough oil at low prices for a few billion extra people in 2030.
So unless we find a way to dramatically increase the availability and price of energy, the energy use per person will have to come down significantly as population grows while scarcity and prices increase.
Now this can be done in several ways, deny a large part of the population energy, lower our living standards, use technology to increase efficiency or find cheap supplies of renewable energy. I am sure you'll agree we need to concentrate on the latter 2 options. And yes, you're right that this needs to be a global decision to make an impact on the amount of CO2 we release. But it doesn't mean that improving energy efficiency or renewable energy is a bad idea even if done unilaterally. For example a 50mpg car costing £5000 more than a 25mpg car pays itself back in 2-4 years. Win-win situation for your wallet and the environment. If enough people start to think like that (and that does seem to happen given current oil price) then it does make a difference.
Electric cars are already becoming a reality, so in 5-10 years I'd expect battery technology to have improved enough that the issues of range, cost and charging will have been solved. In 2030 most new cars will be electric - with an optional fuel-cell range extender running on bio fuel.
The paper is about the potential of wind power resource, getting 50% of world energy use just from wind power is not realistic with current technology. While it is true a large turbine needs a lot of concrete and steel, the amount required per KWh produced is decreasing fast due to efficiency improvements. Note the CO2 emissions from building a turbine are typically repaid in a few months.
Btw for those who don't believe we actually have open air fuel ponds in the UK which contain a dangerous mess of corroded fuel and other radioactive waste exposed to the air, here is a link:
http://sellafieldsites.com/solution/risk-hazard-reduction/first-generation-magnox-storage-pond/
Is that your preferred solution of dealing with radioactive waste too? Let the downvoting by the true nuclear supporters begin!
Yes, by improving efficiency. Wide scale adoption of saving energy (such as insulation, LED lighting, hybrid/electric cars, etc) could reduce our overall energy needs considerably. Claiming that the developing world would require the same energy needs as Americans today is ridiculous.
You and Lewis may be happy to have a nuclear power station in your backyard, but most people do not. The chances for another Fukushima are slim of course, but non-zero nonetheless. None of our ageing nuclear power stations are 100% safe. And there have been plenty of accidents in the UK where nuclear material was released in the environment. We need reactors with 100% passive safety - and that is going to cost a lot more.
Nuclear power is ridiculously expensive already, from planning to building to decommissioning, and then there is the fuel cost, and completely unsolved issue of waste disposal. Remember we will be paying well over £73 billion to close down the current reactors in the UK. Storing used reactor cores in open water in open air, eventhough the cores have been rusting for years and are leaking (on some UK sites), is just asking for trouble. Such is the sorry state of nuclear power in the UK. And you want more of this?
Until we have good solutions for all these issues nuclear should be off limits. Clearly we do not know how to deal with nuclear power safely and cost-effectively yet.
Or are you ignoring the long term decommissioning costs, the cleanup costs of the sites (Sellafield alone "lost" a few hundred kilos of plutonium), as well as waste storage and disposal? Remember the cleanup of the nuclear folly in the UK is going to cost us taxpayers £73 Billion by a 2008 estimate (and costs are rising fast).
Note also wind power is at grid parity, with cost per generated MWh for on-shore windfarms well below the cost of building a new nuclear power station.
We're not China where the government can just force people to move and imprison them if they protest. Try that here and see how long you stay in government! As long as we are not building inherently safe reactors there will be an accident eventually (as we've seen with the many accidents from large scale releases - such as losing a few hundred kilos of plutonium in Sellafield - to complete meltdowns), so few people will be keen to live next to one. And I wouldn't be happy either if my house price halves as a result.
Which reactors have been built which are inherently safe? The only design I've heard of is the AP1000 which looks promising but is as yet unproven (they're still building the first ones in China).
But what about the costs? And the waste? You didn't address those. In most cases the government ends up taking all the risks as well as the storage and cleanup costs, ie. the tax payer pays through the nose in order for nuclear power companies to take all the profits in the good times... When are the power companies going to be honest and pay for the true cost of nuclear power?
