THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)
10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Peter
Theres no mystery where a very tiny amount of the co2 is coming from- in itself a very tiny
amount of the other component in your photo-water vapour. Its just the notion how the miniscule amount man contributes to GHG is the straw that broke the camels back. According to unproven computer models of course.
TonyB
… and we all know where all those economic/banking computer models got us when they were proven.
Max,
Back to your claimed 280 ppmv of CO2 being responsible for 5.3 deg C of GH effect.
I seem to remember that you explained using the analogy of light passing through paint on a window why each extra amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had a lesser effect. So you’d double the amount and get the same increase every doubling.
I think I did point out the flaw in that argument by saying that you should get the same reduction by halving CO2 concentrations too. And you can do that an infinite number of times and end up with the silly answer of negative infinity for the earth’s temperature with no atmospheric CO2 present.
I’d say that it is more likely that if we chose the half way value of 140ppmv for CO2 concentrations we’d have about 2.65 degs of GH effect.
That’s using your figure.
We’d better hope that your logarithmic law kicks in sooner or later otherwise we’ll have another 5.3 degs of warming if CO2 levels double. If it does, we’ll get just another 2.65 degs C instead.
Sorry Max but I don’t think your contrarian buddies will be too impressed with your 5.3 deg C figure.
Peter,
Very impressive photograph of steam/water vapor (post 3800).
Here’s the thing; you believe that increasing CO2 is driving temperature upward. What does it mean when C02 rises and temperatures drop?
(You’ve probably theorized on this before, but humor me.)
In an interview with Jim Hansen reported in the Observer (the Guardian’s Sunday sister), Hansen says that Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. Hansen warns that Obama’s
In particular, Hansen says,
Regarding carbon trading, he says
It will be interesting to see what (real as opposed to rhetorical) priority Obama gives to all this – if indeed he takes Mr Hansen’s advice at all. Seems rather unlikely to me.
The article can be found here, together with a link to the full interview.
TonyN,
Ms. Brute and I are vacationing in the wilds of Western Pennsylvania. Yesterday, while driving through one of the numerous State Parks we came across a ridgeline with approximately twelve very large three arm windmills……..I can’t describe the site…..I can only relate that it was the most queer thing that I’ve seen in a while….alien in nature…..completely out of place.
I understand your revulsion now. The interesting thing was that all but one was motionless. From our vantage point they seemed to be a couple of hundred feet tall…..much like alien sentinels from a bad science fiction movie……difficult to describe. I snapped some photos (which I can’t post), but even then….the photograph doesn’t capture the scale of these monstrosities.
It would be interesting to conduct a cost/benefit analysis.
Hi Peter,
You wrote (3803), “Back to your claimed 280 ppmv of CO2 being responsible for 5.3 deg C of GH effect.
I seem to remember that you explained using the analogy of light passing through paint on a window why each extra amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had a lesser effect. So you’d double the amount and get the same increase every doubling.
I think I did point out the flaw in that argument by saying that you should get the same reduction by halving CO2 concentrations too. And you can do that an infinite number of times and end up with the silly answer of negative infinity for the earth’s temperature with no atmospheric CO2 present.
I’d say that it is more likely that if we chose the half way value of 140ppmv for CO2 concentrations we’d have about 2.65 degs of GH effect.
That’s using your figure.
We’d better hope that your logarithmic law kicks in sooner or later otherwise we’ll have another 5.3 degs of warming if CO2 levels double. If it does, we’ll get just another 2.65 degs C instead.
Sorry Max but I don’t think your contrarian buddies will be too impressed with your 5.3 deg C figure.”
This post is a bit convoluted and rambling, so it is not easy to formulate a concise response, but I’ll try.
The 5.3C figure for pre-industrial greenhouse warming impact is actually the same as that used by Richard Lindzen.
I will again post the chart where he shows how this develops logarithmically, to refresh your memory.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/3102481730_782feea7bd_b.jpg
Hope this helps.
