A question about climate change/global warming.

Can anyone help me find a map of areas that will get hit by glacial floods?

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/space1/worldice.gif

http://i53.tinypic.com/34tbmlk.jpg

NYT

God, I'd love for the NYT's coverage to avoid unnecessary hedging, just for once

is it normal for it to be summer-snowing in australia?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8213932/Wintry-weather-brings-snow-to-Australia-in-midsummer.html

i don't know, but nine of the hottest 10 years ever recorded all happened.. in the last 10 years.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/globaltempanom.jpg

Just deleted three(!!) more people from my Facebook list for variations of the "lol global warming is such a joke because there is snow" bullshit. I'm afraid I may become incoherent with rage and punch anyone that says that to me irl/

http://ifglobalwarmingisrealthenwhyisitcold.blogspot.com/

YES

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rpiegz3et3E/S2EP3FeEYzI/AAAAAAAAALI/yGktwwyuK0w/s1600-h/33o18ud.jpg

Unfortunately, the chances of persuading someone who thinks of the coldness of winter or a heavy snow as evidence against climate change to read this is about .000000001%, but at least you can be happy to know that a relatively easy to read quick guide exists!

Global Warming and Cold Winters

That harsh winter that we are experiencing, it is not proof that global warming is not happening, but rather serves as proof that it is indeed happening, and even a bit faster than we might like to think. It also shows why the phrase "Climate Change" is a better term to describe the effects of man on his environment.

That post mainly just covers the coldness itself (partly caused by increased heat in the arctic ocean combining with the polar air above it to create the Arctic Corridor), but then there's plenty of other stuff that "climate skeptics" (most charitable term I can force myself to use) apparently refuse to read that explain the increased precipitation, which of course in winter takes the form of snowfall in many places. Climate Progress has a quick overview with plenty of links.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2011/1/21/1295623019230/Adam-Blog--James-Delingpo-007.jpg

lol

delingpole = nobber

well that wasn't too difficult

that was lovely to watch but i wanted more

ugh no more delingpole pls

if you've got the time, this series of videos is pretty great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo

that's part 1, they're about 10 mins apiece, and there's 13 of them i think

The Delingpole segment referenced above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Xu3SQcIE0

"I am an interpreter of interpretations"

THAT is the guy who broke the climategate e-mails?

how do people like this gain any authority or trust whatsoever?

I am forced to actually transcribe his closing statement just to stare at it:

'it is not my job to SIT DOWN and READ peer-reviewed papers because I simply haven't got the time, I haven't got the scientific expertise. What I rely upon is people who HAVE got the time and the expertise to DO IT and write about it and interpret it. I am an interpreter of interpretations.'

That is jaw dropping. What a prat.

That's a lot like the explanation some medical cranks give when someone asks them why they haven't done any scientific testing to see if their particular brand of snakeoil actually works: "I don't have the time to find out if I'm full of shit or not! I'm too busy saving lives!"

that quote needs to make the rounds. it needs to be his representative quote, that and perhaps the one about 'truly there just aren't enough bullets'. any paper of note that ever gave time to both sides of the debate in an attempt at objectivity needs to do a story on this and just publish that quote near the top of the page, to make it clear that one of the sides represents world scientific consensus and the other side is basically led by a twit in an angry clown mask who becomes incomprehensible under the slightest questioning.

Heads are going to roll for this, they’ll have to. But however many heads do roll it won’t be enough. Always remember this: the Warmist faith so fervently held and promulgated by the Met Office is exactly the same faith so passionately, unswervingly followed by David Cameron, Chris Huhne, Greg Barker, the Coalition’s energy spokesman in the Lords Lord Marland, and all but five members of the last parliament. And also by the BBC, the Prince of Wales, almost every national newspaper, the European Union, the Royal Society, the New York Times, CNBC, the Obama administration, the Australian and New Zealand governments, your children’s schools, our major universities, our minor universities, the University of East Anglia, your local council….

Truly there just aren’t enough bullets!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100069327/climate-change-there-just-arent-enough-bullets/

Almost all the responsible and/or intelligent people in the world disagree with my conclusions. Therefore, they should be shot.

Truly an example of conservative 'humor' at its 'finest'.

from tonight's SOTU:

"Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all – and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen….."

Wait a second...did "clean energy" just get redefined as including nuclear, clean coal and natural gas?

Obama's been pro-coal since his Illinois state house days. I can see a plausible case for creating incentives (carbon tax) for converting existing coal plants to natural gas over, say, 5 years as an inexpensive interim solution that would reduce electricity generation GHG emissions by 40-45% (while utility scale nuclear, wind, solar thermal, etc are built over a generation). We're not going to get that from an Illinois (or Wyoming, or Montana) politician.