Well if you consider the Deepwater Horizon type of drilling or the Athabasca tar sands cheap then yes we still have cheap oil... It is viable indeed but only just and mainly due to significant rises in the oil price. The environmental impact of fracking is significantly higher than for traditional drilling so there won't be much fracking in the UK (luckily we don't have the "drill baby drill" attitude here!). Also with the UK safety measures and pollution controls I don't think it will be very cost effective either, especially since it turns out fracking wells run dry in a few years.
Wind power is already at grid parity and the Danish actually export power for pumped storage on windy days and import it back when it is less windy. Solar will be at grid parity soon, so solar, wind and geothermal combined with pumped storage can provide a significant proportion of our energy needs at low cost.
If you're worried about energy cost then what about the huge cost of our nuclear heritage? Nuclear cleaning up cost is £73 billion by the last estimate and rising fast. And you call windfarms lunacy? Imagine how many windfarms one could build from all the money we're wasting on the nuclear folly...
"Anyway, none of this matters, my original point still stands: to be blunt - nobody cares about AGW anymore!"
So why do AGW related articles attract so many readers and comments then? Clearly you care about AGW, otherwise you wouldn't be posting here.
What evidence do you have it is not AGW related? It's more likely a lot of the heat is coming from the ocean itself as the heat content is increasing rapidly (and as ice disappears the open sea will then absorb even more energy as this article mentions). But even if there is a significant extra runoff, it would be melted ice, snow and permafrost. And guess why did it melt?
Actually I'd say the contrary: there is far less controversy than there was even a few years ago. We've seen huge increases of fossil fuel prices in recent years, and they can only go up further as we've used up all the cheap oil and gas... Reducing our reliance on OPEC and Russia, improving energy efficiency, insulation, energy saving lighting, solar/wind power, more fuel efficient cars are now widely accepted - and at the end of the day they save you money! And I bet you have no argument against saving money.
The problem with nuclear is that it takes many decades from idea to working reactor. Then there is the cost, not just for building but also decommissioning, fuel and waste. By the time you have going past the planning stages, renewable energy will be so much cheaper that existing designs will look ridiculously expensive. So unless someone comes up with a way to do nuclear both cheaply and safely (and solves the NIMBY issue), it doesn't seem like a good plan to bet on nuclear saving humankind.
Well, unfortunately the increased levels of greenhouse gases will keep more of the heat rather than radiating it into space. Basic physics indeed - this is why it is much better to have ice and snow cover as that reflects most sunlight rather than absorbing it.
Also given the large loss of ice during recent summers, a lot more heat has been absorbed. So it will take longer for the arctic to refreeze during the winter. That means less ice will form during this winter, and next summer we're likely going to see even less ice cover. So it is a strong positive feedback. This graph shows clearly that is what is happening:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
Note also how big this new record is - it's ~40% of what it was in the 80's and 90's.
Over 30 years of data is plenty to prove a clear trend. I presume you'd like to get more data, and continue monitoring the arctic until there is no more ice left (which will happen fairly soon) and then claim it is perfectly normal as it has happened before during earth's history of 4 billion years? In what way is that relevant to our current climate?
Note submarines can punch through several metres of ice, so it is not unusual for them to surface in arctic ice.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Releasing billions of tonnes into the atmosphere swamps the natural carbon cycle, which causes CO2 to accumulate fast. Current concentration of CO2 is over 30% higher than at any time in the last 500000 years. Global temperatures are increasing as expected, sea levels are rising, ocean heat content is increasing, artic ice is melting fast.
There is nothing here one could be sceptical about. Either you do accept the evidence or you deny the facts.
The only kind of scepticism left is what exactly we should do about it. Continue burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow and find out the hard way whether we end up with runaway warming? Or trying to be more energy efficient and switch to cheaper alternative energy resources? Which choice will be cheaper and benefit humankind more in the long run?
Actually this core is not fairly small, it's enormous. The previous generation Knights Ferry had 32 of these cores and a humongous die size of 700mm^2. Even at 22nm with 64 cores we're talking about a huge chip at ~350mm^2.
A modern GPU can achieve the same level of performance at half that die size on a 28nm process... So the 2% number is pretty meaningless - it implies the core is just way too large and too inefficient.
Like phones, being x86 compatible is totally pointless in a chip like this - even if the overhead is supposedly small. It even has an ancient x87 FPU with all its horrible flaws - that's just insane.
