On 28/11/2011 15:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 25/11/2011 16:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:


It is more likely to be around 2K but could be higher.


No. I said IF YOU TAKE OUT THE FUDGE FACTOR.

But if you look at the data it is pretty clear that the net effect
observed so far due to GHG predicts something around 2K/century going
forward. It is splitting hairs to haggle over how much of that change
is driven by exactly which greenhouse gas.

No it really is NOT clear. It depends utterly which data you cherry pick.

You seem inclined to believe the anti-science disinformation campaign.

If you actually look at the palaeontological record, its less than maybe
1C for all the CO2 we are ever likely to produce. Says a latish study..

Or if you look back to the last time CO2 was this high ~400ppm about
15My ago the seas could be headed for an equilibrium height of 5-8m
higher and temperatures 3-6K higher than they are now. See for example:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1008152242.htm

I don't think it will be that extreme, but we have already set in train
considerable future warming even if we stopped all emissions tomorrow (a
completely impossible scenario anyway).

And that is consistent with NO multiplier effect being added.

Which then leads to the question the IPCC never asked 'if its not CO2
that drove 1950-200 temperature rises, what did?'

Some of it is almost certainly related to oceanic currents. There are
some cyclic components that are not adequately understood at present. I
think they are related to tidal forcing as did Keeling & Whorf.

The influence of low level clouds is MASSIVELY more significant than any
amount of CO2. We really dont know what drives clouds in any but the
broadest detail.

Low level clouds cut both ways. Daytime they relfect sunlight back into
space with a cooling effect but at night they severely limit the escape
of heat by radiation from the ground so that the net effect is much
smaller and finely balanced than you might suppose. High level thin
clouds can give powerful warming effects because they don't stop much
light inbound but they do stop radiative losses at night.

We haven't had the kit in orbit to monitor cloud and albedo very long
either.


I mean there was a hugely detectable drop in night time temperatures
post 911 when all nearly US aircraft activity ceased. High level cloud
including contrails acts more as a night time greenhouse layer than low
cloud, which tends to act as a daytime sunshield.. and if temperatures
tart to rise its not very far fetched to assume that low level cloud
will increase as mire water vapour hits the atmosphere. Acting as
NEGATIVE feedback.

That was Lindzen's iris hypothesis but it has been found wanting in
experimental tests based on all the observations to date.

Clouds are very complex beasts, in formation, and in effect. Really the
IPCC mdoel is nowhere near as sophisticated as it really should be, if
we are going to decide the fate of nations on it. That's always been
known, but the POLITICAL requirement to present a clear strong unified
message has totally ridden rough shod over ALL the caveats the real
scientists wanted in it.

That cloud modelling is inadequate is a fair criticism, but just because
the models are imperfect does not mean that you can ignore them
completely just because you don't like the answers.

The WHOLE IPCC positions relies on the ASSUMPTION that any temperature
rise we cant account for MUST be accounted for by CO2 AND by 'positive
feedback factors' .

Of which the most obvious is that we are sat on a planet covered with
70% oceans. Make the air warmer and it holds more water vapour which
is itself a potent greenhouse gas. And although Lindzens iris theory
which claims more water gives more clouds and counteracts AGW sounds
plausible it has so far been refuted by observations.

Well no it hasn't. All that we can say is that over the past 50 years
there is good - but actually not VERY good, correlation between
increased CO2 and increased temperature. Go back further in time and the
the lambda factors that worked for the last 50 years (or the last 500 if
you utterly ignore the mediaeval warming period and the little ice age)
are being shown to be utterly WRONG.

There is strong paleological and ice core evidence that historically CO2
in the atmosphere has acted to amplify the tiny variations of the
Earth's orbital elements that give rise to the Milankovitch cycles. We
are now in a position to generate sufficient man made CO2 to invoke the
same mechanisms as have happened naturally in the past.

Now if it wasn't so politically sensitive, this is the point where
scientists would keep open minds, and do more and better research. But
any research that comes up with any disagreement with the current
received wisdom gets shunned. And doesn't get funding. Its terribly
dangerous.

Not true. Any credible research that demonstrated that the prevailing
theories were significantly defective and had demonstrably better
predictive power would be accepted. What is not acceptable is to have
various fossil fuel sponsored conmen going round the world telling
people not to worry it is all the big bad scientists on a gravy train. I
can't think of anyone in academic research for the money.

The tricky bit is guessing the mix of clouds - aircraft contrail
released cirrus are a rather potent net warming force. The grounding
over the USA post 9/11 allowed that signal to be detected.

No one knows what these are, what value to place on them or wherther
they even exist.

The more the studies come out, the more they seem to NOT exist.

Not true. The "deniers for hire" would certainly like you to believe
that and have executed a very effective public disinformation campaign.

That charge can equally be applied to the warmists, frankly. Warmistw
are for hire and have been hired by very powerful commercial and
political lobbies.

Who are in it for purely selfish motives.

They don't come any more selfish and greedy than oilmen and politicians.

Vis the latest offering in 'Ccience' (Climate Sensitivity Estimated from
Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum)


where they estimate that IF the sensitivity to CO2 was what the IPCC
says it is, the whole world would have frozen solid in the last ice age.
Oddly, it did not.

They are coming out with far lower temperature rises due to AGW. There
main conclusion is that its 'unlikely to be serious'

My reading was that if they are right we probably have a bit longer
before things will turn really nasty. There are a lot of very
important global population centres that are only a modest height
above sea level and will become very vulnerable to flooding as sea
levels rise.

But sea levels are NOT rising.

Yes they are. Slowly at the moment. One thing you have to bear in mind
is by adding CO2 to the atmosphere we are decreasing the rate of heat
loss from the planet long term. It will take many decades before the
system comes to equilibrium for the CO2 that we have already emitted and
we are still emitting it at an ever increasing rate.

Or not by anything like what the model says they should be.

Actually it isn't far off and permanent sea ice is vanishing at a fairly
alarming rate. And losing white ice fields makes a very serious change
to net albedo in the summer time polar regions.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Hardly worth wrecking the world's economy for.

No. We have merchant bankers to do that for us by trading worthless
pieces of digital paper and then demanding massive taxpayer bailouts.
So long as they get their *BIG* bonuses they do not care.

At least AGW mitigation would produce real engineering infrastructure
jobs if managed correctly.

But it won't be, because its being managed by governments and lobby
groups

That is certainly a risk. Governments these days don't seem to be able
to get anything right. Look at the useless lot we are lumbered with.

Precisely. Why should we trust ANY powerful lobby group on whose a
opinions huge sums of profitable money are being made, or lost?

We are stuck with the bankers

There is SO MUCH evidence that the renewables lobby is essentially
perpetrating a fraud, irrespective of AGW or not. They NEED AGW to

Wind turbines can pay their way if installed in the right places, solar
is pretty much a lost cause at our latitude but would work OK nearer the
equator. We should be having a "Save It" campaign on at least the same
level as that of the OPEC induced oil crisis of the 70's.

British Petroleum.


And what IS their line? they seem to have spun all their solar power
into an easily diversifiable company they can ditch when it is worth
something and before it becomes worthless.

BP isn't following climate change, its following MONEY and as long as
governments throw stupid sums at renewables they will be in that
business if its profitable.

That is not unexpected, but they are saints compared to Exxon.

Although I don't support any form of CO2 cap & trade policy - that
will just become yet another chip for the casino bankers to gamble with.

The correct way to reduce CO2 is to tax carbon fuels. End of story. Then
whatever becomes the cheaper way to not use them, is what gets built.

I agree. But not with trading in worthless bits of derivative paper on
the back of it. Such a tax would not be popular with petrolheads for
instance and other taxes would have to be reduced. The fuel escalator
didn't last long against concerted popular opposition.