Lindzen’s number checks out very closely with the observed warming attributable to CO2 from 1850 to 2008, as pointed out earlier.
Lindzen tells us that a 4xCO2 scenario would result in 1.29C warming.
We are now at 45% of a doubling, or 22.5% of a quadrupling.
Lindzen = 22.5% of 1.29C = 0.29C
Observed = 0.3C.
Good check. Looks like Lindzen “knows his stuff”.
BTW, what is your estimate of pre-industrial greenhouse warming from CO2?
What is your basis?
Regards,
Max
Chart for Peter
Regards,
Max
Brute
These things have their place-preferably off shore and out of sight where there is more constant wind. However,increasingly they are being placed in our finest upland landscapes and to me you dont save the environment by trashing the countryside.
TonyB0
Hi Peter,
You asked a hypothetical question (3803), again reminding me of the heated debates between medieval theologians on the “sex of angels”.
As I understood you, you asked what happens to the greenhouse temperature effect when you continue to halve the CO2 concentration.
Just “eyeballing” the Lindzen curve I posted, I see (approximately):
6.5C at 1120 ppm
5.9C at 560 ppm = 0.6C dT for halving from 1120 ppm
5.3C at 280 ppm = 0.6C dT for halving from 560 ppm
4.7C at 140 ppm = 0.6C dT for halving from 280 ppm
4.0C at 70 ppm = 0.7C dT for halving from 140 ppm
3.3C at 35 ppm = 0.7C dT for halving from 70 ppm
2.5C at 17.5 ppm = 0.8C dT for halving from 35 ppm
So, it appears that at very low atmospheric concentrations a halving will result in a slightly higher temperature impact. I would expect (from eye-balling the curve) that if you got down to the fractional parts per million, the halving impact could even get greater.
So much for the pure theory. Let’s look at the practical side, now.
TonyB may not agree, but the “AGW hypothesis” rests upon the premise that “natural” (i.e. pre-industrial) CO2 concentration was fairly steady at 280 ppmv over a very long part of human history, only to change when man became “industrialized”.
We are now at 385 ppmv and it is projected that we will reach 560 ppmv by 2100.
All the known and hopefully suspected fossil fuels on our planet could theoretically generate enough CO2 on combustion to raise the atmospheric concentration to almost 1120 ppmv, so we can view this level as the practical upper limit we need to consider.
At the concentrations we are discussing in practice (280 to 1120 ppmv), it appears that the logarithmic relationship holds very well.
Worrying about what might theoretically happen outside that range is a waste of time.
Regards,
Max
Robin
Judging from the blogger response to the Hansen interview in the Observer, it looks like folks are not swallowing the Hansen hysteria.
This guy has gone too far off into “never-never” land to really be taken seriously by anyone (except possibly some ill-informed and not quite objective politicians).
He needs to be offered early retirement and replaced with an un-biased and objective scientist from outside the club, but this will obviously not be done by an Obama administration.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
[Posted this earlier, but somehowit didn’t get through.]
You wrote (3803), “Back to your claimed 280 ppmv of CO2 being responsible for 5.3 deg C of GH effect.
I seem to remember that you explained using the analogy of light passing through paint on a window why each extra amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had a lesser effect. So you’d double the amount and get the same increase every doubling.
I think I did point out the flaw in that argument by saying that you should get the same reduction by halving CO2 concentrations too. And you can do that an infinite number of times and end up with the silly answer of negative infinity for the earth’s temperature with no atmospheric CO2 present.
I’d say that it is more likely that if we chose the half way value of 140ppmv for CO2 concentrations we’d have about 2.65 degs of GH effect.
That’s using your figure.
We’d better hope that your logarithmic law kicks in sooner or later otherwise we’ll have another 5.3 degs of warming if CO2 levels double. If it does, we’ll get just another 2.65 degs C instead.
