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Re: Market, Politicians Going Separate Ways on Climate Change: View - Bloomberg

Rational_Db8 — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:42:17 -0000

You should actually read his full resignation letter - it is an utter travesty from a scientific standpoint. The editor's logic and rational in his resignation paper is bizzarly convoluted. Furthermore, he states that there was no flaw in peer review - other than 'the three highly respected heavily published reviewers must have all happened to have skeptical views.' Talk about circular logic and unfounded assumptions! 'They passed a skeptical paper, therefore while I have no way of actually knowing, they must have harbored skeptical bias or they wouldn't have passed the paper.'

Gee, I thought 98% of all scientists were consensus, and so the odds of three randomly chosen reviewers ALL having skeptical bias would be what, 1 in 100,000? /sarc

Note also that while the editor resigned, the paper was not withdrawn. Papers shown to have major errors are withdrawn long before it gets to the point of an editor resigning. As to basic peer review standards, here is what he actually said:

The managing editor of Remote Sensing selected three senior
scientists from renowned US universities, each of them having an
impressive publication record. Their reviews had an apparently good
technical standard and suggested one “major revision”, one “minor
revision” and one “accept as is”. The authors revised their paper
according to the comments made by the reviewers and, consequently, the
editorial board member who handled this paper accepted the paper (and
could in fact not have done otherwise). Therefore, from a purely formal
point of view, there were no errors with the review process. But, as the
case presents itself now, the editorial team unintentionally selected
three reviewers who probably share some climate sceptic notions of the
authors. This selection by itself does not mean that the review process
for this paper was wrong. In science, diversity and controversy are
essential to progress and therefore it is important that different
opinions are heard and openly discussed. Therefore editors should take
special care that minority views are not suppressed, meaning that it
certainly would not be correct to reject all controversial papers
already during the review process.

See: http://judithcurry.com/2011...
and: http://wattsupwiththat.com/...

Re: Market, Politicians Going Separate Ways on Climate Change: View - Bloomberg

Rational_Db8 — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:54:40 -0000

Before even going into CO2 and temperature correlation issues, let me point out that in science for a hypothesis such as anthropogenic global warming to have any merit, it must show that the null hypothesis for a system has been violated - or that the new hypothesis somehow fits better than the null hypothesis. For climate, the null hypothesis is that temperature changes are naturally occurring within historical limits in terms of rate and amount. So far, there is nothing unusual about our recent temperature changes in this regard - temps have changed actually far faster, and far greater than anything we've seen since the little ice age, including the last few decades. Temps have also been far higher, and even since the beginning of this interglacial have been several degrees higher during several different periods. There is nothing about the AGW hypothesis that fits better or even as well as the null hypothesis, and right there AGW should have been tossed.

As to temp/CO2 correlations... all of the paleoreconstructions show that almost without fail temperatures rise first, then CO2 follows roughly 800 years later. Then temperatures fall, and later CO2 also begins to fall. In other words, CO2 isn't driving temperatures, it's following them. For a long term look at how CO2 and Temps do not follow each other, see: http://tinyurl.com/8o5dk (scroll down to chart). To see how CO2 does not match temperature changes nearly as well as the sun since the 1880's, see: http://tinyurl.com/29x6dql (see 3rd chart). The increase in CO2 doesn't follow temperature changes since the start of the industrial age well at all.

Next, there is nothing historically unusual about either the rate or the amount of temperature changes we've seen since the Little Ice Age, including the past 50 years. http://tinyurl.com/3f3k8nb For that matter, they've found historical periods where temperatures increased or decreased as much as 10+ degrees in only a decade or two!! So far we've seen only about 1.5 degrees in 15 decades, which, relative to historical changes, has been a very slow gradual change in temperatures.

Further, consider that man's emissions of CO2 have really only been significant for the last half of the 20th century, and yet more than half of the temperature increase during the 20th century came before our emissions really began to rise.

These simple concepts are far better reasons to discount the AGW hypothesis than to believe in it.

Re: Market, Politicians Going Separate Ways on Climate Change: View - Bloomberg

Rational_Db8 — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:41:44 -0000

Oh please! The scientists being intimidated, silenced, squeezed out of publication are those skeptical of the anthropogenic global warming position.

On top of that, a recent large survey of US adults conducted by authors from Harvard, Yale, Temple, George Washington, Ohio State, and University of Oregon showed that the higher a persons scientific literacy, the less likely they were to believe in AGW. http://tinyurl.com/3oxe2kz

The science is anything but straightforward, because of the extreme complexity of the systems that have to be considered and how each aspect interacts with multiple others - many of which we are just discovering, and many of which I'm certain we have yet to discover. Then one must also factor in the natural cycles that occur, some major ones which are multi-decadal in nature or even occur over centuries (the latter of course we have very little understanding of yet).