Of course everybody knows what that is is nuclear power.

Local combined heat and power would make sense in some places too.

Which would leave the renewables industry dead in the water. Which is
why they are all united against it.

We have to build new nuclear *now* it is the only carbon neutral way
forward and the UK government has probably prevaricated on this for far
too long already. The old reactors are on their last legs and cannot be
run for much longer without risks of unexpected failures (and that would
do the global nuclear industry's somewhat tarnished reputation no good
at all). The triple reactor MFU in Japan after the earthquake has made
politicians rather nervous about nuclear power again.

Don't hold your breath while they make the decision(s). And expect the
new plants to be built only on existing nuclear sites and very probably
supplied by foreign manufacturers as turnkey systems.

Regards,
Martin Brown

"Roger Chapman" wrote in message
...

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than more
accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one is
bad don't understand the basics.

To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.
What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also apply
to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very well.

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

You can't attach too much importance to a single years weather. Averaged
over 11 years to largely eliminate any solar sunspot cycle influence you
get to see the long term underlying trends more clearly.

What about the longer bigger solar cycles that we have only just discovered?
We now know that the peaks (and troughs) of the 11 year sunspot cycle have
been getting higher for the last 50 years.
We now know that this indicates rising solar output.
The AGW supporters deny this is happening.

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

Low level clouds cut both ways. Daytime they relfect sunlight back into
space with a cooling effect but at night they severely limit the escape of
heat by radiation from the ground so that the net effect is much smaller
and finely balanced than you might suppose. High level thin clouds can
give powerful warming effects because they don't stop much light inbound
but they do stop radiative losses at night.

Are you sure?
Low level cloud is water droplets and absorb and reradiate some of the
sunlight as IR.
High level cloud is ice and reflect light without converting the solar flux
to infrared that is prevented from escaping by the greenhouse gasses.
Light that is reflected at a high level has little warming effect on the
planet while stuff lower down has a bigger warming effect.

Its a shame that the records of high level cloud cover are so inadequate
that its difficult/impossible to actually prove any effect on past climate
and we only have the things like 911 to give any indication of its real
power. IIRC the temps went up after 911 by a degree or two indicating that
its a very powerful effect.
It could also explain a lot of the rise in temps we have seen as high level
cloud cover has dropped since we cleaned up the emissions from industry that
was putting cloud forming pollutants into the upper atmosphere.

There is further evidence for these effects if you are actually interested..
you could look at the effects of some of the volcanoes that cause high level
cloud and consequential cooling. Laki would be a good start as its eruption
killed millions due to cooling.

Roger Chapman wrote:
On 29/11/2011 00:13, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Roger Chapman wrote:
On 28/11/2011 15:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

snip

But sea levels are NOT rising.

Or not by anything like what the model says they should be.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0703/0703220.pdf

Makes interesting reading.

Well no..once again its a set of arguments based on an unproven
assertion: Namely that the IPCC predictions on temperature rise are
accurate, and likewise that the modelling being used includes all
relevant data. and the correct weightings..and probably that the
relationship is broadly linear.

Well that is your opinion but I didn't make that quote just to give you
a chance to vent your prejudices. You claim sea levels are not rising,
or at least not as much as the models predict but provide nothing to
support you claim. So where are the models you dispute and the evidence
that you are correct?

Hansen refers to evidence on melting of both Greenland and Antarctic
icecaps and suggests why this might be non linear which, after all, is
only to be expected with positive feedback.

Er no. Non linearity and positive feedback are entire distinct concepts.

Though I doubt Hansen understands that.


Even te simplest of thongs - a loaded column - can be shown to have
instability failure modes..that completely negate in certain scenarios
the actual compressive stress failure modes. Fail to appreciate that and
your church or cathedral falls down. That was noted years before Euler
finally used calculus to nail the problem in a correct mathematical form

Climate change models for sure LOOK impressive, but in reality they are
crude as ****.

So you keep on saying but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and
the latest models at least fit quite well what has happened in the
recent past which is the only period we have accurate primary data for.

Of course they do, the data a little and the coefficients a LOT have
been adjusted to ensure that they do.

But a curve fitting excercise with the wrong number of elements in the
wrong relation is not a truth. It remains a curve fitting exercise -
mere mathematical sleight of hand.

If you know anything, you know that you can make a polynomial
approximation as close ass you lie to any data set. That doesn't mean
that the terms of that equation have any significance whatsoever, nor
that their predictions will in any way be accurate.



Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

Not inaccurate, just meaningless.

About as meaningless as Gordon brown, noting year on year GDP growth of
whatever, announcing 'no more boom and bust'. Of course he was correct.
It's been a case of 'bust and more bust' ever since.

I cannot believe how you can be fooled by this sleight of hand.

A curve fit is not a theory, and a correlation is not a cause.

It has been noted in Wisden, going back many years, that the cost of
corn followed the incidence of drawn cricket matches in any given year*.

A Nu Laber solution to that would be to change the rules of cricket to
eliminate drawn matches.

A Hansen theory would be that psychic players anticipating hunger play
with no verve or something.


*wet summers give drawn matches and poor crops

Positive feedback of the order that Hansen has had to use, would make
the climate now, and historically, really unstable. It simply hasn't
been that unstable.

On 29/11/2011 11:00, dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

You can't attach too much importance to a single years weather.
Averaged over 11 years to largely eliminate any solar sunspot cycle
influence you get to see the long term underlying trends more clearly.

What about the longer bigger solar cycles that we have only just
discovered?

Which ones would those be?

We now know that the peaks (and troughs) of the 11 year sunspot cycle
have been getting higher for the last 50 years.

Absolute utter rubbish. The sunspot cycle peaked in intensity about 1958
(cycle 19) and has been gradually declining ever since. It all but
stalled from 2006-2010 with hardly any sunspots visible for months.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif

The sun is now finally into cycle 24 and we will have to wait and see
how active it gets. The magnetic field strength in sunspots is observed
to be declining and if it goes much lower we will see a spotless sun
much like during the Maunder minimum before too much longer. For now
though sunspots and associated activity are back on the increase again.
There was incidentally an auroral storm alert last night.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...3sep_sunspots/

More sunspots and an active sun gives an increased output since there
are also bright faculae on the active sun covering a larger area and
more than compensate for the few small dark spots.

We now know that this indicates rising solar output.
The AGW supporters deny this is happening.

That might well be because they have access to the *published* data and
do not rely on Australian crank dittohead science sites.

Regards,
Martin Brown

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 29/11/2011 11:00, dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

You can't attach too much importance to a single years weather.
Averaged over 11 years to largely eliminate any solar sunspot cycle
influence you get to see the long term underlying trends more clearly.

What about the longer bigger solar cycles that we have only just
discovered?

Which ones would those be?

We now know that the peaks (and troughs) of the 11 year sunspot cycle
have been getting higher for the last 50 years.

Absolute utter rubbish. The sunspot cycle peaked in intensity about 1958
(cycle 19) and has been gradually declining ever since. It all but stalled
from 2006-2010 with hardly any sunspots visible for months.

You obviously don't understand them.
Hint, the lower the number of sunspots the higher the solar flux.

Martin Brown wrote:
On 28/11/2011 15:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 25/11/2011 16:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:


It is more likely to be around 2K but could be higher.


No. I said IF YOU TAKE OUT THE FUDGE FACTOR.

But if you look at the data it is pretty clear that the net effect
observed so far due to GHG predicts something around 2K/century going
forward. It is splitting hairs to haggle over how much of that change
is driven by exactly which greenhouse gas.

No it really is NOT clear. It depends utterly which data you cherry pick.

You seem inclined to believe the anti-science disinformation campaign.

No I am simply disinclined to believe the pseudo science disinformation
campaign.



