Does willard still reference Lew? I’m so sorry.
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Chris G | November 28, 2013 at 5:39 pm said: ”“We conclude that energy storage is continuing to increase in the sub-surface ocean.”

Chris, how can the phantom heat bi-pas the surface of the water? do you believe in shonky science and guillotining physics…

when water gets warmer -> evaporation increases / evaporation is cooling process === higher evaporation = more clouds / clouds are sun-umbrellas for the land and oceans; what happened to your knowledge of physics? why do you let to be brainwashed by the outdated conspiracy?… tragic…

Hmm, slashed property taxes and raised taxes on oil companies? Downright clairvoyant, or sumpin’.
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There are two types of people in the world: those who’d accept the following proposition and those who wouldn’t.

(And maybe some other types too, but let’s start with these.)

A pond of interest has some ordinary water in it. For $44,000, determine how much water. Easy enough, right?

However there is considerable disagreement as to whether this pond is contaminated with heavy water, D2O, as opposed to ordinary water, H2O.

Some say perhaps half of it is heavy water. Others deny that any heavy water could have gotten into the pond.

A complication with the funding for this assessment is that the documentation for the assessment is not permitted to mention heavy water.

Those who believe there is no significant heavy water in the pond will see no problem with this $44K proposition.

Those who believe that some assessment is needed of the heavy water in the pond before a reliable statement can be made about the ordinary water are likely to balk at the restriction that they are not permitted to say anything about heavy water.

The former type would accept this $44K proposition in a heartbeat.

The latter type might do so too, though they would be more likely to feel that they were compromising their principles in agreeing not to assess how much heavy water was in the pond.

Seems to me this scenario is not terribly different from the Nebraska drought proposition.

“Even evolution makes ‘mistakes.’” That lemon on your left, for instance.

Vaughan Pratt

I wanted to cap this off, and then you came back with some silly claims, which need clearing up.

1. You claim it’s obviously impossible for human CO2 emissions to grow independently of the growth of human population. I claim it’s obviously possible. I’m happy to leave it at that.

2. You claim I forecast 1000 ppmv on “some CE thread.” I claim you’re making a strawman argument and that I did no such thing. I’m happy to leave it at that.

Wrong on both counts, Vaughan.

I do not “claim it’s obviously impossible for human CO2 emissions to grow independently of the growth of human population”. I just claim that, while it may be theoretically “possible”, it is a stupid assumption, because it is more logical that there is some sort of correlation between the number of humans emitting CO2 and the total amount of CO2 emitted by humans. I believe a more rational approach is to examine what has happened in the past: from 1970 to today per capita human CO2 emissions from fossil fuels increased by 10%. So it is reasonable to estimate that the per capita emissions could increase by another 30% by 2100

You write that a raised-exponential fit to the Keeling curve which when evaluated at 2100 yields 1027.65 ppmv (I had figured roughly 980 ppmv). Either projection is absurd, if US Census Bureau and UN projections of population growth are correct, because they would imply that every man, woman and child on the planet emits as much CO2 as US inhabitants do today. (And BTW the US per capita emission is decreasing today, as is that in most industrially developed nations.)

On the “millikelvin” thread you made a projection of CO2 and temperature to year 2100 based on an extrapolation (Figure 7 of your presentation). This shows that by 2100 CO2 would be at more than 1000 ppmv and temperature anomaly is more than 4ºC above the HadCRUT3 baseline value.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/04/multidecadal-climate-to-within-a-millikelvin/#more-10559

This is the projection (not “forecast”) to which I am referring.

Hope this clears it up for you once and for all.

Max

“Academia responds to globalized market forces with the same ruthless efficacy as a drug cartel.”

This is an insult to drug cartels. I would say that academia responds to anything at a glacial pace but that would be an insult to glaciers. I speak from the heart, as an inmate of the asylum.

