Denier Weirdness: Clean air causes traffic deaths

Denier weirdness from WUWT today.  jdgalt comes up with a novel way that clean air kills people, he says:

July 20, 2013 at 12:48 pm  Raw numbers of people killed by each type of hazard are only step 1. Now show us the steps you propose we take to alleviate each one, and be sure to show their costs per year of life expectancy saved, especially costs in lives.  EPA’s clean air regulations, for instance, kill thousands every year by forcing people into smaller cars where they are more likely to die in wrecks. That dwarfs any believable number saved by the reduction in emissions.

The Clean Air Act regulations controlling air pollution were introduced from 1970 onwards.  Here is a chart showing deaths by motor vehicle accident in the USA, relative to the total population. (Click for larger version).

Source: Wikipedia

I'm a bit short of time today, otherwise I'd be looking into the main article by Lomborg.  It's a promo for a new book of his, and a chapter by Richard Tol.  It looks as if he's arguing "either/or" on reducing air pollution vs minimising global warming.  And arguing that global warming in the form of weather disasters won't (directly) kill too many people so we shouldn't do anything about it.  I expect there's more in his book.

The reaction from WUWT is underwhelming.  Mostly of the nature "we don't believe xyz" or "give them more air pollution by way of burning coal".

Hope to have more time later in the week.  Meantime, here is a link to the Global Burden of Disease program that is quoted by Lomborg (without a link).  It's a mine of information with oodles of data presented in all sorts of clever ways.

Willis Eschenbach thinks most people are suckers

...and doesn't "believe" there is a free market for insurance

I've just read an article by Willis Eschenbach on WUWT (that's Wondering Willis of Remote Airports fame).  His article appears to be based on the premise that there is no such thing as a free market for insurance.

It's an interesting thought to appear on an ideologically-driven denier website of the free-market persuasion.

Willis main lie is:

... there is no evidence that  extreme weather events are increasing. 

Willis is trying to claim that one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, Munich Re is making stuff up when it produces charts like this one (discussed by Tamino). (Click any chart to enlarge it.)

And this updated one, from a more recent Munich Re report: Topics Geo – Natural catastrophes 2012

Willis' whole argument seems to be founded on the false premise that climate change isn't bringing more weather disasters.  He makes the following unstated assumptions:

1. people who pay more for insurance as companies raise their rates as risk increases, are wasting their money because floods, fires, storms etc won't get worse with climate change.
2. no insurance company will try to grab a bigger share of the market by offering lower rates than the industry norm.  There won't be a company that will back Willis' notion that weather disasters won't continue to increase.

In other words, people are stupid for paying higher rates.  I'm not so surprised by that first assumption.  Anyone who doesn't stray far from the realm of denier-land can't be expected to know that there are people in the world who are not quite as stupid as those they come across on places like WUWT.

The second assumption is more odd, because free market ideology is what motivates a lot of deniers to adopt their denialist stance. Willis is assuming the insurance market isn't a free market.  It is not competitive. There will be no company that will offer lower rates. Seems a bit of an odd position for someone on WUWT to take.

Insurance companies offer all sorts of things and compete with each other in my experience.  But like any business, if they make too many bad choices they may go under.  If an insurance company doesn't pay out for damages it insures against it will lose customers or worse.  If an insurer wrongly assumes risks are lower than they really are and it does pay up when disasters hit, it may well run out of funds and fold.

Wondering Willis is wrong - again

Going back to Willis and his big hot whopper:

...there is no evidence that  extreme weather events are increasing. Even the IPCC has been dragged kicking and screaming to admit this. The land has been warming for a couple hundred years, but nowhere in there are any thermal catastrophes, or any increase in the extremes of wind, water, and weather.

As we've seen there is evidence being stacked up that certain deleterious weather events are increasing.  Most extreme events are rare, otherwise they would not be called extreme they'd be called 'normal'.  That's not all. The IPCC itself reports certain extreme events are increasing in either or both magnitude and frequency, including heavy precipitation, heat waves and warm spells in various regions.  Extreme events associated with cold are decreasing.

The most common of the recurring extreme events are arguably extreme heat and extreme precipitation.  The weather in most places is pushing against the upper boundaries of "climate".  There are disasters associated with these extremes - fire, drought and flash floods.

This IPCC report is devoted to extreme events and disasters and, contrary to what Willis tries to claim, it does document an observed increase in some extreme events.  Already.  And we've got a lot more to look forward to as climate change kicks in more strongly this century.

If rising insurance costs are a concern, I'd suggest moving to an area that is less likely to be affected by fire, flood, sea surges, hurricanes and other disasters.  Insurance costs aren't going to drop from lowering climate risks, but you can still find companies that assess risk at the local level and will charge less where there is less risk exposure.

Summer heat waves all over

While Ed Hoskins on WUWT was warning that an ice age cometh, I saw that many parts of the world were in the grip of a heat wave.

