Monday
Nov082010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A letter to DECC's chief scientist
Nov 8, 2010 Climate: HSI Climate: Models Climate: other Energy Do take a look at Matt Ridley's letter to David Mackay, chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Hockey Stick Illusion is mentioned.
Update on Nov 9, 2010 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Matt has now posted up David MacKay's original letter.
Reader Comments (113)
the acid rain scare and its alleged effect on forests in Germany rang a very loud bell with me. At the time German politicians were leaping up and down about it, demanding that the motor industry install catalysts (at great expense to the consumer) to prevent the destruction of the forests.
Not quite oldtimer, IIRC. Catalytic converters were installed to reduce the amount of CO, NOx and unburnt fuel in car exhausts, because they caused smog. Any effect on sulphur was, I think, marginal.
The acid rain farrago was all about the fact that sulphur in fuel was supposedly acidifying the rain and poisoning lakes, etc. So legislation came in forcing reductions in the sulphur content of motor fuel. In diesel, for example, the spec came down from 10,000ppm to 2,000ppm to 500ppm to the ~10ppm (15ppm?) of today.
This took the sulphur out of the rain all right, but it also caused crop failure all over Europe because sulphur is a fertiliser. An excess of it is not beneficial, but some is required (it is what makes crops yellow). Take it out and they just don't grow.
Today the primary source of sulphur is that taken out of fuel at the refinery. One of the biggest uses for it is in fertiliser that is loaded into trucks, driven to the fields and sprayed onto the crops. Previously it just fell onto them out of the sky.
So the effect of this piece of ecofascism was to force farmers to do manually what had previously happened for free. Another effect was that car engines wore out more quickly because sulphur is a lubricant and it had been removed from fuel. Another is that fuel got more expensive because of the cost to refiners of upgrading their catalytic hydro-desulphurisation plants, adding syngas capacity to provide the hydrogen supply to the CHD, buying more expensive low-sulphur crude, or all three.
Finally, and most ironically, the crop worst affected by the reduction of sulphur in rain was....oilseed rape, the crop needed to produce...environmentally-friendly low sulphur diesel.
You couldn't make it up.
I believe the more prosaic cause for acid rain was the planting of conifers too close to lakes in Scandinavia in the 1970s to supply their pine furniture industry. The fallen needles acidified the nearby lake water, which then evaporated and fell all over northern Europe as acid rain.
This alternative account of rain acidity was around in, oh, 1985 at the latest, but was derided as denial, crank science, anti-science. etc for the usual reasons by the usual suspects. In fact, probably many of the same individuals.
As Dellers says, they never say sorry.
The DECC (Department of Energy and Climate change)
Latest advice to public bodies WISHING to offset their CO2 emmissions..........
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/what%20we%20do/a%20low%20carbon%20uk/co2_off_setting/1_20100120160158_e_@@_gcofjointletterceos.pdf
Abstract:
The Department of Energy and Climate Change and Buying Solutions are launching the second phase of the Government Carbon Offsetting Facility (GCOF) on 18 January 2010 to offset public sector emissions in the period April 2009 to March 2012. We are writing to alert Chief Executive Officers of public sector organisations across the UK to this and to highlight that the second GCOF contract is now ready for use by any public sector organisation wishing to offset its CO2 emissions. "
Nice to know Barclays Capital are on the approved list...
Carbon Offsetting Guide.
The Government tells people to do this stuff but isn’t leading by example
The UK’s Low Carbon Transition Plan outlines the steps Government is taking
to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions (available at www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/
publications/lc_trans_plan/lc_trans_plan.aspx). The UK has developed a Government
Carbon Offsetting Facility (GCOF) to offset emissions arising from official and
ministerial air travel.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_186202.pdf
Anybody good with FOI requests, to see how much money has been spent buying carbon offsets....
I had thought to ask Prince Charles and Gordon Brown who they bought their Copenhagen carbon offsets from.
Barry. And there am I trying my best to increase my CO2 emissions and telling everyone else to do the same. Perhaps that is offsetting other people trying to reduce their emissions.
I just discovered that my jpmorgan climate care certificate (bought to frame for poserity) is on the government approved list...
http://www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/catalogue/service.html?contract_id=887&funnel_id=&supplier_id=1825&view=view
doesn't that make me feel good...
and a very good friend probably knows Bob Ward ;(
Philip Bratby Said
Tell that to the Eskimos. They build houses out of snow (Igloos) and bask in the warmth inside. The walls may be cold but the air inside is very warm.