If you actually look at the palaeontological record, its less than maybe
1C for all the CO2 we are ever likely to produce. Says a latish study..

Or if you look back to the last time CO2 was this high ~400ppm about
15My ago the seas could be headed for an equilibrium height of 5-8m
higher and temperatures 3-6K higher than they are now. See for example:


So why is the sea not that high and the temperature that high already?
By that argument we are already doomed, so nothing can be done anyway

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1008152242.htm

I don't think it will be that extreme, but we have already set in train
considerable future warming even if we stopped all emissions tomorrow (a
completely impossible scenario anyway).

And that is consistent with NO multiplier effect being added.

Which then leads to the question the IPCC never asked 'if its not CO2
that drove 1950-200 temperature rises, what did?'

Some of it is almost certainly related to oceanic currents. There are
some cyclic components that are not adequately understood at present. I
think they are related to tidal forcing as did Keeling & Whorf.

'almost certainly due to'.....yeah.

Methane
Water vapour
Clouds
Polar ice albedo
Ocean currents
Cosmic rays
multi decadal oscillations
Dust in the air
High flying planes
Drawn Cricket matches.
Butterflies flapping their wings in Brazil
....people driving cars..

......pick any one that you can make a profit out of and its guaranteed
to be that one in your book.




The influence of low level clouds is MASSIVELY more significant than any
amount of CO2. We really dont know what drives clouds in any but the
broadest detail.

Low level clouds cut both ways. Daytime they relfect sunlight back into
space with a cooling effect but at night they severely limit the escape
of heat by radiation from the ground so that the net effect is much
smaller and finely balanced than you might suppose. High level thin
clouds can give powerful warming effects because they don't stop much
light inbound but they do stop radiative losses at night.

Golly. How friggin erudite can you get. Grandmother, egg, suck.


We haven't had the kit in orbit to monitor cloud and albedo very long
either.


I mean there was a hugely detectable drop in night time temperatures
post 911 when all nearly US aircraft activity ceased. High level cloud
including contrails acts more as a night time greenhouse layer than low
cloud, which tends to act as a daytime sunshield.. and if temperatures
tart to rise its not very far fetched to assume that low level cloud
will increase as mire water vapour hits the atmosphere. Acting as
NEGATIVE feedback.

That was Lindzen's iris hypothesis but it has been found wanting in
experimental tests based on all the observations to date.

Of course. Its not ALL that is going on, is it. Don't forget the
Brazilian butterflies.


Clouds are very complex beasts, in formation, and in effect. Really the
IPCC mdoel is nowhere near as sophisticated as it really should be, if
we are going to decide the fate of nations on it. That's always been
known, but the POLITICAL requirement to present a clear strong unified
message has totally ridden rough shod over ALL the caveats the real
scientists wanted in it.

That cloud modelling is inadequate is a fair criticism, but just because
the models are imperfect does not mean that you can ignore them
completely just because you don't like the answers.

Sorry, what on earth makes you think that *I* am the one ignoring things
because I don't like the answers? THAT is ENTIRELY the province of the IPCC.

On the contrary, I am trying to INCLUDE so much MORE, because I don't
like the oversimplification of the really crude climate model that
Hansen has come up with. And I dont like the way in which it is being
promulgated. With all dissension being airbrushed out by exactly that
sort of statement that you have just made.


If the science was that solid, you wouldn't need the ad hominem attacks ....

The WHOLE IPCC positions relies on the ASSUMPTION that any temperature
rise we cant account for MUST be accounted for by CO2 AND by 'positive
feedback factors' .

Of which the most obvious is that we are sat on a planet covered with
70% oceans. Make the air warmer and it holds more water vapour which
is itself a potent greenhouse gas. And although Lindzens iris theory
which claims more water gives more clouds and counteracts AGW sounds
plausible it has so far been refuted by observations.

Well no it hasn't. All that we can say is that over the past 50 years
there is good - but actually not VERY good, correlation between
increased CO2 and increased temperature. Go back further in time and the
the lambda factors that worked for the last 50 years (or the last 500 if
you utterly ignore the mediaeval warming period and the little ice age)
are being shown to be utterly WRONG.

There is strong paleological and ice core evidence that historically CO2
in the atmosphere has acted to amplify the tiny variations of the
Earth's orbital elements that give rise to the Milankovitch cycles.

Er, no, rather the reverse: large climate change nearly always changes
the CO2 balance. CO2 changes after the temperature, not before.



We
are now in a position to generate sufficient man made CO2 to invoke the
same mechanisms as have happened naturally in the past.

That almost certainly didnt happen that way in te past.



Now if it wasn't so politically sensitive, this is the point where
scientists would keep open minds, and do more and better research. But
any research that comes up with any disagreement with the current
received wisdom gets shunned. And doesn't get funding. Its terribly
dangerous.

Not true. Any credible research that demonstrated that the prevailing
theories were significantly defective and had demonstrably better
predictive power would be accepted.

Pull the other one. The point is there are half a dozen theories out
there, all competing, but that is not politically acceptable.


They cannot be allowed to compete: The impression would be that
scientists were not SURE.


What is not acceptable is to have
various fossil fuel sponsored conmen going round the world telling
people not to worry it is all the big bad scientists on a gravy train. I
can't think of anyone in academic research for the money.

1/. The fossil fuel companies are perfectly happy with climate change as
long as that means renewable energy, which doesn't compete with fossil fuel.

2/. No one stays in research without the money, however.

3/. dissenters are actually far more led by sincere and intelligent
people who can see the way that 'message' is being pushed, and are
beginning to wonder why, if its all so cut and dried, its being pushed
quite so hard and in such a marketing led fashion.



The tricky bit is guessing the mix of clouds - aircraft contrail
released cirrus are a rather potent net warming force. The grounding
over the USA post 9/11 allowed that signal to be detected.

No one knows what these are, what value to place on them or wherther
they even exist.

The more the studies come out, the more they seem to NOT exist.

Not true. The "deniers for hire" would certainly like you to believe
that and have executed a very effective public disinformation campaign.

That charge can equally be applied to the warmists, frankly. Warmistw
are for hire and have been hired by very powerful commercial and
political lobbies.

Who are in it for purely selfish motives.

They don't come any more selfish and greedy than oilmen and politicians.


That's what I said. Oilmen dont give a toss. But if it helps them plant
subsidy farms and sell more shale gas, heck why not? If you can beat em,
join em, and steer the bandwagon to suit your business. That's renewable
energy of course. Fits perfectly with fossil fuel as an enormously
profitable way to carry on burning gas.




Vis the latest offering in 'Ccience' (Climate Sensitivity Estimated
from
Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum)


where they estimate that IF the sensitivity to CO2 was what the IPCC
says it is, the whole world would have frozen solid in the last ice
age.
Oddly, it did not.

They are coming out with far lower temperature rises due to AGW. There
main conclusion is that its 'unlikely to be serious'

My reading was that if they are right we probably have a bit longer
before things will turn really nasty. There are a lot of very
important global population centres that are only a modest height
above sea level and will become very vulnerable to flooding as sea
levels rise.

But sea levels are NOT rising.

Yes they are. Slowly at the moment. One thing you have to bear in mind
is by adding CO2 to the atmosphere we are decreasing the rate of heat
loss from the planet long term. It will take many decades before the
system comes to equilibrium for the CO2 that we have already emitted and
we are still emitting it at an ever increasing rate.

ER that does not compute..



Or not by anything like what the model says they should be.

Actually it isn't far off and permanent sea ice is vanishing at a fairly
alarming rate. And losing white ice fields makes a very serious change
to net albedo in the summer time polar regions.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/


But that is nothing new. The arctic has been more or less ice free in
summer before, and will be so again.

