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# One engineers perspective on global warming33

## One engineers perspective on global warming

2
(OP)
In forum1554: Engineering Writers Guild MVP members of eng-tips.com develop articles for publication on the Internet. This informal peer-review process has resulted in several articles being published thus far. Early indications make this seem to be an effective way to make information available to the engineering profession.

One of the articles was on my perspective on global warming. It was published today.

I would be very interested to participate in a discussion here about the article or the subject in general. There were several conversations that were started and then cut short in the Engineering Writers Guild because that group is intended to promote publication, not debate points of view. If anyone want to take up those conversations, this is the place to do it (although it is too late to correct formatting, grammar, or punctuation errors).

The article is available at: One engineer's perspective on global warming

Thank you to all of those who worked hard on this article to keep me more or less honest. I had a lot of help, but at the end of the day any errors and/or omissions are mine. I'll share the credit for the good stuff, but I own the mistakes.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Something you had in your article got me thinking. If C + O2 = CO2, for each carbon atom burned it consumes one Oxygen molicule. And for each CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + H2O, not looking at the heat produced by each reaction, but by the formulas both coal and natural gas form CO2, but that natural gas also forms water vapor, or liquid, which if vapor adds to the theory of run away green house. If the water is liquid then it would at some point add to the rise of the seas.

So why is natural gas perfered by the warmests?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Absolutely excellent article.

I cannot understand how people fail to see the economic detriment of forcing / subsidizing green energy, price fixing, carbon taxing, etc., which in turn will only delay the free market ability to produce sustainable energy.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I don't know if this is of interest to anybody here--there was a "Climate Change Statement Review" published online, written by the Climate Change Statement Review Subcommittee of the American Physical Society (APS), dated Dec. 20, 2013 which outlines a number of questions that the committee thinks need to be answered, all related to the inconsistency of the data and/or models. I thought it was interesting that such a well respected professional group as APS (mostly academics), which you would think could be counted on to fall in line with the "warmistas," but is instead openly questioning many of the statements made by the warmistas. It appears to me that only isn't the science 'settled' that a lot of academics (scientists and engineers) are starting to publically raise questions and express doubts. I don't know what the end result of this debate will be, but thank goodness SOMEONE is asking the right questions. In case it's not obvious, I am not a denier, but I am highly skeptical of the conclusions being reached by the climate simulators.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Why did you include a link to the 'hockey stick' when you were referring to a positive feedback that 'will' happen? The hockey stick portrays past temperature change, not what is predicted to occur in the future. Why didn't you link to a model-based temperature projection into the year 2100, of which there are many examples?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

@dawei87,

It looks like the author was intending to provide an example of apparent positive feedback in nature. He states in the same paragraph that the 'hockey stick' can be extrapolated, which is what you referenced, but a projection is not the same as a demonstrated example.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
The hockey stick has 3 years of projection on the end. I thought it made a strong argument that taking historical data and projecting it even 3 years yielded pretty biased results. I like the idea of showing a "projection" made in the past that failed to match reality compared to actual data. Projecting 90 years is just ludicrous and I would be accused of cherry picking the one that looked the stupidest (which I probably would have been guilty of). Sticking with a graph so prominently featured in IPCC documents and Gore's Inconvenient Truth seemed like a way to make the point without as much bombast.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

David, considering the high degree of controversy with this topic, I think you did well in hitting your target of remaining objective (and revealing/stating your bias where applicable). Well done!

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

zdas04, thanks for opening up this thread; I appreciate that you have provided a venue to discuss the technical aspects of your paper. I wanted to address prost’s post.

prost, the only ones that think that there are no open questions left in climate science are “skeptics” when purposefully misrepresenting the state of climate science. They do so to make climate science seem dogmatic. This sentiment is usually coupled with unsupported claims that any research that goes against the ACC theory is blocked by “pal review”. zdas04 does a nice job at illustrating this and, as is typical, offers absolutely no references to support it.

APS reviews it’s statements every 5 years, this was just standard practice. In order to provide a voice to the other side they brought in Christy, Curry and Lindzen. The gesture to have climate change skeptics say their bit should not be seen as APS shifting their view on the issue but just trying to be balanced. However, a more accurate balance would be 90 scientists in support of the theory and 10 that are skeptical of it. Nevertheless, there really is no point here – of course Christy, Curry and Lindzen are going to say the same-old, same-old but that doesn’t mean that it becomes APS’s position.

Your final statement, regarding climate science hinging on models, shows a misinterpretation of climate science that is commonly pedaled by “skeptic” outlets and echoed in zdas04’s piece. See my post at 28 Mar 14 16:55 which outlines which aspects rely on models and which don’t. While certainly future projections rely on models (this is rather tautological), the basis of the ACC theory only requires review of empirical evidence. The fact that the troposphere is warming while the stratosphere is cooling, the fact that nights are warming faster than days, the fact that outgoing longwave radiation is reduced along bands associated with CO2, the fact that downward infrared radiation is increased along bands associated with CO2, the fact that the tropopause is rising, the fact that the ionosphere is cooling and contracting and the fact that anthropogenic contributions to the increased CO2 concentrations vastly outweigh natural sources all go to provide a causal link to anthropogenic CO2 being the main driver for recent climate change. The open question is – how bad will ACC become? This is where the uncertainty in climate models comes in (a point I do respect from people such as zdas04). However, the literature continues to hone these estimates closer to those of the IPCC and not to the fringe voices claiming low sensitivity.

Many “skeptic” arguments from blogs and libertarian think-tanks sound appealing on the surface, especially to those of us with an education in science but no specialized training in climate science. Their points are made even more appealing if you have a strong belief in the free-market as you will have an apriori rejection to the proposed solutions. However, it’s important to remove any bias imposed by the latter, as it has nothing to do with climate science (which comes before climate policy) and dig deeper into the actual science. Reviewing peer-reviewed literature and articles from credible, relevant scientific institutions like NOAA, NASA, Royal Society and the American Academy of Sciences is a good place to start. Doing so, with as little ideological baggage as possible, will likely allow you to spot the sort of misrepresentations and sophism that I spoke of above (and will speak about regarding the article). I was once a skeptic and ate up the articles on WUWT but the more I researched, the more my opinion changed. It was easier for me than most as I do not share a strong belief that the free-market is the solution to all our economic and sociologic problems but I certainly sympathize with people when they don’t see through the gimmicks.

Also, I really wouldn’t mind being referred to as “warmistas”; it makes us sound like we are some sort of climate cartel. Peer-review journals and credible scientific institutions are Warmistas territory and ain’t no Skepticos going to move in!

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
"Empirical evidence"????? To construct the temperature "record" ("story" might be a better term) prior to 1900, requires ice core and tree ring analysis.

Ice core analysis feeds the ratio or hydrogen and oxygen isotopes into a computer model to try to assess what the global temperature must have been to cause the evaporation that is evidenced in the sample. People tweak the computer models to force a story.

Tree ring analysis looks at the thickness of the rings across a (hopefully) consistent time period and uses a model to predict the possible scenarios of moisture and sunlight that could have created the observed rings.

Both of these are amazing bits of work. If this subject hadn't become so politicized I would be applauding their work. The problem is that the stories that come out of these models represent just one possible scenario from an infinite number of possible scenarios. We simply don't know what the global temperature was in 1800 AD or 2,000 BCE. We have models. Without models not one single conclusion from this "science" would be anything but an opinion. Oh yeah, with models every single conclusion from this "science" is simply an opinion accompanied by reams of fiction called "model output".

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Thanks for the article and the links to the threads. It is very interesting to see the debate from the other side of the Atlantic and also it is shocking to see the Cartesian doubts of our American colleagues from a European mindset.

In the US global warming seems to be a partisan political issue with corporate lobbies in the arena. In the EU this is not the case. In Western Germany the notion of human influence on climate change gained popular acceptance since the 80s. Many Europeans see CO2 emissions as a sign of the former Soviet heavy industry. Given that Germany leads the EU, the main European countries took some actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before the 90s. Even O&G companies and automobile manufacturers assummed the reductions of emissions without lobbying too much.

I am afraid those different ways in which the US and the EU tend to see the environment could be a point of cultural controversy between both sides.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

@rconner

You could save yourself and the rest of us a lot of time by just stating that you believe whatever the established scientific consensus tells us. That position certainly has some value in terms of setting policy but it makes no primary or necessary demands on scientific inquiry. Frankly, your blanket dismissal of critics with ad hominem and other fallacies does as much to undermine your own credibility as anyone else's.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

charliealphabravo, firstly welcome to the climate change debate. I can understand how you think these are "blanket statements" if you are unfamiliar with the past threads where I've repeatedly provided supporting evidence to the background behind these statements. If you have a specific issue with anything that I said, please mention it and I might be able to point you to the relevant literature that was used to support the comment.

As to the ad hominem, I'm unsure of what you are referring to. Possibly the statement "zdas04 does a nice job at illustrating [the claim that skeptic research is blocked by "pal review"] and, as is typical, offers absolutely no references to support it"? I fail to see the ad hominem. The author doesn't provide any supporting evidence to these fairly damning claims, making it a statement, not an ad hominem. These claims require an international, inter-governmental, inter-decadal conspiracy involving every major relevant scientific journal, NASA, NOAA, and 197 national academies of science. I, myself, am a little skeptical of this position in absence of any supporting evidence. But maybe we differ on that front.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (charliealphabravo)

You could save yourself and the rest of us a lot of time by just stating that you believe whatever the established scientific consensus tells us.

A little blown away by the arrogance of that statement. As if someone can't objectively look at the evidence and reach an independent conclusion that also happens to be generally consistent with the scientific consensus?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Let's just assume that climate change is a hoax invented by the majority of scientists to conspire against oil sheiks, gas oligarchs and what not.
What's wrong with reducing dependence on costly fuel imports and invest more money in the local economy?

Also, if we don't need more efficient machines, devices, cars, electric cars, trains, aircrafts, efficient heat pumps and if we don't need photovoltaics, inverters, wind turbines, waste-incineration-plants etc. the engineers who develop and design these things are not needed either.

Not too long ago I read an article about how bad electric cars supposedly are in IEEE. Does this magazine even realize that many electric engineers would be out of work if electric cars were not being developed?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"This sentiment is usually coupled with unsupported claims that any research that goes against the ACC theory is blocked by “pal review”. zdas04 does a nice job at illustrating this and, as is typical, offers absolutely no references to support it."

What published, peer reviewed papers could be referenced to indicate that contrary theories are blocked from publication?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
I've wondered about that every time rconnor has said it. The articles are on CFACT, WUWT, Cato, etc. Whenever anyone cites any of those sites the warmists go nuts. "Nature" or "Science" is not going to publish it.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

globi5 I agree we should be more efficient, and electric cars do make jobs for electric engineers, however ther crusade agenst coal can cost a lot of jobs. And coal that is used now to power those electric cars is being asked to be turned off. And when I ask with what, I seem to always get the responce wind and solar.

Sounds like a limited thought process to think wind and solar can replace coal.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

btrueblood, first I’ll address your little quip then I’ll address the opposite to that - what published, peer reviewed papers could be referenced to indicate that contrary theories are NOT blocked from publication?

I asked for references and supporting evidence, not peer-reviewed literature specifically. The issue is that nothing was offered in support of the claim. The claims were made as if they are so obviously factual that no support is required. However, when these claims require an international, inter-governmental, inter-decadal conspiracy involving every major relevant scientific journal, NASA, NOAA, and 197 national academies of science, then I don’t feel it is so obviously factual as to not require supporting evidence. These claims, and the lack of supporting evidence for them, are not unique to the article but appear continually in climate change threads.

Now, to the opposite claim, here’s a list of a few published, peer reviewed papers that should have been blocked had this conspiracy been true (and skeptics should feel free to use such papers to support their claims in this thread and others!).
- Idso 1980
- Pielke Sr. 1991
- Lindzen 2001
- Chou & Lindzen 2005
- Spencer & Braswell 2008
- Lindzen & Choa 2009
- Spencer & Braswell 2011
- Lindzen & Choi 2011
This directly counters any claim of conspiracy. So not only has no evidence been provided in support of the widespread conspiracy but now direct evidence has been provide to counter these claims.

One recent example of the difference between bad science being rightly rejected from publication and good science that goes against the theory being wrongly blocked from publication was with regards to the recent Lennart Bengtsson paper. Bengtsson attempted to publish a paper but it was rejected by the journal Environmental Research Letters. Conservative media outlets (The Times) and “skeptic” think tanks (GWPF and CATO) jumped all over the situation as an example of the good science being wrongly blocked. Logic and reason, on the other hand, show that it was clearly just bad science being rightly rejected.

The paper was rejected because it was not a good paper. Pure and simple. The publisher of Environmental Research Letters, IOP Publishing, released a statement addressing the fabricated accusations put forward by the Times and GWPF. They even went so far as to release the referee reports. Here are some highlights (my bold):

Referee One:
“The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low”
“The paper does not make any significant attempt at explaining our understanding the differences, it rather puts out a very simplistic negative message giving at least the implicit impression of “errors” being made within and between these assessments…What a paper with this message should have done instead is recognizing and explaining a series of “reasons” and “causes” for the differences.”
“And I can’t see an honest attempt of constructive explanation in the manuscript.”

Referee Two:
“On the second point [regarding developing an “understanding why any apparent inconsistencies and differences might exist”], the manuscript has little to offer”
“the authors have only superficially demonstrated possible inconsistencies. Moreover, in addressing the question of “committed warming”, the authors have inexplicably used the wrong equation
“Even before making this error, there is a troubling shallowness in the arguments describing apparent discrepancies in estimates of forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity.”

The difference between bad science being rightly rejected and good science being wrongly blocked is something I feel skeptics need to understand. Just because you like the paper (because it agrees with your position) doesn't make it good science. Just because I don't like a paper (because it disagrees with my position) doesn't make it bad science. Both sides can meet in the middle by providing supporting evidence to justify their claims.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

cranky108
150 years ago the whaling industry was even the biggest economic sector in the US-Northeast. Does this mean the whaling industry should have been saved, because it was under pressure due to the growing petroleum industry? And would the US be better off today if whaling was still a major economic factor?

I agree electric cars do currently consume some coal power. Which is at least not imported costly fuel and since electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines they are also using less of it.
Since the US electricity sector is only getting 35% from coal, one wouldn't need to replace 100% with Wind and PV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of...
Having said that, even with Onsite Solar power alone (0% Wind, 0% Hydro, 0% Geothermal, 0% Offsite Solar, 0% Biomass) one can produce enough electricity to power an electric car: A solar parking roof with a projected area of 3*6 m^2 tilted by 30 degrees has an area of 20.8 m^2. With a PV efficiency 15% and 4.5 kWh/day one receives 5125 kWh per year. http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/map_pv_national_hi-...
5125 kWh is enough to travel over 27000 km per year with an electric car.
(EV consumption: 0.188 kWh/km. http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/models/facts )

By the way, if some power does come from Wind it is interesting to note:
http://www.aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-winds...
Texas grid operator data show that the integration costs for conventional power plants are far larger than the integration costs for wind generation
In addition, Wind power and PV complement each other:

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

rconnor, thanks for fighting the good fight with facts and intelligence. Not that the other side here is opposite in those two regards. But, I've research the global warming issues enough that I just can't read their comments much anymore, even if they are being proposed honestly and thoughtfully. They just can't seem to make an argument without connecting to people or organizations who aren't:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_a_Const...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institu...