Philip Bratby said
Computer modelers may not be climate scientists, but many climate scientists are computer modelers. It goes with the job - as is the case with nuclear physicists, geophysicists, chemist etc etc.
Jerry:
More twaddle. An igloo doesn't warm the air inside it.
Computer models are just models. They are not science.
Thanks, Rinka. The article from Dellers on farmers installing solar panels was a real kicker.
You would probably see:
these guys install solar panels on huge crop fields roofed over by greenhouses
with electric arc-lights installed in their ceilings powered by the same solar panels - because they are cutting off the sunlight,
the air inside enriched with CO2 to be purchased from 'carbon-capture' units 'capturing' CO2 from coal plants,
still kept running to make up for the power shortages,
from all the solar power being used to shine light and grow the crops.
Philip Bratby said
No it doesn't, nor does the earth. But the insulating effect of the snow and/or the atmosphere certainly makes whatever heat is present be retained. If we didn't have the natural greenhouse effect we'd be freezing our balls off.
In the case of the earth we get energy in through a transparent window. It gets converted to long wave and can't get out again.
In the case of the Eskimo. they generate heat internally (fire and certain physical activities) that can't escape the snow insulation and result in rather sultry conditions inside the igloo.
You would get the same effect with a couple of duvets and an excess of physical activity - if you were of the right age.
Philip Bratby said
Computer models are just models. They are not science.
I agree. But models are what scientists create to refine their views on processes.
The majority of models are in the hard physics area, Are you going to stand outside CERN protesting about their models being unrealistic? Why pick on climate scientists when you personally have zero competence in the subject of climate science modeling and/or nuclear physics modeling?
Why pick on climate scientists attempts at modelling?
Because they have made no attempt to validate their models?
Because their models produce mutually exclusive projections?
Because they don't even attempt to model the possibility of negative feedback?
I give up.
Are there better reasons for picking on climate scientists attempts at modelling?
Why pick on 'climate scientists'? Are you referring to the programmers, geographers, and occasional scientist, whose lack of humility and due respect for the scientific method has led them to encourage and assist wild extrapolations from grossly inadequate models deliberately set-up with a dramatic effect for CO2 which has not been confirmed by observation, nor indeed by undisputed theory nor common sense, nor even the hallowed laws of thermodynamics - extrapolations which have led to much avoidable suffering amongst the world's poorest people, and the diversion of potentially fabulous sums from sensible methods of power generation into silly ones, all the while harming our children's spirits with frightening tales of gloom and doom. Are those the ones you mean, Jerry?
@ Jerry 4:15pm
I am unsure what CERN model but am sure that they use expriment and observation in a well defined quest to look deeper into the nature of matter.
As far as climate scientists go, I am unsure what they model and so are they and with no experiment and observation in an apparent ill-concieved quest to find missing heat.
Choose another example that more closely fits climate scientists.
Jerry: I don't know why we are arguing about heat transfer!! But LW radiation does get out. It's the major way the earth loses the energy it gets from the sun in the form of SW.
How do you know I have zero competence in the subject of climate science modeling?
Comparing CERN models with climate models is a red herring. Only one of them is used to ruin our economy and tell me how to behave to prevent catastrophe for my grandchildren.
@ shub
Yep. Then as now, the campaign against acid rain was a surefire win for environmentalists because the main losers by what they wanted were
1/ farmers
2/ oil companies
3/ motorists
All of whom are groups the environmental movement actively loathes. As baddie Dick Jones says in Robocop: "I had a guarantee military sale with ED 209. Renovation program. Spare parts for 25 years. Who cares if it worked or not?"
Isn't it nice to know the UK government and public bodies have bought over 357 million tonnes of CO2 carnbon credits and offsets with TAXpayer money, from those nice approved banker types like JPMORGAN Chase and Barclays Capitial and others...
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/what%20we%20do/a%20low%20carbon%20uk/co2_off_setting/1_20100115105713_e_@@_aguidecarbonoffsettingen.pdf
Apparently the guidelines say buying an offset is a last resort, if unavoidable,,,
Personally, I think Gordon Brown's trip and Prince Charles trip to Copenhagen were unavoidable..
could have gone scheduled flight, or even shared a private jet (less emmissions)
but no, they say that carbon offsets were bought....
naughty, going against government guidelines...
do they care..