Meantime we had one of the coldest winters in te last 50 years last yera.

Hardly worth wrecking the world's economy for.

No. We have merchant bankers to do that for us by trading worthless
pieces of digital paper and then demanding massive taxpayer bailouts.
So long as they get their *BIG* bonuses they do not care.

At least AGW mitigation would produce real engineering infrastructure
jobs if managed correctly.

But it won't be, because its being managed by governments and lobby
groups

That is certainly a risk. Governments these days don't seem to be able
to get anything right. Look at the useless lot we are lumbered with.

Precisely. Why should we trust ANY powerful lobby group on whose a
opinions huge sums of profitable money are being made, or lost?

We are stuck with the bankers
No we are not.

Its only FUD. 'can you imagine life without the banks' well yes,
actually. Should have let em crash.

I can also imagine life without the Euro, without Tony Blair, and
without the IPCC and renewable energy.

It actually looks very attractive.




There is SO MUCH evidence that the renewables lobby is essentially
perpetrating a fraud, irrespective of AGW or not. They NEED AGW to

Wind turbines can pay their way if installed in the right places, solar
is pretty much a lost cause at our latitude but would work OK nearer the
equator. We should be having a "Save It" campaign on at least the same
level as that of the OPEC induced oil crisis of the 70's.


You are obviously soft in the head if you believe that.

I don't do belief: I do sums. Fortunately the dynamics of power
generation are a lot simpler than those of climate. Its possible to say
with complete certainty that without government intervention renewable
energy never would have been, and never will be in any way a cost
effective solution to anything.

But I accept that the inconvenient truth of this statement, will be
resisted by those whose faith and beleifs have been formed by green
marketing promulgated by profit making companies to line their own pockets.




British Petroleum.


And what IS their line? they seem to have spun all their solar power
into an easily diversifiable company they can ditch when it is worth
something and before it becomes worthless.

BP isn't following climate change, its following MONEY and as long as
governments throw stupid sums at renewables they will be in that
business if its profitable.

That is not unexpected, but they are saints compared to Exxon.

Enron STARTED the green movement. And they were busted for total fraud.


Although I don't support any form of CO2 cap & trade policy - that
will just become yet another chip for the casino bankers to gamble with.

The correct way to reduce CO2 is to tax carbon fuels. End of story. Then
whatever becomes the cheaper way to not use them, is what gets built.

I agree. But not with trading in worthless bits of derivative paper on
the back of it. Such a tax would not be popular with petrolheads for
instance and other taxes would have to be reduced. The fuel escalator
didn't last long against concerted popular opposition.

Of course everybody knows what that is is nuclear power.

Local combined heat and power would make sense in some places too.

Sure if you have rubbish to burn. Greens want to stop it in Denmark
though, and make everyone put in heatpumps ..



Which would leave the renewables industry dead in the water. Which is
why they are all united against it.

We have to build new nuclear *now* it is the only carbon neutral way
forward and the UK government has probably prevaricated on this for far
too long already. The old reactors are on their last legs and cannot be
run for much longer without risks of unexpected failures (and that would
do the global nuclear industry's somewhat tarnished reputation no good
at all). The triple reactor MFU in Japan after the earthquake has made
politicians rather nervous about nuclear power again.

Don't hold your breath while they make the decision(s). And expect the
new plants to be built only on existing nuclear sites and very probably
supplied by foreign manufacturers as turnkey systems.


What other options have we got ...?

Even Their Lordships accept that Huhne is a total raving idiot, these days..

http://www.clarewind.org.uk/events-1.php?event=38




Regards,
Martin Brown

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:40:16 +0000 (GMT), charles wrote:

shrug Roofs usually have to renewed every 50 years or so anyway.


really?

Mine is 100 years old this year

And it has had *no* work done on it over that time? No slates/tiles
replaced or work on flashings or any mortared joints repointed?

--
Cheers
Dave.

dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

Low level clouds cut both ways. Daytime they relfect sunlight back
into space with a cooling effect but at night they severely limit the
escape of heat by radiation from the ground so that the net effect is
much smaller and finely balanced than you might suppose. High level
thin clouds can give powerful warming effects because they don't stop
much light inbound but they do stop radiative losses at night.

Are you sure?

He is substantially correct in this respect yes.


Thin high level cloud reflects more IR..than it blocks.

Low level cloud reflects more daytime sun than it blankets you at night.


IIRC you only need about half a percent less low level cloud to account
for all the global warming of the last 50 years.

Clouds are PROBABLY the most significant driver of global temperature,
but the question then arises as to what drives the clouds....

...one theory I like is Svensmarks. No idea if its 'true' but it is
disturbingly close to providing another part of the climate jigsaw.

http://www.clarewind.org.uk/events-1.php?event=32

If he is correct, the solution to global warming could be something as
simple as pointing particle accelerators at the sky and switching them on...

...and CERN is ideally placed to guarantee snowfall on the Alps, for
skiers..:-)

Low level cloud is water droplets and absorb and reradiate some of the
sunlight as IR.
High level cloud is ice and reflect light without converting the solar
flux to infrared that is prevented from escaping by the greenhouse gasses.
Light that is reflected at a high level has little warming effect on the
planet while stuff lower down has a bigger warming effect.

Its a shame that the records of high level cloud cover are so inadequate
that its difficult/impossible to actually prove any effect on past
climate and we only have the things like 911 to give any indication of
its real power. IIRC the temps went up after 911 by a degree or two
indicating that its a very powerful effect.

Er no, they went down at night.

Daytime was largely unaltered.

It could also explain a lot of the rise in temps we have seen as high
level cloud cover has dropped since we cleaned up the emissions from
industry that was putting cloud forming pollutants into the upper
atmosphere.

No. Low level cloud cover has dropped. Its rare for particulate
emissions - which are definitely involved in cloud formation at lower
levels - to go up that high.


There is further evidence for these effects if you are actually
interested.. you could look at the effects of some of the volcanoes that
cause high level cloud and consequential cooling. Laki would be a good
start as its eruption killed millions due to cooling.

Dust is an effective screener of sunlight. But its all part of a giant
complex system - one that is far more complex than the IPCC want you to
BELIEVE.

We do now have satellites measuring the overall Earth's albedo IIRC by
the way: the data is slowly coming in..

dennis@home wrote:


"Roger Chapman" wrote in message
...

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one
is bad don't understand the basics.

To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.
What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also
apply to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very well.

Or the actual relevant mechanisms.

On 29/11/2011 12:07, dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 29/11/2011 11:00, dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

You can't attach too much importance to a single years weather.
Averaged over 11 years to largely eliminate any solar sunspot cycle
influence you get to see the long term underlying trends more clearly.

What about the longer bigger solar cycles that we have only just
discovered?

Which ones would those be?

We now know that the peaks (and troughs) of the 11 year sunspot cycle
have been getting higher for the last 50 years.

Absolute utter rubbish. The sunspot cycle peaked in intensity about
1958 (cycle 19) and has been gradually declining ever since. It all
but stalled from 2006-2010 with hardly any sunspots visible for months.

You obviously don't understand them.
Hint, the lower the number of sunspots the higher the solar flux.

You are clueless beyond words. The active sun is on average brighter.
This is well known and easily demonstrated by the satellite flux
monitoring data.

http://astro.ic.ac.uk/research/solar...ance-variation

A huge sunspot group can briefly decrease the solar flux for a few days
but the active sun with many sunspots is on average *BRIGHTER* because
the associated bright faculae are more important to average TSI.

This is a well known astronomical result that goes back to Herschel who
noticed the relationship of grain prices to sunspot number in 1801.

http://www.hao.ucar.edu/education/bios/herschel.html

You have demonstrated that you are a clueless anti-science dittohead.