India is reportedly considering categorising heat waves as a "natural calamity" entitling compensation to next of kin of people who die because of heat.  Hundreds of people have died from heat related deaths in India this year.  How's this for coming off a heat wave - from last month: "Temperatures in northern India have eased to around 42 degrees Celsius in recent days".  That's right, eased to 42 Celsius.  Imagine a cool change at 42 degrees Celsius! (107 degrees Fahrenheit.)  And then the monsoon came with a vengeance and killed almost 6,000 people.

Japan had more than 10,000 people hospitalised for heat related conditions this month and 85 heat-related deaths so far this year.

In the UK they are suffering as well, with hundreds of heat related deaths estimated.  Central Europe had a big one last month.

In the USA the weather is doing funny stuff and the heat wave continues in the north east of the continent.  Ignoring borders, of course, and hitting Canada as well.  Give a thought to the emergency workers in heat waves, like these firefighters in New Jersey.

And even Melbourne in southeastern Australia has had a winter warm wave.  Melbourne recorded its hottest July day on record this week at 23.3 degrees Celsius (74 Fahrenheit).  This narrowly beat the previous record of 23.1 degrees set in 1975.  So far the average maximum for July is 16.7 Celsius, which is 3.2 degrees Celsius above the long term average of 13.5 Celsius.

No, Philip - it's not cold in Perth compared to the past

As for cold extremes? I read this comment on WUWT just now:

Philip Bradley says:

July 19, 2013 at 11:57 pm  tango says:  July 19, 2013 at 3:47 am I am charted out I think I will put on my overcoat because It is freezing here in Australia
Coldest winter I can remember in Perth. Must be all that sea ice, which is a good 200 km closer to us than normal. Be interested to see the UAH July update.

So I went to the Bureau of Meteorology website to see just how cold it is in Perth.  I didn't see a long term record for Perth itself so I had to make do with different sources.

So far this month, the average maximum temperature at Perth Lawley and Perth Airport is 18.6 degrees Celsius (65.5 Fahrenheit) - not bad for the middle of winter.  The closest comparison seems to be this location, which from 1993 to now has an average July maximum of 18.4 degrees, a tad colder than this year.  And long term (but possibly not comparable), Perth regional office records the average for July from 1897 to 1992 at 17.4 degrees.

I'm guessing Philip Bradley has a very short term memory, because last year the average maximum for July was 19.4 degrees. All he remembers is that last year in July it was warmer than this year.

Roy Spencer the half-truther and Roger Pielke Jr the global warming advocate

Update: see below.


I just saw Roy Spencer giving testimony to a USA Senate hearing "Climate Change is Happening Now".

Spencer admitted: "there's a lot of half truths in this business".

Then he proceeded to prove his point.

He said that Antarctic sea ice is increasing but left out more than the half the picture, namely that the Antarctic ice melt from land is contributing to sea level rise, and that the Arctic sea ice is decreasing ever so much more than the increase in Antarctic sea ice.  He claimed that he falls into the 98% of scientists who agree that humans cause global warming, asking "how much do humans contribute" while neglecting to point out that the 98% agree that humans cause most of the current global warming.  At least more than half the global warming according to the Cook et al study that Spencer was referring to.

Spencer who claimed to be a scientist who should know about climate, ended up his speech with "at some point we have to ask ourselves is all of this just mostly part of what the climate system does naturally".   Is he saying he doesn't know?

For an avowed Christian Roy Spencer is a terrific half-truther!

Pielke and Senator Whitehouse agree

Here is some more from the same Senate panel hearing.  Senator Whitehouse and Roger Pielke Jr find much to agree upon:

Whitehouse: We agree that climate change is happening.

Pielke: Yes

Whitehouse: We agree that we should both mitigate and adapt in response to that change.

Pielke: Yes

Whitehouse: We both find the IPCC reports credible?

Pielke: Yes.

Whitehouse: Can we also agree that a body of credible research projects that extreme weather events could increase in frequency and intensity due to manmade carbon dioxide emission.

Pielke: Yes, that's certainly the case and if you look at the literature you'll find many such projections. 

But Pielke quickly switches to hurricanes, his favourite topic.  He went on to say it could be a long time before we can categorically say that hurricanes are increasing in frequency or intensity.

Whitehouse then asks that, given that we're already way beyond the norm in terms of CO2 now at 400 ppm, we should anticipate climate behaviour rather than wait for a signal in every single facet of climate?

Pielke says: Yes, absolutely. And goes on to explain that he's written about adaptation for an awfully long time.

Then he builds a big straw man saying people shouldn't do this or that, which they don't do anyway.  Why does Roger do that?  It's because of his ideology.  Why does he say the droughts of the past were worse?  Because he's judging them in terms of human impact not in terms of weather metrics.  We have adapted so we can cope better with worse droughts and floods than occurred in the past.  But not everyone can.