Unfortunately your view of the oceanic carbon cycle is grossly simplistic, and ignores key aspects such as biology. It is far from clear if ocean pH has even changed - there is no wide scale long term surface, near surface, and deep ocean accurate sampling that has ever occurred, and without such there is no way to tell if the oceans have become more or less acidic over time. Frankly at this point it is even uncertain whether the oceans are, on average, acting as sinks or sources of carbon dioxide. There is also zero evidence of any harm to marine life from any recent change in pH levels.

"Ocean Acidification" sounds so scary - as does a 30% change. The fact is, however, that our oceans are decidedly alkaline, and nowhere near acidic. To borrow from: http://tinyurl.com/bervgy "According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.”
At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to
become even slightly acid. One also has to wonder how they measured
the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH
wasn’t introduced until 1909."

Fluids are basic, e.g., alkaline, until BELOW a pH of 7.0. pH is measured on a logrithmic scale, thus the 30% change claim, when the fact is that ESTIMATED ocean pH in 240 years hasn't even changed 0.1 pH units yet, and is a full 1.1 pH units from become acidic. But stating it as 30% and acidification sounds so much SCARIER than accurately representing it, doesn't it? Your stomach acid can get down to an amazing 1.0 pH - now THAT'S acidic. Gee, you think that natural warming out of the Little Ice Age might not have resulted in a pH change of 0.1 ph units? Ya, I think that's entirely possible when you consider effects on ocean biota from natural temperature changes over longish time periods.

Re: Market, Politicians Going Separate Ways on Climate Change: View - Bloomberg

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:37:41 -0000

Nice strawmen and meaningless distraction attempts in your post, 'yougotta.' What I like is real science, not the bogus pseudo-science sensationalist scare mongering so outrageously common with almost anything related to "climate science."

Obviously I made zero claims about when sea shell formation would be disrupted. I did, however, clearly make the point that there is no ocean 'acidification' when the pH is above 7.0 - that's a very simple basic chemical fact and a matter of using scientific terms properly versus pseudo-scientific scare mongering sensationalism. The same with constantly referring to a totally unsupported claim of ANY percentage of oceanic pH change when there is no evidence scientifically supporting any such claim, since we've never had any scientific long term worldwide measurement of the ocean's pH levels.

As to the 'linear extrapolation' bit, which is more obsfucation on your part, I said 'at that rate' which is how the issue is currently being refered to by YOU, and typical AGW supporters - in other words, the 3,500 year estimate is based on the methods you and other AGW supporters are currently using. I pointed out that the carbon cycle isn't understood sufficiently to support any of your claims - nor is there sufficient scientific evidence to suppport claims that any harm would come to coral from man's CO2 production effects on oceanic pH levels.

If coral formation is disrupted so easily by speculative minor oceanic pH changes, please explain why corals first became common during the Ordovician Era – almost 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are now.

Please also explain to me how, if man's atmospheric CO2 production is causing oceans to become less basic as AGW supporters are claiming, those same changes are NOT being seen in lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and so on? While you're at it, explain why geologists are increasingly saying that the number of active underwater oceanic volcanoes and vents are being drastically underestimated, as is their CO2 contributions to the ocean and resulting pH levels?

Finally, as to your p.s. - which is yet another absurd strawman or a real inability to understand basic concepts on your part - let me spell it out again. The point was that the better a person's understanding of actual science, the less likely they are to believe in any significant global warming caused by man. Which is completely contrary to the oh-so-common claims of AGW supporters that skeptics are scientifically illiterate. But apparently you prefer to base policy requiring technical expertise on pseudo-science scare mongering rather than actual science and evidence.

Re: Market, Politicians Going Separate Ways on Climate Change: View - Bloomberg

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:18:11 -0000

Well, isn't your request and assertation ironic, condsidering that only 3 posts below you replied to someone else "I did not provide links to historical data because I believe any objective historical data you find will lead to the same conclusions as I stated and, since the data is abundantly available in many forms, it is more convincing to find your own reliable sources."

Apparently you've difficulty doing that when it's about research contrary to your personal opinion. Not to mention that you completely fail to address my point about the null hypothesis, and apparently didn't bother to follow the links I provided already either - each of which contained either actual data (referenced too) or reference to the relevant research.