I mean if you referenced liberal political think tanks that got started and are funded by wealthy liberals solely to support global warming, they'd jump all over you. But, then of course, you do reference those liberal ivory towers called universities with their stuck up "research scientists" who are also in on the liberal conspiracy. You know, the 97% who support it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_contro...

globi5, unfortunately, I agree with cranky108, I just don't see wind and solar competing with coal. The amount of coal to be burned in the next 30-40 years could exceed what we've ever burned in coal or petroleum in human history. There's just no way. That's the reason why I really wish the other side took this more seriously. In 2050, we'll be up to almost 10 billion people on this planet, global warming could really mess with agricultural production, livestock, and fishing. Perhaps scientists will come up with some new radical form of energy production that we engineers are able to implement. But, if coal, oil, and gas supply the bulk of energy in 2050, we could be screwed.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

HenryOhm
Germany has far less renewable resources than the US (Germany has less solar, less wind, less biomass, less geothermal and even less hydro) and even though Germany is still subsidizing coal, the renewable power production in Germany in 2014 was already 63% higher than the power production from hard coal: http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch... (If this substantial amount of renewable power was missing, undoubtedly more coal power would have been produced).

Keep also in mind that Wind power has meanwhile gotten cheaper than power from new coal power plants:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-06/australia...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-07/u-s-wind-...
And while costs of coal power is increasing the costs of renewable power are decreasing.

While I agree that the world can burn more coal if it chose to, I doubt it because new coal power plants keep on facing more competition and as opposed to Wind and Solar power require fuel (which is likely to become more expensive) and are facing water related risks:
http://apps2.eere.energy.gov/wind/windexchange/fil...
http://www.wri.org/publication/over-heating
In addition, Chinese cities are starting to ban coal not because of CO2-emissions but simply to combat air pollution:

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"But, if coal, oil, and gas supply the bulk of energy in 2050, we could be screwed."

There is no 'if' about it. You guys with your USAn perspective are completely missing the point. In the next 20 years USA and EU energy usage will drop to a small fraction of the worldwide energy budget. It almost literally doesn't matter what the USA and EU do at this point, it won't make any significant difference to global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. China is opening two new coal fired generating stations a week, and if India could it would be as well.

Most of the 'success' of CO2 control in the first world bloc has been achieved by exporting their CO2 emissions to China in particular and Asia in general. That is an odd way of controlling a global problem.

However the great news is that you've got some dodgy numbers. I haven't seen a 10 billion projection for 2050. The sensitivity to CO2 in the more recent papers seems to be edging down to the value we've always measured in the lab, about 1-1.3 deg C per doubling, far short of the Chicken Little worst case scenarios beloved of the media and the IPCC and politicians, and indeed far short of even the average results from the misleading models.

However we still do seem to face a Malthusian problem, which is that quite simply there are 6 billion people who aspire to, and presumably have a moral right to, live at the same sort of per capita resource usage rate as the first world. Roughly speaking that implies that you, me and everybody else you know,needs to reduce their resource usage by 66%. One counter argument to that is that Malthusian predictions have never panned out in the past, and mostly seem to be a way of selling books and magazines and T shirts. Whoever knew that selling stuff was the key to reducing resource usage?

Cheers

Greg Locock

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### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

At least living standard and fossil resource usage don't need to coincide.

A person who lives in well insulated house which is getting its heating and hot water from an efficient heat pump which is primarily powered by hydro, wind and PV requires far less fossil resources than a person who lives in a badly insulated house with an old oil furnace.
Example: This building in rainy Switzerland is producing 4.5 times as much energy with its surface alone than the entire building requires to cover all electricity needs including heat pump for heating and hot water: http://www.solaragentur.ch/sites/default/files/Sol...

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
rconnor,
I read those referee remarks a bit different than you do. “The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low” seems to be saying "He doesn't agree with me." " there is a troubling shallowness in the arguments describing apparent discrepancies in estimates of forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity.” seems to say "he is attacking the thesis of my last published article, he has to be wrong".

It is really all about opinions concerning the value of a piece of work. There were reviewers who hated "1984", "Gone with the Wind", "Dune", "Atlas Shrugged", "Jane Eyre", and "War and Peace". There were reviewers who loved them. I have to wonder if Environmental Research Letters was very careful in their referee selection? That is a question that will not ever be answered.

It does not require an entire university, government department, or news industry to be locked into a smoke filled room to create a desired outcome. A couple of department heads that are careful to hire like-minded subordinates, they are careful to promote the ones that best reflect the target message, they are careful to make life hard on people who question the target message. A few years later and the field is dominated by sycophants. A few years after that the sycophants (true believers who are not in on the joke) are department heads in the next tier of knowledge-workers. The right 50 people in the world in the right positions could easily pull this off without leaving a trace. It would take at least a decade or so to do it, but when you hear stories of "consensus" you have to assume that they started coincident with IPCC and have had nearly 40 years. It is amazing what a small group can pull off when they are the only ones with knowledge of the desired end-state.

I envision 3-4 long-haired hippie types sitting in a room in the early 1980's, smoking dope, and saying, "this crap is boring without a war to protest, we really need to wake up the masses to the dangers of the military/industrial complex." Then another saying, "we've tried protests and marches, nobody pays any attention, I think we need to rot them from within." The third says, "That is cool, man, it'll take a while, but it would be a blast to use their institutions to take them down." And a plot is hatched. It could be exactly that simple. Can you buy a conspiracy of four? Didn't think so. Not sure I do. I do find it much more plausible than the gospel of ACC.

I don't know that this is what has happened. I don't have any peer reviewed references. I have my personal assessment of the state of this discussion and it smells very unsavory. In fact it feels orchestrated. The feeding frenzy among the faithful to attack contrary views is too rapid and organized to be generic in my experience.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Now wait "since electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines" while that is true, the energy storage along with the electric motor is far less efficient. First of all the battery system is around 50%, then you have the power production which is again 15% for solar, or 30 to 60% for convential fueled. And if you haven't noticed very few parking lots have solar panels, as there are too many bad drivers.

For the US at least, we are near a saturation point on hydro power, and in fact we are demolishing dams to save fish. So I doubt that in the US we will see much of an increase in hydro power. As far as the rest of the world, india had some major power outages because of a lack of water in there hydro power plants. This would lead me to believe they are near some saturation point in hydro power. And if you look at the disruptions caused in China because of the big dam they built, it's hard to believe there will be many more that size.

And just an FYI for those who don't know it, Wind power is typically produced at night when power demand is low. So until energy storage technology increases in efficiency, or wind power decreases in cost by around 50% we will reach a saturation point on usability soon.

Coal, gas, hydro, and nucular are the few stable and dispatachable forms of energy powering those inefficient electric cars.

At least fuel cell, during there short life, have a much better energy conversion than other technologyies.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2
@greglogock It matters a lot in terms of cultural leadership what the USA do at this point because the "American way of life" is exported to China, India, Latin America, Russia, ... Lifestyle is contagious for the good and for the bad.

Climate change skepticism is good and necessary for the strength of the global warming theory, but skepticism has a disproportionate voice in some corporate media, maintaining a false image that global warming is still in doubt in the scientific community. If 34 national science academies have made formal declarations confirming human induced global warming and urging nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, there is little debate or only debate about nuances among the scientific community.

Truth be said I am not an expert but some of your global warming skeptic arguments sound to me very familiar to those of the smoking skeptics in the 80s:

- Why as CO2 increases steadily does temperature not also increase steadily? CO2 cannot be responsible.
- I know someone who is 90, has smoked heavily all his life and he is as healthy as anyone. Smoking is not as dangerous as they say it is.

- Climate has been changing for thousands of years. CO2 is natural so it cannot be harmful.
- Smoke is a naturally occurring substance in the environment. It has been around for thousands of years, so what can be wrong with smoking?

- The models cannot predict weather accurately so how can we take them seriously?.
- No one knows when a smoker is going to die so how can anyone say their life is shortened by X-years by cigarretes? We can all tell stories about people we know who got cancer but have never smoked, so smoking cannot be bad.

etc, etc...

Admitting we have a problem is the first step in fixing the problem.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Can't believe I'm putting my toe back in this but...

When considering the battery powered vehicles (and even hybrids), renewable's, energy efficient houses... you really need to take into account the through life cost/efficiency.

While it can be difficult to do I still struggle to believe electric cars pass that sniff test. Seems like maybe a way to make the drivers/owners feel better about them selves & take advantage of various tax breaks/incentives etc. rather than a real way to reduce CO2 emissions.

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### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2
(OP)
You can couch the "wealth" of an economy by the number of hours required in a time period to satisfy subsistence needs (food, water, heat, shelter, not cell phones, cable TV, or Gucci handbags). In the U.S. for someone making median income that number (after taxes) for a family of four is around 24 effort hours/month. For a median income family of four in Nigeria it is around 10 effort hours/day, 7 days/week or something like 304 effort hours/month. [before anyone asks, I am not going to dig out the references for this, I only do the reference thing: (1) when I want to; or (2) when I'm getting paid to do the work. Please accept the numbers, accept the concept, or reject any part of it at your discretion, I simply don't care].

The difference between developed economies and un-developed economies is the relative cost of energy. If I only have to turn a knob to get cooking heat that costs pennies/hour then I am "wealthier" than someone who must gather and prepare firewood, start and tend a fire until it is the proper temperature for cooking, and then tend it to keep the temperature in the appropriate range. I'm wealthier if I can turn on a faucet to get clean, safe drinking water than someone who has to carry a bucket to a stream that the village upstream uses for a latrine.

The "fix" for ACC is to tell everyone living at subsistence levels (i.e., after they finish expending energy on subsistence they have no excess energy to acquire capital to spend on the next day's subsistence) that they are stuck at those levels in perpetuity. If I was a villager in sub-Saharan Africa or Mongolia, or Siberia, or most of South America, or most of Micronesia I would very much resent this "I got mine, you can't have yours" attitude. The other "fix" is to tell the billion or so wealthy people in the world that instead of working 24 effort hours/month to satisfy subsistence needs they have to work 60 hours/month. I'd kind of resent that as well.

As an engineer, I have a natural disposition to detest waste. I also have the ability to distinguish between "waste" and "political expediency". I recycle because it gives me an extra trash can, not because our pitiful recycling campaign is actually doing anything beneficial at all. On the other hand I applaud efforts to turn anaerobic landfills into aerobic methane generators to put the biological processes to work on waste hills. That has a real potential to be a permanent solution to both waste disposal and power generation for many communities. Makes a lot more engineering-sense than all the wind farms in the world.

I can't "fix" the climate even if I believed that it was broken. Efforts to apply "fixes" are actually cynical attempts to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the crony class. I'm not OK with that.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Throwing a Cato analysis out the window purely because it comes from Cato, when all Cato did in the analysis was run Obama's policies as stated through an EPA climate model as provided, is the very definition of "poisoning the well." It is not logic, it is fallacy.

Period.

http://www.cato.org/blog/002degc-temperature-rise-...

Now discuss the content within the link and not the name of the website it comes from.

Thanks.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

globi5, it’s nice to see well referenced posts. They’re few and far between here.

HenryOhm, ya those pompous, greedy, power hungry “research scientists” are always out to screw us! I don’t trust a thing they say! Now a Koch founded and funded, hard-right lobby group, there’s a group that we can all trust for well supported, unbiased, non-ideologically driver research!

#### Quote (mendinho)

@greglogock It matters a lot in terms of cultural leadership what the USA do at this point because the "American way of life" is exported to China, India, Latin America, Russia, ...
Spot on. Especially since both China and India have made statements that they will keep their emissions per capita below the US. This, rightly, puts the onus on the developed world to be the forerunners in reducing emissions.

zdas04, you forgot to reference this quote: “the authors have inexplicably used the wrong equation” (he confuses ECS and TCR). I think it was slightly more than a biased opinion that got the paper rejected.

So your conspiracy theory, of how three “long-haired hippies”, while high, concocted a world-wide, multi-decade scam that suckered in pretty well ever major scientific institution and the entire academic field, is based off a hunch. I’m just going to leave this point there.

#### Quote (zdas04)

The “fix” for ACC is to tell everyone living at subsistence levels…that they are stuck at those levels in perpetuity
Again, another example of how you purposefully misrepresent the ACC theory in an attempt to discredit it. This is just wrong. Read about the RCP scenarios, which take into account population and economic growth in the developing world.

#### Quote (zdas04)

Efforts to apply “fixes” are actually cynical attempts to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the crony class
Ya, those 3 pot-smoking hippies that are behind this whole farce sure represent the “crony class” and sure are going to get rich off emission reduction initiatives!

Please explain to me how the revenue neutral carbon tax in BC is a “cynical attempt to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the crony class”, when taxes raised by the tax (which dropped emissions/capita by 10% while GDP grew 3.8% (CANSIM tables 379-0025 and 379-0026)):
• Low Income Tax Credit – $195 million • 5% Reduction in first two personal income tax rates (the poorest) -$235 million
• General corporate income tax reduction (12% to 11%) - $450 million • Small business corporate income tax reduction (4.5% to 3.5%) -$261 million
• Source
beej67, and I’ll repeat my same comment again (which you’ve never addressed):

#### Quote (rconnor)

perhaps I should use another analogy, closer to your view. A government decides to enact measures to converse a 25 km by 25 km area of forest, while the status quo of deforestation continues everywhere else. CATO performs a “study” that concludes that no species that would have otherwise gone extinct, will be saved from extinction by these measures. Would you still conclude that:
1) The measure should not have been done,
2) By extension, any subsequent efforts to conserve natural habitats should not be done?

Oh, and these measures will have an average net domestic benefit of ~$66 Billion. But you can choose to ignore this if you wish, surely the ridiculousness of the two conclusions still remains. This needs to be coupled with mendinho’s point that the developed world needs to (and, for me, ought to) lead the way when it comes to serious emission reduction initiatives. I feel that the EPA’s Clean Power Plan is soft but it is a good, important, start. Hopefully it will get the ball rolling in North America. So, assuming the CATO analysis is true, it completely misses the point. The EPA's Clean Power Plan was never intended to stop global climate change. It does provide the US with ~$66 billion in average net domestic benefits by 2030 and is an important first step towards emission reductions.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

It will be interesting to see how the voting populace view the drive to take the energy intensity of USAn life down towards that of (say) Cuba, in order to show the rest of the world the way to solving a rather non-existent problem in the lifespan of them and their children.

