Bishop Hill CC Question Time
Feb 14, 2011 Climate: other Economics Energy Tonight I was on the panel for a Climate Change Question Time at Strathclyde University, as part of their green week. As the lone sceptic on a panel of five I was somewhat apprehensive about the reception I would receive - one imagines booing and hissing and throwing of eggs - but it was actually all very congenial and polite. I was somewhat concerned to find myself agreeing at times with some of the other panellists, who included a green MSP, a LibDem, an ex-BBC weatherman and an environmental officer from business.
I thought it went quite well on the whole. I managed to tick off the LibDem for extolling the virtues of green jobs, which got a measure of agreement from others on the panel and a laugh from the audience, and I made some criticisms of the Stern report, which I hope may have opened some eyes.
Thanks are due to Linzi at Strathclyde University for inviting me and for organising a very interesting event.
Reader Comments (82)
I am sure there is enough wealth available to make all the poor of the world richer than they are now.
Neil seems to have disappeared now? It was interesting to see how little he seemed to know about the basics of climate theory and its relation to CO2 concentrations. Yet he was more than happy to follow the Beddington approach of calling everyone who is a little bit skeptical swivel-eyed and anti-scientific. That combination of (relative) ignorance, exaggerated credence given to the solidity of the consensus view, and de haut en bas dismissal of every argument from the skeptical side seems to be quite common. It is a big part of the problem in terms of moving the debate forward.
Neil's first comment started with a good point: "Despite what many may think, science does teach you to have an open mind and look at others views." I think that's true (although it is true of good education in general), and ultimately, I'm sure that global understanding of climate will map onto the underlying reality somewhat better. But on the other hand, even good scientists and other rational minded people only have time to be open-minded about a limited number of things on a given day. Currently, climate science does not seem to be high on the list of things to think about with an open mind for many scientists and policy experts. There are real policy implications involved with the speed with which the official viewpoint changes. How can we speed it up?
For someone like Neil to use the d-word and not have heard of climate-sensitivity is telling.
Even Al Gore, the inventor of the internet, has heard of climate sensitivity.
It is entirely another matter whether Al Gore understands what climate sensitivity is.
"It was interesting to see how little he [Neil] seemed to know about the basics of climate theory and its relation to CO2 concentrations."
I would take Neil as a classical example of what "scientists" know about AGW in general. Beyond the general idea that CO2 causes warming, they are unlikely to know that a doubling of CO2 is only suppose to cause ~1oC of warming and how the rest, a requirement for catastrophy, is generated.
I used to be in a similar boat to Neil. I saw a sceptic making a load of claims on the, now defunct, Channel 4 news forum and, prefering not to argue from a position of ignorance, decided to take a look so I could call his bluff. One of the first things I read was "Caspar and the Jesus Paper"...
Mac
Like I said to 'Neil the scientist' last night just before giving up and going to bed, he needs to do some reading. He claimed to 'understand the basic science of climate change' but had never heard of climate sensitivity, nor apparently does he understand that this is where the academic debate is.
Personally, I suspect him to be pretending to a little more scientific credibility than he actually possesses.
Either way, my advice to him stands: go and do some reading.
Then come back for a serious conversation. Otherwise it's just trolling really, isn't it?
Thanks to j for the perfect summary:
I am so sick of what you politely term 'de haut en bas dismissal' by the relatively ignorant that I am finding it difficult to remain polite in the face of it. That's why I walked away yesterday evening.
With regard to enough food to feed 12 billion, I wonder if they include the wheat, corn, and other grains converted into fuel?
The price of all grains is being driven up by ethanol production and even soy beans by "biodiesel". I think the Greens need to figure out if they drive their cars on ethanol and biodiesel or people get enough to eat.
I've also come across various estimates of both food production, and potential production, which points strongly to the fact that any foreseeable population can be fed if (and that is a rather enormous 'if') the political will is there to make the needed effort. I do think that one of the real tragedies of the resources wasted on 'Climate change' is that it stops us addressing real, solvable problems of poverty and deprivation in the world.
This does not even have to be in 'the third world'. If you took all the money wasted in this country by CC initiatives, and pocketed by the carbon traders and bankers, and used it to buy materials and pay builders to insulate every property in the land to current standards you'd spend less, you'd reduce power requirements by 10% and you'd keep the old and vulnerable warmer, safer, and with more money in their pockets. We'd all be better off. But no, it's the power companies and bankers raking it off and the least well off paying through the nose for power in poorly heated homes.