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article o.uk,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:40:16 +0000 (GMT), charles wrote:

shrug Roofs usually have to renewed every 50 years or so anyway.


really?

Mine is 100 years old this year

And it has had *no* work done on it over that time? No slates/tiles
replaced or work on flashings or any mortared joints repointed?

one or two replacement tiles and I had the ridge tiles remortared some 20
years ago. I don't count that as "renewed", just repaired.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

On 29/11/2011 10:50, dennis@home wrote:

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one
is bad don't understand the basics.

You only know how inaccurate the predictions are after the event. As it
is the models are predicting continuously rising temperatures and all
that is really at stake is the rate of rise. By contrast those who are
predicting that global temperatures are now falling have no model and
nothing to hang their hat on bar the 1998 figure which sticks out like a
sore thumb. The Met Office still has 1998 as the warmest year yet but
the two American centres (it is not clear exactly how independently)
producing their own temperature record both conclude that 2010 and 2005
are first equal and 1998 only third.

To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.

Weather forecasting is frequently very accurate. It is very rare for
there to be a major cock-up.

What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

But you do not have another model to make a more accurate prediction.

Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also
apply to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very well.

At least some of the apparent inaccuracy we see now is as a direct
result of the furore over that hurricane when the Met Office got the
track of the storm wrong. Caution now rules and bad weather will now
almost always be less extreme than forecast and turn up latter than
forecasted.

--
Roger Chapman

Roger Chapman wrote:
On 29/11/2011 10:50, dennis@home wrote:

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one
is bad don't understand the basics.

You only know how inaccurate the predictions are after the event. As it
is the models are predicting continuously rising temperatures and all
that is really at stake is the rate of rise. By contrast those who are
predicting that global temperatures are now falling have no model and
nothing to hang their hat on bar the 1998 figure which sticks out like a
sore thumb. The Met Office still has 1998 as the warmest year yet but
the two American centres (it is not clear exactly how independently)
producing their own temperature record both conclude that 2010 and 2005
are first equal and 1998 only third.


well exactly. Cant even agree on the DATA let alone the model.
There ARE plenty of other models..if you care to look. That are just as
open to criticism of course.

But absence of a viable alternative does not render the IPCC model
somehow magically credible in its predictions.





To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.

Weather forecasting is frequently very accurate. It is very rare for
there to be a major cock-up.

What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

But you do not have another model to make a more accurate prediction.


So?

What are we after? a political decision making basis? Or the truth?

The truth is we know more, but not nearly enough, to really start to
risk the whole of human society on a deeply flawed and inaccurate model,
just because we haven;t got a better alternative.

The actual impact of climate change measures is significantly rising to
the point where it is more damaging than the putative climate change itself.

That is particularly true of renewable energy.

The sensible way to hedge the bets is in fact nuclear power.

A modest increase in cost with massive emission reduction potential.

And vastly improved energy security.

Whereas it can be clearly shown that renewable energy does almost
nothing to improve either of the above. at several times the cost.



Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also
apply to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very
well.

At least some of the apparent inaccuracy we see now is as a direct
result of the furore over that hurricane when the Met Office got the
track of the storm wrong. Caution now rules and bad weather will now
almost always be less extreme than forecast and turn up latter than
forecasted.


The data is online: Do your own weather forecasts: The Beeb is dumbed
down and very bland - there are far better weather discussion sites
online where real meteorologists and long range forecasters assign
probabilities and directions to weather in the next weeks.

Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/11/2011 15:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 25/11/2011 16:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:


It is more likely to be around 2K but could be higher.


No. I said IF YOU TAKE OUT THE FUDGE FACTOR.

But if you look at the data it is pretty clear that the net effect
observed so far due to GHG predicts something around 2K/century going
forward. It is splitting hairs to haggle over how much of that change
is driven by exactly which greenhouse gas.

No it really is NOT clear. It depends utterly which data you cherry pick.

Problem with all this is:

I don't trust any of the sods as there are too many lobbyists who have
"green" interests, eg PV panel manufacturers and installers.

There are also an arse load of procarbon lobbyists (eg oil companies).

So I, as a partially scientific bod who's essentially a layman WRT climate
issues distrusts *everyone*.

How do you know who to listen to unless you have the time and the background
to go through the papers and/or the data?

Why are several countries pulling out of Kyoto - do they know something?

Is it all CO2's fault or is it random solar activity that we are powerless
to stop?

Cheers

Tim

--
Tim Watts

Tim Watts wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/11/2011 15:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 25/11/2011 16:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
It is more likely to be around 2K but could be higher.

No. I said IF YOU TAKE OUT THE FUDGE FACTOR.
But if you look at the data it is pretty clear that the net effect
observed so far due to GHG predicts something around 2K/century going
forward. It is splitting hairs to haggle over how much of that change
is driven by exactly which greenhouse gas.
No it really is NOT clear. It depends utterly which data you cherry pick.

Problem with all this is:

I don't trust any of the sods as there are too many lobbyists who have
"green" interests, eg PV panel manufacturers and installers.

There are also an arse load of procarbon lobbyists (eg oil companies).

So I, as a partially scientific bod who's essentially a layman WRT climate
issues distrusts *everyone*.


That is the best and most pragmatic position to take.


How do you know who to listen to unless you have the time and the background
to go through the papers and/or the data?


Well exactly.


Why are several countries pulling out of Kyoto - do they know something?


Yes.

Is it all CO2's fault or is it random solar activity that we are powerless
to stop?


Both. Plus other things: The important thing is how much is down to each
element.

Right now my best expression of what is 'we don't really know' plus a
'and I STRONGLY SUSPECT that CO2 is not the only, nor yet the main,
issue: and that is dangerous - to be committed to a one element policy
blinds us to possible other AGW (or natural) sources, or indeed other
things we might be doing with the money'

Its exactly the same with renewable energy: It blinds us to
alternatives. In our haste to 'do something' we run the risk of doing
worse than nothing.


Cheers

Tim

On 29/11/2011 11:41, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

snip

But sea levels are NOT rising.

Or not by anything like what the model says they should be.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0703/0703220.pdf

Makes interesting reading.

Well no..once again its a set of arguments based on an unproven
assertion: Namely that the IPCC predictions on temperature rise are
accurate, and likewise that the modelling being used includes all
relevant data. and the correct weightings..and probably that the
relationship is broadly linear.

Well that is your opinion but I didn't make that quote just to give
you a chance to vent your prejudices. You claim sea levels are not
rising, or at least not as much as the models predict but provide
nothing to support you claim. So where are the models you dispute and
the evidence that you are correct?

Hansen refers to evidence on melting of both Greenland and Antarctic
icecaps and suggests why this might be non linear which, after all, is
only to be expected with positive feedback.

Er no. Non linearity and positive feedback are entire distinct concepts.

I am sure you can come up with some situation where positive feedback
doesn't magnify whatever imbalance it is acting on but I am not going to
even try.

Though I doubt Hansen understands that.

Given the choice of believing you or some published and peer reviewed
scientist I will take the sane choice of believing the scientist.

Even te simplest of thongs - a loaded column - can be shown to have
instability failure modes..that completely negate in certain scenarios
the actual compressive stress failure modes. Fail to appreciate that and
your church or cathedral falls down. That was noted years before Euler
finally used calculus to nail the problem in a correct mathematical form

Climate change models for sure LOOK impressive, but in reality they are
crude as ****.

So you keep on saying but the proof of the pudding is in the eating
and the latest models at least fit quite well what has happened in the
recent past which is the only period we have accurate primary data for.

Of course they do, the data a little and the coefficients a LOT have
been adjusted to ensure that they do.

But a curve fitting excercise with the wrong number of elements in the
wrong relation is not a truth. It remains a curve fitting exercise -
mere mathematical sleight of hand.

