I believe one of Judith’s first challenges to the climate models was the impact of clouds.
Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by justinwonder
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by Turbulent Eddie
Obviously, there are real but minute possibilities of all kinds of things happening.
Fully protecting against any long term possible outcome will fully bankrupt anyone trying it in the short term.
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by climatereason
Richard
thanks for the link looks interesting. I will read through carefully.
Whether cloud is a positive or negative temperature factor is a difficult one. On the whole, in our latitudes at least, I think the cloud is mostly warming.
We have just had the dullest November since 1929 with a miserable 36 hours of sunshine ( yes, for the entire month) and with a southwesterly wind it was very wet. The net result is that with cloud at night preventing temperatures falling too much, it was also one of the warmest novembers on record. If that weather pattern continues in December we are likely to have a warm winter and it is that season which sets the stage for the year as temperature variability is potentially greatest.
Did you ever get Hubert lambs book ‘ climate, past present and future?
There is an illustration in it showing the number of days a year Britain has south westerly winds from 1340 to 1979 . There is a close correlation to our climate whereby lack of them appears to correlate with some of the coldest years of the LIA.
I am working with the met office to try to update it on a like for like basis to see if there has been a lack of them over the last fifteen to eighteen years which coincides with our cooling climate over that period.
Tonyb
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Comment on Environmentalism versus science by Edeltraud Gomser (@EGomser)
@Curry
Did you even read what Reid was trying to publish? Or did you blindly assume that he is just a poor dismissed scientist?
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by popesclimatetheory
Deviations from normal climate were cited by The Wall Street Journal as a major cause for the gross domestic product drop of 2.9% in the first quarter of 2014. Can nature really push around our nation’s great economic engine so easily?
These people are kidding themselves and most everyone else. These climate events are not any kind of deviation from normal climate. These climate events are a part of the normal climate. When did the normal climate not have extreme events?
This is just more spin on extreme alarmism.
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Comment on Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Is Fossil Fuel Like Tobacco? by Edeltraud Gomser (@EGomser)
I see, scepitalists going hunting.
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by opluso
Joshua:
Why are you citing a 2011 story?
Earlier this year (aka, 2015), the GOP-controlled House passed a proposed 2016 budget which provided that:
the National Weather Service is funded at $968 million – $4 million above the President’s request.
I don’t know what the final result is or will be, but your comment does not make any sense to me.
http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=394203
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by Barnes
In other words, our climate system is a massively complex, chaotic, nonlinear, coupled system made up of five separate subsystems – none of which scientists claim a full understanding of how those subsystems work, much less, an understanding of the effects of the interactions between those subsystems. Add to that the externalalities like the sun, gravity, polarity, cosmic rays, and who knows how many unknown unknowns. Yet, we know with absolute certainty that a trace gas making up .04% of just one of the 5 subsystems, of which human contribution from burning fossil fuels is something on the order of 3%, is THE control knob. We control co2, and all the other complexities evaporate.
JimD, JCH, willard, et al, please let me know if I got this right.
Thanks!
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by RiHo08
“We have learned from the difficulty of predicting specific phenomena such as El Nino just how much new science this takes. With the teleconnections that El Nino possesses, and the reach into the daily economic lives in the USA, one would have imagined that predicting El Nino would be a high priority on the part of NASA.
Since last year (2014) didn’t produce the Godzilla El Nino predicted, one would have thought the scientists would be clamoring for monies to develop predictive models for El Nino instead of the effects of CO2.
From my perspective, the failure to honor our ignorance of El Nino by the Federal spending programs is based upon the influence of Green NGO’s like Sierra Club, Green Peace, World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund in the halls of Congress who won’t vary their CO2 mitigation meme. Supporting natural variation research and understanding El Nino is tantamount to giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The impediment to funding research that would help our Nation economically is all the billions funneled into the Green Glop NGOs who have made their case and their financial backers will have no truck to any backpedaling.
The disease is in Washington DC and Green NGOs’ are the vector.
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by Wagathon
Any devout believer in cause and effect can only conclude that the academia’s monomaniacal pogrom against CO2, capitalism and the productive who pay all the bills has caused the cost of a barrel of petroleum to plummet, making it more attractive than ever to burn oil while lowering the cost to produce the goods and services we all want and demand. Good work.
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by richardswarthout
Tony
The Influence of Cloud Feedbacks On Equatorial Atlantic Variability, co-authored by Bjorn Stevens looks interesting; the abstract indicates some answers on quantifying the feedbacks.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00495.1
Note: Perhaps the only way we’ll understand clouds is on a region-by-region basis, using many Barbados-like cloud observatories.
Richard
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by climatereason
Richatd
Agreed. It is logical to think that clouds will have a different impact in different regions/latitudes, which may then vary according to changing weather patterns such as wind direction. The trouble is that we focus too much on looking at ‘the globe’ rather than looking at regions. It’s like temperatures, not everywhere is warming or cooling at the same rate but when it’s averaged out the nuances are lost.
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Comment on Senate Hearing: Data or Dogma? by Mark Silbert
Tonyb,
If I thought that you weren’t worthwhile I wouldn’t have commented on your Mark Steyn put down. Does that make sense?