The question becomes: how much more do we want to rely on adaptation when it is within our power to limit what we will have to adapt to?

Whitehouse is knowledgeable about climate.  He's done a lot of reading.  He asked questions that Roger had to agree to if he wanted to maintain a shred of dignity.  Simple grade school questions that any child could answer.  Like warmer oceans energise storms.  More evaporation leads to more intense precipitation.  "Yes, that's absolutely true" was Pielke's response.

Whitehouse is not just knowledgeable about climate, he's also knowledgeable about Roger Pielke Jr and Roy Spencer.

Then the floor is given to Senator Vitter to ask some questions.  Vitter is different to Whitehouse.  Vitter is interested in what he himself "believes", whereas Whitehouse was more concerned with what is happening in the world.  It was kind of funny to see Vitter bringing the discussion back to extreme events right after Pielke had said that the discussion ought to focus on other matters because he reckons it's not yet possible to detect a signal in (some) extreme events - like tornadoes and hurricanes (tropical cyclones).  I'm sure Vitter didn't intend it, but what Vitter got Pielke to say was that there has been a documented increase in some extreme events, like heat waves and intense precipitation.

Vitter comes up with a whole lot of charts saying they are from Pielke's testimony.  As he unveils each one, Pielke says: "That's not from my testimony".  Oops!

On drought: Pielke says: There are trends in some places of increasing drought and in other places of decreasing drought but over the whole world there is no discernible trend.... That is the point, isn't it.  That climates in different regions are changing.  In those places where there is increasing drought, that's what people are concerned about.

On wildfires: Pielke says it's very plausible that there could be an increase in the number of western wildfires for example.

Finally Vitter unveils one of Pielke's charts - on hurricane landfalls: They aren't hitting the land in the USA right now, says Roger.  We've been pretty lucky in recent years, he says.  And globally there is no trend in landfalls either.  Another panelist pointed out that focusing on landfall is misleading as there have been many more hurricanes than normal in the Atlantic in the past couple of years.  It's just that they didn't hit land.

Spencer says creation "theory" is more scientific than evolution!

A bit later, Senator Whitehouse asks Roy Spencer if the theory of creation has a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution (3h 23m 10 seconds): Spencer's short answer was "yes".

Mixed reaction on WUWT

Despite the efforts of Anthony Watts, there was a mixed reaction on WUWT to the senate panel hearing.  Anthony led off with the headline:

Watch yesterday’s blockbuster performance by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. and Dr. Roy Spencer at Senate climate hearing

Not everyone agreed that the performance of either was a "blockbuster".


Gary says:

July 19, 2013 at 4:25 pm  Pielke concedes things that he shouldn’t such as agreeing with Whitehouse that the IPCC reports are credible. Some parts are, but some parts assuredly are not. Spencer’s monologue on Cook’s bogus research sounds like he agrees with it. I’m disappointed in the performance of both witnesses. Whitehouse will take their statements to reinforce his position rather than change his position to a reasonable one.

Kev-in-Uk says (excerpt):

July 19, 2013 at 4:47 pm  I have to say, that I wasn’t overly impressed with Pielke Jnr. To me he seemed to be almost crying ‘I’m a warmist but I don’t have the data to support that’? or perhaps, he simply accepts, like most of us – that human co2 is likely to cause some climate effects – but we dont yet know how much?

TrueNorthist says:

July 19, 2013 at 6:07 pm  I am left wondering where the blockbuster performance was. I thought perhaps that I had selected the wrong video but no, it was Pielke and Spencer so it must be the right one. What I took away from this was that Pielke Jr agrees entirely with the IPCC and that Dr Spencer is a creationist. Sorry, but if this is what passes as blockbuster stuff then we should all start getting our heads around paying carbon taxes.

albertalad's comment was snipped by the WUWT mods

July 19, 2013 at 5:39 pm [snip]

Janice Moore lets us in on what the lad said, quoting him as writing:

July 19, 2013 at 6:49 pm  “Spencer’s testimony was destroyed by his stance on evolution – it made him seem like a lunatic!” [Alberta Lad at 5:39 PM 7/19/13]

milodonharlani thinks the Republicans chose Spencer and Pielke Jr deliberately to undermine their denial - (or perhaps he doesn't realise they were nominated by the Republican senators).  He says:

July 19, 2013 at 6:52 pm  Naturally Spencer was chosen from among thousands of qualified skeptics precisely because he questions aspects of evolutionary theory. And Pielke, jr because he’s a lukewarmist, at best. This gives the appearance of balance & fairness without endangering the orthodoxy.

pokerguy says:

July 19, 2013 at 6:56 pm  milodonharlan, exactly right. Total bag job. Spencer should have declined. Where was Judith Curry?  Celebrating this as a skeptic victory is pathetic.