By the way - NASA and NOAA are not the be all and end all of climate related research, not by a long shot. Nor do your references provide anything that contradicts the statements I made in my post. It appears that you badly need to start reading some of the actual research, rather than making a gross stretch to incorrect conclusions based on very limited sources.

Even so, et's see if I can get you started which is far more than you were willing to do for others. Look up Dansgaard-Oeschger events. See:
http://www.sciencedaily.com...

Then try researching the Younger Dryas period which began about 12,900 years ago, and had an approx. temp increase of 10 degrees over about 20 years. See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/...

You claim to want to talk climate and accuse me of discussing weather, when it's quite clear you haven't bothered to research actual climate history.

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:43:15 -0000

Who's laughing now? Everyone who is skeptical about claims of anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming (AGW) - which probably includes a lot of those conservatives mentioned in the article.

One of the key tenets of AGW has always been that the rate of sea level rise would increase as CO2 levels in the atmosphere increased. Well, CO2 levels have continued a basically linear increase, but instead of the rate of sea level rise increasing, it's actually reversed significantly after having slowed for the last few years. Errrmmmm, not quite the AGW hypothesis prediction there! It's likely a temporary reversal, since sea level has risen pretty steadily since the end of the Little Ice Age and wasn't ever well correlated to CO2 levels. Or perhaps we are moving into a cooling phase or have run out the rise from the Little Ice Age rebound - time will tell, but this sure doesn't fit the AGW hypothesis, models, and claims.

Obama, Gore, Clinton, Jackson, IPCC, etc. are all looking pretty foolish at this point as key aspects of the AGW hypothesis keep falling left and right, and other previously unknown factors that likely have significant effect on the entire global system affecting atmospheric temperatures keep being discovered.

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:54:14 -0000

Most of us will probably also be in for the "Gore Effect" again this winter - in other words, much colder temperatures instead of warmer. Woe to anyone actually living at any location Gore personally visits this winter - the last few years every time he goes anywhere record cold or snow promptly commences there!

As soon as record or unusual cold became prevalent, Gore of course started claiming that was consistent with the AGW hypothesis - only one problem, it's not, and never has been. The IPCC even disputes that idea. See: http://dailycaller.com/2011...

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:20:20 -0000

Yes, Tuvalu, the Maldives, all those poor islands will be innundated, as will coastal continent regions. /sarc

Only problem with that is that even BEFORE sea level began decreasing, island land area was found to be INCREASING - and there is zero evidence of any coastal region going under because of sea level rise. In a some areas the height of the land is decreasing because of things like subsidence, sure, or that region of tectonic plate dropping, or erosion typically caused by man, sure - but because of sea level rise? It just ain't happening, not in the real world according to actual measurments.

For example, Webb and Kench studied the changes in the land surface area of 27 atoll islands located in the central Pacific over the past two decades.

"They found that the total change in area of reef islands (aggregated for all islands in the study) is an increase in land area of 63 hectares representing 7% of the total land area of all islands studied. The majority of islands appear to have either remained stable or increased in area (86%)."

One of the Tuvalu islands increased surface area by over 20%!

For a few examples, copy and paste the following into google search (I'm sorry, I'm not sure if examiner allows links, so I'll give you enough that if you copy & paste each of the following indented phrases into g0ogle the first article should be the one you want:

Tuvalu - the touchstone of global warming and rising sea level
By Cliff Ollier - posted Friday, 26 November 2010

Cancun: islands in the climate storm

If Pacific islands are being washed away due to climate change-induced floods, how come land prices are stable?

and:

657 New Islands Discovered Worldwide
OurAmazingPlanet Staff

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:31:02 -0000

Yes, he actually arranged for the moon to move farther from the Earth, thus slightly reducing it's pull. That's why NASA will no longer have any manned space mission, and has been retasked to muslim outreach and proof-reading science fiction books to be sure that science which doesn't yet exist is accurate. Along with, of course, inspiring children by tales of past accomplishments rather than by demonstrating new accomplishments (no joke on any of those).

Don't you poor silly people know that It's all in the Obama plan, which is, of course, completely detailed and worked out according to Obama himself. Where can we find it? Like his other plans - all in his mind. Just pass the non-existent-never-presented-to-congress-bill RIGHT NOW, and everything will be wonderful.

(do I really need to add /sarc?)

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:33:11 -0000

That would probably be from the multi-billion dollar CO2 trading fraud they were the center of. http://politiken.dk/newsine...

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:09:00 -0000

According to the experts it most certainly is dropping.

From NASA: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/new...

Or see: http://climate4you.com/imag...