In what way does Kyoto harm us in any way? At the end of the day, energy efficiency and renewable energy is good for us (not just cheaper, also fewer deaths, better health, better environment etc). To argue it is bad for industry when it creates many thousands of jobs in a completely new industry sector is just insane.
Will it make a difference, even if say we only did do something in Europe or the UK? Yes, it would have the above benefits. As energy efficiency technology and renewable energy becomes cheaper, other countries will follow. There are lots of countries near the equator which would hugely benefit from cheap solar panels for example.
You keep on claiming CO2 emissions are tiny. If they were tiny, why are our emissions accumulating in the atmosphere then? The earth's carbon cycle simply cannot deal with our emissions.
Actually the amount of CO2 we emit is large compared to other sources. It is only tiny compared to the total amount of CO2 already locked away in the oceans.
I don't see a downward slope in any of the graphs, which in particular do you mean (link)? If the graphs flatten out that doesn't mean it is going to fall afterwards! There are plenty of cases where it flattens out or goes down, sometimes for a decade, only to go up again afterwards. Those oscillations are normal and expected. Yes we currently experience a slightly cooler period after having some record hot years. But that is not evidence that warming is halting, the slope is still up (0.18 degrees per decade).
This proves pretty conclusively that CO2 and temperature are closely related over a period of 450000 years: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-change.html
Yes it would be perfect if we crack fusion soon, but I'm not optimistic given that we have been trying for at least 50 years. So it is not being alarmist to say that we'll continue to burn ever more fossil fuel, especially given that the most polluting countries like China and US are not interested to curtail their CO2 output, and developing countries want to develop further rather than block their growth.
Speedjunkie, you can spend all day trying to claim the amount of CO2 we emit is tiny or that it has had little effect. That's what you wish it to be, but you cannot stop the laws of physics with a wish.
That site is rubbish indeed, but it appears the graphs are unedited at least, so I'm not disputing those. However you can't conclude from them that there is any cooling or even a cooling trend. The graph showing global temperatures is up for the most recent years (slightly indeed due to several record years recently), and the graph showing ocean heat content is going up quickly as well. They didn't list CO2 levels but I'm sure you don't deny those are going up fast as well.
Calling me an alarmist and looking at the short term is ridiculous when you look at a few graphs and conclude things are cooling based on 1 or 2 years of data... Yes in thousands of years the natural climate cycle will get things back under control as it always has, but that hardly helps us over the next 100 years, does it? The problem is that we emit far more CO2 than nature can absorb, which is why we see it accumulating fast.
No, based on the current measured warming rate (ie. assuming we keep emitting CO2 at the same level), in 80 years global temperatures will be 1.5 degrees warmer than today. That's not a "might", that's pretty much a certainty given we are doing nothing to reduce our CO2 emissions. We'll most likely get warming of 2.5 degrees by 2100.
There is always a place where the wind blows, especially for off-shore installations spread around a large country such as the UK, and power generation is typically well aligned with demand, so you don't need much storage. Storage can be pumped or using flow batteries (no precious metals required). Electric cars use tiny amounts of rare metals (unlike existing cars which use platinum catalysts) and efforts are made to reduce those further. Batteries are fully recycled, this is true for both lead-acid as well as lithium-ion.
Actually if we did properly tax things based on overall environmental impact then low-power computers (likely not your Mac) and efficient cars (including your Prius) would effectively become cheaper compared to less efficient options.
Claiming we all have to go back to the stoneage is just ridiculous. Increasing renewable energy, improving energy efficiency and recycling not only reduces CO2 emissions but pays for itself. On the other hand, if we continue emitting CO2 like there is no tomorrow, then your prediction of the end of our civilization might well come true. Oil will run out eventually, so if we don't start moving towards better alternatives, things will become really bad if it does run out while we still critically rely on it.
Eh, of course it won't take another 200 years to double CO2 levels, we are emitting far more CO2 than we did 200 years ago, and emissions are still rising fast, so accumulation happens ever faster. Current expectation is doubling of CO2 by around 2050, and tripling by 2100.
Global temperatures are already 1 degree warmer on average than 1860 today with only a 30% increase in CO2. Current temperature increase is 0.18 degree per decade, so you'll get your 0.5 degree increase in 27 years, not in 200.