But models are what scientists create to refine their views on processes
Indeed they are and as such are incredibly valuable. But the key words are that the model is intended to help understand the processes. This means that if the model fails to predict the real world data then the process understanding which was used to build the model is deficient and as a consequence further process investigation and subsequent modelling is necessary.
In the current Climate Models there appears to be a tendency to a) assume the real world data must be wrong when the model doesn't agree b) to fiddle with the constants in the model to make it produce a better agreement, even when there is no real scientific understanding of why that particular constant needs to be changed in that direction.
Climate modelling is very valuable and should be pursued to provide all of us with a better understanding of the climate, however the current simplistic models (compared to the complex system being modelled) are not useful enough to make predictions or projections of the future nor to guide particular policies.
@phinniethewoo,
"Watched asteroids program yday: far more important to build asteroid warning system. And a self sustaining moon base to stock biodiversity. and a couple of mars missions to make robots and replicators build a selfsustaining livelihood there. instead of cap and trade."
I am not sure I agree with you on importance but it could well be cheaper ;(
OTT
Interesting article on the Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/09/proper_glacier_estimate/
Sorry to put this here but I never seem able to get the contact page to work.
ivan
BBD
imagine a white ball on the same path as earth , but this one with a 3 times denser atmosphere, all nasty CO2 molecules : you tell me , with your fancy GCM simulations: What's the temperature of the white ball?
we take it from there.
'But models are what scientists create to refine their views on processes'
As far as I can tell they are used as 'proxies' to avoid doing any actual science as well. Y'know things like experiments and verification and measurements n'stuff.
After all, why should we bother doing anything so grubby and menial - we are Climate Scientists and so have a perfect understanding of all aspects of the climate system, so our models MUST be right. Spending time doing experiments to check this would be just a waste of our valuable and important time. Don't you know we've got a planet to save, conferences to jet off to, papers to publish and big IPCC reports to write?
And people wonder why I'm a sceptic.........
"But the insulating effect of the snow and/or the atmosphere certainly makes whatever heat is present be retained."
So, turn the actual heat source down = igloo useless for warmth
Turn the actual heat source down = C02 is irrelevant.
Andrew
ok i am not saying the balls in question have a better capacity retaining heat. after all CO2 is a fire retardant for some reason. but heat capacity is utterly trivial in this discussion.
kindly note that earth is spinning and its heated atmosphere with all the calorific gimmickery inside, is facing black night ,minus 270 degrees celsius, for 12hours a day.
now, if you stop internal heating in the balls, heat equation solutions will show you declining temperatures towards their colour temperature, and due to their mostly exponential behaviour, the faster so in the beginning.
Anyway, put another way, even if you buy into the C02 propaganda, if the world wants to get colder... it's gonna get colder.
Andrew
co2 is *not* a greenhouse gas for earth.
There IS no greenhouse effect on earth.
That's why you cannot measure it, btw, for the last 10 years ,the only 10 years we can measure any global temperatures accurately bw. no rise in temperature. (this allthough CO2 discharge has been constantly going up)
measurements should prove theories, not inclinations of tweed clad professor calculuses in fancy institutes.
phiniethewoo
You state:
'co2 is *not* a greenhouse gas for earth.
There IS no greenhouse effect on earth.'
I'm sorry, but I am not prepared to enter into discussion with you on this basis. Your position is neither rational nor supported by any body of evidence. Hence, pointless to 'debate'.
If you go back to the first page of this thread I explain exactly what I think about the role of CO2 in the climate system. You could take a look, have a think, take a deep breath and come back with something a tad more balanced.
BBD
well i gave you a rational argument (it is cooling , despite the never so high CO2 level in the atmosphere)
But that rational argument seems a pearl for the proverbial swine ?
A ball smack FULL of CO2 in the same trajectory of Gaia..how hot would that ball be, BBD ?
There's a "body of evidence" for you.
I do like the following statement from MacKay:
"Is the warming “tending to accelerate”? Here, I definitely agree with you that there is no clear evidence that warming is “accelerating”, but equally there is also no clear evidence that it isn’t."
I thought it might be interesting to substitute something else for "tending to accelerate"? such as "due to aliens"?