And that Global Mean Sea Level Change graph has a very controversial “Correction” of 0.3 mm/year RISE added May, 5th 2011, due to a “Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA)”

There isn't any credible disagreement over the fact that it's currently falling, only over whether it's a temporary meaningless blip, or something more substantial. Only way we'll find out is with a good bit more time.

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:15:41 -0000

Yep, see, it's the "Gore Effect" yet again!

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:17:05 -0000

Clearly you'll need a grant manager. I'd be willing to sacrifice and go with you on this noble mission, for only $500,000 of the grant. A paltry amount.

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:17:56 -0000

Nope, CO2 levels haven't slowed any to speak of, they're still rising just the same as they have been for several decades now.

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:20:32 -0000

Ah yes, same problem with "global temperatures" and anomalies - all appear to be 'calculated' at far greater precision than the actual instrumention even begins to allow.

Whatever happened to teaching some of the most basic aspects of science, that we've got published papers by PhD's quoting levels of accurracy an order of magnitude greater than can even be detected by the equipment and sampling methods???

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:23:06 -0000

Naw, he thought that BEFORE he was even elected - and yet enough people fell for it that he did get elected. Now THAT's scary.

Re: Promise kept: Sea levels fall under Obama

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:42:52 -0000

I can handle that. I'll bring the little umbrellies too for the pina coladas & such... I mean, so we can get accurate ambient sea surface temperatures not affected by direct radiative sunlight.

Re: Yawning is body's "thermostat"

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:37:18 -0000

Huh? This sure sounds like rank speculation rather than actual science. Most places around the world don't have summer temperatures regularly higher than 98.6 degrees F (37 C) even during the day, let alone at night, which is when yawning is most prevalent. The areas that do have the highest temperatures are often deserts, where you get a tremendous amount of evaporative cooling - and that would be even more so with open mouth and wet mucous membranes exposed. This summer was supposedly the second hottest for the contiguous USA, hottest being back in 1936 (according to NOAA)... and yet the average U.S. temperature in August was 75.7 degrees F - well more than 20 degrees cooler than body temperature. Even in the SW USA, summer temperatures in Texas and Oklahoma, at 86.8 degrees F and 86.5 degrees F, respectively are still more than 10 degrees cooler than normal body temperature. Daytime would be hottest of course, but believe me, folks spend a good bit of time in air conditioning in the SW summers. What do you want to bet that the 5 min outdoor acclimation they did for the study was into the middle of blindingly bright summer day, when the body immediately reacts to the far brighter and more natural light than that found indoors, and that this had more to do with the outdoor v indoor yawning rate than tempertures. Color me highly skeptical of this one.

Re: Al Gore's five loaves and two fishes

Rational_Db8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:40:18 -0000

Sports cars that people who can afford to pay $60,000 for a new car, will be given $30,000 tax rebates by the Obama Administration, if the roadster is ever actually marketed and Obama et. al. can still possibly manage to swing it. No doubt with the justification that it helps get more green vehicles on the road - oh joy.

Right now for the $40,000+ Volt you get back something like $7,500 IIRC.

Of course, in 2009 thanks to the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumverate, you could essentially get electric golf carts for free because of tax credit. Heck, in 2009 if you lived in Colorado and signed up to buy a $100,000 Tesla roadster, you could have gotten a gobsmacking $42,000 tax credit from the state... wonder if such buyers were also eligible for the federal $7,500 too? All just to be oh so supposedly wonderfully 'green.' (cause you were rollin' in all that dough!)

Re: How the Navy’s Incompetence Sank the ‘Green Fleet’

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:42:44 -0000

@xyriin disseminating disinformation as if factual is just disgusting -
or ignorant. Nuclear efforts in the USA, prior to Japan's bombing of
Perl Harbor was primarily about producing energy, not bombs. It wasn't
until Perl Harbor, and the knowledge that the German's, Russians, and
British were all significantly further ahead with their research that United States efforts shifted emphasis to producing a bomb. Just google:

Outline History of Nuclear Energy - World Nuclear Association

You've similarly fluffed both the degree and number of research
facilities working on nuclear power, and even Admiral Rickover's bio.
Prior to the U.S. Government becoming involved, there were quite a few
different universities and private companies that were all researching
the prospects for nuclear power generation. The first sustained nuclear
reaction occurred at the University of Chicago - the Chicago Pile-1.

Efforts radically shifted from initial work primarily on producing
power to the bomb specifically because of the Perl Harbor attack - the
USA was than at war, and thus weapons had to take precedence. Had we
not been in the midst of a World war, primary efforts would have
remained on developing nuclear reactors for power production. Even so,
power production research continued, including efforts as amazing as an
attempt to power large airplanes with nuclear reactors.

