Round 1 to Joe Bastardi & Company

[Geoff]

One of the argument against much of climate science is that it is based almost entirely on computer models.

As far as I'm concerned there's no point in building public policy based upon this house of cards until such theories can be confirmed or refuted.

Computer modeling has gotten pretty good at predicting hurricane storm tracks but it took decades of tuning to get the model right. Computer models to predict climate change have no history or repetitions to correct the model as new data comes in. They're little better than a Ouija board. Belief in global warming is little different from the belief that the messiah is coming.

That said, there's nothing wrong with playing it safe since we have no idea whether CO2 emissions have much impact on climate. I have no idea whether the impact of man ends up warming the climate or cooling it. I kind-a like things the way they are so I'd like to minimize whatever impact we are having. If you want to minimize CO2, you have to stop burning fossil fuels. The mix is 1/3 electricity generation, 1/3 transportation, 1/3 residental heating + commercial + industrial. The only viable alternative is nuclear power supplemented with a blend of things like solar hot water panels, geothermal heat pumps, tidal, wind, and hydrogen. The lesson from Japan is that you need to put the reactors in geologically stable places far from major population centers.

So the Federal government needs to adopt a 20 year program to phase out fossil fuel eletricity generation. That immediately gets rid of 1/3 of the CO2 emissions. The next step is to get us into electric cars that have a way to quickly recharge them during long trips.... either swapping the battery pack at a 'gas station' or some kind of fast charge battery technology that doesn't exist today. Move long distance commercial transportation from trucks and airplanes to electric rail.

This ain't gonna happen since everybody is afraid of nukes so we're going to continue to spew CO2 at the same rate.

[Harvey44]

Well said Geoff. Every activity that is "linked" (right or wrong) to global warming pollutes/degrades the environment. That's beyond dispute.

[pointpeninsula]

I suppose I should know better than to get involved, but read the book Merchants of Doubt.

I heartily endorse the statement 'follow the money'. Of these researchers, ask four questions:

1) In what studies or experiments are you actively involved?
2) In what peer-reviewed journals have you published?
3) Who funds those studies?
4) What other studies have you been involved in?

For example, Fred Singer was one of the early climate deniers, and he has credentials all over the place. He also worked for the tobacco industry, trying to convince us that 'sick building syndrome', not secondhand smoke, was responsible for disease. His gang also coined the phrase 'junk science' while in the employ of the tobacco industry. His comments when called out about the source of his funding?

CBC said that tobacco money had paid for Singer's research and for his promotion of it, and that it was organized by APCO. Singer told CBC it made no difference where the money came from. "They don't carry a note on a dollar bill saying 'This comes from the tobacco industry,'" he said. "In any case I was not aware of it, and I didn't ask APCO where they get their money. That's not my business

That seems a little disingenuous to me. It most certainly was his business, and he knows it. Now they're attacking climate science, while in the employ of the petroleum industry.

More from Wikipedia:
Rachel White Scheuering writes that, when SEPP began, it was affiliated with the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a think tank run by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.[50] A 1990 article for the Cato Institute identifies Singer as the director of the science and environmental policy project at the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, on leave from the University of Virginia.[52] Scheuering writes that Singer cut ties with Moon, and is funded by foundations and oil companies.[50] She writes that he has been a paid consultant for many years for ARCO, ExxonMobil, Shell, Sun Oil Company, and Unocal, and that SEPP has received grants from ExxonMobil. Singer has said his financial relationships do not influence his research. Scheuering argues that his conclusions concur with the economic interests of the companies that pay him, in that the companies want to see a reduction in environmental regulation.[53]

According to Sourcewatch, on SEPP funding:

"... S. Fred Singer, acknowledged during a 1994 appearance on the television program Nightline that he had received funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. He did not deny receiving funding on a number of occasions from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon." [19]
In 2000 SEPP wrote on their web site:
"SEPP does not solicit financial support from either industry or governmental sources. Income is derived mainly from charitable foundations and private individuals. Some income is derived also from SEPP conference fees and the sale of books and reports to the public. As a non-profit educational and research 501(c) 3 organization, accepting tax-deductible contributions, SEPP is required to file an annual report with the IRS. SEPP operates on a modest budget; its officers and associated scientists do not receive salaries but contribute their services on a pro bono basis." [20] (emphasis added)
ExxonMobil donated $10,000 to SEPP both in 1998 [21] and 2000 [22].