If you know anything, you know that you can make a polynomial
approximation as close ass you lie to any data set. That doesn't mean
that the terms of that equation have any significance whatsoever, nor
that their predictions will in any way be accurate.

How else do you build a model but by including all the fields believed
to have an effect and given each factor some weight. You build a model
to predict the future but to do so convincingly it must also account for
what has happened in the past.

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

Not inaccurate, just meaningless.

Mere prejudice.

About as meaningless as Gordon brown, noting year on year GDP growth of
whatever, announcing 'no more boom and bust'. Of course he was correct.
It's been a case of 'bust and more bust' ever since.

I cannot believe how you can be fooled by this sleight of hand.

Gordon Brown never got my vote.

A curve fit is not a theory, and a correlation is not a cause.

It has been noted in Wisden, going back many years, that the cost of
corn followed the incidence of drawn cricket matches in any given year*.

A Nu Laber solution to that would be to change the rules of cricket to
eliminate drawn matches.

A Hansen theory would be that psychic players anticipating hunger play
with no verve or something.

Strawman.

*wet summers give drawn matches and poor crops

So there is a connection between drawn matches and the cost of corn so
the number of drawn matches could be used to predict the cost of corn or
vice versa. Much the same way as tree ring and ice core data is used to
predict prehistoric temperatures. not perfectly but better than nothing

Positive feedback of the order that Hansen has had to use, would make
the climate now, and historically, really unstable. It simply hasn't
been that unstable.

ISTM that there have been a number of occasions in the past when a
tipping point has been reached and rapid changes have ensued.

--
Roger Chapman
Attempting to master a new computer
and failing to master a new gps

On 29/11/2011 13:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one
is bad don't understand the basics.

You only know how inaccurate the predictions are after the event. As
it is the models are predicting continuously rising temperatures and
all that is really at stake is the rate of rise. By contrast those who
are predicting that global temperatures are now falling have no model
and nothing to hang their hat on bar the 1998 figure which sticks out
like a sore thumb. The Met Office still has 1998 as the warmest year
yet but the two American centres (it is not clear exactly how
independently) producing their own temperature record both conclude
that 2010 and 2005 are first equal and 1998 only third.

well exactly. Cant even agree on the DATA let alone the model.
There ARE plenty of other models..if you care to look. That are just as
open to criticism of course.

And if they agreed exactly you would be accusing them of collusion
and/or fabricating data which is exactly the way the deniers operate.

But absence of a viable alternative does not render the IPCC model
somehow magically credible in its predictions.

But if the only alternative is your gut instinct and a generous helping
of meaningless insults ...

To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.

Weather forecasting is frequently very accurate. It is very rare for
there to be a major cock-up.

What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

But you do not have another model to make a more accurate prediction.


So?

All you really have is hot air.

What are we after? a political decision making basis? Or the truth?

You seem to be very much of the political persuasion insisting that the
'authorities' are purveyors of bull**** while offering nothing concrete
in return.

The truth is we know more, but not nearly enough, to really start to
risk the whole of human society on a deeply flawed and inaccurate model,
just because we haven;t got a better alternative.

The actual impact of climate change measures is significantly rising to
the point where it is more damaging than the putative climate change
itself.

It will be too late to do anything about it once methane becomes the
dominant greenhouse gas.

That is particularly true of renewable energy.

The sensible way to hedge the bets is in fact nuclear power.

A modest increase in cost with massive emission reduction potential.

And vastly improved energy security.

I have no qualms about nuclear energy.

Whereas it can be clearly shown that renewable energy does almost
nothing to improve either of the above. at several times the cost.

There is room for a modest amount of unreliable wind and for that matter
solar but ISTR that you are dead set against things like the Severn
barrage which would be a much more reliable source of energy. (Sod the
wildlife).

Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also
apply to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very
well.

At least some of the apparent inaccuracy we see now is as a direct
result of the furore over that hurricane when the Met Office got the
track of the storm wrong. Caution now rules and bad weather will now
almost always be less extreme than forecast and turn up latter than
forecasted.


The data is online: Do your own weather forecasts: The Beeb is dumbed
down and very bland - there are far better weather discussion sites
online where real meteorologists and long range forecasters assign
probabilities and directions to weather in the next weeks.

I presume that Dennis was referring to the forcasting we are all
familiar with. Some of the weather forecasts on line pretend to be very
accurate but are often anything but. (Metcheck for instance which is far
too prone to forecast rain on the hills). More discussion groups I can
do without. I can't even find enough time to read the majority of the
threads on .d-i-y.

--
Roger Chapman

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

There is further evidence for these effects if you are actually
interested.. you could look at the effects of some of the volcanoes that
cause high level cloud and consequential cooling. Laki would be a good
start as its eruption killed millions due to cooling.

Dust is an effective screener of sunlight. But its all part of a giant
complex system - one that is far more complex than the IPCC want you to
BELIEVE.

Laki didn't put lots of dust into the high level atmosphere, it put SO2
there. This made lots of cloud cover and the resulting cold winters killed
millions.


We do now have satellites measuring the overall Earth's albedo IIRC by the
way: the data is slowly coming in..

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 29/11/2011 12:07, dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 29/11/2011 11:00, dennis@home wrote:


"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

You can't attach too much importance to a single years weather.
Averaged over 11 years to largely eliminate any solar sunspot cycle
influence you get to see the long term underlying trends more clearly.

What about the longer bigger solar cycles that we have only just
discovered?

Which ones would those be?

We now know that the peaks (and troughs) of the 11 year sunspot cycle
have been getting higher for the last 50 years.

Absolute utter rubbish. The sunspot cycle peaked in intensity about
1958 (cycle 19) and has been gradually declining ever since. It all
but stalled from 2006-2010 with hardly any sunspots visible for months.

You obviously don't understand them.
Hint, the lower the number of sunspots the higher the solar flux.

You are clueless beyond words. The active sun is on average brighter. This
is well known and easily demonstrated by the satellite flux monitoring
data.

http://astro.ic.ac.uk/research/solar...ance-variation

The link you posted does not say anything about me being wrong so I guess
you didn't read it.

It does specifically talk about longer periods of solar variance in the last
paragraph, something you were questioning earlier.
So I guess you have found that for yourself now, if you have read it.

"Roger Chapman" wrote in message
...
On 29/11/2011 10:50, dennis@home wrote:

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one
is bad don't understand the basics.

You only know how inaccurate the predictions are after the event. As it is
the models are predicting continuously rising temperatures and all that is
really at stake is the rate of rise.

Any model that doesn't show the rise is automatically deemed to be wrong.
You can't get any funding for a model that is wrong.
Even if a model does show the required rise it doesn't mean its actually a
good model as it may just have fudge factors in it.
It doesn't help that the actual mechanisms and fudge factors and even the
data used in the models are kept secret to avoid public scrutiny.
It does make people wonder what is being hidden and why.

By contrast those who are predicting that global temperatures are now
falling have no model and nothing to hang their hat on bar the 1998 figure
which sticks out like a sore thumb.

There have been models that showed different results, they were deemed to be
wrong.

The Met Office still has 1998 as the warmest year yet but the two American
centres (it is not clear exactly how independently) producing their own
temperature record both conclude that 2010 and 2005 are first equal and
1998 only third.

Well its never going to be clear as the data has been screwed with in
unknown ways and the raw data has gone missing.
Or at least that was the latest excuse for the data being unavailable for
public scrutiny.


To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.

Weather forecasting is frequently very accurate. It is very rare for there
to be a major cock-up.

They are almost always wrong if you look more than a few days ahead.
They are only correct about 50% of the time for the next day.


What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

But you do not have another model to make a more accurate prediction.