We're not going to get that from an Illinois (or Wyoming, or Montana) politician.

― Pauper Management Improved (Sanpaku), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:47 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Or Pennsylvania, or West Virginia or Kentucky etc. We're fucked.

If the only way to get a massive boost for solar, wind and small-head hydro projects is to feed the corporate pigs some subsidies for (*ahem*) "clean coal", then I am willing to hold my nose and go ahead with it. Something needs to happen that to change the present fossil fuel-centric equation in favor of cleaner energy. This is a case where half a loaf is still likely to be a long term disaster, but at least smaller, slower disaster than preserving the status quo.

The argument I often hear in favor of clean coal goes along these lines: It's in our own best interests to perfect & distribute Clean Coal technology to China & Russia since they're doing it anyway.

I can see a plausible case for creating incentives (carbon tax) for converting existing coal plants to natural gas over, say, 5 years as an inexpensive interim solution that would reduce electricity generation GHG emissions by 40-45% (while utility scale nuclear, wind, solar thermal, etc are built over a generation). We're not going to get that from an Illinois (or Wyoming, or Montana) politician.

― Pauper Management Improved (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 26 January 2011 00:47 (13 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Converting coal to NG is not negligible thing to do. Since you are replacing baseload you want to be operating combined cycle which means new turbines and new or heavily modified boilers. There's not much saving or benefit over build new especially as you have to get that base load power from somewhere else. So essentially you are building new at ~ $750/kw. Cartbon tax would have to be huge to negate the effect of fully depreciated assets.

They need to change the rules on how thermal plants are costed. Fuel costs don't have to be factored in right now which means they look cheaper than they should compared to renewables.

The sad fact is that there is no way of passing an energy bill without votes from those bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. It means that way more than lipservice has to be paid to 'clean' coal and shale gas.

A gently effective demolition of Christopher Monckton just now on Storyville on BBC4.

rockin' the faulty thyroid look

it's ok tho 'cause he can cure aids and cancer and meningitis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00y5j3v/Storyville_20102011_Meet_the_Climate_Sceptics/

Can somebody (hello, Z S) summarise why the latest kerfuffle about peer review is the crock of shite it inevitably must be?

xp Ed:

Coal-fired generation sites already have the water supply, facilities site and transmission lines, so replacing them with combined cycle gas would be relatively cheap (ca $1/W installed). Far, far cheaper than achieving similar emissions reductions via coal gassification and C02 sequestration. The 309 GW of coal fired generation in the US could be replaced for about $309 billion, about 20% of this year's fiscal deficit. Not all at once, mind you (it would take time, a decade or so, for shale gas production to ramp to required needs), and it would make no sense whatsoever if the coal was exported to be burned elsewhere.

But the point is to create a wedge issue to divide the political bloc of fossil extraction states. Before shale NG became economic this decade, it was believed there was only two decades of supply left. Once the general plausibility of an interim NG, long-term renewables & nuclear policy becomes accepted, then the consuming states & NG states would have the mass to halt further coal leases by the BLM in the Powder River Basin etc. The goal is to make coal off-limits globally, and quickly. When we're back below 350ppm in 1000 years any survivivors will have the records of the famines of the bottleneck century, and can decide whether exploiting the remaining coal is worth the risk.

xpost james

I have to confess that I'm not sure what the latest kerfuffle about peer review is!

This kerfuffle: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/wrong-is-wrong-a-reply-to-the-real-noise-at-real-climate/

Where does that $1/W figure come from. I generally carry $750/kW as a figure for capital cost of new gas generation so that seems higher. That said, that's an industry number held almost as a talisman and I should probably look at the EIA numbers again. I'd be very happy with a $1/W figure, it makes selling batteries $250/kw more profitable.

OK, confusion in my mind between Conventional Turbine and Combined Cycle.

xpost, that's funny, I read the original RealClimate post on the day it was published, but had no idea that there was a "controversy" that emerged out of it!

To be honest, I read O'Donnell's response at ClimateAudit.org, and then Steig's rebuttal to the rebuttal back at RealClimate - and both sides of course claim to be completely correct and basically claim victory - but I'm having trouble getting over the fact that O'Donnell is choosing Steve McIntyre's ClimateAudit.org as his platform! And that the link to the kerfuffle has a big ad for a book about "climategate" side, which of course has been repeatedly exonerated by a number of commissions (though, predictably, the exonerations got about 1/10000000000th the media coverage as the accusations). McIntyre is pretty renowned for being full of shit constantly, from the petty to the libelous (and renowned among skeptics as a hero), and like many other prominent skeptics, isn't even a climate scientist (he's an expert in the business aspects of mineral exploration . Anthony Watts, of WattsUpWithThat, another prominent skeptic blogger, is a weathercaster. Mark Morano, of ClimateDepot, is a professional trashbag).