Much of the rest of the discussion was about exactly how loony Spencer appeared to be - was it a lot or a little.  I gather from the WUWT comments that to some extent it depends on whether one is a fundamentalist Christian or not.

UPDATE: (Sun 21 July 13) Catmando at Ingenious Pursuits has written a thoughtful article on Roy Spencer's ideas and intelligent design.

Denier weirdness: Nature article and the UK Met Office

I admit to finding this a tad weird even for WUWT.  Anthony posts an excerpt from a complaint by Stephen McIntyre.

Jeff Tollefson wrote a feature article in Nature about an experimental approach to modelling of near term climate projections (decadal forecasts).  McIntyre is complaining that he didn't write about something else instead.  I think, but I'm not entirely sure, that he wanted him to write about the difference in actual Met Office near term forecasts.  That is, to compare the current one to previous ones.  Even had Tollefson been able to read McIntyre's crazy mind in advance of McIntyre himself, I'm not sure that he would have obeyed his command.

I don't know why McIntyre wanted Tollefson to write about the Met Office near term predictions instead of the these experiments.  The Met Office itself has a number of articles on the topic, which McIntyre could read if he felt inclined to learn about it.  McIntyre's articles are so full of smear and innuendo that it is often difficult to understand what his actual gripe is so I'm guessing.  This is what McIntyre wrote:

In yesterday’s post, I observed that Nature’s recent news article on Met Office decadal forecasts failed to show the most recent Met Office decadal forecast ...

Well, Steve.  For starters, the article wasn't about Met Office decadal forecasts per se.  It was about an experimental approach to making near term climate forecasts, including the differing opinions held by various modelling experts on the usefulness of the approach.  I'd say there was quite a lot the article failed to show.  I noticed it didn't show any flying elephants, or sharknadoes or star-spangled ballet shoes.  But unlike you, I'm not complaining.

The article was about recent experiments with a different approach to modelling near term forecasts.  Here is how they describe it:

To make its climate prediction, Smith's team used its standard climate model, but broke the mould by borrowing ideas from the way meteorologists forecast the weekly weather. 

Typical climate projections start some way back in the past, often well before the industrial era, in a bid to capture the average climate well enough to forecast broad patterns over the long term. Weekly weather forecasts, however, begin with the present. They make multiple simulations with slightly different initial meteorological conditions to give an array of outcomes that has some statistical validity despite the weather's inherent chaos.

Steve wasn't happy with the scope of the article.  He wanted to talk about something different.

So somehow both McIntyre and Anthony Watts have managed to morph a complaint that the journal Nature chose to publish a topic different to what McIntyre wanted into: "the UK Met Office is hypocritical" and "the Met Office hides the decline".

Talk about denier weirdness!

Somewhere in all the kerfuffle, Richard Betts responded to a question from Anthony.  Neither Anthony nor Steve liked his answer and said so.  Which gave a person for the deniers to target. The name of an individual.  Deniers find it much more satisfying to attack a named person than a faceless agency like the UK Met Office.

Here are some comments from WUWT - bear in mind, the original complaint seems to be that McIntyre didn't like the topic chosen by Nature.  It's got nothing to do with the Met Office or with Nature - it's all about Steve McIntyre.

Goodness only knows what Fred thought he was was commenting on when he says:

July 17, 2013 at 7:40 pm This just astounding. The temp records around the world are being manipulated, and climate science says nothing. Don’t they realize the risk? If the temp is dropping and they are hiding the decline the world is unprepared for the right change!

Bill H doesn't care about the subject matter, he just wants to air his fantastic conspiracy theory:

July 17, 2013 at 8:00 pm  You must realize the IPCC is part of the UN. Their primary objective is world depopulation.. (UN agenda 21) .. The lie in hiding the decline is purposeful..

A prize to anyone who ever figured out Joseph Bastardi's denierisms - he is suitably outraged at someone or something but heaven only knows what:

July 17, 2013 at 8:09 pm This is flabbergasting. Is he really serious?

Solar Cycles gets caught up in the mood and like the others, doesn't have the first clue about what the Nature article is about, what Anthony is going on about or what McIntyre is raving about:

July 18, 2013 at 12:43 am  I’m surprised that others are surprised, temp manipulation has been part and parcel of climate science for over thirty years. The real shocker is are our governments aware?

Resourceguy seems to be talking about something else altogether when he says:

July 18, 2013 at 6:42 am  This is how dictatorships and monopolies work in day to day practice.

Huh?

As for McIntyre and Watts.  They can sit back and feel smug.  They have rallied the idiots despite having said nothing that makes any sense.  All they had to do was make up a yarn out of thin air, toss out some smears and innuendos and everyone chimes in that climate science is a hoax.  It's a giant conspiracy involving the UN, the British Government, the US Government, every climate scientist in the world, every weather bureau in the world and probably every person in the world except the tin foil hat brigade on weird and wacky denier websites like McIntyre's place and WUWT.