Personally I'd have thought many counties view the USA as a beacon for healthcare crime using light armored vehicles to kill citizens in their own homes.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

cranky105
In those 0.188 kWh/km Tesla states the efficiency of the drive train and battery is included. http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/models/facts
0.188 kWh/km corresponds to less than 2 l of gasoline per 100 km which is well over 100 mpg. (The energy content of 1 l of gasoline is 11.6 kWh).

But even if an EV was not more efficient than a car with an internal combustion engines, it's still more efficient to collect energy to drive an EV from ones roof or a wind farm or even a gas power plant nearby than to import and refine crude oil from oil sands (most of the oil will eventually have to come from tar sands since those are the largest resources left): http://www.ostseis.anl.gov/guide/tarsands/index.cf...
Over its lifetime a car with a combustion engine consumes maybe about 150 Barrels of crude oil, which corresponds to the processing of 300 tons (660,000 lbs.) of tar sands (for just one car). On the other hand a Tesla S weighs about the same as an Audi A6 (assuming equal performance). So it's doubtful that there is significantly more energy needed to produce a Tesla S as opposed to an Audi A6.

Hydro power may be maxed out as far as energy capacity is concerned but not as far as power is concerned.
(Besides North America already has already 167 GW of hydro power installed which is still significantly more than the amount of Wind power currently installed. http://atl.g.andritz.com/c/com2011/00/01/62/16207/... )
Power on existing dams is already being increased to cope with the variability of demand (so, it can also be used to cope with the variability of power input from PV and Wind).
Here is an example of a hydro power plant where the power is being increased by four fold: http://www.tunnel.ethz.ch/events/hs2013_hohberg_1
For decades excess Hydro power from the US Northwest has been exported to Southern California: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
In the future surplus Solar power from the deserts in the US Southwest can be exported back to the US Northwest
Or surplus Wind power can be exported from New England to Quebec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_%E2%80%93_New...
And of course new HVDC power lines can be built to connect the windy Midwest to southern states and hydro power plants in New York and Canada.

As I mentioned before Wind and PV complement each other. So, if Wind farms and PV power plants are interconnected, there's less variability in power production. On page 36 of this document, there's a graph showing power production from Wind and Solar in Germany. Even though the combined power is over 70 GW, hardly any power over 30 GW is being produced, since there's usually either lots of Wind or lots of Solar power. http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/veroeffentlichunge...

In General, storage regarding Wind and PV is overrated. For instance, VDE (German Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies) calculated that Germany would need 26 TWh of storage capacity for a 100% renewable grid: http://www.chemieingenieurwesen.info/VDE-Studie_En... (page 28)
However, Norway alone already has 84 TWh of hydro storage capacity.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

It still costs less for me to convert my car to CNG than the cost of a Tesla. So for dollar efficency a Tesla dosen't make since. Also those batteries won't last but about 6 years.

One would think solar and wind compliment each other, but that's not what is happening, at least in the area of one balancing authorty, which is what utilities are mandated to keep balanced. We are being told to balance our load in our area, not over the whole nation. So with those govermental set requirments wind and solar are unbalancing items.
For your idea to work, then the goverment needs to get out of the way.

Yea we added a small hydro a few years back, but it was mainly installed to reduce the pressure build up of the water flowing to the water processing plant (drinking water is required to have clorene, as well as Floride put in it before they put it on there lawns, and maybe a little to drink).

Strangly most of our customers are more concerned about cost of electricity, than where it comes from. And CNG stations are hard to find. And Tesla recharging stations require a special service. And solar power dosen't happen when I am at home (as I need to work to pay for things).

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I agree EVs are currently rather expensive (and I actually have converted my car to run on Propane).
However, in the long run the increase of the renewable share in the grid and the electrification of the heating, hot water and transportation sector is sensible (economically, employment-wise, energy-independence-wise and emission-wise).

You may not be able to directly consume solar power from your roof, but your hot-water tank and air-conditioner can and thanks to the grid your workplace can and other buildings in the same region can.

Reserves and balancing are necessary and is something electricity consumers always had to pay for:
http://www.aweablog.org/blog/post/fact-check-winds...
For example, the Texas grid operator ERCOT holds 2800 MW of fast-acting reserves 24/7/365 to keep the lights on in case one of the state’s large fossil or nuclear power plants experiences an unexpected failure, as all power plants do from time to time.

Unfortunately, utilities are in general not interested in anyone producing their own electricity because that reduces their market share. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/business/energy-...

At least the HVDC transmission line which connects Oregon with Southern California was initiated by the government (US President 1961):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Cranky - a couple of items.

First, let me modify one of your statements: Wind power is mostly at night when electric cars are plugged in for charging

Second, your claim of 6 years life for Tesla batteries is ridiculously low. They have an 8 year battery warranty, and have stated if the battery degrades to worse than 70% of original rated capacity in that time the battery pack will be replaced or refurbished to original capacity for free.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

So, assuming the CATO analysis is true, it completely misses the point. The EPA's Clean Power Plan was never intended to stop global climate change. It does provide the US with ~$66 billion in average net domestic benefits by 2030 and is an important first step towards emission reductions. EPA fact sheet states this: #### Quote: The Clean Power Plan has public health and climate benefits worth an estimated$55 billion to $93 billion per year in 2030, far outweighing the costs of$7.3 billion to $8.8 billion. http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06... Question: What "climate benefits" are we going to get by 2030 from a plan that only changes the climate by 0.02 degrees C by 2100? Answer: Zero. This is inarguable. If you would like to attempt to argue it, please feel free. It'll definitely be entertaining reading. Conclusion: Either (A) All of the estimated billions of dollars with of benefits are due to the EPA's estimates regarding reduced smog and particulates, not climate, or (B) someone at the EPA cooked the books. These are the only two possibilities. In either case, the EPA is being intentionally disingenuous on their fact sheet. Would you consider our very own government being intentionally disingenuous on a "fact sheet" a productive thing to do in the public discourse? If your claim is correct, that the initiative actually had nothing to do with climate change, why do you think that the president of the United States says specifically that the plan was to combat climate change? http://www.whitehouse.gov/climate-change I'm interested to hear an honest answer to this question. As far as your analogy goes, lets just dig our heels into it. I wholeheartedly thank you for finally engaging the idea that money could be spent in other ways, and comparing those for their impact on the environment. Assuming current rural land values of approximately$100/acre, you could conserve your 25km square plot for $15 million, not$8 billion. With $8 billion, you could conserve 125,000 square miles of rural land. An area about the size of New Mexico. So yeah, I think that might have a pretty noticeable effect on the environment. Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming (OP) It would have a noticeable effect on the environment if we had a single clue how to do it. We don't. Every environmental intervention has had unintended consequences. Even the vaunted reductions in SMOG and Acid Rain have resulted in increased waste in refineries, hundreds of billions of dollars in mandated capital investments, and an ethanol fiasco that we will not know the ramifications of for generations. David Simpson, PE MuleShoe Engineering Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming 2 #### Quote (GregLocock) It will be interesting to see how the voting populace view the drive to take the energy intensity of USAn life down towards that of (say) Cuba More attempts to discredit ACC and climate change action by creating straw man arguments. GregLocock attempts to scare people away from climate change action by insinuating that any attempts to reduce emissions per capita will result in a drastic loss in standard of living. His statement appears to be made out of ignorance of the actual data. Emissions per Capita is different than energy intensity Firstly, we must clarify that emissions per capita and energy intensity are two different things. With the increasing power supply from renewable energy, reducing emissions per capita does not have to come with large drops in energy intensity. These are two different things and GregLocock attempts to obfuscate that difference. Emissions per Capita is not well correlated with standard of living (All emissions data from World Bank for 2010, all human development index data from UN Human Development Report for 2013) USA’s emissions per capita (in T CO2/capita) was 17.6, 10th highest. USA’s human development index (HDI) was 0.914, 5th highest. Countries that were above the US in emissions/capita were: 1. Qatar – 40.3 (HDI rank - 31st) 2. Trinidad and Tobago – 38.2 (HDI rank – 64th) 3. Kuwait – 31.3 (HDI rank – 46th) 4. Brunei Darussalam – 22.9 (HDI rank – 30th) 5. Aruba – 22.8 (HDI rank – 49th) 6. Luxembourg – 21.4 (HDI rank – 21st) 7. Oman – 20.4 (HDI rank – 56th) 8. United Arab Emirates – 19.9 (HDI rank – 40th) 9. Bahrain – 19.3 (HDI rank – 44th) Furthermore, many well-developed European nations have emissions/capita values lower than 1/3rd of US levels: Spain – 5.8 (HDI rank – 27th) Sweden – 5.6 (HDI rank – 12th) France – 5.6 (HDI rank – 20th) Switzerland – 5.0 (HDI rank – 3rd) CO2 emissions per capita vs GDP is also poorly correlated (source): It is important to note that GDP, while a nice and simple metric, is not the most meaningful (hence why I chose HDI). Studies show that GDP has little impact on happiness metrics and masks issues associated with inequality (source). We could look at other indexes, such as inequality (source), happiness, and the correlation looks almost opposite of GregLocock's assertion. So there is no statistical basis for GregLocock’s insinuation that reductions in CO2 emissions per capita will result in a drastic drop in standard of living. Similar claims are made by many climate change skeptics. They are all done so out of ignorance of the actual data. I would suggest that these sort of claims are born out of a political ideology more than anything else. Emission reduction initiatives require government intervention and if one’s ideology assumes that government intervention is a bad thing, then it pushes them to have issues with the initiatives. This position comes a priori to and, at times, in place of any research, hence why these claims fly in the face of actual data. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming Zdas makes some good points about energy bringing quality of life. It is nice to have 1 stable heat to cook with. 2 Clean water for cooking or washing. 3 Light for extending productive hours. 4 Energy for building simple labor saving tools. ... etc , you can see the point of these but how about these. 1 Driving to the mall on Saturday because you are bored. 2 Buying a new package of towels because the old ones have a stain. 3 Running your speedboat up and down the lake from dawn to dusk. 4 Mowing your oversize yard weekly including areas you never set foot in. 5 Commuting an hour to work when the internet makes telepresence very useful. 6 Driving a dual wheel pick up truck sporting a bed that has never seen cargo or axles than never see mud. 7 Watering your lawn so that you can mow it weekly. 8 Watching a TV half the size of a room for 2-6 hours per day. 9 Running your heat so you can wear shorts inside in January. 10 Taking 30 min hot showers daily. 11 Filling that swimming pool in the backyard that gets used once a week after the new wears off. 12 Keeping a monster refrigerator that stores enough food for 4 families so you can throw most of it out weekly. So you see there are necessities and then there are 'necessities'. We would not me measurably less happy if we stopped doing energy intensive wasteful behaviors. So please understand no one wants to deny Ethiopians cooking fuel or good food. Lets just not encourage the driving of spotless SUV's everywhere. Why is that so complicated. In short we have the lifestyle that energy extraction costs allow. If energy extraction costs were one third of what they are we would have even more extravagances and also claim they are necessaries. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming Zdas "" “The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low” seems to be saying "He doesn't agree with me." " there is a troubling shallowness in the arguments describing apparent discrepancies in estimates of forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity.” seems to say "he is attacking the thesis of my last published article, he has to be wrong"" [seems to be saying "He doesn't agree with me] How can you make this judgement on only the statement. If the reviewer was writing about a paper that proposed a new method of a soil test would you draw a similar conclusion from only such a statement. Of course not. Your emotions around this issue are driving you quite severely. That is my impression of most climate change skeptics. What they will accept and put forth as valid arguments for their case really have little logical basis and just indicate an emotionally driven need for verification. I think I will skip reading your paper, climate change skeptic profiling tells me your paper will likely have a fair bit of poorly reasoned emotionally driven points to make. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming "there is no statistical basis for GregLocock’s insinuation that reductions in CO2 emissions per capita will result in a drastic drop in standard of living" ... then why don't they increase taxation of gasoline to, oh say$10/lt ($38/USgal) ? and tax FFs used at power stations. that would cut CO2 emissions. but we also know the predictable economic consequences. we focus on the US 'cause they're the one nation producing a lot of CO2 (a 1% reduction in US output probably equals the production of smaller countries) ... for now. we're not looking to the Russia, 'cause, well, they'll ignore us! in the future that batton (largest national producer of CO2) will probably be passed to China (who'll probably ignore us then too). renewable sources of energy cannot supply the current energy needs. improvements in efficiency will only blunt the rate of increase in energy demands. Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming #### Quote: It would have a noticeable effect on the environment if we had a single clue how to do it. We don't. Every environmental intervention has had unintended consequences. Even the vaunted reductions in SMOG and Acid Rain have resulted in increased waste in refineries, hundreds of billions of dollars in mandated capital investments, and an ethanol fiasco that we will not know the ramifications of for generations. Heck, skip that entirely and go straight to private enterprise doing it. Here's an outfit that will allow you to personally preserve an acre of tropical rain forest for the bargain price of$167 at current exchange rates:

At that rate, Obama could have spent the 8 billion on 75,000 square miles of rain forest, which would be permanently preserved. That's an area larger than the entire country of Uruguay.

Seriously.

And instead, we get 0.02 degrees Celsius rise averted. Now which is better for the environment?

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

globi5, Actually I heat both water and my house with propane, because it is cheeper than electricity. And I do have a water pre-heater on my roof. But putting anything on my tile roof is a killer for more solar power. I have lower fire ratings because of the tile roof, and asking anyone to take more fire risk to install solar power is just dumb.
I also don't have an airconditioner because I don't have forced air in my house.

If utilities were concerned about people generating there own power, then they would not have rebate programs for people to reduce there energy usage, so your statment " utilities are in general not interested in anyone producing their own electricity because that reduces their market share" is not true. What is true is that people who put solar panels on there houses don't want to pay the full cost of there solar instalation. The whole idea of net metering is a gift to solar homeowners, who should only have there bills reduced by the energy they consume. They should also be paying capacity charges that are required to serve there home, as well as there share of the billing and accounting for the utility connection. The term for these people is free loaders.

OK I don't know the life of a Tesla battery, however with the Leaf you lease the battery, you have no battery worry about having to decide if you should scrap the car at the end of the battery life. Or worries that people will just dump the batteries.

Car charging starts at about 6:00, and the wind does not pickup until about 9:00, so there is a gap where the major part of car charging will be on coal and gas.

Actually the veriability of wind, in combonation with the veriabilty of customer load, causes other forms of energy production to be less efficent.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

rconnor--I for one would like to know what events or data caused you to move from skeptic to believer. Your presentations are thorough, but I don't have the time or background to wade through all of it. Simple statement, 25 words or less (OK, maybe 25 sentences). Or maybe just start a separate thread.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

i think rconnor should do his own "one engineer's view" on EWG

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Anyone care to comment on this recent article about Climate Models and Physical Data.

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-global-temperature-co...

"We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions . . . Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming."