Vaughan,

About 10 years ago I spent quite a lot of time in looking through all available data in preparing my lectures on energy economy. I had written already before reports on the fossil fuel resources for the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry and read what was available at that time. One of the sources that I found very useful was US Energy Information Administration. They had just published in 2000 a study on long term world oil supply. It’s main conclusions are presented in these slides

http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/LongTermOilSupplyPresentation.pdf

The slide 9 is interesting. On the first sight it appears to tell on a change in estimate of resources after 40 years of no change, but looking more closely the whole change is in the estimate of recoverable share as explained on slide 10. The slides 14-19 present a set of overly simplistic scenarios, which do, however, give a good basis for drawing rough conclusions. Making more realistic assumptions on the rates of increase and decline, and rounding up the top, the conclusion is that a decline is not many decades in the future.

More data has become available since, and OECD/IEA has under the leadership of Birol improved their analysis and publications, which are unfortunately mostly not free. The extensive analyses done tell that maintaining the required rate of investment is very difficult and costly. That explains the otherwise very strange situation that oil price has remained high in spite of the poor economic development. With a stronger growth the price would surely be much higher. The alternatives like tar sands of Canada cannot fill the gap.

Oil is the easiest case to analyze, but the situation is not all that different on natural gas. The problems are coming somewhat later, but they are coming.

Coal and oil shale are more plentiful, but most of their total resources are very difficult to recover.

Many different approaches have been used in studying the likely future of fossil fuel supply. One is extrapolation of past production. The curves on slides 11 and 12 are examples of that. I don’t like that approach as the production depends ultimately on demand as long as there are no strict limitations. Demand may grow more slowly for various reasons and thus lead to wrong conclusions in that approach. The better way is to study the resource base and required investments in a dynamical setting as IEA has done. My thinking is built mostly on what has been published on that basis.

sab | December 3, 2013 at 12:55 pm | Reply

“Some WordPress plug-in does this?”

No.

“Some engineer able to write one?”

Yes. Me.

I’m considering it. After 14 years of doing nothing remunerative I need to think about things I can somehow monetize. On the other hand another couple months of doing nothing productive won’t kill me either.

From time to time I encounter some concept or method that I find useless. Unlike you however I don’t go round telling other people that they have to find it useless too merely because I do.

Dennis

I take your point and there may be no easy solution, but perhaps having Judith, or the moderators, giving you prior permission to use a pseudonym, might be a solution.

A colleague of mine used to get paid a lot for designing climate computer models for some worthy Australian research organisation. In vino veritas, he used to describe these models as being “complete crap”.

So there is an ethics question here. I wonder how many more there are working in the Global Warming Industry, who know what they are doing is “complete crap”.

‘Coming out’ may be an unpleasant experience, and sometimes a surprise to your friends, but in the end it is best for everyone.

As for me, I am a geologist operating in the private sector. As such, I rarely meet anyone who believes rising carbon dioxide levels will cause Thermageddon. However, in the government, and quasi-government, sectors, there are usually employment considerations if you utter even the mildest sceptic viewpoint.

However, my point still stands: those who use their own names usually (stress the word ‘usually’, which also means there are obvious exceptions) make a more positive contribution in their comments, than those who use a pseudonym.

Vaughan,

I linked this comment to a wrong comment. Thus I copy it here. I add here another link that’s better than the one below in the way that this PowerPoint presentation contains also explanatory text.

http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/presentations/2000/long_term_supply/LongTermOilSupplyPresentation.ppt

The rest is identical to the comment higher up.

About 10 years ago I spent quite a lot of time in looking through all available data in preparing my lectures on energy economy. I had written already before reports on the fossil fuel resources for the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry and read what was available at that time. One of the sources that I found very useful was US Energy Information Administration. They had just published in 2000 a study on long term world oil supply. It’s main conclusions are presented in these slides

http://www.netl.doe.gov/energy-analyses/pubs/LongTermOilSupplyPresentation.pdf

The slide 9 is interesting. On the first sight it appears to tell on a change in estimate of resources after 40 years of no change, but looking more closely the whole change is in the estimate of recoverable share as explained on slide 10. The slides 14-19 present a set of overly simplistic scenarios, which do, however, give a good basis for drawing rough conclusions. Making more realistic assumptions on the rates of increase and decline, and rounding up the top, the conclusion is that a decline is not many decades in the future.