There are lots of other models, they all produce different results for much
of the time.
You only have to look at the different organisations producing forecasts to
see that.


Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also
apply to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very
well.

At least some of the apparent inaccuracy we see now is as a direct result
of the furore over that hurricane when the Met Office got the track of the
storm wrong. Caution now rules and bad weather will now almost always be
less extreme than forecast and turn up latter than forecasted.

They didn't get it wrong.
They just used the wrong data.

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...

Is it all CO2's fault or is it random solar activity that we are powerless
to stop?

It doesn't actually matter.
The UK needs to build nuclear power on a large scale as its all we have that
would make us independent of others.
It also reduces carbon if it actually matter later.
the other thing we need is new houses with better insulation so we can cope
with hot or cold as long as we have the nuclear power to run the AC/heating.
The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the geothermal.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

Its exactly the same with renewable energy: It blinds us to alternatives.
In our haste to 'do something' we run the risk of doing worse than
nothing.

Investing in renewable energy is a problem.. what happens when the climate
does change?
Is there going to be any wind for the turbines?
Is it going to be more wet and cloudy for the PV?
It doesn't sound like its a good idea if there is climate change happening.
Maybe we should just cull 90% of the population and solve the problem?

On 29/11/2011 14:51, dennis@home wrote:

Those who claim that they are inaccurate have prejudices rather than
more accurate models to support their assertions.

You can know how inaccurate the models are without having to have a more
accurate model.
Those that think you need a more accurate model to prove the other one
is bad don't understand the basics.

You only know how inaccurate the predictions are after the event. As
it is the models are predicting continuously rising temperatures and
all that is really at stake is the rate of rise.

Any model that doesn't show the rise is automatically deemed to be wrong.

Show me a model that fits the recent past and predicts falling temperature.

You can't get any funding for a model that is wrong.

The deniers have big money behind them. If they could produce a model
that mirrored their beliefs there would be overwhelming publicity.

Even if a model does show the required rise it doesn't mean its actually
a good model as it may just have fudge factors in it.

One man's fudge factor is another man's weighted factor. If the factor
is relevant it needs to be included. So name a few factors that should
be considered and a few that are included but shouldn't be.

It doesn't help that the actual mechanisms and fudge factors and even
the data used in the models are kept secret to avoid public scrutiny.
It does make people wonder what is being hidden and why.

The data is freely available these days. It hasn't helped the deniers
cause though, indeed it has rather damage it since they can't use it to
promote their own theories.

By contrast those who are predicting that global temperatures are now
falling have no model and nothing to hang their hat on bar the 1998
figure which sticks out like a sore thumb.

There have been models that showed different results, they were deemed
to be wrong.

Point me at a few.

The Met Office still has 1998 as the warmest year yet but the two
American centres (it is not clear exactly how independently) producing
their own temperature record both conclude that 2010 and 2005 are
first equal and 1998 only third.

Well its never going to be clear as the data has been screwed with in
unknown ways and the raw data has gone missing.
Or at least that was the latest excuse for the data being unavailable
for public scrutiny.

Citation needed.

To give an example of a very common but frequently very inaccurate model
just look at weather forecasting.

Weather forecasting is frequently very accurate. It is very rare for
there to be a major cock-up.

They are almost always wrong if you look more than a few days ahead.
They are only correct about 50% of the time for the next day.

Well if you are going to argue that if they ar 5 minutes out in
predicting when the rain is going to start falling on your house of
course they are inaccurate but if you reduce the discrimination to say
one hour you would probably be wrong even though they undoubtedly ere on
the side of caution these days. Looking more than a few days ahead is
more difficult as weather is a chaotic system in a way that climate is not.

What's more we know why its inaccurate and we don't need a more accurate
model to prove it, without prejudice.

But you do not have another model to make a more accurate prediction.

There are lots of other models, they all produce different results for
much of the time.
You only have to look at the different organisations producing forecasts
to see that.

With weather there is a broad consensus about how it works and all the
models produce similar results.

Funny enough many of the reasons weather forecasts are inaccurate also
apply to climate models, like not knowing the initial conditions very
well.

At least some of the apparent inaccuracy we see now is as a direct
result of the furore over that hurricane when the Met Office got the
track of the storm wrong. Caution now rules and bad weather will now
almost always be less extreme than forecast and turn up latter than
forecasted.

They didn't get it wrong.
They just used the wrong data.

I can't work out whether that is a poor attempt at irony or a factually
inaccurate statement.

--
Roger Chapman

On 26/11/2011 16:40, charles wrote:

shrug Roofs usually have to renewed every 50 years or so anyway.
[Snip]

really?

Mine is 100 years old this year

No felt sarking layer then.
--
Roger Chapman

On 29/11/2011 13:34, Tim Watts wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/11/2011 15:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
On 25/11/2011 16:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

It is more likely to be around 2K but could be higher.

No. I said IF YOU TAKE OUT THE FUDGE FACTOR.

But if you look at the data it is pretty clear that the net effect
observed so far due to GHG predicts something around 2K/century going
forward. It is splitting hairs to haggle over how much of that change
is driven by exactly which greenhouse gas.

No it really is NOT clear. It depends utterly which data you cherry pick.

Problem with all this is:

I don't trust any of the sods as there are too many lobbyists who have
"green" interests, eg PV panel manufacturers and installers.

There are and some of the renewables policies are obviously garbage. The
best intelligent laymans introduction to these issues I can think of is
David MacKays "Without the Hot Air" free online at:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

You should take particular note of what he says about Dominic Lawson on
p8 and you will see why I dislike these vox pop AGW deniers for hi

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/w...1/page_8.shtml

There are also an arse load of procarbon lobbyists (eg oil companies).

Who are generally better funded PR groups using various front
organisations with "Motherhood and Apple Pie" sounding names. They are
almost all extreme right wing "Think-tanks" if you look under the skin.

If in any doubt about their scientific credentials check back in the
archives to see what they said about CFCs & ozone depletion, wearing
seatbelts or smoking tobacco. That is an easy way to spot "deniers for
hire" who will jump on bandwagons for the money.

So I, as a partially scientific bod who's essentially a layman WRT climate
issues distrusts *everyone*.

How do you know who to listen to unless you have the time and the background
to go through the papers and/or the data?

You have to look at some of the evidence. The IPCC WG1 AR4 output is a
fairly hefty tome to read my print copy is much older from 2001. You can
access it online. There have been the odd mistake in it trumpeted to the
rafters by "deniers for hire inc." but the majority is well written and
accessible with references if you wish to read it.

https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/public...4/wg1-ar4.html

Why are several countries pulling out of Kyoto - do they know something?

They calculate that they will not meet their obligations and reckon that
they can get away with it. And they are right.

So long as America refuses to play ball on AGW the whole thing is a lost
cause. Only after the USA suffers serious damage unambiguously caused by
climate change will they even begin to take it seriously.

Is it all CO2's fault or is it random solar activity that we are powerless
to stop?

A bit of both. Roughly speaking the forcing from CO2 (and other GHG) in
the past 4 decades has surpassed the warming from solar variation over
the last 150 years. You can even find scientific papers by sceptics that
reach this conclusion for example Baliunas, Posmentier & Soon.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996ApJ...472..891S

Note that satellite monitoring prevents deniers handwaving to magically
make the sun brighter to explain the recent decades of warming.

The sun will gradually make the Earth warmer on geological timescales
and we are pretty sure it can vary somewhat (eg Maunder minimum).

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 29/11/2011 14:51, dennis@home wrote:

Any model that doesn't show the rise is automatically deemed to be wrong.

If the Earth is importing more heat than it exports then the temperature
will rise until equilibrium is reached. With all those satellites up
there the data should be available to work out what the current
situation is. Something the deniers should have latched onto years ago
if they wanted conclusive proof that the warmists were wrong. So why
haven't they?