Sorry Max but I don’t think your contrarian buddies will be too impressed with your 5.3 deg C figure.”
This post is a bit convoluted and rambling, so it is not easy to formulate a concise response, but I’ll try.
The 5.3C figure for pre-industrial greenhouse warming impact is actually the same as that used by Richard Lindzen.
I will again post the chart where he shows how this develops logarithmically, to refresh your memory.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/3102481730_782feea7bd_b.jpg
Hope this helps.
Lindzen’s number checks out very closely with the observed warming attributable to CO2 from 1850 to 2008, as pointed out earlier.
Lindzen tells us that a 4xCO2 scenario would result in 1.29C warming.
We are now at 45% of a doubling, or 22.5% of a quadrupling.
Lindzen = 22.5% of 1.29C = 0.29C
Observed = 0.3C.
Good check. Looks like Lindzen “knows his stuff”.
BTW, what is your estimate of pre-industrial greenhouse warming from CO2?
What is your basis?
Regards,
Max
Robin/Max,
As we had discussed previously, it seems that reality is setting in with global warming Alarmists. The stock market dropped an additional 320 points today, (largest drop of any Inauguration Day) and the relentless cold weather continues to pound. The temperaure here tonight will be 5 degrees above zero Fanrenheit.
Hopefully, like a slap in the face, the realities of both the economic picture and the bitter cold “climate” will continue to erode the religious fervor of the environmentalists and bring politicians into line.
Brute, I sense that Robin in the UK is still more cautious on this, but I firmly believe you are right that fads will shift and that more cold “climate” plus the economic realities of today will refocus the prevailing emphasis from “global warming” to other, more urgent priorities, despite Hansen’s hysterical last-ditch pleas to keep the politicians focused on this boondoggle.
We shall see.
Regards,
Max
TonyN
Have tried twice posting this message plus attachment to Peter, but it keeps getting hung up in the filter. Is there a problem? Thanks.
Hi Peter,
You wrote (3803), “Back to your claimed 280 ppmv of CO2 being responsible for 5.3 deg C of GH effect.
I seem to remember that you explained using the analogy of light passing through paint on a window why each extra amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had a lesser effect. So you’d double the amount and get the same increase every doubling.
I think I did point out the flaw in that argument by saying that you should get the same reduction by halving CO2 concentrations too. And you can do that an infinite number of times and end up with the silly answer of negative infinity for the earth’s temperature with no atmospheric CO2 present.
I’d say that it is more likely that if we chose the half way value of 140ppmv for CO2 concentrations we’d have about 2.65 degs of GH effect.
That’s using your figure.
We’d better hope that your logarithmic law kicks in sooner or later otherwise we’ll have another 5.3 degs of warming if CO2 levels double. If it does, we’ll get just another 2.65 degs C instead.
Sorry Max but I don’t think your contrarian buddies will be too impressed with your 5.3 deg C figure.”
This post is a bit convoluted and rambling, so it is not easy to formulate a concise response, but I’ll try.
The 5.3C figure for pre-industrial greenhouse warming impact is actually the same as that used by Richard Lindzen.
I will again post the chart where he shows how this develops logarithmically, to refresh your memory.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/3102481730_782feea7bd_b.jpg
Hope this helps.
Lindzen’s number checks out very closely with the observed warming attributable to CO2 from 1850 to 2008, as pointed out earlier.
Lindzen tells us that a 4xCO2 scenario would result in 1.29C warming.
We are now at 45% of a doubling, or 22.5% of a quadrupling.
Lindzen = 22.5% of 1.29C = 0.29C
Observed = 0.3C.
Good check. Looks like Lindzen “knows his stuff”.
BTW, what is your estimate of pre-industrial greenhouse warming from CO2?
What is your basis?
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
[Resposting again, without attachment, since this keeps getting stuck. The attachment was included with post #3158, but I will attempt to post again after this post.]