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
Comcokid,
I've saved that to my favorites and every time someone says "we have evidence that does not depend on computer models" I'm going to link that in. Most scientists are fundamentally honest, decent people. Most data can be looked at from several angles to draw different conclusions. All computer models can be "adjusted" to satisfy a bias or a blind spot or an agenda. That article shows exactly how deeply those computer models are woven into the fabric of climate science.

"Warming since the beginning of the Holocene" is a bit different than "cooling for 6,000 years followed by a rapid heating starting in 1950." It is all in how you feed the model, "tune" the model, and interpret the model results.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I want anyone to do an engineer's view, a scientists view, or a policy makers view that explains how averting 0.02 degrees of rise is more important than preserving habitat in an area the size of Uruguay.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

What I take from the PysOrg article is that there is some question about whether the natural part of the climate is very slowly warming or cooling.

It is good to get this more accurate but as the authors say of this research.

"" It does not, the authors emphasize, change the evidence of human impact on global climate beginning in the 20th century.""

The difference is the rate of change implied by the now verified hockey stick rise in temps. The long term trend is a small fraction of this rate.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

You are presumably aware that the rate of change and level of change seen in the 20th century is not especially unusual? consider the the change in CET around 1700 for example.

As to cut'n'paste boy's confusing latest post, I'll get back to it later, but selecting the economic basket case called Spain as the poster boy for GDP/CO2 is quite hilarious. Do you know what PIGS is? Have you ever been to Spain other than on a cruise ship? The average full time pay in Spain is less than minimum wage in Australia. Its main exports are wine and olive oil. Its main industries are tourism and agriculture. If that is the vision of the future for the USA then fine, but somehow I doubt that the general populace would agree.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4

Here's a graph of the 11 year moving average of the HadCET data, comparing the rate of change for a 1.12 deg C event around 1700, at 8 deg per century (red line) and the recent rather slower rate of change over the same amplitude at 5.6 deg /century (green line). As you can see the recent change is not exceptional in amplitude or speed. Sadly we don't have data of this quality for other parts of the world for the same timeframe.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

swall, interesting question. I can't say it was any one thing specifically. However, in a general sense, it was the weakness of skeptic arguments in light of a better understanding that changed my mind. Take the "pause" for example. Once you do a bit more research and learn about ENSO dynamics and Ocean Heat Contet, not only does the "pause" NOT provide a crucial blow to the ACC theory but it actually works to support it. Skeptic arguments can be continually turned against the skeptic side and what your left with is actually something that supports the theory.

I've been picking away at an article or new thread topic which I will outline the fault with these arguments as well as provide a detailed description of the strength of the ACC theory and the weakness of skeptic counter-theories. Hopefully it will summarize some of my other posts all in one place, rather than as separate responses to the charade of random, unconnected arguments put forth from skeptics.

GregLocock, again, why use a regional data set if you are trying to make claims about global temperatures? Furthermore, what's interesting about this period is that TSI has been in decline since 1950 and aerosols have been increasing since 1950. Oh and a negative PDO phase should been lowering temperatures if the rise during the positive PDO phase was all natural, not keep them flat. This is why I love the "it's natural" argument so much. If it were natural, then temperatures would have been decreasing since the 1950's, not rising (brings us back to my point to swall). The "it's changed before"/"it's natural" argument has a serious problem on it's hands. It requires an explanation as to why temperatures are doing the exactly opposite of what they should be doing, assuming the ACC theory is incorrect (despite the fact it explains the recent warming very accurately).

So, is "Solar Notch Theory" the explanation you'd like to go with (I'd advise against it - 16 Jul 14 16:42)? Maybe geothermal flux (I'd also advise against it - 16 Jun 14 11:49)?

Before TGS4 counters with argumentum ad ignorantiam, let me be clear that it is not just that all skeptic counter theories fail to describe the current situation but, more importantly, the ACC theory does an excellent job doing so.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I'm not talking about theories I'm using measured data to illustrate that the recent temperature changes are not especially rapid or large. No theory required.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

A theory is required when all natural drivers (*increased aerosols is mainly anthropogenic) should have been pushing temperatures down since the 1950's, not up.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

@2dye4 ...

1) why does that statement give you confidence ? the data is saying one thing, yet they throw in that statement to be politically correct ? unless they mean to be saying, "somewhere in our analysis we screwed up, 'cause we got the wrong answer ('cause we know what the results should have been)".

2) i must have missed something, when was the Mann hockey stick verified ? the last i heard was that it had been shownproven to be a artifice of the data analysis routines.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Regarding the endless debate about rates of temp change.

I believe there are many components to the global average temperature, a few relevant ones.

1 A slowly changing unknown cause long term trend.

2 A noisy random component with relatively fast dynamics ( years to a couple of decades )

3 A function ( with memory or having dynamic behavior) possibly nonlinear mapping the deviation in CO2
from historical norms to a corresponding deviation in temperature.

We want to separate these hopefully. One tool that could be useful is the relative dynamics of the three signals.
The slowest is 1, the fastest is 2. Very likely 3 is in the middle. This means the data is best viewed
through a filter of some sort that best separates 3 from 1,2. Another way to think of it is the proper length
of an averaging window sliding through the data. Eliminating 1 is fairly easy as it seems to be very slowly changing.

Between 2 and 3 is the hard part and likely where people will want to draw their own boundaries. Too many people
use changes in temp over a year or two to make some point and it is meaningless. There is much written about
the proper way to pick a filter to suppress the dynamics of one known signal. If you pass a filter tailored to
suppress the signal in the time series prior to industrialization I think you would find the industrial era hockeystick
still comes through with a shape and rate that is unprecedented.

Greg do you have a favorite time series of Temp at least 500 years in length and terminating fairly recently. I would like
to try and see what it shows.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Sounds like the science is not settled, and the goverments are on a power grab.

Argue more and prove my point.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

3
@granky108 I am afraid no scientific theory can be considered totally "settled” but it seems reasonable enough to provide a scientific theory supported by >90% of the community to the policymakers. The problem is that many engineers are trying to compare climate science with hard engineering sciences like classical mechanics. Mind that many other new sciences would not resist a pure Popper's falsifiability criterion including quantum mechanics, neuroscience, biological evolution, dynamics of illness, plate tectonics,... Policymakers cannot wait for a Popper's approach and the 100% certainty before taking action.

Also, claiming that a scientific theory is not settled because of debate in the US media or in engineering forums... as far as I understand from Thomas Kuhn idea of "consensus" a new competing theory must appear, gain acceptance among the scientific community and replace the previous theory. For example, if someone claimed that significant global warming exists even though the anthropogenic factors were not present, in order to create an alternative theory the natural drivers that would be more important than the anthropogenic drivers must be unveiled and the resulting system explained.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2

#### Quote (GregLocock)

Even by your standards that is a non sequitur
Again, skeptics seem to have issues with their latin phrases. How is this a non-sequitur? You say that there's nothing unusual about the GLOBAL warming since the 1950's because the same warming rate occurred in ENGLAND in 1700's (speaking of a non-sequitur...). But there is something unusual because in the 1700's natural drivers worked to warm the planet while since the 1950's natural drivers worked to cool the planet. This makes your claim that "it's natural"/"its changed before" a non-sequitur because while warming WAS natural in the 1700's, it WAS NOT natural since the 1950's. This does require a mechanism to explain the difference. I'm asking what your explanation is because I have mine.

#### Quote (GregLocock)

which of your mechanisms is active over 13 years?
Seriously? You need me to explain the "pause" to you a 15th time?

ACC is still active. OHC has increased throughout the "pause", specifically the deeper ocean (700m-2000m) which is exactly what you'd expect while in a negative PDO cycle. (and before we hear TGS4's "OHC data wasn't good before 2005", sure but look what it's done SINCE 2005, all during the "pause")

ENSO is still active. We are in a negative PDO where La Nina's dominate. The "pause" started with the largest El Nino on record (1998) which creates an anomalously hot starting point (cherry picked). It was followed by La Nina or neutral years, except for 2010 which was a El Nino year. And (surprise, surprise) 2010 was the hottest year on record. Furthermore, when you compare La Nina years with La Nina years, Neutral years with Neutral years and El Nino years with El Nino years, they all continue to warm at similar rates than before the "pause". The "pause" is nothing more than a cherry-picked period caused by ENSO events.

When you account for ENSO events, which are stochastic, by inputting actual ENSO values into models, then models track observations incredibly well. (POGA-H = with actual ENSO data input, HIST = without actual ENSO data)

The inability to predict ENSO is rather irrelevant because ENSO is purely about the short term, cyclical storage (La Nina) and release (El Nino) of heat stored in the pacific ocean. It has no affect on long term trends which is demonstrated by my analysis of La Nina years, neutral years and El Nino years. All three trends continue to warm, despite the short term noise of the non-separated data.

I've got my explanation, which is not only unchanged by the "pause" but is actually strengthened by it. So, back to you GregLocock, "which of your mechanisms is active over 13 years?".

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Agreed that the science is not settled, shall we 'kill the messanger' for getting it wrong?

The facts are the several socialist and communiest countries don't feel the need for any action, and we as a non-socialist, non-communuest country are willing to take a play from one of there playbooks to fix a problem. That make us more like them and presumability as we approch there standards, we will be less willing to fix this problem (Maybe because we won't have any money).

If you want more people on board, then you need to propose another method other than more taxes (I keep saying this, but never hear any new ideas). This sounds like a broken record because that's what I keep hearing, "more taxes".

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Cranky

The aim is to control behaviour. Traditionally the most even handed way to do this was with a financial penalty of some sort.

I guess we could jail offenders who exceed carbon limits. How about public floggings.

I know, property seizure of offending facilities, hows that.

Drone attacks ??

Guantanamo bay for the violators??

Stiff fines equal to one year of the productive potential of the facility, it has to be severe enough to make it not a tax.

It never ceases to amaze me how conservatives can whine about a market solution to a pollution problem as communist.

What then except carry on as usual.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

so you want to off-shore all your industry ?

how about cars ? ration gasoline ? prohibit everything over 100Hp ?

how about your home ? ration power ?? prohibit AC (as a luxury the planet can't afford) ?
home ? why do you want a single family dwelling, you elitist !

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

rconnor - thanks for acknowledging my concerns about data coverage of OHC prior to full deployment of the ARGO floating buoys. One of the interesting aspects about recent OHC change is that it is NOT global, but strongly hemispheric - see http://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/STM/2013-10/1... on Page 12, where the presenter says "All of the heat gain during the Argo era is in the southern latitudes", noting that the linearized slope from January 2006 until December 2012 is as follows:

How does your magic CO2 explain that?

(BTW, my assertion regarding OHC is that we should probably have 1.5-2 cycles of PDO and AMO worth of good data before we start making any assessments. We have almost 10 years of data - only 100+ more years of data to go. Until then... But any data pre-ARGO data has such dismal geographic coverage that it really is a stinking pile of bull manure.)

2dye4 - your comment may be tongue-in-cheek, but we've had recommendations of:
The death penalty - here
Jail - here
"Arrest and Punish" - here
Stabbed - here
If you are a utility owner of a coal-fired power plant, new CO2 emission limits may be effectively a seizure of the plant.

#### Quote (2dye4)

Stiff fines equal to one year of the productive potential of the facility, it has to be severe enough to make it not a tax.
Sounds a bit like cap-and-trade to me... Here's what US President Obama had to say about that - here

A couple of questions about a "tax":
1) What is the future rate of warming as a function of projected CO2 emissions?
2) What is the current rate of warming as a function of current CO2 emissions?
3) What is the "target"/ideal temperature of our planet that we should aim for? How should that temperature be distributed?
4) What is the price elasticity/sensitivity of energy from CO2 emitting sources?
5) What tax rate, based on the elasticity from 4) will get us from where we are today 2) and where we are going tomorrow 1), given that we want to get from where we are today temperature-wise to our target 3)?

Understanding that additional tax burden on the taxpayer is unwise (and to possibly further what some might call a re-distributive scheme), it is generally accepted that such an approach would need to be essentially revenue-neutral (see the Canadian Province of British Columbia as an example). How does such a revenue-neutral approach effect 4) above?

If a taxation approach is not revenue-neutral, then what is done with the added revenue? How does that added revenue compare (on a time-value of money with a reasonable discount rate) to a do-nothing approach on time-scales of 10 years, 50 years, and 100 years (or more)? What are the potential costs and benefits of the warming predicted in 2) and 1) above on time-scales of 10 year, 50 year, and 100 years (or more)?

Seriously - someone please walk me through this to understand how a tax will solve the problem. Some math to back that up would be appreciated.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

The trouble with using ENSO as a mechanism is that yes, it is active over the 1-50 year time span, but it isn't powerful enough to drive a 1.1 degree change in 13 years, from memory. I vaguely remember 0.6 deg max. if that is wrong, fine, I'm happy with atmosphere/ocean interactions as an explanation for all sorts of weirdness, but bear in mind it is an unprovable theory in any realistic timeframe from now.

2dye4 - no there is no particularly indisputable temperature record over 500 years, before 1660 it's all proxies and models (and of course CET is not a proxy for the whole globe, but it is all we have that is a direct temperature measurement in a recognisable form) . Why do you need 500 and not 350?

The global temperature reconstructions between say 1750 and 1980 are partly based on thermometer readings around the world, but not in a statistically reliable sampling in time or location, for obvious reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_o... is a fairly gullible take on the problems, I detect Mr Connelly's dead hand. (eg if you raise a problem with the reconstructions you are labelled a contrarian in the lede of a supposedly neutral article?). Incidentally they start talking about tree rings. Go and talk to a forester about that, he'll probably die laughing. Average annual temperature does rate as a factor, as it is a proxy for the actual parameter of importance which is the length and intensity of the growing season. http://treephys.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/66... for a bit of a discussion on the factors that affect tree growth, including this rather odd observation: "Warmer trees were taller and skinnier" which is a bit counterintuitive.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

@cranky108 Of course there are more uncertainties and controversies in the socioeconomic field but, again, that does not mean that policies in line with the >90% scientific consensus can be delayed. All the socioeconomic models have shown great difficulties in finding the best combination of solutions to incorporate externatities (see externalities of tobacco, alcohol, pollution, violence, accidents....). Policies implemented today, even if they are not totally successful and we learn by trial and error, will serve as lessons learned for the future.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Greg

"" Incidentally they start talking about tree rings. Go and talk to a forester about that, he'll probably die laughing""

What to do with this ??

It is equally invalid to claim a data source unreliable without proof as it is to claim it reliable without proof.

Skeptic language is littered with innuendo and blind appeal to simpler emotions.

Where is the statistical analysis of a temp proxy reconstruction that provides expected error bounds significantly different than those
provided by the authors of the proxies. Without it no claim can be made against their stated reliability.

mendinho is exactly right in his post. This issue is difficult for engineers because it is and always will be "uncertain" to some degree.

All that can be done is a calculated expected damage as a function of various policy implementations. I agree there is a fair amount of
uncertainty as to where this ends up in 50 years but then again what is so dmnd hard about deciding to waste less fossil fuel.

Note the positions staked out by skeptics.