We then get the following sentence:
"Is the warming “due to aliens”? Here, I definitely agree with you that there is no clear evidence that warming is “due to aliens”, but equally there is also no clear evidence that it isn’t."
Absence of evidence for something is a pretty poor way to conduct an argument in favour of something.
Credit to the late Michael Crichton, of course.
Phinnie
You're not making the remotest bit of sense.
I am of course a bit schematic in the colours discussion.
Replace white/black with the "full averaged radiation spectrum" as you wish..
but the simplification will not hide the underlying physics of global warming , if there were one.
Sure the physics of the energetic balance of the balls been pumped up (=warming) does not need butterfly effects and fancy chaos solutions ..
BBD
first you ignore, then you laugh: when will you argue ?
Or better: when will the character assassination tactics kick in ?
I have neither ignored you nor laughed at you.
I asked you to
- go back in this thread and read my earlier comments
- say something cogent with which I can engage
You have done neither and you are complaining that I am at fault.
You state - incorrectly - that albedo is the dominant feedback determining mean surface (?) temperature. You have previously said that CO2 cannot influence T because it is colourless. You assert that there is no greenhouse effect but cite no supporting evidence for your claim.
What am I supposed to do?
Agree with you?
Phinnie
Are you talking about Snowball Earth (Late Proterozoic glaciation)?
If your are, then I can see where you are coming from. With a planetary albedo approaching 1 the strength of the positive feedback locks climate into the deep freeze.
The question is - how did it get out again?
I read from you only some pathetic waffling about chaotic feedback etc, did i miss something sentient?
albedo waffling: well there is not much else for a ball to do but to either absorb or reflect the radiation , is there? What would there be? some chaotic internal whooping about exciting lots of things especially institutionalists and "scientists" and then erm reflect or erm absorb the crap back.
BBD it got out again with a big volcano
check out the dust it spawns, and its colour.
there are big volcanoes around.
Great credit to both David Mackay and Matt Ridley for conducting an exchange of views in such a respectful way. I sense that Mackay, would be a happier man if he could only speak freely, without the 'duty' obligated by his position, to defend the establishment dogma. It has almost reached the point of farce when the substantiation of AGW has now to hinge on speculative comparison to natural events in the pre-Neogene geological record, when the distribution of continental plates, seas and oceans, oceanic/atmospheric circulation systems, tectonic and volcanic activity was wildly different to today.
The geological record is of course nothing but a kaleidoscope of changing environments, with virtually every zone of every stage and every formation marked by fossil extinctions. So the scope is limitless for climate alarmism. Grants, papers in quality journals, free publicity, if you are so disposed to accuse CO2 as a possible pariah culprit responsible for a natural runaway warming, oceanic anaerobic acidification, mass extinction, or similar, the worse the better.
Here is the abstract of a recent paper (Dera et al. Journal of the Geological Society; 2010; v. 167; issue.1; p. 21-33) on the Toarcian ‘event’ Mackay was referring to. Note that the cause of the event remains somewhat speculative, but no matter, the choice of phraseology emphasises stress and disturbance and is full of subliminal climate/environment alarm innuendo.
'The Pliensbachian–Toarcian interval was marked by major environmental disturbances and by a second-order mass extinction. Here, we reappraise the taxonomic, spatiotemporal and selective dynamics of extinctions over the whole interval, by analysing a high-resolution dataset of 772 ammonite species from NW Tethyan and Arctic domains. On average, 40–65% of ammonite species disappeared during each subchronozone, but higher extinction pulses (reaching 70–90%) prevailed from the Margaritatus to the Dispansum Chronozone. The main extinctions, corresponding to the Gibbosus, Pliensbachian–Toarcian boundary, Semicelatum, Bifrons–Variabilis, and Dispansum events, differed in their dynamics, suggesting episodes of ecological stress related to climate change, regression, disturbance in the carbon cycle or anoxia. The multi-pulsed volcanic activity in the Karoo–Ferrar province could well have triggered these ecological changes. In addition, ammonites experienced a morphological bottleneck during the Gibbosus event, 1 Ma before the Early Toarcian diversity collapse. Typically, drops in richness were related both to high extinctions and to declines in origination rates. This feature could result from strengthened ecological stresses related to the temporal overlap of environmental disturbances. After the Early Toarcian crisis, the recovery of ammonites was rapid (2 Ma) and probably influenced by a coeval marine transgression.'