You wrote (3803), “Back to your claimed 280 ppmv of CO2 being responsible for 5.3 deg C of GH effect.
I seem to remember that you explained using the analogy of light passing through paint on a window why each extra amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had a lesser effect. So you’d double the amount and get the same increase every doubling.
I think I did point out the flaw in that argument by saying that you should get the same reduction by halving CO2 concentrations too. And you can do that an infinite number of times and end up with the silly answer of negative infinity for the earth’s temperature with no atmospheric CO2 present.
I’d say that it is more likely that if we chose the half way value of 140ppmv for CO2 concentrations we’d have about 2.65 degs of GH effect.
That’s using your figure.
We’d better hope that your logarithmic law kicks in sooner or later otherwise we’ll have another 5.3 degs of warming if CO2 levels double. If it does, we’ll get just another 2.65 degs C instead.
Sorry Max but I don’t think your contrarian buddies will be too impressed with your 5.3 deg C figure.”
This post is a bit convoluted and rambling, so it is not easy to formulate a concise response, but I’ll try.
The 5.3C figure for pre-industrial greenhouse warming impact is actually the same as that used by Richard Lindzen.
I will again post the chart where he shows how this develops logarithmically, to refresh your memory.
Hope this helps.
Lindzen’s number checks out very closely with the observed warming attributable to CO2 from 1850 to 2008, as pointed out earlier.
Lindzen tells us that a 4xCO2 scenario would result in 1.29C warming.
We are now at 45% of a doubling, or 22.5% of a quadrupling.
Lindzen = 22.5% of 1.29C = 0.29C
Observed = 0.3C.
Good check. Looks like Lindzen “knows his stuff”.
BTW, what is your estimate of pre-industrial greenhouse warming from CO2?
What is your basis?
Regards,
Max
Attachment to 3812
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/3102481730_782feea7bd_b.jpg
Max
Attachment to 3812 for Peter
Yes, Max, I am cautious about optimism that reality will bring the politicians into line. Paradoxically, I’m rather more optimistic about the US (“paradoxically” because of Obama’s “green appointments) than the UK. Note my comment on Hansen’s outburst:
I won’t bore you with my views on the UK – they’re here. I would add, however that I have little doubt that our increasingly dire economic situation will force even our politicians to face reality. The sad thing is that that will probably be too late to resolve our looming energy disaster.
Re; #3806, Brute
One of the advantages that wind turbine developers have is that it is very easy to make them look good in photos. See here. The reality is very different as you have discovered.
If the turbines that you saw were in the order of 200 ft high then they were small ones. The latest models are around 500 ft, and there are plans to install these onshore in the UK.
So far as cost/benefit analysis is concerned, there is a huge literature on this; see Links in the LHS sidebar on this page.
In the UK, wind generation is only viable because the government require the power distributors to buy every watt produced at double the going rate for conventional power; this is called the Renewables Obligation. There is no reason to suppose that the tiny amounts of electricity produced this way will be cheaper elsewhere in the world. The main purpose of wind generation seems to be to advertise a governments green credentials.
Turbines only generate at maximum capacity within a fairly narrow band of wind speeds: too much and they close down for safety reasons, too little and they generate less and less efficiently until they stop. They have very sophisticated gearboxes to try and minimise this problem, but these tend to give trouble.
If the installed capacity of a turbine is 2Mw, then the average output in the UK will be in the order of 600Kw (30%) in optimum conditions. In Denmark this figure is about 18% and in Germany it falls to 10%. In the UK we have more wind than most.
Unfortunately the amount that wind generation contributes to the grid is so small that consumers do not notice what it costs. In the UK less than 2% of our electricity comes from wind. There are already about 2000 turbines, mostly on hilltops in rural areas. In Denmark, where wind contributes 40%, domestic electricity costs roughly double what it does in the UK.
Having read President Obama’s inauguration speach, it would appear that wind generation figures largely in his plans for job creation.