Significant? Yes most definitely. So yes we should reduce emissions, and move towards low carbon energy sources. Unfortunately new technology is initially more expensive, so you need to create incentives for people and companies to switch - subsidies and taxes. Wind energy is already at grid parity so you don't need to subsidise it much longer. Solar is not quite there so still requires it for another 5-10 years. Battery technology and electric cars are only starting now, so also need subsidies for a while. Nuclear needs more research before it can become safe and cost effective enough (the AP1000 is a step in the right direction with passive safety, but we still need a good solution for the waste).
And we need taxes on CO2 emissions to include the external costs such as deaths due to mining, drilling and pollution, health problems, destruction of mountains and countryside as well as climate change. Given that coal is currently only cheap because it excludes all those external costs, taxation is the only way. Without the carrot&stick approach there is simply no level playing field and no incentive to reduce emissions at all.
More denier rubbish, and all your maths are incorrect. What matters is not how much greenhouse gases there naturally are, but how much we are adding to upset the natural balance. It only takes a tiny amount to upset a balance. Given billions of tonnes of CO2 are accumulating in the atmosphere, and we are seeing rapid warming which closely follows the CO2 concentration, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude we alone are responsible for this warming. Those are the undeniable basic facts, but I guess you want to stick your head in the sand as usual rather than educate yourself with the facts.
Correct, and that was my point. Scientists cannot just use the grant money as if it was their own money, so they can't just pay themselves a big salary from it. The typical claim from deniers is that climate researchers are just doing it to enrich themselves, which is as far from the truth as one can possibly be. The researchers I personally know are pretty badly paid, they do research because they love to do it. If they wanted to earn a lot of money, they would go work in the industry.
Did I ever say "if", "maybe", "possibly"? Give me a quote please. So now we get the "it all natural" denier argument.
So the CO2 concentration which is far higher than any time in the last 500000 years is all natural? Was the ozone hole all natural? Was acid rain all natural? Is it natural large swathes of rainforest are disappearing? Oceans with few fish left? Next you're going to explain how the Atlantic garbage patch is completely natural too?
Yes we emit twice as much CO2 per year as nature can absorb which is why CO2 is accumulating fast in the atmosphere. Once again, read up on climate research yourself, for example at www.realclimate.org (where several well-known climate researchers write articles) or wwww.skepticalscience.com (which explains all the arguments in clear layman terms).
The latest HadCRUT4 results are here: http://www.realclimate.org/images/hadcrut_diff.jpg. Look at the graph, where do you see any cooling? 2010 is tied with 2005 as the warmest ever years.
It doesn't matter the contribution from man made CO2 is relatively small, it doesn't form part of the natural carbon cycle which has been in balance for thousands of years. This extra CO2 is far beyond what nature can absorb naturally as part of the carbon cycle, which is why CO2 is accumulating fast in the atmosphere. And 30% extra from man-made sources is not a small contribution, it's a huge unprecedented change in CO2 concentration.
Yes, right, we are in a global cooling phase - the kind of cooling where the temperature rises... Man, you are either off your meds, or are smoking some crazy stuff there.
It doesn't matter that we only add a small amount of CO2, it accumulates, which is why CO2 levels are now more than 30% higher than they have ever been.
Freedom of information doesn't mean researchers should publish every private email or have every action minutely scrutinized. I'm not aware of any other field of research being bombarded by persistent FOI requests. Researchers should not need to waste their precious time on crackpots and conspiracy theorists. So as I said, it is regrettable but given the circumstances it is quite understandable. Maybe you would have acted differently, but you would have surely regretted it once you've experienced your private emails being publicly quoted out of context to prove some crazy conspiracy theory (and Phil Jones' comments and emails have been taken out of context exactly like that).
Given the above, I would not expect that other climate researches ever condemn the behaviour of the UAE researchers - almost all researchers (not just climate ones) would have done the same thing. However that doesn't in any way affect their credibility, or whether they have some sort of an agenda etc. Base your opinion of researchers on the quality of their published papers alone and nothing else. The emails (deleted or not) are not important, the science is.
Yes, but nothing in the report amounts to fraud or faking the results. What would you do when hounded by repeated FOC requests by a few persistent deniers whose only motive is trying to prove you are part of some sort of conspiracy? I'm not saying that deleting emails was a good call but it is perfectly understandable given the circumstances. But most importantly the underlying science has been proven to be correct and not fraudulent in any way. And one of the good things that came of it is that the datasets have now been made more generally available.