I hope you didn’t take offense at my comment. I’ll apologize if Don thinks it’s warranted and if it helps, but seriously you would do well to try to understand Mark Steyn a bit better before dissing him for his style. Try this:
http://www.steynonline.com/7337/mister-know-nothing-denier-goes-to-washington
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by Barnes
While I agree and support getting more advanced notice out so that people can prepare by shuttering their homes and following an advanced, orderly evacuation plan if deemed appropriate (which also comes with costs) and so that utilities and emergency services can get lined up appropriately, we will still need to accept the simple fact that there will always be damages that will increase with the severity level of the hurricane, tornado, earthquake, sunami, etc. No matter how much advance warning is given, people will not be able to relocate their homes.
My reason for making this simplistic and obvious point is that we seem to desire some type of risk free world that we can control to assure no negative consequences will ever occur. In addition to taking all rational, reasonable, and hopefully cost effective steps to protect ourselves, part of the discussion also needs to be that there are no guarantees, ever, so prepare for that eventuality as well.
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Comment on German Energiewende – Modern Miracle or Major Misstep by Peter Davies
Peter Lang,
While I’ve nothing against nuclear, the public tend to go off things like nuclear very quickly when there’s an excuse, but any process to turn them back on again tends to happen only slowly, if at all.
You seem to be suggesting the UK government should say, “actually we think nuclear radiation standards are too tight and we are going to relax them, so that we can pay EDF much less than 14.5 cents / kWh plus inflationary increases over the next 35 years for new nuclear facilities.”
Personally I would have thought this would go down with the UK public like a lead balloon. At least most of us over here only moan about the huge cost of Hinckley Point C at present, rather than any major political party suddenly taking up the “nuclear no thanks.” slogan, which would probably be the inevitable result of such a UK government change in policy.
Anyway, no matter, we will probably end up with a “natural” level of nuclear of around 20% in UK.
“The important point to recognise is that renewables cannot supply much of global energy requirements so they cannot make much of a contribution to reducing global GHG emissions.”
Where do you get this from? And it’s no good relying on nuclear advocates calculating “balance of system” costs for renewables without documenting clearly where they get the answers from. If a bunch of wind and solar experts and supporters were invited to do an independent calculation of nuclear decommissioning costs and permanent nuclear waste disposal costs you can be assured they would easily find a way of getting a much higher figure than the nuclear exponents do.
As far as I can see Europe could go with renewables 100% by 2050. Prices are tumbling. You would install four lots of peak load nameplate capacity. 1 x wind in North Sea, 1 x wind in North Africa, 1 x solar PV / CSP in Southern Europe, 1 x solar PV/ CSP in North Africa, a European supergrid using HVDC lines, plus implementation of most of Europe’s (Norway’s plus other) identified pumped hydro potential, then use the excess wind energy for power to gas (methane) and the gas network to power the existing fast-response CCGT generation to cover any minor gaps which are left.
By 2050 the wind and solar components above will be dirt cheap. One Texas utility is already giving away free overnight wind power to consumers, but it is really solar PV which will end up too cheap to meter. Pumped hydro will be a 60 year investment (and probably cheaper than building nuclear because at least one lake of each pair is already in existence), and the CCGT backup will already be in place (UK for instance is just about to place a big CCGT order to replace coal which is hopeless when fast-start/ramp is required).
Before storage kicks in the gaps would be approximately half the average load for around 20% of the total time. Pumped hydro would cope with 2/3 of these gaps, leaving renewable gas fuelled CCGT to pick up the odd lengthy becalmed period using the existing natural gas networks as storage.
And, on the back of the proverbial fag packet, that is it. A cost effective and technically correct 100% renewable solution to 2050 European power.
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by Steven Mosher
“Yet, we know with absolute certainty that a trace gas making up .04% of just one of the 5 subsystems, of which human contribution from burning fossil fuels is something on the order of 3%, is THE control knob. We control co2, and all the other complexities evaporate”
except the argument is NOT that c02 is THE control knob
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by Barnes
That’s part of each individual’s risk assessment analysis. I lived near the Jersey shore and was on the board for the Habitat affiliate with a geographic service area that covered 60% of the affected area. While I can not quantify the entire investment for the entire area, I can say that construction codes were put in place for things like home elevation based on, among other things, flood plane analysis. Many of the homes hardest hit were simple bungalos built near the shore 40 to 50 years ago, or longer, in blue collar neighborhoods before building codes were in place that contemplated superstorm sandy type events. One of the delays we encountered when homeowners applied for RREM funding was waiting for new codes to be put in place so we would know the proper elevation when we needed to raise a home. Fortunately, we also received substantial grant money that allowed us to proceed with a lot of other rehabilitation efforts. Our affiliate alone, which was a simple mom and pop affiliate before the storm hit was responsible for putting over 90 families back in their homes, which in a few cases meant razing and rebuilding.
I recently relocated to northern florida where I was fortunate to find a home I could afford within mayby 500 feet or so of the Atlantic. Not on the beach, but an easy walk to an access point. I pay higher insurance rates and am fully aware of the risks – which I am fully willing to accept in return for living in a very beutiful and peaceful area – where I can easily avoid the kind of congestion I had to deal with in nj and ny.
The point is, for those of us fortunate enough to be able to choose, we also have to accept the risks associated with our decisions. There was a time, at least I would like to think there was, when people of any economic class could raise themselves sufficiently to make such choices. I am afraid that time may have passed.
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Comment on Senate Hearing: Data or Dogma? by climatereason
mark
No problem. That was a better article, but what is this cat thing all about?
tonyb
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by edimbukvarevic
Mosher, his slide says, “best data today show that CO2 has been “biggest control knob” on Earth’s climate”.
Teriible presentation.
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Comment on Bill Gail: Don’t let climate debate hinder the economy by edimbukvarevic
Terrible!
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