So, in my opinion, believe what you want, but unless you're a trained scientist, be careful when people trot out results of studies and quotes from scientists. A lot of data can be taken out of context, 'theory' doesn't mean to a scientist what it means to Joe six-pack, and correlation and causation are often confused for each other by non-scientists.

I guess that's enough flame-fanning for now.

Tom

[rfarren]

Well said Geoff. Every activity that is "linked" (right or wrong) to global warming pollutes/degrades the environment. That's beyond dispute.

Co2 shouldn't qualify as polluting gas IMHO. Should I feel guilty for breathing?

[rfarren]

I suppose I should know better than to get involved, but read the book Merchants of Doubt.

I heartily endorse the statement 'follow the money'. Of these researchers, ask four questions:

1) In what studies or experiments are you actively involved?
2) In what peer-reviewed journals have you published?
3) Who funds those studies?
4) What other studies have you been involved in?

For example, Fred Singer was one of the early climate deniers, and he has credentials all over the place. He also worked for the tobacco industry, trying to convince us that 'sick building syndrome', not secondhand smoke, was responsible for disease. His gang also coined the phrase 'junk science' while in the employ of the tobacco industry. His comments when called out about the source of his funding?

That goes both ways: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/24/mcintyre-climategate-documents-confirm-wegmans-hypothesis/#more-40474

[Tony Crocker]

I agree that some of the anti-AGW research also has biased funding. However, I think it's no coincidence that meteorologists like Bastardi and Sheckter tend to be disproportionately represented in the skeptic camp. Their job is to predict weather over the short/intermediate term. So they have observed impacts of PDO, El Nino/La Nina in the past. In the 1980's and 1990's these factors were tending to bias temperatures upward. So everyone saw the rise in temps, but each side could attribute it to their pet theory. The upcoming decade will be illuminating because now the theories predict opposite results.

So the past winter/spring are, as I titled the post, round 1 in what will take many more years to provide some clarity. If warming resumes at a pace like the 1990's I'll be more than willing to assign far more credibility to AGW theory than I have so far. I hope Patrick will modify his views accordingly if the temps go the other way. In terms of Riverc0il's valid criticism of anecdotal evidence, I would agree with Joe Bastardi that Arctic summer sea ice is a key item to monitor over the coming decade to get a better handle on whether the past warming is being reversed.

I agree with much of what Geoff recommends. But shift in technology does have to be reasonable economically. Natural gas may be a fossil fuel but it produces ~1/2 as much CO2 as oil, far less than coal and much fewer of other pollutants like acid rain. So pushing electricity generation from coal to gas and Pickens' plan to shift trucking to gas (as has already been done with all the mass transit buses in SoCal) make sense. I also don't see why so much residential heating in the Northeast is still oil instead of gas.

This ain't gonna happen since everybody is afraid of nukes so we're going to continue to spew CO2 at the same rate.

I think this is correct. The AGW science would have to be ironclad and imminent before it would scare people enough to build enough nukes to make a difference. Or a breakthrough in nuclear energy technology to satisfy the safety and economic concerns.

[Geoff]

I also don't see why so much residential heating in the Northeast is still oil instead of gas.

Poor pipeline distribution. In New England, we have big LNG tanks and ships that bring it in. LNG isn't as cheap as gas that is piped in. I imagine it is challenging to get the permitting to run a pipeline and the infrastructure is already geard around the LNG profit engine so everybody in the energy business has a vested interest in keeping it that way.

I heat with city gas in my summer place (LNG) and propane at Killington. My Killington condo has a big tank buried near the building and I'm metered by the local "gas company" that owns the tank and fills it.