Claiming that all climate researchers have lost their credibility just because you don't like the behaviour of some is just ridiculous. I presume you find blogs funded by oil companies more credible somehow?
Global average temperatures are up, but that doesn't mean it will get warmer everywhere. Depending on where you are it may mean hotter summers, colder winters, or both. In the most extreme case (if the hot gulf stream shuts down) it means an ice age for the UK and nothern Europe. And the climate is not just about temperature, there is the sea level, bio diversity, rain, and storms to consider as well.
Humanity has grown dependent on the current climate and the current sea level. If this changes drastically then many millions of people end up living in underwater cities or find their farmland is now an arid desert. Whether temperature was much higher or much lower many millions of years ago is irrelevant. Today CO2 concentration is higher than at any point in the last 500000 years. What matters to us is how that will change the climate over the next 50 years.
Yes, I certainly hope current UK weather turns out to be a one-off blip! However given global temperatures are increasing, there is far more energy in the atmosphere, so you'd expect more extreme weather events as a result. Whether what we are experiencing now in the UK is directly caused by AGW is not clear indeed, but if unusual and extreme weather continues then it might well be. For a more clear picture, if you look at arctic ice coverage, you can see a clear trend over the last 30 years:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
Note how the more recent years are colored in red and where they are?
The vast majority of scientists do not hide data, delete email or behave fraudulently. If you're thinking of "ClimateGate", those scientists were cleared of any wrongdoing by 3 separate investigations, and their data has been proven correct and reproduced by the sceptic BEST studies (graphs with both datasets overlaid are nearly identical). If you still believe there was any kind of fraud going on then you likely believe that all climate scientists are frauds and that the whole climage change concept is some kind of global conspiracy by the Illuminati...
I guessed you wrote that as a joke, but it seems you intended to be serious. You should read up on climate science before you quote numbers like that and make some incorrect conclusions from those. Yes, it only takes a small amount of CO2 to cause warming, that's why it is called a greenhouse gas.
Well about 99% of climate scientists agree that CO2 has a significant effect. Nobody would claim that CO2 is the ONLY effect, but it is a long-term greenhouse gas which accumulates, unlike water vapour for example (which, unlike CO2, can be both a positive and negative feedback which happen to balance each other out).
Note that the solar output remains relatively constant over time, and the solar cycles are well known and taken into account. If you want to attribute recent warming to the sun alone then you'd be wrong as we have been going through a solar minimum, so you'd expect to see cooling instead of warming.
The BEST studies confirmed the last 200 years, which is the most important part of the hockey stick: dramatic increase in global temperature over the last 50 years. Reconstructions beyond the last 200 years are never perfect and inevitably have rather large error bars. However all proxies used show a rather flat temperature for the last 2000 years. That means the hockey stick graph is still correct.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
"What the science says...
Since the hockey stick paper in 1998, there have been a number of proxy studies analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes and ice cores. They all confirm the original hockey stick conclusion: the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years and that warming was most dramatic after 1920. "
Climate scientists most certainly do have a bloodly clue, unlike you. Claiming they fudge data without any proof whatsoever is just ridiculous. Scientists have no products to sell, they don't personally benefit from research grants whatever the outcome of their research. As scientists they simply look at the evidence, and there is plenty of it.
No, it's the hockey stick graph confirmed twice by sceptics in the BEST studies. Do you have any links to peer-reviewed research (ie. not your favorite denier blog) proving the hockey stick graph incorrect? I don't think so.
Noone sane can deny global temperatures aren't up dramatically over the last 50 years. And that despite the sun showing lower activity.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/23/sunspot_activity_and_rhine_freezing/
And the spin is just ridiculous, claiming we are entering an ice-age?!? I guess he hasn't seen the hockey stick graph - global temperatures are dramatically up, not down...
In the past the Earth used to be a barren place of molten rock with pure acid as rain. So what? The climate has been different in the past and will be different in the future. However it has been very stable over the last few thousand years, and humankind is very dependent on this very stable climate. So it is in our interest to keep it stable rather than doing an unprecedented experiment with CO2 concentration. Long live change = many millions of people drowning, starving, fighting over scarce resources.
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