It makes me want to throw things, it really does.
Cumbrian Lad
Do as I have done: pick a council endorsing a preposterous FIT subsidy farm (in this case, solar PV financed by VC but paid for by all of us, most especially the poor and the elderly) and take the bastards on.
Hard work, but highly rewarding. Unfortunately it leaves me no time to be the devil's advocate proposed by Paul Boyce above. Have to leave that to Zed, who does pretty well when not annoyed.
I am wondering if someone here can help me out.
I know very little, but I have read a lot I even came across a climate scientist in the USA who reckons that the 2nd law of thermodynamics (or is it the 1st? law) is wrong and that heat can move from colder to hotter.
Anyway, here is what I am having a problem with.
Heat is the oscillation of atoms and molecules, right? I think that we can generally agree that volcanoes and internal Earth radioactivity etc can be ignored and that it is the Sun which provides the energy to oscillate the atoms of the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth, right? Is it not true also that when the source of energy is switched off, the oscillating atoms will gradually slow down - in the case of the atmosphere, quite quickly, in the case of rocks etc, more slowly, and in the case of the oceans, even more slowly. If the source of Energy is left switched off, all the atoms will stop oscillating and everything will become very, very cold.
Which leads me directly to my query: "What is the effect of night time on the atmospheric temperature?"
And, "If the temperature of the atmosphere becomes hotter, will not more heat energy (which originated from the Sun in the first place) be radiated away into space during the night?"
Perhaps these questions are too simple. I do not know. It is just that no one ever seems to mention the effects of night time and the slowing of atomic oscillations.
I've always been struck by the poor quality of the defenders of orthodoxy who contribute to sceptical sites. If there is all this high quality consensus science, and tens of thousands of scientists who both understand it and subscribe to it, then one would expect to see a few of them at sceptical blogs, arguing their case courteously and effectively. But one rarely sees one. Even at WUWT in comment overload mode, the non-troll defenders of orthodoxy mostly just cite the IPCC or Wikipedia, apparently unaware of the problematic nature of such citations. The only partial exception who comes to mind is Nick Stokes at CA -- but even he has his trollish moments (and those moments reduce his credibility when he really does have a good point to make).
I assume that many who lurk at sceptic sites are undecided on CAGW and looking to evaluate the quality of the arguments on both sides. Commenters like Neil and ZDB don't do their cause any favours by writing as they do. And Monbiot's volunteer troll hit-squad team is likewise insanely counterproductive.
Junican
I'm not sure if your question is too simple, but it's certainly not clear what it is you're asking. It is however not on topic for this thread, so if you'd like to take it over to 'unthreaded' I'm sure one of the sidesmen will be along shortly to help. Whilst you're awaiting that, consider that the earth is in fact a sphere, and even though the sun may not be shining upon us all the time here in Merrie England, our cousins in the antipodes are basking in his warming rays. Then consider the meaning of time averaging.
Junican,
Very briefly, because this is off-topic...
"I know very little, but I have read a lot I even came across a climate scientist in the USA who reckons that the 2nd law of thermodynamics (or is it the 1st? law) is wrong and that heat can move from colder to hotter."
The second law isn't wrong, but it doesn't quite say that. If it was impossible for heat to be moved from colder to hotter, refrigerators couldn't work. The two main confusions are that the second law does allow heat to go the other way if you input work to make it happen (a refrigerator has to have a power source), and more commonly, the second law only talks about the *net* transfer of heat. This is a problem when explaining how radiation works. All bodies above absolute zero radiate energy, the hotter they are, the more they radiate. So if you put a hot body and a cold body next to each other, more heat flows from the hot body to the cold than from the cold to the hot, satisfying the second law, but there *is* a non-zero flow from the cold to the hot. It's not that the second law is wrong, but it *is* commonly misunderstood.
The amount of heat radiated depends on the temperature, and because it is colder at night, less heat is radiated away at night than during the day. But if the temperature generally gets warmer, the heat radiated both night and day will increase too.
It's worth noting that according to the records night-time minimum temperatures have risen faster than the daytime maximum. But the reasons for this are complicated, and has a lot to do with the urban heat island effect, and convection effects. It's not purely to do with radiation. Roger Pielke Snr has done a lot of work on the night-time boundary layer, if you're interested, but it might be better to work up to that gradually. (Unfortunately, most of the links I've got to his papers are dead, since he moved sites.)
Found it.