[soulskier]

A Foolproof Way to Talk about Climate Change by Auden Schendler, Grist.org, May 27, 2011

http://www.grist.org/article/a-foolproo ... ate-change

[Tony Crocker]

Let’s all agree on some things. First: we know the planet is warming.

True for the 1980's and 1990's, not true for the temperature plateau of the past decade. Since we're pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate during this time, this is the key issue demonstrating why the climate models need refinement.

Second, we know that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are warming agents; again, that’s not being debated in any circles and is two hundred year old science.

Yes, but most AGW advocates don't like to highlight 2 key facts:
1) The CO2 effect on temps is logarithmic, not linear, and
2) The climate models assume that the CO2 warming will be at least tripled by water vapor feedback effects. The modeling of water vapor and cloud feedbacks (the latter is negative) is very speculative, thus shaky assumptions.

Third, we know that warming of 2-4 degrees C is much more likely to be catastrophic than good for the world.

Due to the points above, the likely effect of the "settled science" regarding CO2 alone without speculative feedback assumptions is more like 1/2 to 1 degree C, which is not catastrophic. They also explain why effects like PDO, La Nina, solar minimum can more than offset greenhouse gas effects in the intermediate term.

Therefore I'm more inclined to support the measures that "make economic sense" and enhance "energy security and getting off foreign oil."

[Admin]

I loved Joe in this segment the other night:

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/11/01/me ... ane-sandy/

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[Tony Crocker]

Yes overall Atlantic hurricane incidence is flat to down since the 1930's. Some people have already forgotten that we had another hurricane (Wilma) that was a big snow generator 7 years ago this month. I'm sure Patrick hasn't forgotten since that one started his now 86-month ski streak.

Nonetheless Round 2 has not been great for Joe Bastardi & company. He has called for declining temps for ~3 years and they remain flat on a high plateau by historical standards. He also said the summer Arctic ice melt would reverse but it set a new record in 2012.

And I'm sure many of you heard about this story last summer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opini ... wanted=all
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la ... 2823.story

Muller's study was based upon careful examination of data and concluding that CO2 had the best fit to the 1.5F temperature rise since 1950. It does not address the projection models which Muller still doesn't particularly like.

[rfarren]

Nonetheless Round 2 has not been great for Joe Bastardi & company. He has called for declining temps for ~3 years and they remain flat on a high plateau by historical standards. He also said the summer Arctic ice melt would reverse but it set a new record in 2012.

It's funny reading this thread, as very clearly when this thread first came out I was an AGW skeptic. I too like Muller have come around to some degree. I had followed Bastardi's predictions, and they've all been wrong. He's clearly gifted at parsing out individual weather events, but seems less so when it comes to climate predictions. I can't say whether Sandy was a product of a warmer climate, as NYC and New Jersey have previously been affected by Hurricanes. However, there is no doubt that the sea levels are higher now than they were in 1821, which was the previous storm surge record set in NYC. It's the combination of sea level rise (climate) and storm surge(local) which is so dangerous. That being said, I don't know a way to properly legislate against climate change, especially when the problem is global, and there isn't a way forward as of now that is viable.

Muller's study was based upon careful examination of data and concluding that CO2 had the best fit to the 1.5F temperature rise since 1950. It does not address the projection models which Muller still doesn't particularly like.

Seems about right.

[jasoncapecod]

Sandy's storm surge was so damaging because , she came a shore during astronomically very high tides..full moon

[Admin]

Sandy's storm surge was so damaging because , she came a shore during astronomically very high tides..full moon

And not because of a few-inch rise in MSL over the past 50 years. What I loved about Joe's interview was how he frankly responded to Gore's lunatic rant which was only inspired by Gore's desire to propagate fear in order to make himself more money.

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[rfarren]

Sandy's storm surge was so damaging because , she came a shore during astronomically very high tides..full moon

Yes, the tides were 5 inches higher than normal. The high tide without the surge would've been 5'7", during a half moon it would be 5'2". Certainly, the confluence of high tide made a difference, but then again so did the fact that ocean temps up here were more than 2 degrees warmer than historical temps. That certainly allowed Sandy to retain more strength than the storm would've historically.