Bishop Hill Stern's nut graph
May 17, 2012 Climate: WG2 We had an interesting chat a couple of weeks ago about the way the noble Lord Stern had portrayed the effects on climate change on wheat yields. However, alongside his wheat graph is another graph portraying a similar effect of raised temperatures on ground nuts (click for full size).
;)
The cited paper, Vara Prasad et al (2001), is not online, but the abstract is here. Unlike the wheat paper, Vara Prasad appears to look only at the effects of temperature on groundnuts and Stern's graph seems to reflect the abstract pretty much exactly.
One question that occurs to me, based on the abstract, relates to the temperatures applied to the plants. Apparently, elevated temperatures were applied during the daytime. Of course, temperatures are not constant over the course of a day - they start and end the day much lower than the midday maximum. I wonder therefore whether the experiment was realistic to the extent that it reflected some kind of a daily temperature profile. Presumably the effect of hitting temperatures of say 38°C for a couple of hours in the middle of the day is different to a 12-hour baking at that temperature. Without seeing the full paper it's hard to reach a conclusion.
Despite the Vara Prasad paper not looking at the effects of CO2 on peanuts, this is still a question that is worth examining. Fortunately, there is the excellent CO2Science website, which collates the results of studies into this question.
Here's the page for peanuts.
|
300 ppm
|
600 ppm
|
900 ppm
|
|
| Number of results |
38
|
|
1
|
| Arithmetic mean |
60.3%
|
|
35%
|
| Standard error |
16.1%
|
|
0%
|
It looks as though there is a very strong compensatory effect from carbon dioxide fertilisation.
Reader Comments (84)
May 17, 2012 at 10:03 PM | Streetcred
WWF and Oxfam are also advocacy organisations like Heartland, and I agree they should not be treated any differently if they say innaccurate things. I criticise them too, for example see my remarks about an Oxfam report on page 17 of this report of mine.
May 17, 2012 at 9:15 PM | Don Keiller
Hi Don
Well I suppose I could have added an extra caveat to my original comments about FACE, but I think it's a point of detail - I made it quite clear (eg: 12:15 PM) that I agreed with the overall point that CO2 physiological effects are important and should not be ignored.
Shame you've changed your mind about being an expert reviewer. I don't think you'd be wasting your time - in AR4, quite a lot of Vincent Gray's review comments were accepted, and IIRC it was Vincent who prompted IPCC to stop using "Model Validation" and use "Model Evaluation" instead.
However, it's obviously your choice, and anyway my life will be easier if there are fewer review comments for me to deal with, so I won't attempt to persuade you! :-)
Cheers
Richard
May 17, 2012 at 11:28 PM | Richard Betts
WWF and Oxfam are also advocacy organisations like Heartland, and I agree they should not be treated any differently if they say innaccurate things.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Well then, that brings me to the IPCC which is infested with WWF operatives ... the IPCC reports therefore fall squarely in the propaganda basket. Never mind Heartland, the claimed science in IPCC reports is significantly corrupted by the influence of WWF political activists.
Streetcred
Sorry, no, I was an IPCC lead author in AR4 and again in AR5 and my direct personal experience does not support what you claim.
propagandists like Heartland"
I hope your politics aren't affecting your science. ;)
Andrew"
Propagandists indeed, witness their witless Unabomber billboard.
Advertising happens.
"Streetcred
Sorry, no, I was an IPCC lead author in AR4 and again in AR5 and my direct personal experience does not support what you claim."