Anthony Watts: Facts are Undemocratic

Anthony Watts of WUWT thinks that providing facts is undemocratic.

That's right.  He just said as much.  Facts are anathema to Anthony's idea of a democratic process.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is doing a fund-raiser and wrote to Anthony's dog.  Anthony posted the letter to his dog on his blog.  Yeah, he's great on posting details of other people's letters and emails and stuff.  I'll bet Kenji didn't give his permission!

Anyway, Anthony bolds this bit in the UCS fund-raising letter and said "so much for the democratic process".

The UCS is raising funds so that it can help: prominent scientists, armed with facts, to testify on Capitol Hill, meet with lawmakers, and speak out in the press.

Anthony can't abide facts.  Anthony even twists the words, saying this: "I wonder how UCS will use money sent today to somehow make a change to the list of people testifying on Thursday?"  I know he's not the brightest spark but is he that dumb really, do you think?  Does he really and truly believe what he's despicably insinuating - that the funds are going to be used to bribe or cajole a Senate Committee into changing speakers for a pre-arranged meeting?  That's what I call "twisting the facts", Anthony.

Not only that, but it sure looks as if Anthony thinks it's okay for lobby groups like Heartland Institute to lie to people but it's undemocratic for scientists to keep lawmakers informed about scientific facts?

Anthony also writes:

The previous message they reference is also pretty funny. They claim Shaun Marcott was abused by ‘hate mail’ and “bloggers twisted his research” but provide no proof of it,

Provide no proof?  This "all innocence" from the man who posted upwards of thirty blog articles protesting at facts and twisting the Marcott research - well, his articles were really too, too silly for words but he tried his best to goad his followers into a cyber-lynch mob.  I imagine a lot of the hate mail came from people who follow WUWT.

Maybe that's why Anthony tells so many lies so easily.  He's been brought up to think lies are "democracy at work" and democracy is good, right?


All this is true to the theme of WUWT this week.  For example - only a couple of days ago a WUWT moderator told Dr Venema that they don't want facts to pollute Anthony's blog - and deleted all reference to facts.

Democracy - Watts-style.
Pinocchio by André Koehne

Ed "Ice Age" Hoskins is at it again on WUWT

Ed Hoskins has written another article on WUWT.  It's a very mixed up piece. He starts out arguing we're heading for an ice age, basing his assertion on very wrong premises.  I've written about his nonsense before - such as here and here.  These ice age alarmists are so tedious, aren't they.  If Ed Hoskins put half as much effort into learning about science as he does protesting and denying it, he could almost pass for an educated man.

Ed says the earth is as cold as Central Greenland

Ed starts out with Don Easterbrook's favourite trick, equating the temperatures on the summit of the ice sheet in Greenland with those of the whole world.  He even writes (I kid you not!):

The temperature record of the Holocene can be seen in the GRIP[3] Greenland ice core data. 

No, Ed.  The temperature record of the Holocene on the Greenland ice sheet can be seen in the Greenland ice core data.  That's not the whole world and nor do changes there reflect the changes in the whole world.  Apart from it being darned cold up there, the temperatures in the Arctic are amplified and have much bigger fluctuations than the earth as a whole.  (Ed doesn't bother to explain why the earth isn't a snowball and how we manage to exist or why his other favourite spot, Central England, isn't buried under two kilometres or more of ice.  I suppose he thinks if it's good enough for an Emeritus Professor it's good enough for him.)

Ed's wrong: Central England is hotter than ever

Next,  he claims that Central England temperatures have dropped therefore an ice age cometh.  He writes:

However since the year 2000 a change has occurred: the CET record shows a marked reduction from its high levels loosing all the gains that it has made since 1850, even though at the same time CO2 levels have escalated further to ~400ppmv.

Let's just look at that. (Click to enlarge.)

Data Source: UK Met Office Hadley Centre

Central England had a cold year when the world as a whole had the hottest year on record - in 2010.  The following year, 2011, was among the hottest, but Ed stops his chart before that year.  He stops at 2010 and doesn't include the last two years.  And it was only four years earlier than his favourite coolish Central England but hottest year on record for the rest of the world, in 2006, that Central England had its hottest year on record.  Just looking at the general trend, like the eleven year moving average, I think it's fair to say that Central England no longer has the climate of the mid-nineteenth century.  And the temperatures in Central England also fluctuate a lot more than those of the earth as a whole.

So much for Central England cooling down.  In any case, since when was Central England the whole world?

And speaking of England - the Met Office says it's warmer than usual right now!  More here in the Telegraph.  And in the USA and in India.  (How's that ice age alarmism going, Ed?)

Ed's wrong again: We are not due for an ice age for at least 50,000 years 

Then he goes for another myth.  Ed claims that:

On past experience, our current benign interglacial period should or could be drawing to its close.