1 There is no reliable record of global temperature prior to industrialization. ( With this it always possible to claim the rise is normal )
2 Computer models must model the climate essentially in a detail similar to weather forecasting on a global scale and decades into the future.
( So totally impossible to do EVER, barring some development in computing power that ups the present capability by 10000 times or more )

There the debate is framed as impossible to ever resolve. How convenient.

The experiment can only be done once so correlating results is not possible.

So skeptics align automatically with a policy that favors risking the potential future environment damage to avoid limiting wasteful fuel usage today.

I say that i find no trouble with the reconstructions and they show no dramatic rate of change similar to the industrial era.
I also say that any temperature records of only an isolated region cannot by themselves be very useful no matter what method captured them.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2
which came first, the science or the politics ?

i think must of us object to "global warming" 'cause we think that the science has been hijacked by the politics.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4, Yes I believe we can use the death penility for violators.

Are you just not enough of an engineer to come up with another solution other than taxes or personal harm (or personal attacks).

Give me an option, not a mandate.

And from what I see you perfer to hide your taxes (or mandates) in the electric bills of consumers, and not convence consumers to use less.

Has anyone consitered that earthship homes are more efficent, yet there is no market for them.
Why not use a little of that proproganda to promote more efficent housing, and not taxes are the only solution.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (2dye4)

So skeptics align automatically with a policy that favors risking the potential future environment damage to avoid limiting wasteful fuel usage today.
Woah woah woah woah. That is quite the big leap there, and part of the smear campaign against the non-catastrophists. I think that if you were to poll the non-catastrophists (skeptics, deniers, whatever you wanna call them), you would find that they have, in their personal and professional careers been rather involved in energy efficiency, energy usage reduction, and similar.

In a prior thread, I discussed with moltenmetal about how the use of liquid hydrocarbons in stationary installations was a waste of a precious and potentially finite resource. One that deserves conservation on its own merits. But conserving it through the back-door of a non-problem (catastrophic ACC/CAGW) is deceitful and duplicitous.

I will also note that Anthony Watts (denier evil incarnate /sarc) has solar power panels on his house and drives a Prius. :-O

#### Quote (2dye4)

I say that i find no trouble with the reconstructions and they show no dramatic rate of change similar to the industrial era.
Interesting that you should say that. Do you mean the truncated reconstructions, or the ones that, when they overlap with the instrument record show a significant divergence?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (2dye4)

Note the positions staked out by skeptics.

1 There is no reliable record of global temperature prior to industrialization. ( With this it always possible to claim the rise is normal )
2 Computer models must model the climate essentially in a detail similar to weather forecasting on a global scale and decades into the future.
( So totally impossible to do EVER, barring some development in computing power that ups the present capability by 10000 times or more )

3 Even if all the computer models are right, it takes 8 billion dollars to avert 0.02 degrees of rise, and that 8 billion could be used to protect a lot more of the environment if it was used in other ways.

The ROI simply isn't there, if your goal is to actually protect the environment in some meaningful way.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

TGS

Any conservation measures if successful are... well awesome. But I think you would agree they are not denting our CO2 output.

What instrumental record are you referring to ?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4 - how about MBH98 (and MBH99) as a start? They spliced the proxy reconstruction with the instrumental record just prior to the proxy record significantly diverging from the instrument record (1950's or so). Not to mention that they smoothed the proxy record with a long (40 or 50 year) smoothing to remove most of the interannual variation, yet did not do the same with the spliced instrument record.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

not to mention that their statistic processing is so thorough that you get the same hockey stick result with a noise input !

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Sigh...

Nope, not doing it. Not going to change any minds, so no point re-stating what I've already said on the subject. It can be found and read, but won't be.

To those who have the energy to keep fighting the good fight, I salute you. Best of luck convincing those who may lurk and who haven't made up their minds. I just don't have the time or energy to help you out this go-round.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4- i gave you actual measured temperature data that that showed a temperature rise of equal amplitude and gretaer rate. What more is needed? I also gave you a link to an article that backed up my observation.

Here's another one

http://treephys.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/66...

" The median values for height, stem diameter and all biomass measurements at elevated growth temperatures were always near 1 for evergreens, indicating that for every study that found increased growth with warming, there were a similar number that found a decrease (Figure 2A, B and F)."

That is to say that in some studies warmer trees would have narrower tree rings. I do not know the implications of this for dendroclimatology, but it certainly looks problematical. There is obviously significant interactions between the growth factors for trees, stem diameter, and hence ring width, is mostly affected by coolest overnight temperature during the growing season, which is rather adrift from annualised global average surface temperature.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

OK, so here's what you need to do. Choose your temperature proxy/proxies, then analyse each one up to the present day, and then manipulate them mathematically, and then see if the temperature rise in the late 20th century was unusual.

If you don't compare like with like then you haven't demonstrated anything.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (GregLocock)

I gave you actual measured temperature data that showed a temperature rise of equal amplitude and greater rate.
All that you demonstrated was that short term (11 year) REGIONAL noise was at a similar rate than short term global trends. Let me break it down for you:
• You used a regional data set to compare against global data and then used such an apples to oranges comparison to make a definitive, broad sweeping statement about global climate trends.
• You picked far too short a period (11 year) to determine anything significant. Especially when using a regional data set, which is even more susceptible to short term noise. Again, I'll highlight that 2010, while the hottest year on record globally, was the coldest year since 1986 for HadCET. HadCET cannot be used to draw conclusions about global climate trends because it is far too susceptible to regional noise.
• You’ve failed to explain how the warming during the 1700’s coincided with warming effects by natural forces but the warming after the 1950’s coincided with cooling effects by natural forces and anthropogenic aerosols. This makes your comparison even more apples and oranges.

#### Quote (GregLocock)

If you don't compare like with like then you haven't demonstrated anything.
Couldn’t agree more…

#### Quote (GregLocock)

What more is needed?
An explanation of how global temperatures, OHC, sea level and humidity can rise; sea ice, glacier volume and snow coverage can decrease, all while solar activity has been in decline and aerosols have increased substantially. Oh, and this explanation must be consistent with other observations such as
• nights are warming faster than days
• the troposphere is warming, while the stratosphere is cooling
• the tropopause is rising
• the ionosphere is cooling and contracting
• outgoing longwave radiation along bands associated with CO2 has decreased
• downward radiation along bands associated with CO2 has increased
Again, by bringing up the argument “it’s natural”/”it’s changed before” you’ve backed yourself into a corner that needs a scientific explanation to get yourself out of.

Of course, climate has changed before and, historically, climate change has been natural. However, recently, natural climate change would have had the direct opposite result of the observations we’ve seen. This is incredibly unnatural and has never been seen before. This deviation away from the norm requires an explanation. The scientific community and I have ours, what’s yours? I’d welcome other skeptics to help GregLocock out with this one.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Greg

""That is to say that in some studies warmer trees would have narrower tree rings. I do not know the implications of this for dendroclimatology, but it certainly looks problematical.""

Why does it look problematical. This whole science is statistics based which means trying to be correct on a weighted average of results.

So the devil is in the details. Check out figure 2 in the tree study. Most of the indicated properties seem to have a positive correlation with temperature.
That means that there is a 'signal' in them in the sense that they can provide meaningful information as a proxy.

The primary method used in MBH98 is Principle Component Analysis. In this method if the signal isn't there in one measurement series it does not appear in the output or modify it if I have my understanding correct.

PCA looks for a common time series embedded within a large group of time series with their average values removed. So if each measurement series contains a
bit of this same pattern within it to varying degrees this embedded pattern no matter what it's source contributes to the reliability of the signal.
This is how tree rings and many other proxies are combined.

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shar...

I think I will try to work on the output of MBH98 by finding a filter that rejects the variation in the record from start to 1900. Then apply it to the whole series.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

if you look for "steve McIntyre" you'll find his site climateaudit.org and you'll find his story on getting hold of Mann's data and how "effed" it was.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I'm new here I've mainly been reading the autocad forum for help with a project but this caught my eye. I find rconnor post funny and very very cliched.

“These claims require an international, inter-governmental, inter-decadal conspiracy involving every major relevant scientific journal, NASA, NOAA, and 197 national academies of science. I, myself, am a little skeptical of this position in absence of any supporting evidence. But maybe we differ on that front.”

This is an oft repeated line by propagandists. It is also a logical fallacy called Reductio ad absurdum, where you attempt to say that an argument is false because for it to be true some absurd state would have to exist. One could think of this as a form of strawman fallacy. Where you have created a false absurd state and claimed that it would have to exist for the statement to be true. AGW cannot be false because this massive conspiracy would have to exist.

There was no massive conspiracy that pushed to people eating lots and lots of starchy carbs just stupid people pushing something that seemed reasonable at the time and ignoring science to the contrary.

No such massive conspiracy need exist. Your argument is purely fallacious.

“The fact that the troposphere is warming while the stratosphere is cooling”

That actually is only sign of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere not of anthropogenic global warming. You can look up Freeman Dyson on this. He has been quite clear about the disconnect between stratospheric cooling and AGW. This false statement has spread around the internet due to a bad post made many years ago by Dr. Gavin Schmidt on the alarmist site realclimate.org. Gavin is a mathematician not a physicist. He has since admitted that he was wrong, after being slapped down by the physicists he works with, but the mistake is still often repeated on the internet. Sorry Gavin was wrong. CO2s radiative properties dominate in the stratosphere due to the primary source of heat being O3 absorbing UV. CO2 helps the O3 radiate heat to space more efficiently. It has absolutely nothing to do with global warming. Same cause, CO2, totally different effect. The stratosphere argument is like saying that plant fertilization is proof of global warming. No it’s just proof of more CO2 which we already know.

“the fact that nights are warming faster than days”
Urban heat island effects warm nights faster than days, changes in cloud cover warms nights faster than days, changes in ocean currents warms nights faster than days. Many many things warm nights faster than days. Again this is another logical fallacy on your part, post hoc ergo propter hoc. It’s a fallacy because you are ignoring other explanations for the effect.

“the fact that outgoing longwave radiation is reduced along bands associated with CO2”

Again false. You learned this on the propagandist website skeptical science. They accomplished this lie by using an old out of date study Harries 2001. This study was preliminary and by no means proved anything. It only compared two summers many years apart. When a more complete study was done in 2007 using a full data set there was no dimming in the CO2 band, actually a slight brightening. The SS piece you read was written after the 2007 study. So the reliance on the out of date study was intentional. Again you are wrong because you are relying on propagandist websites for your information.

“the fact that downward infrared radiation is increased along bands associated with CO2”
Also false the most recent study of down welling radiation published this month in Journal of Climate found that down welling radiation is decreasing due to increased cloud cover, hello hydrological cycle and strong negative feedbacks.

“the fact that the tropopause is rising”
This is just evidence of tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling which we have already covered. The fact is the that the tropopause isn’t rising nearly as much or as fast as it should per AGW theory because it isn’t warming anywhere near the rate the the models say it should. If anything its slow rate of rise falsifies the models as the entire theory is dependent on the non-existent hotstpot in the tropopause per Plass' spectral broadening. You just cant make a prediction of + or – you have to make measurable predictions and so far the predictions of what is supposed to happen in the tropopause have fallen flat on their face. Predicting a rise of X and getting a rise far <X isn’t evidence that you are correct. It’s evidence that you are wrong.

“the fact that the ionosphere is cooling”
True, but again a false argument. The ionosphere gets its energy from the suns SR not IR from the Earth’s surface. The cooling ionosphere is proof of a cooling sun nothing more. Given its low density the ionosphere responds far faster to changes in solar output than the troposphere.

“contracting and the fact that anthropogenic contributions to the increased CO2 concentrations vastly outweigh natural sources all go to provide a causal link to anthropogenic CO2 being the main driver for recent climate change.”

Naturally you are trying to associate light and heavy carbon ratios. However, we do not even fully understand everything that effects the ratio of light and heavy carbon. Dr. Salby was recently stranded at the Paris airport by his university and fired for showing rather convincingly using real evidence that light the light to heavy carbon ratio rises whenever the earth warms so to attribute the change entirely to the burning of fossil fuels as the IPCC does is a false argument.

“Many “skeptic” arguments from blogs and libertarian think-tanks sound appealing on the surface, especially to those of us with an education in science but no specialized training in climate science. Their points are made even more appealing if you have a strong belief in the free-market as you will have an apriori rejection to the proposed solutions.”

This fallacy is called psychogenetic fallacy assuming that because people are biased they reached the false conclusion. All people are biased that does not mean that all people reach false conclusions.

“Reviewing peer-reviewed literature and articles from credible, relevant scientific institutions like NOAA, NASA, Royal Society and the American Academy of Sciences is a good place to start.”

Argumentum ab auctoritate, appeal to authority.

While you arguments may sound good on their face it becomes clear that they are mainly fallacies or false statements based on either incomplete data, out of date data, or a total misunderstanding of the physics involved.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Well that's pretty simple- there are no global measurements of surface temperature that go back further than 30 years, so before that EVERYTHING is either local or a model. Even the satellite records are models to some extent as evinced by the differences between the various estimates.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
GTTofAK
Welcome to the discussion. Most of us have lost the energy to even read rconnor's posts. Please fight the good fight until you also run out of energy.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

GTTofAK,

Thank you for taking the time to bring up a few points. It's nice to hear something different from time to time. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's the same old-same old just in different packaging.

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

It is also a logical fallacy called Reductio ad absurdum...AGW cannot be false because this massive conspiracy would have to exist.
Ah, yet more latin phrases that over stretch their use. I would actually love for this to actually be Reductio ad absurdum because, I agree, it is incredibly absurd. Unfortunately, because it's absurd doesn't make it Reductio ad absurdum. Did you read zdas04's post about the "three long-haired hippies"? I've given a pretty accurate account of his stance on the issue.

To the latter part of the snippet, that is a claim you made, not me. Frankly, this is creating a straw man of my argument. Skeptics claim that the reason there is such little peer-reviewed evidence to support their side is because their is a massive conspiracy within academia to suppress such publications. My argument is that this is absurd and there is no supporting evidence for it. In fact, I've provided evidence that such publications DO exist, which counters this claim.

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

[Troposphere warming while stratosphere is cooling] actually is only sign of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere not of anthropogenic global warming.
This is more of a comment to the "it's the sun" people. If increased solar activity was the cause of the recent warming, then you would not see stratospheric cooling.

However, I'm unsure if you are familiar with Santer et al 2013, which further supports my point. The paper concludes:

#### Quote (Santer et al 2013)

Computer model estimates of the ‘human influence’ fingerprint are broadly similar to the observed pattern. In sharp contrast, model simulations of internal and total natural variability cannot produce the same sustained, large-scale warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere. So in current climate models, natural causes alone are extremely unlikely to explain the observed changes in the thermal structure of the atmosphere.

But I do like being accused of "appeals to authority" and a skeptic appeal to Freeman Dyson in the same post.