More data has become available since, and OECD/IEA has under the leadership of Birol improved their analysis and publications, which are unfortunately mostly not free. The extensive analyses done tell that maintaining the required rate of investment is very difficult and costly. That explains the otherwise very strange situation that oil price has remained high in spite of the poor economic development. With a stronger growth the price would surely be much higher. The alternatives like tar sands of Canada cannot fill the gap.

Oil is the easiest case to analyze, but the situation is not all that different on natural gas. The problems are coming somewhat later, but they are coming.

Coal and oil shale are more plentiful, but most of their total resources are very difficult to recover.

Many different approaches have been used in studying the likely future of fossil fuel supply. One is extrapolation of past production. The curves on slides 11 and 12 are examples of that. I don’t like that approach as the production depends ultimately on demand as long as there are no strict limitations. Demand may grow more slowly for various reasons and thus lead to wrong conclusions in that approach. The better way is to study the resource base and required investments in a dynamical setting as IEA has done. My thinking is built mostly on what has been published on that basis.

An update of the above comment further down in the thread.

http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/28/is-earth-in-energy-deficit/#comment-421130

I don’t see nesting as being a problem. Nesting does have its problems, but so does a lack of it. Neither approach is inherently better. Determining which is better between the two approaches requires deciding what one wants to do.

A lack of nesting makes the comments section one-dimensional. Everything happens within a single “pipe.” If you want to participate, you have to join in with everyone else. Making yourself heard requires distinguishing yourself from everyone else. If you want to make a reference to something previously said, you have to try to get people to look back within that single pipe. With a small number of people, that’s not too bad. With a lot, it’s a nightmare.

There will always be a practical limit as to how many people can participate in a single discussion at one time. A non-nested comments section will reach that limit far faster than a nested comments section. The reason is nesting allows the comments section to be two-dimensional. That means multiple conversations can be held without conflicting with one another. That increases the number of potential participants by a large amount (roughly exponentially).

Some people have suggested nesting allows for an increase in non-productive communication. This is unquestionably true. However, the reason is not tied directly to the issue of nesting. Instead, it’s tied to the issue of conversations. The more conversations you allow, the more non-productive communication you allow. Tautology aside, it is far easier to keep one conversation “on track” than it is many conversations.

Removing nesting will definitely decrease non-productive communication. However, it will do so by decreasing all forms of communication. The question is whether or not filtering out one is worth the price of filtering out both. That’s a matter of personal preference, and I can’t make a decision for anyone else on it.

What I can say is there are many other options. If you want to remove non-productive communication, you can use moderation and casual interaction to do so. If you want to encourage productive communication, you can use other approaches (Mosher provides some interesting ideas). None of these approaches are tied to nesting. You can use them regardless of whether you remove or keep nesting. Their value won’t change.

This issue can be seen in terms of data analysis. Removing nesting just filters out data. It does so in a somewhat arbitrary way. Not only does it not have a clear effect, the non-randomness it introduces is fairly unpredictable. However, it does reduce the amount of data to a more manageable amount, and as such, it may allow for “analysis” to be possible where it wouldn’t be otherwise. You just have to decide whether the non-random subset removing nesting produces is more useful than the full, messier population.

I feel like that was rambly so I’ll give a simple statement of my views: Removing nesting is a terrible idea. This site attracts far too many people who have valuable contributions to restrict conversation to a single thread. The entire idea of a “salon” requires us allow disjoint conversations.

The best solution would be to increase moderation presence. Let people talk to each other as much as they like, but make it clear what forms of communication are allowed. Do that, and it won’t matter how much nesting is or is not allowed; people will keep in line.