May 18, 2012 at 12:49 AM | Richard Betts
I thought it was well accepted that there were many examples of WWF 'Advocacy' as you call it referenced in the AR4 report. ie from Donna's site http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.ca/2010/01/more-dodgy-citations-in-nobel-winning.html
LOL:
18 May: UK Telegraph: Britain colder than Arctic and Antarctic with just two weeks until summer
Britain is colder than winter as the country faces a late spring washout weekend – as it emerged parts of the Arctic and Antarctic are warmer than Britain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9272469/Britain-colder-than-Arctic-and-Antarctic-with-just-two-weeks-until-summer.html
Richard Betts’ contributions here are invaluable, but I think they could be more nuanced. For example, in my own paper Climate Change and Food Production (at www.timcurtin.com) I show some regression results on world cereal production since 1961 relative to increasing atmospheric CO2 [i.e. CO2] levels. It cannot be denied that all food crops embody some carbon derived via photosynthesis from [CO2], and that the huge increases in production since 1960 embody [CO2] at least pro rata (offset at the end of the annual cycle by respiration etc) but repeated year after year.
There is accordingly no evidence for the assumption in most if not all the GCMs mentioned by Richard, and especially in the IPCC’s favourite MAGICC, that uptakes of [CO2] by all plants cannot continue the strong growth evident since 1961. Thus MAGICC (based on Wigley et al 1992) explicitly assumes that future uptakes of [CO2] by photosynthesis will conform to the hyperbolic rectangular model of Michaelis-Menten, whereby they will sooner than later reach a peak and never increase again.
Maybe, but from 1961 to 2007 we observed a 145% increase in annual CO2 emissions, only a 21% increase in [CO2], a discrepancy that is largely a result of total annual terrestrial uptakes (up by 231%, mostly by NPP on land), including a 166% increase just in global cereal production (of which around 40% constitutes carbohydrates), so excluding all other crops and vegetation including oil palm and timber. Such data are a reality check on the FACE experiments cited by Richard.
This comment on WUWT is very relevant. If true it shows AR5 already has at its heart a major additional fraud - the 'missing heat' introduced by Trenberth et. al. in the 2009 Energy Budget: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/trenberths-missing-heat-still-missing-new-paper-shows-a-flat-ocean-temperature-trend-0-09c-over-the-past-55-years/
’Tonyb…….You read it here first, but I suspect that in AR5 Trenberths missing heat in the abyssal depths will be taken as established fact. Why do I think that?
I was an ‘expert reviewer’ on the Ar5 draft.
In the chapter on sea levels and temperatures was a piece saying that research showed this abyssal warming was well established.
When I asked for this piece of research the IPCC told me I needed a citation from the draft and they would supply it. After a lot of toing and froing over what was only an assertion but not a citation (with a reference number) they said that without a citation they couldn’t supply the established research. But as it was merely an assertion without a citation I couldnt of course give the citation and correponding reference number….This went on for a month. So expect to see this abyssal warming as an established fact.’
If anyone cares to do detailed study they will find that the equation of state for water explains why the only place you can get heat to 'penetrate the ocean abyss' is underneath fast melting ice, a very large volume indeed.
Richard
I never suggested that Heartlands' NIPPC report was a model of perfection. There is a lot of good science both in the NIPPC report and, indeed in the IPPC report. And in both cases wrapped up in a propaganda cover.
But, seriously, have you ever given a fleeting thought to the disparity between the resouces that go into the two reports? You probably think that's just as well because we're all flat earthers on here or over at Heartland, as that scientific luminary Gordon Brown put it. Whereas the IPPC reports are absolute models of dispassionate and balanced boffinry, carefully weighing uncertainties and probabilities at every step. Right?
Have you aslo ever considered how many pages of the IPPC report were read collectively by the MPs who passed the 2008 Climate Change Act into law? What do you reckon? A hundred pages? Ten? One? I would be amazed if even two paragraphs between the lot of them. I would be surprised if one percent of MPs had read even one percent of the tendentious and purely propagandistic Summary for Policymakers. A somewhat larger number will have browsed through the Grauniad's spin on the SfP or listened to the BBC's spin on the SfP. Yet they went on to nod through legislation which was uncosted at the time but which DECC have since said will cost £18.2 Billion pounds every year until 2050. And which will (by any reckoning) have absolutely no measurable effect whatever on climate.