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

Many many things warm nights faster than days.
Again, while this is true, it fails to address the heart of my argument. Solar activity (which is a popular one here) cannot account for this, neither can many skeptic counter-arguments.

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

When a more complete study was done in 2007 using a full data set there was no dimming in the CO2 band, actually a slight brightening...Again you are wrong because you are relying on propagandist websites for your information.
You know, that or peer-reviewed literature:
Gastineau et al 2014
Chapman et al 2013
Chen et al 2007
Griggs and Harries 2004
...Shall I continue?

Also, can you provide a quote from Griggs and Harries 2007 (I'm assuming that's the paper your talking about...) which supports your claim. I re-read it and can't find anything.

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

“the fact that downward infrared radiation is increased along bands associated with CO2” Also false
Wang and Liang 2009
Wild et al 2008
Evans and Puckrin 2006
Philipona et al 2004
...Shall I continue

Also, regarding the paper you (kind of) referenced (Gero and Turner 2011?...by the way, you read HockeySchtick? Because although it appeared there last month, it was published in JoC in 2011...), I'd heed the authors comments from the abstract:

#### Quote (Gero and Turner 2011)

Given the decadal time span of the dataset, effects from natural variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions.
Furthermore, this paper deals with US Southern Great Plains only, hence the title of the paper. That's your big knockdown counter? I can't say I'm not surprised...

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

If anything its slow rate of rise falsifies the models as the entire theory is dependent on the non-existent hotstpot in the tropopause
This is really off-base. Maybe a bit of reading to start.

Also, from John Christy (yes, the champion of "missing" hotspots himself):

#### Quote (John Christy)

It is likely that a net spurious cooling corrupts the area-averaged adjusted radiosonde data in the tropical troposphere, causing these data to indicate less warming than has actually occurred there
Or read this rebuttal to a Spencer post. Spencer never responded...

#### Quote (GTTofAK)

The cooling ionosphere is proof of a cooling sun nothing more.
Again, so much for the "it's the sun" meme.

I could go on but I think I've proved my point. You put in a lot of effort to that post and I applaud it. However, most of it was sophism, while other parts were just flat out wrong.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

rconnor,

Well, that was quite the smackdown!

GTTofAK

"Dr. Salby was recently stranded at the Paris airport by his university and fired for showing rather convincingly using real evidence...."

Yes, again, that liberal conspiracy at play. Ummm, Dr. Salby, you mean this guy(?):

http://www.nsf.gov/oig/search/I06090025.pdf

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/p...

You mean the guy who was fired for anything but being a skeptic, instead for simply padding his wallet unethically. Another class-act global warming skeptic, just out for the truth, oh and a little cash on the side.

zdas04,

"Most of us have lost the energy to even read rconnor's posts."

Yes, keeping up with all them facts can be pretty tiring. I mean he posts charts and graphs and links to published papers, and you guys come up with references to "long-haired hippie types."

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
Henry,
Read the last long thread and you'll see that those "facts" are simply cut and paste from the last 5 times he posted the same model-generated graphs. I do not accept that computer models can do anything beyond illuminating the attitudes and biases of their authors. This is often quite useful in "will this thing work?" kind of questions, but in forward-looking analysis it is worse than worthless.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Ah, yet more latin phrases that over stretch their use. I would actually love for this to actually be Reductio ad absurdum because, I agree, it is incredibly absurd. Unfortunately, because it's absurd doesn't make it Reductio ad absurdum."

It is reductio ad absurdum because you insist that the absurd situation has to exist therefore falsifying the premiss. You are not arguing that it may exist or that it can exist. You are insisting that it has to exist. That is what makes it a logical fallacy.

"Did you read zdas04's post about the "three long-haired hippies"? I've given a pretty accurate account of his stance on the issue."

First of all anything that zdas04 said doesn't mean that your argument isn't reductio ad absurdum. I read his post as an analogy for group think and group bias. I seriously doubt he meant that there were 3 hippies. That you think he was serious just speaks poorly on you.

"To the latter part of the snippet, that is a claim you made, not me. Frankly, this is creating a straw man of my argument."

Your argument is quite clear AGW has to be real because for it to be false the level of support the theory has would require a massive conspiracy. I easily gave an example of a massive scientific consensus that was not only wrong but dangerous to the public health. It required no conspiracy just massive group think.The heavy pushing of high processed starch diets in the late 80s and 90s. I noticed that you didn't even try to refute this example. You simply chose to ignore it because you had no refutation and even if you could somewhat refute it I would easily pull another example in the history of science such examples are essentially infinite. This one example alone proves that your reductio ad absurdum is false because the absurd state doesn't have to exist for a false consensus to exist.
“This is more of a comment to the "it's the sun" people. If increased solar activity was the cause of the recent warming, then you would not see stratospheric cooling.

However, I'm unsure if you are familiar with Santer et al 2013, which further supports my point. The paper concludes:”
This logical fallacy is called if by whisky where the person attempts to take both sides of an argument. In your fist sentenced you agree that stratospheric cooling is a separate issue and you didn’t mean that they were related just that “This is more of a comment to the "it's the sun" people”.
Then in your next sentence you cite a paper by Santer that tries to push the connection between AGW and stratospheric cooling.
“Computer model estimates of the ‘human influence’ fingerprint are broadly similar to the observed pattern. In sharp contrast, model simulations of internal and total natural variability cannot produce the same sustained, large-scale warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere. So in current climate models, natural causes alone are extremely unlikely to explain the observed changes in the thermal structure of the atmosphere.”
Santer here is engaging in multiple lies here chiefly lies of omission and context. We need only look at how Santer parses his words to see the lies.
“Computer model estimates of the ‘human influence’ fingerprint”
Notice that he doesn’t say AGW or climate change. He just says ‘human influence’. This is actually 3 types of lying at the same time it’s a lie by misleading and dissembling, it’s a lie of omission, and it’s a lie by context. Santer is a very skilled liar.
We have already agreed that the cooling stratosphere is the result of increased CO2, probably in large part due to human emissions. So it is human influence. However, since the assumed context of Santers paper is AGW the reader is left to assume that ‘human influence’ means AGW. This is called lying by context. Santer changes the context from AGW to simply “human influence” while leaving the reader to assume the wrong context. Santer seems to be quite the skilled deceiver.
On stratospheric cooling being due to ‘human influence’ I agree with this Just as much as any warmist like Santer. Anyone who studies the issue knows why the stratosphere cools. However, Santer doesn’t explain it as I did. He doesn’t explain why CO2 cools the stratosphere as I did in my previous post. He leaves out the why and how. This omission of why and how leaves the reader to assume that it must be due to AGW. This is lying by omission.

Of course all of this is done with intention to mislead and dissemble. The logic Santer uses of comparing CO2 forced models with natural models is fallacy of the undistributed middle, CO2 being the middle. Santer uses some clever logical footwork here. The natural models don’t show stratospheric cooling because they lack the increase in CO2. The forced models show cooling because of CO2 allowing the O3 in the stratosphere to radiate more efficiently, this is a physical process the models model quite well in fact. By playing with the middle and the readers ignorance on the subject Santer is able to create the impression that AGW warming in the troposphere causes stratospheric cooling. This is lying by misleading and dissembling.

When you know the simple physics that I and many other people know about why the stratosphere cools the parsing of Santer’s words stand off the page like a sore thumb. Once you understand the why and how the single run one sentence you posted shows him to be a total snake in the grass and would make anyone question the ethics of anyone in the field if this kind of obvious deception is so easily allowed to stand in the literature.

I have to work now and I will get to the rest of what you posted later but something that jumped off the page to me as lowly electrical engineer was the first sentence of your first “study”

“The changes of the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) in clear-sky conditions”

“Clear-sky conditions” seriously? When testing real world response we are allowed to cherry pick the most advantageous data points to prove our assumptions? Are we going to allow the engineers who designed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge get away with saying that under ‘calm wind conditions’ their design performed as expected? This kind of cherry picking when doing real world testing does not fly in engineering at all! I cannot patent a new type of insulator and say that in real world testing my new insulator worked perfectly, on calm sunny days. In real world testing I can’t cherry pick conditions. No engineering journal would ever let me or anyone else get away with that. That the AMS let the authors of your “study” cherry pick their conditions speaks very very poorly of the entire field. The hydrological cycle is a major climate feedback, arguably the major climate feedback, minimizing its effect by cherry picking “Clear-sky conditions” when trying to determine the significance of CO2 under real world conditions makes any such study absolutely worthless. As an engineer if I did such cherry picking and someone got killed or injured I would probably go to jail.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

The Gish Gallop is the rapid presentation of a series of points (including falsehoods and half-truths) during a debate. The Gish Gallop's strength is it takes less time and technical knowhow to present each misleading point than it does rebut them.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4,

You say that your source makes a logical argument but the title is

"What I learned from debating science with trolls"

He then says accuses the "trolls" of argumentum ab auctoritate, appeal to authority.

"Internet trolls know who their experts are."

Howwever instead of sticking to the science he imediattly attmept to refut what he sees as argumentum ab auctoritate with argumentum ad populum saying that more experts agree with him and he is therefore correct

"There are thousands of professors scattered across academia, so it isn't surprising that a few contrarians can be found."

I'm sorry nothing here seems very logical. It just seems to be some guy attempting to refute what he sees as logical fallacies with his own string of logical fallacies.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (GregLocock)

there are no global measurements of surface temperature that go back further than 30 years

GISTEMP
NOAA
JMA
BEST

Now, I will agree with you that many of these data sets have very poor Arctic coverage. As the Arctic is warming faster than any other location, you’re right that these data sets are reading cooler than they should as of late – thanks for reminding us. See Cowton and Way 2013 for the correction to this.

So, GregLocock, still waiting to hear your explanation of how energy is increasing (based on various metrics) while natural drivers should be causing cooling. “Force X” maybe (I still cannot believe they seriously called it Force X)?

HenryOhm, ha, I read that line about Salby and I just gave up, so thanks for driving the final nail in. (Have you read his rebuttal yet? Santer’s a liar and a fraud but Salby is an honourable man wrongly punished for going against the climate change hegemony! And the rest isn’t much better…)

One thing that you’ll realize is that skeptics on this forum don't value properly supporting their arguments. It’s the reason why GregLocock referred to me as “Cut’N’Paste boy” (I do love that moniker, maybe I’ll make it my signature!). Using references from prestigious journals and credible scientific institutions are apparently nothing more than “appeals to authority”. I partly understand why - it’s rather unfair on our part. After all, they don’t have any such references to support their side…you know, because of those “three long-haired hippies”.

Now zdas04 is upset that I’ve used the same references more than once. Apparently scientific support is disposable and can only be used once then it becomes useless and you need to find new science. This is a problem for me because I’ve already used Newtonian physics once today! I suppose I’ll have to use relativity for the rest of the day…tomorrow might be difficult! This also fails to realize that skeptics here continue to peddle the same unsupported claims over and over again and ignore the science that directly counters their opinions (*cough* the “pause” *cough*). Then, after successfully ignoring any rebuttals, some new, completely random argument is brought up.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I thought maybe the guiltiest party would take offense.

"You say that your source makes a logical argument" Actually I did not say this.

Appeal to authority is not quite as illogical or erroneous in debate some believe. We humans learn an awful lot from
accepting carte blanche what we hear from others. We also learn early on to suspect opinions that are far from
accepted understanding especially when voiced by a small minority.

So pertaining to MMGW, the consensus is rapidly approaching that point where we should accept the mainstream scientific view.
What alternative is there when very very very few of us can form an independent and credible rebuttal on our own research mainly
because of lack of scientific and mathematical ability and access to data.

Incidentally can you put up some credible medical sources that supported the

"" The heavy pushing of high processed starch diets in the late 80s and 90s ""

See there I go appealing to authority. Oh well I guess I could discount all authority and solve everything myself??

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

So is anyone on the AGW side of the debate going to stand by the premise that avoiding 0.02 degrees of rise is better for the environment than preserving rain forest area in excess of the entire country of Uruguay?

Because, you know, that's still what happens when you throw all the skepticism out and presume the EPA is 100% correct about anthropogenic CO2 and warming.

The disconnect between AGW science and the ROI on the proposed policy is even more vast than the disconnect between the skeptics and believers in AGW.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4,

"I thought maybe the guiltiest party would take offense.

"You say that your source makes a logical argument" Actually I did not say this."

Uh you do know that you have posted that link twice, right? I read it the first time and what you said about it.

"Some common logic errors expressed here."

So yes you did say that, the first time you posted the link.

Nice try. I might be new to this forum but I am a very competent debater such tricks wont work.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"So pertaining to MMGW, the consensus is rapidly approaching that point where we should accept the mainstream scientific view.
What alternative is there when very very very few of us can form an independent and credible rebuttal on our own research mainly
because of lack of scientific and mathematical ability and access to data."

You do know you are on an engineering forum right? Compared to my day job this stuff is actually pretty simple. Just like everyone else here I can see errors in method very easily. This isn't some leftwing political forum where the posters are scientifically illiterate. As the OP put it so eloquently in his blog post that kind of argument simply doesn't fly here.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

rconnor,

GISTEMP
NOAA
JMA
BEST

To the best of my knowledge the surface record is a post hoc creation. Data from weather stations that were mainly installed for piolts to calculate lift, something that doesn't need to be very accurate, was used well after the fact to calculate an average global temperature.

So GregLocock is very correct prior to 30 yeas ago there is no global measurement. What you listed as global measurements are ad hoc, post hoc, attempts to reconstruct a global average from a desperate network of heterogeneous stations that where never intended to be used for that purpose. Again while this is something that while useful, like a climate model, would never fly in engineering as a gold standard or even very reliable.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"You say that your source makes a logical argument"

"Uh you do know that you have posted that link twice, right? I read it the first time and what you said about it."

What I really said about the article.

[Some common logic errors expressed here.]

I don't know about your competent debate skills but my statement does not at ALL speak to whether the arguments are logical, I said they were expressed.

There is a difference. But anyway this is tacky wordsmithing.

Please do put up some evidence where qualified scientific opinion was so thoroughly in agreement on a topic and turned out to be incorrect.
You claimed it to be relatively common I believe.
And of course that evidence would be scientific literature of some sort. Or a reliable publication that aggregated qualified scientific opinions.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""What you listed as global measurements are ad hoc, post hoc, attempts to reconstruct a global average from a desperate network of heterogeneous stations that where never intended to be used for that purpose. Again while this is something that while useful, like a climate model, would never fly in engineering as a gold standard or even very reliable.""

[ Non sequitur is a Latin phrase that means “that which does not follow” ]

Have you read the papers such as this one.

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shar...

Explain your analysis of the error bands from combining these disparate sources of data and why they are larger than those of the authors.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2
beej67,
You have been very patient, but I don't like your chances of getting a sensible answer. The AGW folks have never seen a tax they didn't like.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4,

Bottom line your forgot that you had posted it earlier and you put your foot in your mouth. Your attempts to back track now aren't just 'tacky wordsmithing' they are flat out bad wordsmithing. Better to say nothing at all and let your mistake rest.