Here's an example where Roger talks about some issues to do with night time cooling, which is *fairly* readable.
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/r-345.pdf
But I do need to find a more reasonable 'layman's guide' to the issue - that doesn't fudge the science, but explains it in simple terms. The above is a bit too technical, still. Basically, the message is that it's a more complicated issue than simple radiation to space.
Terrific answers, NiV and others, thank you.
Thank you for your reply, NIV. I have copied your ref and will read it at my leisure.
The person whom I was referring to as regards the 'cold to hot' radiation did indeed posit an external power source - an electric heat source heating a plate (in a sealed situation) which then heated a nearby unheated) plate which re-radiated to the first plate and caused an increase in the temp of that plate. I was thinking about 'open' and 'closed' systems.
Thank you again.
Junican
This discussion reminds me of a little thought experiment our Physics teacher set us at school. If you place two parabolic mirrors facing each other and put a lump of ice at the focus of one mirror and a thermometer at the focus of the other what happens to the thermometer reading? Why?
Dreadnought.
Assuming that the system is closed, and that the mirrors themselves are discounted and that the whole system is in a vacuum chamber, I would have thought that an equalisation of temperatures would occur between the thermometer and the ice. I am not sure what the reading of the thermometer might be since other factors enter, such as pressure and contraction.
Go on. Tell me?
Paul
Thanks for self-correcting on the Shub name! :) I am assuming you know it refers to Shub Niggurath - mythical beast in HP Lovecraft stories. I encountered it first in the computer game Quake.
I agree with you. A bunch of us should become warmists and start some quality trolling.
Oh..........and I should also have thanked Cumbrian Lad. Thank you.
But I have a problem. I have been looking for THE THREAD. As far as I can see, the Bish simply reported on a meeting that he attended. Earlier commenters congratulated him and then, gradually, a discussion ensued which became more and more complex. So, unless I am missing something, I do not understand what 'the thread' means - unless it means where the discussion is at at any particular time. Am I therefore introducing a new thread? And am I in the wrong to do so?
I am not sure whether or not Cumbrian Lad was sneering. Erm....I know that the Earth is a sphere and I know that when it is dark in the UK it is light 'down below'. I don't know how I know this - somebody must have told me.
As regards time averages, I assume that he is talking about something like the averaging out of accelerations and decelerations during the course of a journey in order to arrive at an average speed. But, there again, he might be talking about time dilation and distance contraction a la relativity theory for all I know.
I still think that night time and day time are important. After all, surfacetemperature on the Moon have been observed to rise to plus 107 degrees C in the (moon) day and fall to minus 153 degrees C during the (moon) night. In fact, the moon temps have been observed to rise to a maximum of plus 123 degrees C in the day and fall as low as a minimum of minus 233 degrees C during the night. Minus 233 degrees is not a lot away from absolute zero. I have also read that the these changes in temperature of the surface of the moon happen very rapidly after 'sundown'. If follows from the above that two things happen at 'sundown' on the Moon: a) the oscillation of atoms in the surface material of the Moon slows down very rapidly, and b) that the base energy state of the atoms comes close to absolute minimum after, say, 7 days of night time.
It also follows that, as regards the Moon, the 'heat' (electromagnetic energy) radiates away into space. But I have problems with understanding what actual material bodies 'drain' the heat form the Moon since there are none in its immediate vicinity. It must therefore be true, in simple terms, that the Energy supplied by the Sun, which changes the base energy state of the atoms (and causes the oscillation of the atoms), simply radiates away as the atoms fall into their base energy state. The influence of Space is simply not to resist that radiation.
I worries me that climatologists are not indicating to ALL THE PEOPLE that heat is atomic. That the heat which we create by burning fossil fuels is only temporary - it very quickly radiates away. The only important thing is the residue of the burning. That comes down to CO2 gasses.
And now we come to 'open' and 'closed' systems.
As I said above, Space is only important that it does not resist radiation (with the speed of light as a limiting factor). So, we can say that, during the day on the Earth, we have an 'open' system - that is, that the Sun can radiate heat on the Earth and affect the Earth. During the night, however, the Earth becomes a 'closed' system - the traffic of heat is one way - radiation away through unresisting Space as atoms fall back to their natural base state.
There is only one thing that bothers me, and that is that I do not know whether or not the atoms in CO2 can retain heat energy in the same way that water can. That I do not know and I would be obliged if anyone can advise me.