So, I don't know...based off of what I've seen published in ClimateAudit in the past, it's really, really, REALLY hard to support O'Donnell's side. Then again, even the National Enquirer breaks a legitimate story every once in a while, so...? No, I can't do it. ClimateAudit is irredeemable!

uuuuuuuuugh

NOAA and NSIDC estimate that thawing permafrost will turn the Arctic from a carbon sink to a carbon source by the mid-2020s, a feedback loop "strong enough to cancel 42–88% of the total global land sink". AND, I'm assuming to simplify the study, they made the assumption that all of the carbon in the thawing permafrost would be released as CO2, and none as methane (many times more heat-trapping than CO2), even though it's known that much of the carbon in permafrost is contained as methane.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2nu6h5k.gif
Carbon emission (in billions of tons of carbon a year) from thawing permafrost

Wish more people would listen to this dude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6TXXDSQwCE

From one of my local Twitter contacts this morning, after a major snowstorm hit Cleveland last night/today:

I just had to drive through nearly a foot of global warming in my driveway. #AnInconvenientBlizzard

To which I followed up with:

Confusing weather and climate = Not A Good Look

"My house's thermostat says it's 67 degrees, so how can there be ice in my freezer?!"

Global warming=hotter air=holds more moisture=makes more snow when a cold front hits. #nothardtounderstand

lol @ thermostat line

"say, why do we drive in the parkway and park on the driveway?!?
#icanalsiveannoyingandstupid

this made me laugh. a climate skeptic's graph, via tim lambert's deltoid:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/upload/2011/02/12we22.gif

i guess this quick lil' post is aimed toward people who get the feeling that all this climate change stuff is a little blown out of proportion, but i wanted to highlight the first comment on Friedman's op-ed today, which was written by Australia's former Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull:

Recently I was visiting with an Asian Environment Minister I knew well from my own days as Australia's Environment Minister. We discussed these issues and he said to me "My conclusion is that the short sightedness and greed of mankind - especially in the rich developed world - is so great that in a hundred years this planet will be uninhabitable for billions of people."

Turnbull goes on to counter that with a more guarded view ("I don't share that gloom and remain optimistic that before it is too late we will cut global greenhouse gas emissions and contain, if not stop, global warming. But there are some environmental challenges which are profoundly existential"), but I think it's worth mentioning that at least some political environmental leaders of the world recognize the gravity of the situation, and apparently they discuss this openly with each other.

PS sorry for linking to Friedman!

And really, this soon-to-be unanswered post belongs just as much, if not more, in the Energy thread. Or really, in a food/energy/water/climate change thread. I think there's already one like that, but the subject matter is so relentlessly gloomy that it attracts rolling eyes.

I dont get why people say things like "DO you belive in global warming" - is it really a question of belief when ~90% (yay tilda!!) of the world's scientists say it is valid? I guess the question is whether you believe in science at all

I wonder where all the, "look, there's snow on the ground in late April, global warming is such bullshit" people go when we hit record-breaking triple-digit temps in early June.

Yeah, one of the worst common perceptions is that global warming means no more cold temperatures. When in fact, there will continue to be record-setting low temperatures. It's the trends that matter, of course. I always thought this chart was instructive:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2j424nm.jpg

Romney draws early fire from conservatives over views on climate change

His views about climate change in particular put him at odds with many in his party’s base.

“Bye-bye, nomination,” Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday on his radio talk show after playing a clip of Romney’s climate remark. “Another one down. We’re in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax, and we still have presidential candidates that want to buy into it.”

Then came the Club for Growth, which issued a white paper criticizing Romney. “Governor Romney’s regulatory record as governor contains some flaws,” the report said, “including a significant one — his support of ‘global warming’ policies.”

And Conservatives4Palin.com, a blog run by some of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s more active supporters, posted an item charging that Romney is “simpatico” with President Obama after he “totally bought into the man-made global warming hoax.”

All this criticism, even though Romney's position on mitigating climate change is predictably weak and muddy:

“I don’t speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world’s getting warmer,” he said. “I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past, but I believe we contribute to that.”

Romney added that “it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors.” He also said he does not support a cap-and-trade policy, saying it would put American companies at a competitive disadvantage in the world. “We don’t call it ‘America warming,’ ” he said. “We call it ‘global warming.’ ”

But it was his line that “humans contribute” that sparked the conservative backlash.

It does seem that the right has backed off on denying that the globe is warming, with them now just saying it's not man-made.