What past experience he doesn't say.  The only hint as to what is in his mind is his reference to the Eemian, which he claims lasted only 10,000 years.  That's not so if Wikipedia is anything to go by.  The Eemian "began about 130,000 years ago and ended about 114,000 years ago."  By my arithmetic that means it lasted 16,000 years.  A big difference when Ed's argument is based on the fact that the Holocene began about 10,000 years ago.  Even if you only went by arithmetic rather than science, we'd have another five or six thousand years to go.

But that's not the whole story.  In this paper in Science, Berger and Loutre calculate that even without global warming, Earth wouldn't start getting cold for at least another 50,000 years.  That's because of the calculated insolation in future years.  Here is a diagram from their paper:

Long-term variations of eccentricity (top), June insolation at 65°N (middle), and simulated Northern Hemisphere ice volume (increasing downward) (bottom) for 200,000 years before the present to 130,000 from now. Time is negative in the past and positive in the future. For the future, three CO2 scenarios were used: last glacial-interglacial values (solid line), a human-induced concentration of 750 ppmv (dashed line), and a constant concentration of 210 ppmv (dotted line). Simulation results from (13, 15); eccentricity and insolation from (19).

The only way they work out that earth could start cooling sooner would be if CO2 dropped below around 220 ppm, which can't happen for thousands of years.

Humans have added 43% more CO2 to the atmosphere

Ed tries to argue that humans have only added 3% to atmospheric CO2.  How he comes up with that number defies all science, logic and arithmetic.  What Ed writes is this:

In addition the Global Warming advocates assume that all increases to CO2 concentration are due solely to man-made additions. This is not necessarily the case, as the biosphere and slightly warmer oceans will outgas CO2 and the Man-made contribution is only a minor part of that CO2 transport within the biosphere, possibly as small as 3% of the total[26].

No, Ed.  The oceans are still absorbing CO2 not outgassing it.  Partial pressure is outweighing the temperature effect by a long way still.  In fact, if roughly half of our emissions weren't being swallowed up in the oceans, we'd have already almost doubled atmospheric CO2.  As it is, (400-280)/280 = 43%.

CO2 and Energy

Then, as if he suddenly decides that CO2 emissions are important after all, Ed starts into some weird if well documented journey into carbon emissions by country, pessimistically saying it's all too hard.  I say it's well documented but must point out that most of these "documents" are from highly suspect sources like denialist websites.

I'm not going to go into all Ed's arguments or 'evidence' on that score.  What I do suggest is that if you do read what Ed writes, make sure you also read this new report from the International Energy Agency: World Energy Outlook Special Report 2013: Redrawing the Energy Climate Map.

As a taste, here are a couple of charts.  The first is energy-related CO2 emissions by country:

This next one shows per capita emissions and GDP by selected countries from 1990 to 2012:

The IEA seems to think we can still manage to get through this if we put our collective minds to it.  It writes of a New Policies Scenario and a 450 Scenario.  I'm still working through the report so I won't try to say any more for risk of misrepresenting it.

Re-capping the main points

The main points here are:

1. Assume anything and everything you read on WUWT is wrong or worse unless you can verify it in triplicate from reputable sources.
2. Don't lose hope that the world can shift to clean energy and survive global warming, (albeit probably still with the mass extinction event sooner rather than later).

Flashback to 1940: Gradually rising earth's temperature and Kirtley Fletcher Mather

From the Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 - 1954) Monday 3 June 1940

GRADUALLY RISING

Earth's Temperature

The earth's average temperature is gradually rising, perhaps not from year to year or from decade to decade, but certainly over longer periods. As the world gets warmer more and more glaciers melt, oceans increase in depth, and more land is submerged. In that way temperature has a direct bearing on geography.

What would happen if the average temperature on earth shot up by as much as 10 degrees? Dr Kirtley Mather, an American geologist, has considered this very question, and he tells us that such a rise would change the world drastically. Vast expanses of ice in the polar regions would melt, increasing the average depth of the oceans by at least 50 feet. Thousands of square miles of land would be covered by water. Here are some of the possible results : Finland, Holland and Northern Russia would disappear; Norway and Sweden might become a new island; the United States would lose much of its Atlantic coastline, including such cities as New York and New Orleans; the tropics would become too hot for human habitation; the temperate zones would become tropical; and the mild climate of Greenland would attract thousands of settlers.

But no one need be alarmed by such prospects. According to Dr Mather, the 10 degrees rise in   average temperature which might have all these consequences is likely to take at least 15,000 years to develop. The probable increase in the depth of the oceans is an inch every 100 years.