Do you genuinely have no concerns about this situation? Are you entirely relaxed that your extremely well funded employer gets into bed with advocacy outfits like ZeroCarbonBritain 2030 whilst you come on here (full credit that you indeed do so) and snipe at Heartland for being predominantly about propaganda?
C'mon!!
Richard Betts, you said:
"but the CO2 Science website seems to focus on studies of plants subject to elevated CO2 inside chambers..."
Co2science.org were (still are?) very keen on reporting the FACE experiments, look through their indexed pages under 'F':
http://www.co2science.org/subject/f/subject_f.php
For most of the FACE topic subsections they have written a summary article - entitled 'summary' -I mention this because it is quite easy to overlook.
May 17, 2012 at 9:22 PM | Chas>>>>>
Isn't the whole AGW hypothesis bases on 100 year old laboratory tests with CO2 in an enclosure.
Sauce for the goose.....
Pharos,
How exciting. The link you provide no longer give us a paper on the effect of CO2 on Agriculture, but rather some fascinating tome on "the regionalisation of the Fire Service". This appears to be standard note number SN/SC/3766, even though you get it from the link to SN03763. You get this link even if you go back to all the briefing papers and search for agriculture and climate change. I wonder when that happened? Is Big Brother watching us? Can someone point us to the original note elsewhere, please?
May 18, 2012 at 12:49 AM | Richard Betts
Sorry, no, I was an IPCC lead author in AR4 and again in AR5 and my direct personal experience does not support what you claim.
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It is unfortunate then that your experience with the IPCC does not bring you into contact with the myriad of WWF activists identified by Donna Lafambriose. I would recommend that you reference her work, you might recognise some of the names. :)
replace "unfortunate" with "fo9rtunate" above. Ta.
Duh! ... "Fortunate" ... Tired, been out on the golf course in the warm winter sun Downunder.
Regarding Alice Springs, the latest GHCN monthly update has now totally reversed course and made the past warmer than the actual record, by about 1 degree.
It's a bit like a drunken old man meandering across the road. The new GHCN software introduced in Nov 2011 seems to have real problems as there have been many more examples such as this in the last few months.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/who-needs-thermometers-when-you-have-algorithms/
May 18, 2012 at 2:27 AM | Rob Burton
May 18, 2012 at 10:03 AM | Streetcred
I disagree that the citation of 16 reports published by WWF, or IPCC authors taking part in WWF's "Climate Witness Programme", constitutes being "significantly corrupted by the influence of WWF political activists".
On the citation of WWF reports:
Those are 16 citations out of thousands - a very small minority. Also, just because a report has been commissioned by WWF, this does not automatically mean it is not credible. Yes, it is far preferable to use peer-reviewed literature from a journal if the information exists there. However, if an important point is only made in "grey" literature such as a WWF report, then as long as the report is credible (ie: says where it's underpinning evidence is from, and that in itself if credible) then citation of grey literature is accepted. My team write reports for WWF and take great care to be objective and be clear about the uncertainties. Yes, I realise that a couple of the WWF citations in AR4 were dodgy, that was a bad mistake that could easily have been avoided and should definitely not be repeated, and the points in question (eg: Himalayan Glaciers 2035) should not have been given such high-profile in speeches, but it's still only a minority of the citations that are "dodgy WWF citations". (But I agree that even a minority is too much - in AR5 there is much more care being given to eliminating this).
On IPCC authors and the Climate Witness Programme:
I do in fact know many of the people identified by Donna, and I know that they are not "activists". They are scientists who (like me) are happy to advise WWF in order to make sure that what WWF says is scientifically sound. So it is IPCC scientists influencing WWF, not the other way round!
My team and I also provide scientific advisory services for "Big Oil" and mining multi-nationals on exactly the same footing that we do for WWF, ie: paid as consultants to provide objective scientific advice. By your logic, our work for oil and mining companies therefore means that IPCC has also been infiltrated by activists from the fossil fuel industry!