Junican, My point was that the sun is always shining on the earth, there is never a point when it is switched off. The earth always has a (more or less) constant amount of radiation incident upon it, even though that radiation may be striking different parts of the globe at any given time. Unlike the moon we also have a good layer of atmosphere and a usefully fast rotation, both of which help to average out the temperature changes. Yes, the moon's surface can reach low temperatures since it enjoys neither of the two benefits given. We are protected from that by our atmosphere, including (and lets be grateful for its presence!) CO2 which does absorb (and re-radiates!) and this helps keep us cosy.
Junican
The thermometer reading will fall (fairly rapidly) to zero centigrade. There are two heat sources involved and both are radiating. The ice, which is only relatively cold, and the thermometer. The point of the exercise was, of course, to get us thinking in terms of exchanges and net flows.
Answers involving 'radiant cold' were marked down.
Shub - so you're one of Cthulhu's lot are you?
I bet not many people know that.
Interesting, Dreadn. I was fearful that I was missing something which would have the effect of sending the thermometer temperature sky high, or something! A good little puzzle.
There was an obituary today in the Daily T for Willi Dansgaard who died on Jan8th. He was the chap who realised that the ice caps held within them a history of the Earth's temperature for eons of time. Here is a quote: "D.. had been chipping away at the ice cap [in Greenland] a few hundred feet at a time, but the [American] Army had a drill that could go down thousands of feet.........and before long the team had drilled several miles down to bedrock" How soon did they say that the icecaps would melt?
You see, I am not a ‘denier’; not even a ‘sceptic’, really. What worries me is the hysteria.
Paul,
I am one of 'Cthulhu's lot', yes. :)
Junican
Apologies for arriving so very late here. Have you had a look at Science of Doom? It is an excellent, if moderately technical site that provides detailed answers to your questions. Please don't be put off by the name. The author is level-headed and commendably honest (and no, I don't know him!)
http://scienceofdoom.com/
Jane Coles:
This is really worth thinking about. Neil came on here apparently with some kind of scientific background, confident of AGW and his ability to defend it, having heard Andrew and the others at the debate. But he didn't know the term climate sensitivity or the concept. And it seems awareness of this kind of gap only made him become abusive - which, to be fair, he wasn't to start with. This I find genuinely shocking.
A similar moment for me was when I attended the debate between Monbiot and Delingpole at Free Word early in December 2009. Arising out from the concern of the admirable groups based there (like English PEN) about censorship, it was meant to be about whether it was OK to compare climate sceptics with Holocaust deniers, as Monbiot once had. Not surprisingly, two weeks after Climategate it inevitably also became a debate about this 'game changer', as James described it. But what shocked me was the anger of a fair proportion of the audience (and the place was packed) at the 'deniers' whose behaviour was going to cause disaster - in a crowd where perhaps half were sceptics.
There are two camps who don't really interact with each other and don't mix. The liberal media types at Free Word fourteen months ago, some of whom I admired in other spheres, had many of them bought into the AGW story with a real passion. Talking to a few afterwards I didn't find anyone who had any grasp of why sceptics have questions about the science.
I think the only explanation is that of Richard Lindzen - at the centre of this malarkey there really is nothing at all. They set out to prove dangerous warming around 1988 and 22 years and hundreds of billions later they have found absolutely nothing - hence the range of possible sensitivities cited by the IPCC remains as large as ever. (If there had been any progress the gap would have narrowed considerably.)
It's going to take a while for such a mania to work its way out of the system. I hope without violence.
Richard Drake
WRT detection and attribution since 1988, I think it would be safer to say that the increase in GATA is there and some anthropogenic contribution is probable. I doubt that it's all CO2. As per Roger Pielke Snr, I suspect that black carbon and land use change have played significant roles under-represented in the consensus.
Which brings us smartly back to climate sensitivity and the never-narrowing uncertainty.
And the central reason why it is not on for one tribe to claim for itself the 'true knowledge' and the assumed moral ascendency that comes with it.
Richard Drake: "at the centre of this malarkey there really is nothing at all"
Yes, I agree. I wonder whether future historians of science will write about the CAGW movement. Or whether they will simply take the view that it belongs outside their field.
What I wrote now seems ambiguous:
I was talking about the orthodoxy, not the rest of us ;-)
Oh such fun.
I just now followed the link from a new thread to this one. I must say that it is shocking (although no longer surprising) to watch the professed scientist "Neil" display no aptitude or proficiency at discussing any scientific matter.