Of course, an increased moderation presence will require more effort. As before, I suggest our host find help. If she doesn’t want to risk giving “power” away (which I wouldn’t), the help can simply flag comments for her. That is, volunteers can draw her attention to potential problems, and she will make the decisions. That would allow her to maintain a strong moderation presence without having to examine each comment individually.

I know I shouldn’t … tsk!

Things fall apart. A Nest.

A nest has fallen to the ground.
Though so cunningly made it could not withstand
The sudden Spring storm that brought it down
From its niche in a tall pine.
See how meticulously its maker has woven
Each separate blade of grass in and out,
Each blade brought in by air and stitched
Together with cobweb by the small beak,
The nest then shaped by the bird’s round breast
And inlaid with its feathered down. Already
Ants are investigating the broken
Eggshells scattered on the ground.

Your browser “find on this page” feature can help with a number of things. I use it regularly to search my own name to see if anyone replied to me and other times I use it to search for strategic keywords or another commenter’s name. Once in a while I use to search for the date. For instance if I wanted to see what’s new since yesterday I could search for today’s date. Granted it’s crude. WordPress’ comment management is uber crude. It’s not really good from the admin’s POV (I managed a wordpress blog for some years and made some strategic mods to the source code to make moderation easier) but it’s really bad for the subscriber.

For nesting to work well comment threads have to be collapsible and come up initially collapsed. A one line preview of top level comments should always appear along with the number of replies. Lots of blogs do this right. Yahoo finance comments on individual stocks comes to mind. Or in the classic cases Usenet and CompuServe (yeah I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now).

There should also be a function that would, in the first comment line of a collapsed thread, highlight the number of replies if there were any new ones since your last visit and if a top-level thread is new highlight the whole preview line. Makes it easy to scroll/scan to see if anything was added where you might be interested.

The last critical item is what might be aptly called a “Troll Zapper”. If there’s a commenter you just don’t want to see for one reason or another then you can click on their name and an option list comes up with an option to zap them so you never see any of their comments again. Trolls hate that feature.

Lastly, a ‘complain’ button that sends a complaint to a list that only blog admins can read. It copies an offensive post recording vital information about complainant and complainer. This makes it easy for moderator(s) to determine when to ban someone for cause.

There’s lot of additional stuff that’s useful for subscribers in commenting and most of them have been mentioned in this thread but in my experience those I mentioned above are all it takes and should make a dramatic difference here.

One last comment. Someone mentioned volunteer moderators. In the old days we called them sysops. I’ve always had some volunteer sysops on social networks I designed or managed but managing the sysops can get to be a chore as they get to infighting amongst themselves, into cliques of subscribers, and so forth so I’m a little ambivalent about how well that works out for all concerned. I’d say it’s worth a try in any case.

Vaughan Pratt:

From time to time I encounter some concept or method that I find useless. Unlike you however I don’t go round telling other people that they have to find it useless too merely because I do.

As a rule, it helps to clearly state who or what you are responding to when you respond to it. The most common method of doing so is to provide a quotation to which you’re responding. Failing that, the next most common method is to state which comment you’re referring to. If all that fails, one generally manages to at least state who they’re responding to.

That said, I guess you’re responding to me. It’s hard to tell because you didn’t bother to quote me saying whatever you think I said. I’m not sure what part of my remarks you think said what. You could solve that by quoting my words and stating your interpretation of them. Why you didn’t? I have no idea.

Regardless, I’ll make myself clear. I have never told anyone they must find anything useless. Anyone claiming I have ever done so is just making things up.

Hah. David Hagen was an author who used to be under my administrative thumb on another blog years ago. Petty Tyrant is probably a phrase he’d say describes my approach. Above all things I tried to be fair but made no bones about my word being final with the possible exception of the blog owner who would (very rarely) not back my decisions.

What? Who? Ban them!

Oh wait…