Skeie et al at ESD

The Skeie et al paper, which helped kick off all the interest in low climate sensitivity when it was still in draft form, is now in open peer review at Earth System Dynamics:

The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is constrained based on observed near-surface temperature change, changes in ocean heat content (OHC) and detailed radiative forcing (RF) time series from pre-industrial times to 2010 for all main anthropogenic and natural forcing mechanism. The RF time series are linked to the observations of OHC and temperature change through an energy balance model and a stochastic model, using a Bayesian approach to estimate the ECS and other unknown parameters from the data. For the net anthropogenic RF the posterior mean in 2010 is 2.1 W m⁻² with a 90% credible interval (C.I.) of 1.3 to 2.8 W m⁻², excluding present day total aerosol effects (direct + indirect) stronger than −1.7 W m⁻². The posterior mean of the ECS is 1.8 °C with 90% C.I. ranging from 0.9 to 3.2 °C which is tighter than most previously published estimates. We find that using 3 OHC data sets simultaneously substantially narrows the range in ECS, while using only one set and similar time periods can produce comparable results as previously published estimates including the heavy tail in the probability function. The use of additional 10 yr of data for global mean temperature change and ocean heat content data narrow the probability density function of the ECS. In addition when data only until year 2000 is used the estimated mean of ECS is 20% higher. Explicitly accounting for internal variability widens the 90% C.I. for the ECS by 60%, while the mean ECS only becomes slightly higher.

Apparently it was originally submitted to Journal of Climate, so presumably it had the usual rough ride there.

[Updated: I originally thought the paper was in print, but it's actually just open peer review]

Diary dates

Readers in the South-West of England will not want to miss the opportunity to hear prominent Tory environmentalist Oliver Letwin and a bunch of other greens discussing climate change.

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Now why didn't I think of that?

Tim Worstall has been pondering the argument over how much fracking Lancashire will affect gas prices, and in particular the Greenpeace argument that it will only bring them down by a few percentage points.

As Tim points out, we've all been missing something here:

Think...about what the basic statement being made here is.

They're actually saying that all gas in Europe, for all European consumers, will be 4% lower as a result of fracking Lancashire. That's 500 million people save 4% of their power bills (yes, the reports do indeed say that electricity will be cheaper as well given the use of gas to generate it).

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A review of gas well emissions

Writing at The Energy Collective blog, Steve Everley reviews the scientific evidence to support the idea that gas wells produce significant leaks of fugitive methane and finds that it is vastly outweighed by evidence that they don't.

• Cornell Univ.: “Using more reasonable leakage rates and bases of comparison, shale gas has a GHG footprint that is half and perhaps a third that of coal.”

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An Epistle from Balcombe - Josh 234

Let's hope the wonderful letter from Alison Stevenson, Chairman of the Balcombe Parish Council, will get some attention from both the 'No dash for Gas' protestors at Balcombe and the mainstream media. Slim chance, of course, but one has to do one's bit.

Click the image for a slightly larger version

Cartoons by Josh

Balcombe parish chairman tells protestors to frack off

This just in from the Balcombe Parish Council:

...At a public meeting held last Friday evening [No Dash for Gas] sought to justify such actions on the grounds that the company that is drilling is acting illegally and that in consequence illegal actions to stop it are justified. This is quite simply not the case.  Like it or not, the drilling operation is entirely legal.  All the necessary permissions and permits have been sought and are in place.

• Thirdly the  group seeks to legitimize such actions by saying that whatever is done is in response to Balcombe residents’ call for help. This is just not true.

So here it is. Balcombe strongly opposes any actions which may be taken which involve civil trespass and/or illegal acts. And I further state this, if the No Dash for Gas group is coming here in the full knowledge that it intends to break the law then it should stay away. It is not wanted in Balcombe! It is duly uninvited.

Alison Stevenson

Chairman

Balcombe Parish Council

More Kahya

I'm somewhat intrigued by Damian Kahya's article on shale gas - the one I mentioned briefly yesterday. According to a tweet from Kahya it's unclear if Poyry were discussing the effect of Lancashire shale or European shale on prices. I don't know about you, but I found the text fairly clear - they were discussing the effects of Lancashire shale. Don't get me wrong, I don't think shale exploitation will cause a price collapse as it did in the USA, but an increase in supply will presumably have some effect.

On the same subject, here are some other things that Kahya had to say about shale prices.