Well I listed one 'high carbohydrate diets' but how far back do you want to go?

The earth is the center of the universe.(seems pretty straight forward when you don't realize that you are spinning.)

The liver is what circulates blood.

Phlogiston

Aether

Hystaria

Heavy objects fall faster

Alchemy

The continents don't move

Most cancers are caused by viruses

We are 5 years a way from nuclear fusion, a stretch I know but every few years there is some new study that always says we are just a few years away. Been that way most of my life.

It goes on and on. There failure of the consensus is too numerous to count. Science is usually wrong and it advances through falsification and paradigm shifts not consensus.

Its becoming clearer and clearer to me that you aren't an engineer. You learn about a lot of these failures in school or just general reading.

"Have you read the papers such as this one.

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shar...

Explain your analysis of the error bands from combining these disparate sources of data and why they are larger than those of the authors."

First thing I would say is why a paper that is a purely statistical exercise was written by a bunch of non-statisticians who had no expertise what so ever in the purely statistical exercise they were attempting to do, and was then was published in a natural sciences journal that had no expertise what so ever to review the purely statistical exercise written by a bunch of non-statisticians who had no expertise what so ever in the statistical exercise they were attempting to do, was so unquestionably accepted by people who had no statistical expertise to understand the statistical exercise in the article published by the natural science journal that had no expertise who so ever to review the purely statistical paper written by the non-statistician authors who had no statistical expertise what so ever to in the purely statistical exercise they were attempting to do?

That and why was it so accepted when the ultimate result of this purely statistical exercise written by non-statisticians published in a natural science journal without the statistical expertise to review it, looked like a graph from a bad late night infomercial.

Before using our proven money making solution ... after using our proven money making solution. TAH DAH!

Conmen use hockey stick graphs all the time in the real world. The moment you see on your bullshit sensors should go off with a red light and siren.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Now we are back to taxes, because the AGW people don't have any better ideas (wonder if they have any other ideas).

Big goverment supported by taxes on things we suspect, because the data is skechy.

Bottom line seems to be tax it because we don't like it (or believe in it, or pray to it).

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I don't know that it is my favorite theory, but there is no doubt that ocean heat storage is the elephant in the phone box. Until that gets sorted out then the GCMs are a waste of time. The entire atmospheric warming in the 20th C, 1 degree C, would change the average temperature of the oceans by an unmeasurable 0.001 deg C. So until you have a model of the ocean's heat content and how it drives the atmosphere, you haven't got even the beginnings of a useful climate model.

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

@beej67 The selection of economic, legal and political actions to take into account externalities such as the AGW is broad, difficult and open to different disciplines. As I said before, it seems that all socioeconomic models have shown great difficulties in finding the best ways to incorporate externatities (f.ex. tobacco, alcohol, pollution, violence, accidents....) but the more we wait the more difficult it is going to be.

@GTTofAK We live in democracies and you can always publish your doubts online for everyone to read like David Simpson (zdas04) gently did. If you created an alternative climate evolution theory that explained the measure data better no doubt your theory would replace the current generally accepted AGW. It seems to me that anti-AGW are better at disseminating doubts rather than creatig a competing climate theory.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

but greg, it (ocean heat storage) has been sorted out, so we've been told and ppt'd to death.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote:

@beej67 The selection of economic, legal and political actions to take into account externalities such as the AGW is broad, difficult and open to different disciplines. As I said before, it seems that all socioeconomic models have shown great difficulties in finding the best ways to incorporate externatities (f.ex. tobacco, alcohol, pollution, violence, accidents....) but the more we wait the more difficult it is going to be.

Oh stop dodging. Someone gives you 8 billion dollars to spend on protecting the environment. Pick which will have the most impact:

A) Preserving 75,000 square miles of rain forest, or
B) Curbing 0.02 degrees of warming in the 21st century.

Pick.

In particular, lets be very clear that (A) isn't fanciful, it's an actual number that could be actually realized without leaning on science some people find questionable, and (B) outright presumes that the EPA and AGW camps are correct in their modeling.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

beej

Where do your numbers come from. The cost and the resulting reduction in temps.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

What Socialist woulden't love the AGW theory? We have a problem, we need to fix it now, and socialest methods are the only way to solve it. Carl Marcs would be smiling.

Offer other suggestions to fix the suposed problem.

Preserving 75,000 square miles of rain forest dosen't need AGW theory to make it a good decision. What happens in rain forests when you remove trees, the soil washes away. No trees grow in the rocky ground and it's lost. So why is this being debated?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

mendinho,
"@GTTofAK We live in democracies and you can always publish your doubts online for everyone to read like David Simpson (zdas04) gently did. If you created an alternative climate evolution theory that explained the measure data better no doubt your theory would replace the current generally accepted AGW. It seems to me that anti-AGW are better at disseminating doubts rather than creatig a competing climate theory. "

"We don't have another explanation", that is called argumentum ad ignorantiam, its just one logical fallacy after another with you warmists. Look we know that the theory is wrong. The models are way off. We knew that Newtonian Physics was wrong well before a Swiss Patent Clerk showed why.

Your argument that I have to provide an alternate theory is totally fallacious. And intended for no other purpose to stop debate and dissection of your obviously flawed theory.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""Your argument that I have to provide an alternate theory is totally fallacious. And intended for no other purpose to stop debate and dissection of your obviously flawed theory. ""

He didn't say you HAD to provide a new theory he outlined the option that you could do so.

GTT ya make a lot of unproven assertions. If you are so skilled in debating shouldn't you try to cover these better.

""Look we know that the theory is wrong. The models are way off""

What theory. Greenhouse gasses causing warming ??
What models specifically and why what did they predict that isn't bearing out. Note the models were predictions of CO2 forcing and not weather.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

beej67, I drafted this about a week ago but didn’t really want to engage in what I think is a silly framing of the problem (and to hinge your argument on an unrepeated CATO study is problematic). However, given the ridiculousness of the recent endless stream of definitions of (inappropriately applied) logic fallacies, it is now the lesser of two evils.

Your argument continues to miss the point. You, and CATO, are looking at the situation in complete isolation from anything and everything else. In reality, such a vacuum doesn’t exist. Small steps toward emission reductions add up and act as catalysts for further reductions. Both China and India have made statements that they will keep their emissions per capita below the US. Emissions reductions need to start with the developed world first. They’ve started in Europe, now the US is starting to get on board. Once Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumb 2, in Canada and Australia (respectively), get out of office then I’m sure they will catch up. In fact, US action puts even more pressure on them. The path to minimizing the future impacts of climate change are won a ton of carbon at a time.

I have to ask if you’ve even read/researched the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (frankly, I’m not sure CATO did either), as the answers are right there in the report. Or is your adamant rejection of the plan purely based off some under-referenced CATO analysis?

Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Proposed Carbon Pollution Guidelines
Technical Support Document: Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis
Memo: Emission Reductions, Costs, Benefits and Economic Impacts Associated With Building Blocks 1 and 2

To your specific choice between forest conservation or Clean Power Act, it’s a false choice (GTTofAK, what’s the latin phrase for this one?). They are spending $8 billion on the Clean Power Act to net$66 Billion, it is not that they have $8 Billion burning a hole in their pockets. Forest conservation is incredibly important to minimizing climate change, however reducing coal fired generation is also very important. A clean energy supply means that you can reduce emissions per capita without relying on reductions in consumption. Don’t get me wrong, reductions in consumption are very important but in a capitalist consumption-centric framework, can be difficult to achieve. But again, let me be very clear to you (as we share a lot of common ground), forest conservation is vital. My issue is that you create a false choice between the two. Heck maybe the benefits from the Clean Power Act can be used for forest conservation! Let me also remind you that, in your repeated attempts to bring up this point, all you are actually arguing is that emission reduction initiatives haven’t been strong enough. That makes us strange bedfellows. If instead, you claim that your issue is that such measures aren’t required in the first place, fine, then we should return to debating the science. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming i guess you place a lot of faith in statements governments make ... "Both China and India have made statements that they will keep their emissions per capita below the US." ... i'd have more faith in this if they weren't building coal fired power stations, but were investing money on other power schemes (solar, nuke). "spending$8 billion on the Clean Power Act to net $66 Billion" ... where is this$66B ? paying down the debt ?? or is it some notional savings (like, you get with 5S improvements, cost avoidance) ?

"reductions in consumption are very important but in a capitalist consumption-centric framework, can be difficult to achieve." ... disagree with that one, i think it's very easy ... double the price of gas, what happened in the 80s ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"GTT ya make a lot of unproven assertions."

Name them. This is an engineer forum. If I say that CO2 helps O3 more efficiently radiate heat that should be more than enough information for an engineer to know how and why and use their own intellect and research skills to fill in any gaps they have.

Given the forum its not my job to take you by the hand and lead you through concepts like a child. I expect engineers on an engineering forum to behave like engineers. Are we engineers or are we children that need every small detail explained to them?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

So, what is the Latin phrase for making assertions you cannot support and then denying any need to support them??

Surely there is one somewhere to cover this kind of weasel behavior.

""Look we know that the theory is wrong""

Which theory ? and why is it wrong.

"" We knew that Newtonian Physics was wrong well before a Swiss Patent Clerk showed why ""

Will you enlighten me about this. I always thought that the Swiss Patent Clerk invented the theory to deal with a paradox he
needed to work out and only then was it tested.

"" I easily gave an example of a massive scientific consensus that was not only wrong but dangerous to the public health. It required no conspiracy just massive group think.The heavy pushing of high processed starch diets in the late 80s and 90s ""

""There was no massive conspiracy that pushed to people eating lots and lots of starchy carbs just stupid people pushing something that seemed reasonable at the time and ignoring science to the contrary.""

So was the science "contrary" or was it "massive scientific consensus"

You are indeed a disciple of the Gish Gallop.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (rconnor)

(and to hinge your argument on an unrepeated CATO study is problematic).

ahem...

#### Quote (beej67 8 days ago)

Throwing a Cato analysis out the window purely because it comes from Cato, when all Cato did in the analysis was run Obama's policies as stated through an EPA climate model as provided, is the very definition of "poisoning the well." It is not logic, it is fallacy.

Period.

so..

#### Quote (rconnor)

I have to ask if you’ve even read/researched the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (frankly, I’m not sure CATO did either), as the answers are right there in the report. Or is your adamant rejection of the plan purely based off some under-referenced CATO analysis?

My rejection of the "benefits" listed in the EPA fact sheet is based on the glaring omission of how much temperature rise their plan was going to avert, followed closely by the fact that the only people willing to actually do the math on it were Cato, followed closely by the fact that their results, using EPA methodology, showed no effective change in AGW due to the proposed 8 billion dollar policy.

#### Quote (rconnor)

Your argument continues to miss the point. You, and CATO, are looking at the situation in complete isolation from anything and everything else. In reality, such a vacuum doesn’t exist. Small steps toward emission reductions add up and act as catalysts for further reductions. Both China and India have made statements that they will keep their emissions per capita below the US. Emissions reductions need to start with the developed world first. They’ve started in Europe, now the US is starting to get on board. Once Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumb 2, in Canada and Australia (respectively), get out of office then I’m sure they will catch up. In fact, US action puts even more pressure on them. The path to minimizing the future impacts of climate change are won a ton of carbon at a time.

Last week you were saying that the policy wasn't actually intended to decrease global warming significantly anyway, even though Obama said exactly the opposite of that. This week you're now saying that it will reduce global warming because applying the policy will create some unspecified amount of carbon reduction from some other countries, pending changes within their political leadership.

And how on earth are we supposed to calculate an ROI from that? 8 billion dollars, which will have no effect unless other poorly people do other unspecified things, and that's good policy?

Just for turds and giggles, I pulled up your links. Lots of talk about how much it's going to cost us when the ice caps melt, and no talk about how much ice caps are saved by the 8 billion dollar outlay. Not a chart in there states that 50 billion dollars worth of additional land will be flooded by the 0.02 degree difference between the 8 billion dollar plan and status quo. One neat thing from the second link, though, backs up my premise above. Almost all of the 'savings' they're showing from the 8 billion dollar plan is from claimed healthcare related savings from NOX and SOX reductions. I do find that hard to believe, but even if I were to believe it, then the same savings could equally be had by shifting to cleaner burning fossil fuels, or cleaner methods of burning coal.

#### Quote (rconnor)

To your specific choice between forest conservation or Clean Power Act, it’s a false choice (GTTofAK, what’s the latin phrase for this one?). They are spending $8 billion on the Clean Power Act to net$66 Billion, it is not that they have $8 Billion burning a hole in their pockets. 1- The money could have been spent elsewhere, therefore it's not a false choice. 2- The reports linked are trash. They're not netting$66 billion by lowering the global temperature 0.02 degrees centigrade. They're claiming a huge net based on reduction of health costs, but anyone who's applied actuarial principles to our health care system knows that that's a horrid way to approach the data. It's as if we can avoid the cost of someone dying from lung cancer, that we'll somehow not ever have to pay for whatever they end up dying from later. When you run the math, smokers actually save the taxpayer money by dying early. The guys who brewed these reports up intentionally avoided certain facts to only gather money from half the story. Or, in the case of claimed "climate benefits," none of the story.

#### Quote (rconnor)

Forest conservation is incredibly important to minimizing climate change, however reducing coal fired generation is also very important. A clean energy supply means that you can reduce emissions per capita without relying on reductions in consumption. Don’t get me wrong, reductions in consumption are very important but in a capitalist consumption-centric framework, can be difficult to achieve. But again, let me be very clear to you (as we share a lot of common ground), forest conservation is vital. My issue is that you create a false choice between the two. Heck maybe the benefits from the Clean Power Act can be used for forest conservation!

Oh for the love of God and/or Darwin.

In your engineering company, computers are important, and paperclips are important. Each has a function. If you could buy 20 new computers for your company for $500 per computer, or you could by a Golden Paperclip for$10,000, which would you pick? It's not a false choice, it's a real choice. The computers do something, the paperclip does nothing, and they cost the same.

The CO2 reduction does nothing, the conservation does something, and they cost the same.

#### Quote (rconnor)

Let me also remind you that, in your repeated attempts to bring up this point, all you are actually arguing is that emission reduction initiatives haven’t been strong enough. That makes us strange bedfellows.

I'm absolutely arguing that the emissions reduction initiatives proposed thus far have not been strong enough to achieve your stated goal. I'll go a step further. The insanely draconian ones that only the loonies of people are proposing also will not achieve your stated goal. This is why the anti-carbon crowd never produces a study showing cost-benefit, unless it's completely faked and totally fraudulent, like the ones you linked.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Lets stop pretending this is just a socialist ploy and you keep going on and on with complicated figures to justify it.

You have no options, and you have to make things up to explain why it stoped. A bunch of rubish by people with a socialist bent.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"So, what is the Latin phrase for making assertions you cannot support and then denying any need to support them??

Surely there is one somewhere to cover this kind of weasel behavior."