---

Kirtley Fletcher Mather
Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records,
1920s-1970s,
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Kirtley Fletcher Mather (1888-1978) was a renowned geologist whose contributions range well beyond the geosciences. He was a scientist with a religious spirit and a social conscience. He graduated from Denison University in 1909, received the Ph. D. in Geology from the University of Chicago in 1915, and was awarded 6 honorary doctorates. Mather taught at the University of Arkansas (1911-1914), Queens University (1915-1918), and Denison University (1918-1924). For 30 years (1924-1954) he was a Professor of Geology at Harvard University, serving terms as Chairman of the Department of Geology and Director of the Harvard Summer School. In 1951, Mather was elected President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and from 1957 to 1961 he was President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. After retiring from the Harvard faculty, Mather continued to be very active as a lecturer, reviewer, and social activist.

A superb teacher and productive scholar — as evidenced by his dozen books, 250 professional articles, and 1,200 book reviews—Kirtley Mather was an exemplar of the interdisciplinary approach to understanding the world. His geologic writings concerned geomorphology, petroleum geology, paleontology, and popularizations of all phases of modern geology. His belief in the mutual merits of religion and science received wide attention in 1925 when he participated in the highly publicized Scopes Trial, on the side of Scopes, Darrow, and the evolutionists. A political liberal, Mather frequently opposed movements which he considered to be threats to human freedom and dignity. The rebellion against the Massachusetts Teacher's Oath of 1935 was led by Mather and he was an outspoken critic of the McCarren Act and "McCarthyism" in the 1950s. The volume and diversity of Mather's achievements are impressive, but equally noteworthy is the integrated wholeness of his view of the world.

Read more in (a fascinating and lively read!): Kirtley Fletcher Mather's Life in Science and Society
Bork, Kennard D. The Ohio Journal of Science. v82, n3 (June, 1982), 74-95
http://hdl.handle.net/1811/22847

Or the (boring) Wikipedia entry.


Click here for more flashbacks to climate articles in Australian newspapers.

Who can beat the WUWT HAARP conspiracy theories?

Anthony Watts blogs on WUWT that the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) shut its gates last May, mainly for budget reasons.  One of the reasons given was that the diesel engines that power the facility don't comply with the Clean Air regulations.  Whoever made the decision figured it would cost too much to upgrade them, according to this website.  And even on that website it doesn't look as if the decision is final yet.

I couldn't find any other information so I can't confirm the story one way or another.

No HAARP Discussions on WUWT

Whatever.  On WUWT, despite the fact that Anthony's article was about HAARP and comments were open, the mods didn't want any discussion of HAARP, saying it's against WUWT site policy.

Philip Bradley says:

July 16, 2013 at 2:48 pm  Google ‘weather modification’. You will get lots of HAARP weather conspiracy sites.
[Reply: yes, but please, we don't want to get into HAARP discussions. — mod.]

Bill Jamison says:

July 16, 2013 at 5:19 pm  Shutting down HAARP won’t shut down the conspiracy nuts. They’ll simply claim that it wasn’t really shut down.
Are there any published science papers based on HAARP research?
[Per site Policy, please do not discuss HAARP. Thanks. — mod.]

Ryan says:

July 16, 2013 at 5:50 pm  I find the HAARP conspiracy preposterous, but not as preposterous as the idea that climate science is all fake.
[Per site Policy, please do not discuss HAARP. Thanks. — mod.]

WUWT HAARP Conspiracies

Nevertheless, the article brought out a couple of conspiracy nutters or people doing a good imitation :D

HalfEmpty says:

July 16, 2013 at 3:09 pm  Closed? Sure. That’s what they say.

kramer says:

July 16, 2013 at 6:58 pm  PRESIDENT BACKS CLIMATE CONTROL
Report to Congress Calls for Wide Research Program on Causes of Weather
New York Times, Feb 19, 1966, pg 29
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In submitting the report to Congress the president said that “highly encouraging steps are being taken toward establishing safe and effective programs from modifying the weather.” “We can now begin to see the day,” he said “when such programs may become operationally feasible.”
…
A broad-based national program of weather modification, the foundation’s report said, should include research and dispersion of fogs, cloud seeding for rain, suppression of hail, changing the course and nature of hurricanes, redirecting the paths of storms towards drought areas and increasing precipitation from summer showers and thunderstorms.

Michael says:

July 16, 2013 at 9:47 pm  There have been at least two more larger sites built in the United States. There are C.I.A. controlled sites also in other countries. The facility in Alaska attracted too much attention, especially after the attack on New Orleans was exposed.

The top WUWT entry is probably this one from David, who says:

July 17, 2013 at 3:06 am Please, it looks like a political move to claim it’s shutting down. With interest in the climate at an all time high and the bankers pushing the scam having virtually unlimited wealth and influence over the military, there’s no reason to shut it down.

The technology is relatively simple in principle, as we know the ionosphere has an effect on the jet stream and electromagnetic interference can affect the weather. We also know that heat input increases convection, combined HAARP is a very real possibility. We also know that technology released to the public is usually 20 years behind the cutting edge of what the military has.