Phinnie says:
'I read from you only some pathetic waffling about chaotic feedback etc, did i miss something sentient?'
Possibly yes.
'albedo waffling: well there is not much else for a ball to do but to either absorb or reflect the radiation , is there? What would there be? some chaotic internal whooping about exciting lots of things especially institutionalists and "scientists" and then erm reflect or erm absorb the crap back.'
This is confusing. Does 'chaotic internal whooping' refer to the climate system?
'BBD it got out again with a big volcano
check out the dust it spawns, and its colour.
there are big volcanoes around.'
Volcanism might have ended the Late Proterozoic glaciation but there's no evidence for the absolutely massive level of activity that would have been necessary to alter surface albedo in the way you suggest.
Pharos - thanks for your comment. Interesting and cogent.
Guideline for Scientific Modellers; when observed data disagrees with your model, change the latter.
Guideline for Climate Modellers; as above but replace the last word with "former"
BBD
no evidence volcanoes might change the climate? duh.
have a look how many cube km dust Yellowstone would spawn in the air and blacken the atmosphere. duh.
wooping about refers to "climate" indeed.
The relentless confounding of and incapability of discerning/defining a dynamic system without a love affair with the Ghosts inside you think you understand is annoying in the end.
we can talk a lot about that activity inside that minute layer film called atmosphere and its lmid/long term behaviour ("climate") .
In the end what you have is a ball which get shone some light upon.
the energy balance follows from that light bookkeping, only. we do not need professor calculuses
with fancy ideas how to solve Navier Stoke equations.
Simples.
Fair enough, Phinnie. Have it your way.
Simples.
BBD
is this the prose that should have enlightened me?
thanks.
I feel all geared up now.
or probably not.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawns
An interesting dialogue between BBD and PTW. Thanks guys.
I'm eminently disqualified to make a comment about the arguments that you two have posed.
But. I was moved by the unfunded, informed and passionate nature that two guys, pretty much on the same/sane side, clearly demonstrated.
Now both of you may be wrong, one may be right or any other combination may be possible.
Don't care! You two are doing that which has underpinned the Scientific Method for centuries.
You're arguing, seeing to find fault in the opponents viewpoint and you're going at each other like a pair
of "young" rutting stags.
If, only, our political brokers had half your testeroidals we'd be happier chappies.
Bad Andrew said
I assume you are asking to turn down geothermal energy or solar output? Pray explain how this is to be achieved?
PTW
"earth is spinning and its heated atmosphere with all the calorific gimmickery inside, is facing black night ,minus 270 degrees celsius, for 12hours a day"
I've often thought that this doesn't get much attention. If it gets hotter, for whatever reason, it must cool down faster when the heat source is removed. Cold nights in the desert would seem to confirm...
DM said: "it’s easy to imagine a headline of ‘sea level rise has been exaggerated, new report says it will be as little as 0.28 m’"
That's the last thing I would expect to see in the MSM - they usually prefer to do the exaggerating themselves!
@ RoyFOMR
Glad you found it interesting. I found PTW's inability to frame an argument of any kind rather frustrating. Unintentionally he characterises his own incoherence perfectly:
'The relentless confounding of and incapability of discerning/defining a dynamic system without a love affair with the Ghosts inside you think you understand is annoying in the end.'
I had to go to bed in the end. With a head-ache.
ooh how cute: the character assassination attempt , at last.
what I meant to write is that most scientific discourse on global warming fails to define the dynamic system they're in , and seperate measurements from theories and feelings.
It most of the time looks like chickens without a head running around saying things about "albedo" , "clouds and feedback" etc etc
Whenever navier Stokes is been used I know it is time to check out.
I just wonder when economic policies are gonna be described with Navier Stokes?
After all , economy is run by people, and if you look inside people it is blood vessels where a fluid , blood, is jerking through the system.. Of course this can only be described well with Navier Stokes !
so my argument is that most of the arguments read is just scraping together slogans formulas and half baked theories (like Fourier's greenhouse hunches) and throwing them in a report, preferably with many 1000s of pages so you are sure nobody reads it and there is always something to grab whenever you are criticised on it.
if CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there must be simplified models that show how it works for a planet.
take a non rotating one, leave out colour effects from other materials, prove a CO2 balll gets hot in space.