In my experience, this "WWF infiltrating the IPCC" meme is based on a very small amount of overlap between AR4 and WWF which in some (but not all) cases was inappropriate - it certainly should not be dismissed but equally should not be trumped-up as a major problem.
Cheers
Richard
May 18, 2012 at 5:59 AM | Tim Curtin
Hi Tim
Thank for your comment, and for sending me your paper.
We are talking slightly at cross-purposes here. The Bish's post was about crop yields and that was the focus of my comment on FACE, but you're talking about carbon uptake. I believe that FACE experiments still support strong carbon uptake in response to elevated CO2 up to the concentrations that have been studied so far, and if you read the paper I linked to, this fact is mentioned there.
I agree that there is a need for more study of responses to higher CO2 and whether the fertilization effect saturates or not, either at the concentrations currently studied or higher concentrations. I don't think the models assume it saturates any sooner than current experimental data suggests, but would be interested to see any papers that contradict me there.
The main point for global carbon cycle feedbacks is whether, at large scales, respiration (either autotrophic or heterotrophic) and other releases of carbon (eg: by fire) increase with temperature in the way that the models assume - this is a huge area of uncertainty.
Cheers
Richard
Anon
You're right. Very strange. But I got it back by googling the following and then clicking the quickview option
Agriculture and Climate Change Standard Note: SN/SC/3763
May 18, 2012 at 8:25 AM | Martin Brumby
Hi Martin
I very much doubt that the superficial nature of NIPCC reports compared to IPCC is down to the disparity in resources. One person can write clearly and set out tables and figures if they are so inclined, as long as the information is available. In my view, the reason that this is not done is because the depth of information simply isn't there, so they have to resort to padding it out with waffle!
However I would be very happy to be proved wrong and see a further NIPCC report which clearly and systematically laid out the evidence for, say, low climate sensitivity (perhaps by listing the relevant papers in a table along with their estimated climate sensitivity values), instead of having to dig through paragraphs of text in order to find that a top-level conclusion in the summary is essentially grounded in just a single paper from Lindzen, and even then not quite in the way that the original paper says. :-)
Cheers
Richard
Pharos,
Thanks - very curious. I will read the document with care.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/grape-glut-to-hit-hopes-of-rebound-for-wine-industry/story-e6frg8zx-1226073980953
Just watched The Apprentice on BBC I Player
This weeks Task was to promote English Sparkling wine
So i Googled Wine Production and Climate Change
Usual doom and gloom scare stories temperatures shooting up
Gives a shorter growing season
Jo Nova on her site hit back at Australian alarmists and the perceived threat to their wine industry
Seems logical that more CO2 the Grapes grow bigger and Quicker
But reading around the biggest threat to wine in Oz other than increased green taxes hitting transport costs BUT as in The EU and California is " Over Production "
"and I know that they are not "activists".
Would they or you admit it if they were?
Andrew
Stern's nut graph is a post-modern example par excellence. If you project the graph to intercept the Y-axis, it hits about 50%. I'm off to bed chuckling about plants that can have 50% of flowers, but not 100%. Do we have a post-modernist replacement of the familiar 100% by 50%?
BTW, if you seek to waste some time reading about the latest climate threat to Australia, it's in pre-publication at
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~sjphipps/publications/gergis2012.pdf
(This tip is the opposite of a paid commercial).
Richard, I know that you are more interested in the science than the politics, like many of us on this site but "..superficial nature of NIPCC reports compared to IPCC.." is advocacy and not science. Your main contribution on this site is advocacy based like most others. I'm advocating that your global warming theory is wrong in that it fits the data, observations, Earths history so badly that it can't possibly be correct. I also think the IPCC report is terribly writtten it looks like you don't have a professional editor in sight, let alone a team of professional editors necessary to make the IPCC report more readable and professional. It looks like it's been cobbled together buy thousands of amateur scientists... I'm a terrible writer myself so respect professionals who are good at it or naturally great writers like the Bishop himself.