Above all we know that if they have an idea or the capability, the WILL use it and the goals, to damage economies destroying resistance to political and economic takeover (destabilise regions strategy) and to convince the public significant man made global warming is real would suggest the likelihood is that ionospheric stations have been used in this capacity or at least the potential explored.  

The labels “nutballs’ and ‘hams’ not to mention ‘conspiracy theorists’ are terms used by establishment shills and scumbags covering up for the establishment, and are usually used by morons and people with no science or logic behind them.

They all seem pretty lame.  Let's see who can come up with a better HAARP conspiracy theory!  No prize for the winner but you can bathe in honour and glory and maybe I'll find an elephant stamp or a gold star.

Oh, and if anyone comes here looking for a debunk of the various conspiracy theories, you could start here.  I once found an even better debunking but have lost it.  I guess the military or the CIA or the lizard men took it down :(

If you're concerned about any of this, follow these instructions or these ones.

A question for historians - which sea wall protected Bay Head during Sandy?

WUWT has an article about how a sea wall protected Bay Head against Sandy, while neighbouring settlements were devastated.  There is a new paper in the works (dated as October 2013!).  You can read about it directly here from Virginia Tech.  Here's a copy of the paper I found.

Not being an engineer or a coastal expert, I'll not go too deeply into the pros and cons of sea walls but note that it's not a straightforward issue.  This article shows that people living adjacent to Bay Head are very concerned that Bay Head is extending the sea wall, as they believe they will be at increased risk because the sea wall will divert more water their way in future storms.

Which brings me to my question.  Which sea wall did the protecting?

The press release says that the Bay Head sea wall is nearly 150 years old.  Wikipedia cites the same source and says it was built in 1882.  The paper itself says:

The cause of this difference lies in a forgotten historical relic. The core of the Bay Head dune was in fact a century-old, unyielding stone seawall, which had been covered over with fine to very fine dune sand by aeolian transport and beach nourishment during the twentieth century. The discovery of the relic seawall came as a surprise to many of the transient residents, and it constitutes the difficulties these transient communities have in maintaining and planning for future disasters arriving at their shores.

However other documents on the internet say a sea wall was built at Bay Head after the Great Atlantic Storm of 1962.  For example, Bay Head & Mantoloking: A brief history doesn't mention a sea wall until the 1960s and states:

• Early 1960s Bay Head's sea walls are erected.

In a book: Cottages and Mansions of the Jersey Shore By Caroline Seebohm (Rutgers University Press, 2007) it says:

A north east storm in March 1962 took out most of the boardwalk, and also did serious damage to oceanfront properties. That prompted a group of prominent Bay Head residents to bring in rocks and build both a stone wall fifteen feet into the sand and a string of groins or jetties that protrude into the sea. Thanks to these groins, Bay Head now has twice as much beach as it had before 1962.

And this from nj1015.com in January 2013:

Bay Head Using Sea Walls Effectively
The professor cites the Ocean County Borough of Bay Head as an example of a municipality that has utilized sea walls effectively.

“75% of that town was protected by a sea wall that dated back to the 1962 storm and to be honest with you I didn’t even know it was there and I’m sure residents didn’t know it was there because it was buried under the sand, there was a beach in front of it and a sand dune on top of it.”

He notes during Sandy, the wall was exposed and there was evidence it protected some of the homes behind it.

And another mention in this news article from December last year.

But then there is this, from an old book, Salter’s History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties:

The Bay Head Land Company was incorporated in September 6, 1879....This quickly developed Summer resort may be said to have contributed largely to the current of popular favor now bestowed upon this portion of Ocean county.  It is situated at the head of Barnegat Bay, from which it takes its name "Bay Head." There are about 286 lots in this tract, 50x100 feet in size.  Its present population is seventy-five.  The improvements in 1882 comprise 20 new cottages, and all the other improvements in a resort in the process of development. A sea wall has been put in, roads built and graded etc.

Here is a photo of damage at Bay Head from a storm in 1929.  If the 1882 sea wall was in that part of town, it didn't protect all Bay Head properties.  (Click to enlarge.)

Source: mantoloking.org

So the question is, which sea wall protected Bay Head?  The sea wall built in 1882 or the sea wall built in 1962? Or both?  Or maybe one was built over the other?  The paper doesn't mention the 1962 sea wall, so maybe that was built elsewhere?  I expect the researchers knew what they were doing.  Still, it's a bit of a mystery for which there is undoubtedly a very simple explanation.

Another question though: did the sea wall at Bay Head cause more damage in neighbouring unprotected coastal areas than would have occurred if the sea wall hadn't been built?

Retreat, Adapt or Protect?

And here's a nice graphic I came upon while looking into sea walls, from a chapter in a publication on the website of the Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand. It illustrates some options in response to rising seas and bigger storm surges. (Click to enlarge.)

Source: MFENZ