--
Roger Chapman

On 29/11/2011 15:51, Martin Brown wrote:


There are and some of the renewables policies are obviously garbage. The
best intelligent laymans introduction to these issues I can think of is
David MacKays "Without the Hot Air" free online at:

http://www.withouthotair.com/


Something for me to get my teeth into if only I can concentrate on the
same subject for more than 5 minutes at a time. ;-(

You should take particular note of what he says about Dominic Lawson on
p8 and you will see why I dislike these vox pop AGW deniers for hi

Glad to see someone with more clout than me has much the same opinion
about Lawson. I have written to the Independent a time or two about the
rubbish he spouts but they have declined to publish my comments.

--
Roger Chapman

On 29/11/2011 15:55, Roger Chapman wrote:
On 29/11/2011 14:51, dennis@home wrote:

Any model that doesn't show the rise is automatically deemed to be wrong.

If the Earth is importing more heat than it exports then the temperature
will rise until equilibrium is reached. With all those satellites up
there the data should be available to work out what the current
situation is. Something the deniers should have latched onto years ago
if they wanted conclusive proof that the warmists were wrong. So why
haven't they?

Because they know perfectly well that the satellites show a nearly
constant flux with a small variation correlated with the sunspot cycle.

It is these same satellites that prevent all but the most bare faced
liars from claiming that the sun has magically got brighter. IPCC WG1
document shows the early satellite with data warts and all.

http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/244.htm

Absolute flux calibration between instruments is difficult.

You do have to be a little bit careful too as it looks like some UV
solar emissions recently measured for the first time do vary by more
than was expected and may in part be responsible for recent cold
winters. Only the abstract is free to view:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v.../ngeo1282.html

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Roger Chapman wrote:
On 26/11/2011 16:40, charles wrote:

shrug Roofs usually have to renewed every 50 years or so anyway.
[Snip]

really?

Mine is 100 years old this year

No felt sarking layer then.

can't tell. All I can see from inside is timber.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

dennis@home wrote:



"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...

Is it all CO2's fault or is it random solar activity that we are
powerless to stop?

It doesn't actually matter.
The UK needs to build nuclear power on a large scale as its all we have
that would make us independent of others.

I agree with that. Sadly it should have been done 20 years ago, but if they
don't stop the current projects like Merkel did, that will be a step in the
right direction.

It also reduces carbon if it actually matter later.
the other thing we need is new houses with better insulation so we can
cope with hot or cold as long as we have the nuclear power to run the
AC/heating.

That's the only thing I agree with that has been done with a reasonable
degree of sanity (Part L, windows and Pilkington K being a possible
exception).

The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the
geothermal.

Would any notice?

--
Tim Watts

On 29/11/2011 16:33, charles wrote:
In ,
Roger wrote:
On 26/11/2011 16:40, charles wrote:

shrug Roofs usually have to renewed every 50 years or so anyway.
[Snip]

really?

Mine is 100 years old this year

No felt sarking layer then.

can't tell. All I can see from inside is timber.

So you are in Scotland.

--
Roger Chapman

On 29/11/2011 16:45, Tim Watts wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the
geothermal.

Would any notice?

You would be better off invading Iceland if you want geothermal power.

Invading Greenland will just get you loads of retreating glacier ice.

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Roger Chapman wrote:
On 29/11/2011 16:33, charles wrote:
In ,
Roger wrote:
On 26/11/2011 16:40, charles wrote:

shrug Roofs usually have to renewed every 50 years or so anyway.
[Snip]

really?

Mine is 100 years old this year

No felt sarking layer then.

can't tell. All I can see from inside is timber.

So you are in Scotland.

no - from Scotland but in Surrey.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
On 29/11/2011 16:45, Tim Watts wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the
geothermal.

Would any notice?

You would be better off invading Iceland if you want geothermal power.

Invading Greenland will just get you loads of retreating glacier ice.

might help then forthcoming water shortage.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

On 29/11/2011 16:54, charles wrote:
In ,
Martin wrote:
On 29/11/2011 16:45, Tim Watts wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the
geothermal.

Would any notice?

You would be better off invading Iceland if you want geothermal power.

Invading Greenland will just get you loads of retreating glacier ice.

might help then forthcoming water shortage.

Water is only short in the SE. Plenty of it here up north.

The whole of Kielder reservoir and various smaller ones built to cool
the steel furnaces on Teesside are now full almost year round.

Who knows if they ever restart the furnaces they might use a trickle.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Roger Chapman wrote:
On 29/11/2011 14:51, dennis@home wrote:

Any model that doesn't show the rise is automatically deemed to be wrong.

If the Earth is importing more heat than it exports then the temperature
will rise until equilibrium is reached. With all those satellites up
there the data should be available to work out what the current
situation is. Something the deniers should have latched onto years ago
if they wanted conclusive proof that the warmists were wrong. So why
haven't they?

They have and the data is tending to support their case.


The truth will out, eventually.

I am not afraid of the truth.

But are you?

dennis@home wrote:


"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...

Is it all CO2's fault or is it random solar activity that we are
powerless
to stop?

It doesn't actually matter.
The UK needs to build nuclear power on a large scale as its all we have
that would make us independent of others.
It also reduces carbon if it actually matter later.
the other thing we need is new houses with better insulation so we can
cope with hot or cold as long as we have the nuclear power to run the
AC/heating.
The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the geothermal.

Good god dennis, what meds are you on? You are almost correct (grammar
is still borked)


No pint in stealing greenlands geothermal. No way to bring it back if we
did.

Martin Brown wrote:
On 29/11/2011 16:54, charles wrote:
In ,
Martin wrote:
On 29/11/2011 16:45, Tim Watts wrote:
dennis@home wrote:

The alternative is to invade Greenland and steal the
geothermal.

Would any notice?

You would be better off invading Iceland if you want geothermal power.

Invading Greenland will just get you loads of retreating glacier ice.

might help then forthcoming water shortage.

Water is only short in the SE. Plenty of it here up north.

The whole of Kielder reservoir and various smaller ones built to cool
the steel furnaces on Teesside are now full almost year round.

Who knows if they ever restart the furnaces they might use a trickle.



Moving back to real power generation, there's some interesting things
emerging,. We got the GREATEST wind power when the wind was 'just
right': with gales sweeping across the whole country, the output is
ragged and not much over 3GW in total,. which strongly suggests
windmills or whole farms are being feathered through strong wind periods.

Needless to say this puts a high frequency high amplitude ripple on the
grid which the poor old hydro is struggling to contain - frequency
variation is much larger than normal. As is total hydro and pumped..must
be cats and dogs in Scotland and N Wales. Plenty of water for the little
hydro schemes.

Also it seems N European farms are finally spinning up, as we are now
back to pulling power off them as well. That's pulled back the gas oupt
to compensate. But I would imagine a lot of that is spinning reserve in
case the wind power collapses either due to too much, or a net fall in wind.

And it looks like Torness is back up - nuclear has been creeping back to
six and a bit gigs.

Coal is being flatlined at just under 22GW, it seems that they are
determined to make the most of their 'allowed hours of use' So we are
burning coal in preference to gas, thus increasing emissions. I love all
this climate change legislation. All it does is increase emissions..


Overall demand is brutal - over 50GW at this evening's peak. Does NOT
bode well if we get a cold snap and no wind...

Hard to tell whether the French interconnector is up to snuff..they
haven't needed to saturate it today as presumably European windmills are
finally actually generating something.

But it was clipping at 1.5GW last week. Its supposed to be 2GW....

Moyle is still down, and I cant see ocean going cable layers having much
success in the Irish Sea right now.. Still they probably have enough
wind right now to at least boil a kettle, if not the stew....