Re: #3815, Max
I clear the spam filter at about 9.00am UK time most mornings.
If you post a comment repeatedly, it is more likely to think that you are a spammer as this is an IP address related issue. When I fish one of your posts out of the filter, that tells Akismet that your IP address is OK, although it can take some time for the message to get through.
Typically, the filter collects between 35 and 70 items daily, mostly porn, but with offers of special solutions for your financial problems making ground strongly during the last few months.
TonyN #3820
Please repost this somewhere more appropriate if you wish but I couldn’t see the links you mention.
Have you any statistics on the amount of energy (concrete, steel, access roads, transport, maintenance etc) required to build a typical turbine and what their power output is -predicted and actual? In particlar I am interested in the actual meaning when a developer says an installation will provide the electricty needs of 10000 houses-does that mean all the load intensive stuff such as hot water and cooking, or merely the easier stuff such as electric lights-and what estimate are they making of an average houses electricty consumption?
These installations serve a purpose in the right places but are despoiling some of our finest landscapes-I am actually shocked and angered by what has happened in mid Wales-one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
TonyB
TonyN
Reur 3821
Oops! Sorry for getting impatient and loading up the system.
Regards,
Max
Re: #3822, TonyB
Briefly, the developers routinely base the number of houses served on installed capacity, which is the theoretical maximum generated if a turbines runs continuously at full capacity. Of course this never happens.
The actual onshore maximum load capacity in this country is taken as being no more than 30% of the installed capacity. Your figure of 10,000 houses therefor falls to 3,000 for all practical purposes. You are also right to be suspicious of the assumed electricity consumption of each household. Inconvenient things like heating are not included, and also note that these figures always refer to households, never to industry or commerce. I think that I am right in saying that commercial consumption is greater than domestic.
See Dr. John Etherington’s paper here for far more reliable facts and figures than I can deliver from memory. I am not aware that his analysis has been successfully challenged and it is a very easy and interesting read. Information about construction and infrastructure costs will also be found there. Incidentally the author was a reader in ecology at the University of Wales, so can hardly be described as one of the usual suspects.
For an overall picture of what is happening, and what is likely to happen, then Country Guardians are an excellent resource, in spite of the quaint name,and they are scrupulously careful about facts and figures.
IMMINENT THAWING PERMAFROST DISASTER
Hi Peter,
Coming back to your 3765, where you made the dire prediction (starting with the big word, “if”), “If the Arctic tundra does melt and release large quantities of methane then we’ll be in real trouble. The oceans aren’t going to save us then.”
I posted (3775) the link to a study, which indicated that if temperatures continue to warm at projected rates over a very long period of time, the carbon released from thawing permafrost “could approach 0.8 to 1.1 GtC per year in the future”.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903134309.htm
Just to see whether or not this would mean “real trouble”, I did a quick check.
I assumed as a DISASTER scenario, that the carbon emission from thawing permafrost would be TWICE that suggested in the study, or 2 GtC per year. I further assumed that half of this carbon would be in the form of methane and the other half as CO2.
I then calculated the combined total temperature impact of this added load by year 2100, assuming it starts in 2050 and reaches the maximum extent by year 2100.
To my amazement I found that the total impact of this DISASTER scenario would be a theoretical greenhouse temperature increase of 0.2C by year 2100.
Only 0.2C warming from all that thawing permafrost? Something must be wrong here!
So I re-ran the calculation, this time assuming that the big permafrost thaw would start already in 2020 (11 years from now) and would reach its maximum rate (2x that projected by the study) by year 2050.
To my even further amazement, the theoretical greenhouse warming from all this would now represent 0.3C by the year 2100.
So, Peter, I think you’ll agree that this is not really a case where “we’ll be in real trouble”, and “the oceans aren’t going to save us then”.
Instead, it’s really “peanuts” in the overall scheme of things.
If you’d like to check the calculation, I’ll be glad to provide details.
Regards,
Max