I'm not against advocacy anyway. Your job title is 'Head of the Climate Impacts' so I would expect you to have an opinion that climate change has impacts. I would agree but just doubt the manmade bit. I wouldn't expect you to say that the climate isn't changing and doesn't have any impacts until you have your new career sorted out. I hope that privatising the Met Office will help moderate it's worst excesses.
I'm reminded of a 2nd hand anecdote from a former Reading colleague about an argument between 2 other Reading now Met Office colleagues about it being either 'All about the data' or 'All out about the models' that ended with the data guy walking out the pub ;-) I'm a data guy too, and especially against the million ways it gets tortured (by both 'sides') in this argument.
What proves Heartland is a propaganda organisation is not so much its work on climate change issues (except for the latest propaganda poster fiasco) but other activities.
When an organisation sides with the 'evil government' and campaigns to restrict the collective bargaining rights of the employees of the said 'evil government', as the Heartland have done according to some of their internal documents, then it clearly is a political propaganda organisation, and hardly libertarian.
"What proves Heartland is a propaganda organisation"
I think the more important question is not whether or not Heartland is a propaganda organisation, but whether or not the IPCC is. And I think we know the answer already.
Andrew
ptw
"I wonder what heated greenhouses will use when it all will run on windmills, lol"
It is a problem for unheated ones, eg. in Spain. The firm I used to work for used liquid CO2* which was expensive, but still worthwhile for the effect on yield. In the UK, they were exploring geothermal heat to replace gas and ran into the same problem. Perhaps we should all collect exhaust fumes...
*I know CO2 sublimates, but it can be liquid under pressure.
@Andrew_KY
Agreed. The IPCC should not be trusted any more than Heartland.
Does it not strike one as curious, indeed significant, that the two scientific professions with the greatest historical perspective (geologists) and greatest present day practical familiarity with climates (climatologists), should equate with those professional organisations who remain most sceptical about AGW? This is borne out by the associations listed under ' Non-committal statements' in the middle of the Wiki link below, and confirmed by the rather dismissive mention in the Doran survey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Non-committal_statements
I've read the Parliamentary briefing paper 'Agriculture and Climate Change' SN/SC/3763 and i'ts a bit patchy. On the one hand, Christopher Barclay cites the Guardian quoting a paper in Science:
"Half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages by the end of the
century as rising temperatures take their toll on farmers’ crops, scientists have warned.
Harvests of staple food crops such as rice and maize could fall by between 20% and
40% as a result of higher temperatures during the growing season in the tropics and
subtropics. Warmer temperatures in the region are also expected to increase the risk
of drought…according to a new study"
But then in the Focus on Crop section, the predictions for the UK yields are positive:
"Warmer temperatures and higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to higher yields of many crops currently grown in the UK ... (caveats follow).
Confidence Medium
Increase in wheat yields: between 40% and 140% by the 2050s, assuming other
factors affecting growth are not limiting (baseline: 1961-1990).
Increase in sugar beet yields: between 20% and 70% by the 2050s, assuming other
factors affecting growth are not limiting (baseline: 1961-1990)
Increase in grass yields: between 20% and 50% by the 2050s, assuming other factors
affecting growth are not limiting (baseline: 1970s-1990s)"
It would appear that Lord Stern's dire predictions form no part of current advice to Parliament.
@Anonymous
I can't get to the Agriculture and Climate Change note SN/SC/3763 because the link goes to a note about regionalisation of the fire services. Same thing happens even from another related note on the parliament.uk site - "How UK farmers could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions Standard Note: SN/SC/4340". If anyone knows how to break into this circle I'd appreciate a link.
Thanks fc
Filbert -
Pharos above (11:33 AM) provided the magic instructions for working around the bad link. I followed them to view the correct report.
Try this link.
@HaroldW - 1:56am
Many thanks
fc