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Von Storch: models are falsified

Roddy Campbell points us to this discussion paper by Hans von Storch et al, which looks at the divergence between climate models and observations:

In recent years, the increase in near-surface global annual mean temperatures has emerged as considerably smaller than many had expected. We investigate whether this can be explained by contemporary climate change scenarios. In contrast to earlier analyses for a ten-year period that indicated consistency between models and observations at the 5% confidence level, we find that the continued warming stagnation over fifteen years, from 1998 -2012, is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level. Of the possible causes of the inconsistency, the underestimation of internal natural climate variability on decadal time scales is a plausible candidate, but the influence of unaccounted external forcing factors or an overestimation of the model sensitivity to elevated greenhouse gas concentrations cannot be ruled out. The first cause would have little impact of the expectations of longer term anthropogenic climate change, but the second and particularly the third would.

That seems quite important to me. Note also that "the heat's all in the deep oceans" doesn't seem to be on the table as an explanation.

On geography

Cuadrilla commissioned Poyry to carry out an analysis on the impact of shale gas on bills. It found that European shale gas (including gas outside the UK) could moderate bills by 2-4%, compared to where they would otherwise be. As a Cuadrilla spokesperson put it, the research showed the impact of UK shale appeared ‘basically insignificant’.

Greenpeace's Damian Kahya

From 2021, gas prices are between 2% and 4% lower if Lancashire shale gas production proceeds as projected.

From the Poyry report cited by Damian Kahya.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

Update on Aug 13, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Damian Kahya's post has now been updated. He has heard from Poyry and the 2-4% figure is for worldwide shale, including Lancashire, but based on the estimates of Lancashire shale as at summer 2012. I guess this means prior to the new BGS estimates of the size of the Bowland resource. I'm slightly bemused why it would be worldwide shale.

A new look at the carbon dioxide budget - Part 4

In this final part of his paper on carbon dioxide control mechanisms, David Coe draws together all the different strands of the paper.

Carbon budget Part 4

Post-truth media

In this morning's Telegraph, David Cameron has issued another call for the country to get behind shale gas.

...my message to the country is clear – we cannot afford to miss out on fracking. For centuries, Britain has led the way in technological endeavour: an industrial revolution ahead of its time, many of the most vital scientific discoveries known to mankind, and a spirit of enterprise and innovation that has served us well down the decades. Fracking is part of this tradition, so let’s seize it.

That's all fine and dandy, but take a look at what the BBC has to say in its coverage of the PM (H/T Ron).

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NASA rewrites the past

Lord Deben just asked me on Twitter why he should trust me and not official versions of "the science". I gave him a raft of reasons, but then came across this posting on Unthreaded from Brent Hargreaves:

GISS record of temperature at Teigarhorn, Iceland:

Feb 1901: 0.0C - reported Nov 2011
Feb 1901: -0.9C - reported Mar 2012
Feb 1901: -1.2C - reported Aug 2013

Brent has a full post about what he has found here, but for me his findings seem like a pretty good reason to distrust the official tale.

Official skeptics imploding

The "official" skeptics movement is imploding, reports the Daily Grail blog.

For many years on this site I've critiqued the demagogic tendencies of a number of the 'leaders' of the modern skeptical movement (see the bottom of this post for some links). I've often faced resistance (and sometimes hostility) from card-carrying skeptics for pointing out the foibles of these so-called champions of science, and the dangers of having such people as figureheads of a movement dedicated to truth and reason - but I had no inkling that in the space of just a few short years the reputations of a number of them would begin coming undone at their own hands.

King of carbon emissions

Sir David King has heard the good news that climate sensitivity is low. Relieved, he celebrates by taking a well-earned holiday by private jet.

The mind of the Royal

Canada's Financial Post has taken a look at the Royal Society, and in particular some of the strange epistles written by Paul Nurse to Nigel Lawson and the even stranger award of a research fellowship to Stephan Lewandowsky. Writing on the opinion pages, Peter Foster seems barely able to believe what is going on:

The Royal Society, the U.K.’s once-venerable academy of science, has arguably lost its collective mind over the theory of projected catastrophic man-made global warming. Recently, its president, Paul Nurse, in seeking to avoid a meeting with skeptical experts from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, GWPF — the think tank set up by former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Nigel Lawson — linked skeptics with those who reject evolution and believe that the weather might be changed by prayer. Whatever kind of argument that is, it isn’t scientific, but it certainly invites analysis of the mindset that made it.

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