After the war the government directed efforts to be shifted back to primarily research on producing electrical power with nuclear reactors.

Do your homework before spouting off, why don't you?

Re: How the Navy’s Incompetence Sank the ‘Green Fleet’

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:45:01 -0000

After the war the government directed efforts to be shifted back to primarily research on producing electrical power with nuclear reactors.

Do your homework before spouting off, why don't you?

Re: How the Navy’s Incompetence Sank the ‘Green Fleet’

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:28:02 -0000

As szamp states, this is a self inflicted problem. As far back as 2004 there were top level gov. reports showing that the USA has technically recoverable high quality cost competitive oil sufficient to meet our energy needs (at 2004 consumption levels) for over 100 years!! (from shale). For that matter, the Keystone pipeline would have had a significant effect also - instead, when Obama quashed it, Canada retaliated by declaring that they would no longer sell us oil at the discount rate we have been getting.

You're a bit off in the claim of only 3 days available in our Strategic Petroleum Reserves. The facts are:

"...Current days of import protection in SPR - At the
current level of 696 million barrels, the SPR holds the equivalent of 80
days of import protection (based on 2012 EIA data of net petroleum
imports of 8.72 MMB/D). Note: the maximum days of import protection
ever held in the SPR was 118 days in 1985...."

Also, many folks have a pretty big misconception about where we get the bulk of our oil. From the EIA, US Dept. of Energy, as of late 2011 here were the top sources:

"...The top five sources of US crude oil imports for September were Canada
(2,324 thousand barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1,465 thousand barrels
per day), Mexico (1,099 thousand barrels per day), Venezuela (759
thousand barrels per day) and Nigeria (529 thousand barrels per day).
The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Colombia (510 thousand
barrels per day), Iraq (403 thousand barrels per day), Ecuador (299
thousand barrels per day), Angola (283 thousand barrels per day) and
Russia (275 thousand barrels per day)..."

Re: How the Navy’s Incompetence Sank the ‘Green Fleet’

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:37:22 -0000

Come now, Stacey. Think for a second. Demand is obviously there for biofuels - if it weren't, there wouldn't be any demand for oil. Distribution isn't an issue either - the distribution system, for the most part, already exists because we already use oil and oil products. In its glorious wisdom, the EPA is already levying huge fines on companies for not using more biofuels - regardless of the fact that those companies CANNOT use more, because it isn't available in sufficient quantities.

Biofuels are expensive because of the technological demands involved in creating them. It's far cheaper to find and pump oil (conventional or sand or shale) than to create biofuels. It's as simple as that, and that's why investors aren't going for it - it's simply not a competitive source.

Re: How the Navy’s Incompetence Sank the ‘Green Fleet’

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:46:10 -0000

pixelpusher, I strongly suggest you try reading the U.S. constitution. Then tell me how the purpose of government is to meddle in the commodities market or our behavior and choices.

Passenger rail has virtually always been government supported - and it is a massive tax loss. Furthermore, it's few riders are heavily subsidized by all the taxpayers who never gain any benefit from the system.

The first highways were privately built. Claims that there wouldn't have been an interstate highway system without the government are specious unless you have a magical crystal ball. Meanwhile, I just love how the current government system results in billions and billions spent for highway repair and/or construction that takes decades to finish a mile or two. These things can virtually always be done better and cheaper by the private sector than by the government. That has been clearly shown time and again.

Re: How the Navy’s Incompetence Sank the ‘Green Fleet’

Rational_Db8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:25:05 -0000

300 years from now? Geez, what were we using 300 years ago, whale oil?? Claims of peak petroleum oil began as far back as 1910 or 1920 - and have been made ever since then. Look at the technology changes in just the past 100 years. Things have only sped up. Bankrupting ourselves now over concern for 300 years from now is just silly.

Huge conventional oil sources aren't allowed to be tapped in the USA because of purely political issues - both on land, in shallow water, and even deeper continental shelf waters. Meanwhile, we are the Saudi Arabia of shale oil, and the majority of areas where we could be tapping that are off limits and owned by our federal government!

Meanwhile, adiabatic oil is looking more possible also, and is being seriously researched. Who knows if that will pan out, but even without it, we've plenty of oil for the foreseeable future, and it's a good bet that ther will be quite a few technological developments that drastically reduce our need for oil - all without reducing our standard of living or bankrupting ourselves - if we don't let idiotic political decisions ruin us in the meantime. Our current trajectory on that front is a far far greater problem and concern than real levels of oil supplies.