There is none. I made a statement of known facts, the stratosphere is warmed by O3 absorbing shortwave radiation, extra CO2 in the stratosphere increases the rate at which the stratosphere can radiate this absorbed short wave radiation. I even conceded the GCMs model this known effect quite well. On any engineering forum this is simple enough to be common knowledge and proof enough. What you are doing is a logical fallacy called "raising the bar" demanding proof beyond what is required, to the point of it being intellectually insulting given the nature of the forum. On an engineering forum such things as O3 absorbing shortwave radiation and radiative properties of gases need not be so thoroughly explained.

Now lets get into the logical fallacy you are really engaging in. So far I have been refuting claims by rancoor and others. It was rconnor who volunteered stratospheric cooling as being proof of AGW, I only provided a counter argument. Rconnor so far has provided almost nothing to prove this claim other than an easily refuted run on sentence from some guy named Santer that is easily shown to be a deceitful parsing of words. Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat the burden of proof is on he who makes it not he who questions it. The burden of proof is on Rconnor has been since he made his claims it cannot be shifted.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

the CEO would opt for the Golden Paperclip !

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"" We knew that Newtonian Physics was wrong well before a Swiss Patent Clerk showed why ""

"Will you enlighten me about this. I always thought that the Swiss Patent Clerk invented the theory to deal with a paradox he
needed to work out and only then was it tested. "

...specifically, the Michaelson-Morely experiments of 1887, Voigt's transformation (which was "largeley ignored" by the mainstream scientists until it was brought up again by that whacko Swiss patent clerk), and the work of Poincare and Lorentz in the years leading up to Einstein's first paper in 1905.

That problems with Newton's equations were known to exist, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_rela...

especially: "This anomalous rate of precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit was first recognized in 1859 as a problem in celestial mechanics, by Urbain Le Verrier."

also, further down:

"Deflection of light by the Sun
Henry Cavendish in 1784 (in an unpublished manuscript) and Johann Georg von Soldner in 1801 (published in 1804) had pointed out that Newtonian gravity predicts that starlight will bend around a massive object.[10] The same value as Soldner's was calculated by Einstein in 1911 based on the equivalence principle alone. However, Einstein noted in 1915 in the process of completing general relativity, that his (and thus Soldner's) 1911-result is only half of the correct value. Einstein became the first to calculate the correct value for light bending.[11]

Regarding scientists misrepresenting the accuracy/validity of their results, see http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200608/his...

It is interesting to plot the "accepted value" of the charge-to-mass ratio over time, as subsequent experimenters kept reading closer to the real value, but were fain to go against the value published by the vaunted physician JJ Thompson. The result is a slow convergence over time to the current value, and papers such as the one above being published long after the passing of the "culprit".

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

btrueblood,

The sad thing is that on an engineering forum people who demand evidence that there were known flaws on classical mechanics and that Einstein proved how and why.

I'm quite convinced by this discussion that many here are lying about their education, and qualifications. I find it impossible that engineers would not now such simple facts.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

The issue of convergence to the real value over time is also something that I find very puzzling with climate science. Generally speaking as time goes on and more research is done we converge close and closer to the real value. In the case of "climate science" the proposed range for the forcing of CO2 has not changed significantly in over 30 years. One would think that if "climate scientists" were on the right track after 3 decades and billions of dollars the range should shrink closer and closer to the true value. Instead the range is still is still pretty much as large as it was in the 80s.

In other less politicized fields of science this lack of convergence would be seen as prima fascia evidence that the field is on the wrong track.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Beej67, I’ll try to be as calm, clear and to the point as I can be.

The Clean Power Plan was never designed to single handedly prevent global warming.

The Clean Power Plan was designed to be an important first step towards reducing emissions.

The Clean Power Plan will provide benefits to Americans through reducing health issues associated with pollution and damages from climate change. If you don’t believe the latter is real, then ok, your issue should be with the science the policy is predicated on, not with the policy itself. However, even if you feel the latter isn’t real, then even ignoring it, there is still a large net benefit to Americans.

The CATO analysis of of X tons of CO2 saved = Y deg C lower temperature = $Z saved in climate change related costs is not how it climate change works as the relationship between tons of CO2 saved, temperature changed and climate costs are not perfectly linear. Climate cannot be parsed so easily. Climate change mitigation must be looked at as a cumulative goal towards a specific ppm target. Many studies have done this properly and you’re welcome to research them. The CATO analysis is fundamentally misleading (which, I’d argue, is their intent). So this isn’t dismissing the CATO analysis because it comes from CATO. It’s dismissing a fundamentally flawed analysis because it’s fundamentally flawed. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming bt Thanks for the informative links. Had no idea that early measurements were sensitive enough to find Relativity effects. Regarding Millikan I could imagine that many of his drop experiments had something wrong with them. He likely recorded the data, puzzled over the inconsistencies and possibly found the causes. When the data became more consistent he used that for his result. I would not fault him for casting out known bad data from known causes. If I understand correctly he reported an number that was much closer to the true accepted value than any other at the time. Is this right ?? How could he have misrepresented his data if he got the answer right ? GTTofAK I don't know the science of atmospheric physics so I can't comment. But I just might conclude that being careless with the facts in one sphere makes it likely that others from the same individual are also in error. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming "In other less politicized fields of science this lack of convergence would be seen as prima fascia evidence that the field is on the wrong track." Or, just that the state of the art is the state of the art. It is extremely difficult to determine open-loop gains in a closed-loop system. Newtonian mechanics are not "wrong" in general, they are "wrong" for particular problems; special and general relativity ONLY cover a small portion of the entire field of physics. You do not need to use relativity in the equations of motion for your car running down the street. TTFN FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming 2dye4, "GTTofAK I don't know the science of atmospheric physics so I can't comment. But I just might conclude that being careless with the facts in one sphere makes it likely that others from the same individual are also in error." With the one piece of supporting evidence that rconnor has posted to support his assertion that AGW causes stratospheric cooling I dont think that Dr. Santer was careless at all. The parsing of his words was careful, deliberate, and well thought out. Once cannot accidentally or carelessly make such a statement as Dr. Santer made. Dr. Santer parsed his words so as to make no lie of commission, a patently false statement, and instead used lies of omission, lies of context, and lies of misleading and dissembling to make sure that the reader was given a totally wrong impression . This isn't carelessness. This is intentional deceit. So yes I am very suspect of any field where such statements make it into the literature and are apparently left unchallenged as well. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming 2dye4, Yes, he sure has made “a lot of unproven assertions”. Has he ever provided supporting evidence outside false analogies? He did refer to “the 2007 paper” (which I had to guess which one it was) but even then I can’t find any line in it that defended his position (quite the opposite actually, it talks about negative brightness along CO2 bands). Using an analogy that established science has changed in the past can be used to attack ANY established theory and defend ANY crazy counter-theory. Anti-vaxxers and Young Earthers say the same thing. So, the logical might and debating prowess of GTTofAK is only equaled by Jenny McCarthy and Ken Hamm. Just because established science has changed in the past, it does not follow that the climate science consensus will change. It might but there appears to be little credible evidence to suggest that at this time (and with this he has offered nothing). I also applaud your ability to show composure after he said that you weren’t an engineer. I wouldn’t have been able to show as much restraint. Where I practice, to accuse a fellow engineer of not being an actual engineer is a serious accusation and, if done flippantly, this could be considered a violation of the Code of Ethics for engineers. We have to deal with some pretty bizarre arguments but I think he’s a special class. In a 24 hour period, he’s: - Implicitly questioned the greenhouse theory (and I’m not talking about ACC but the bare bones greenhouse gas theory) and offered no supporting evidence - Said that OLR has increased along bands associated with CO2 and offered no supporting evidence - Used (and improperly referenced) regional data of the US southern great plains as evidence against global increases in downward radiation (despite the author of the paper he (improperly) referenced explicitly stating in the abstract that this shouldn’t be done) - Categorically rejected all temperature data over 30 years old and offered no supporting evidence - Supported, or at least the defended, the conspiracy that skeptical research is being suppressed within academia and offered no supporting evidence (besides some anecdote about Salby being left at an airport…) - Grossly misinterpreted (and I would add purposefully so) ever single argument presented to him (ironically most of that was when he was accusing me of using straw man arguments) - Confused OLR and TOA (hint: clear sky condition is how you study OLR, TOA takes into account the larger picture. They aren’t the same thing.) - Said that the rise of atmospheric CO2 is natural and not anthropogenic - Mentioned (not even referenced) Salby’s widely discredited research as his sole example to support this - Claimed that the reason Salby’s research wasn’t accepted was because of a conspiracy within academia - Called Santer a liar about 6 times and claimed that the only reason it was published was due to “pal review” (despite actually agreeing with his paper that the ACC theory correctly predicted stratospheric cooling and stratospheric cooling would not have occurred at this time had it not been for anthropogenic CO2 emissions) - Referred to Logical Fallacies around 127 times (and many/all of those were done so inappropriately) - Referred to his superior debating skills ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming "- Implicitly questioned the greenhouse theory (and I’m not talking about ACC but the bare bones greenhouse gas theory) and offered no supporting evidence" Nope CO2s direct forcing is 1C I expect that the climate sensitivity is somewhere between 0.5 and 0.9, i.e. negative feedback. If I was denying greenhouse gas theory all together I wouldn't be talking about feedbacks because no feedbacks would exist. More and more you are proving that you are not an engineer. "- Said that OLR has increased along bands associated with CO2 and offered no supporting evidence" You correctly identified the paper. Its my fault you wont read the data. It clearly shows brightening in the 700 band. Its not my fault the authors don't want to talk about it. Its clearly there in the data. Since you are looking for a quote and not the data you are again proving that you are not an engineer. "- Used (and improperly referenced) regional data of the US southern great plains as evidence against global increases in downward radiation (despite the author of the paper he (improperly) referenced explicitly stating in the abstract that this shouldn’t be done)" Some of the links you gave were regional as well such as Evens 2006, which is data form Ontario. Given the physics regional or global should not matter CO2 is well mixed and should be observable anywhere given a long enough time frame. Hence even many of your links were regional or poorly distributed. One used 20 something stations in the US and only 1 in Europe. Calling that a global sample is a joke. "- Categorically rejected all temperature data over 30 years old and offered no supporting evidence" I rejected its accuracy within a tenth of a degree. Do I need to prove to you why so many weather stations are at airports. You demand proof for very very simple concepts or simple facts proving once again that you are no engineer. "- Confused OLR and TOA (hint: clear sky condition is how you study OLR, TOA takes into account the larger picture. They aren’t the same thing.) "Said that the rise of atmospheric CO2 is natural and not anthropogenic" Said you cannot tell based on light and heavy carbon ratios, as the IPCC claims so the issue is arguable. IMHO its probably not a an all or nothing but hte IPCC is clearly wrong in its assertion based on carbon ratios. "Confused OLR and TOA (hint: clear sky condition is how you study OLR, TOA takes into account the larger picture. They aren’t the same thing.)" Nope The OLR is estimated directly from several ABI infrared radiances for each ABI pixel, regardless of sky condition. http://www.goes-r.gov/products/opt2-upward-longwav... I really don't know where you are getting this crap. You kind of missed the point. You cant cherry pick data points in a real world test. You cant look at only clear days to see how the system is behaving. Real world tests are all or nothing. If you cant or wont look at all the data you dont do the real world test at all. Once again you are proving to me that you really aren't an engineer. - Supported, or at least the defended, the conspiracy that skeptical research is being suppressed within academia and offered no supporting evidence (besides some anecdote about Salby being left at an airport…) Lots of people get fired for rocking the boat. It takes no massive conspiracy. "- Mentioned (not even referenced) Salby’s widely discredited research as his sole example to support this" How is it discredited. His research was rejected because a reviewer, brought in late, said it wasn't innovative enough not that it was wrong. We are seeing this excuse being used to round file a lot of skeptical papers recently. "- Claimed that the reason Salby’s research wasn’t accepted was because of a conspiracy within academia" Never claimed such a thing. Just group think, same thing happens in the real world of business no conspiracy needed. Go along to get along. "Called Santer a liar about 6 times and claimed that the only reason it was published was due to “pal review” (despite actually agreeing with his paper that the ACC theory correctly predicted stratospheric cooling and stratospheric cooling would not have occurred at this time had it not been for anthropogenic CO2 emissions) " Called him a liar and proved it no less. As for pal review probably true. And ACC theory predicting stratospheric cooling no, you still don't get why the stratosphere cools proving yet again that you are not an engineer because its not a hard concept. Stratospheric cooling and AGW share teh same cause CO2, however they are not physically related. That is like saying that pissing and drowning are physically related. "- Referred to Logical Fallacies around 127 times (and many/all of those were done so inappropriately)" Oversimplification and exaggeration fallacy. I'm able to list so many fallacies because you keep making them. "- Referred to his superior debating skills" When you are good at something you are good at something. Have faith in your abilities not yourself. That is confidence. You seem to lack it. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming BTW rconnor "- Called Santer a liar about 6 times and claimed that the only reason it was published was due to “pal review” (despite actually agreeing with his paper that the ACC theory correctly predicted stratospheric cooling and stratospheric cooling would not have occurred at this time had it not been for anthropogenic CO2 emissions) " Don't think I didn't notice that you are trying to morph your position on stratospheric cooling here. By now you have had enough time have researched the issue and know that I'm right about stratospheric cooling and you are attempting to change your position without admitting that you were wrong. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming GTTofAK, "The OLR is estimated directly from several ABI infrared radiances for each ABI pixel, regardless of sky condition." I'm quoting you but your link included that very same sentence. But, the link is for the GOES-R satellite. At the top of your linked page it's entitled "Future Capability Product Description." The satellite's main page (http://www.goes-r.gov/) says, "The first satellite in the GOES-R series is scheduled for launch in early 2016." Why are you including and quoting verbatim a link to a site that is about a future satellite and its future capabilites? ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming @beej67 @GTTofAK I do not know why you seem angry. I apologise if I said something inconvenient or wrong. It is simply my humble opinion that skeptics provide fears and doubts just to keep the climate debate going but cannot provide a solid theoretical alternative to the official Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. Have you ever read the Structure of scientific revolutions by Thomas Kuhn? Well, according to Kuhn, the concept of falsifiability is unhelpful for understanding why and how modern science has developed as it has. In the practice of contemporary science, scientists will consider the possibility that a theory has been falsified if an alternative theory is available and they judge it credible. Such is life. If >90% of climate scientists are wrong (vid. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/) please, given your fantastic skills, knowledge and intelligence, persuade them asap. I do not have much time to write posts but I will keep reading the thread from time to time. Regards, ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming Re GTTofAK I don't mind his pithy insult of not being an engineer. It is a device he is deploying to avoid providing details. Nice move. I could say that any engineer who doesn't understand that everything ultimately has a statistical nature to it and casts scorn on "statistical exercises" is also not an engineer. Have you noticed the particular writing style of skeptics, Zdas being the exception ( his paper was well written ), they tend to write with sentences that don't flow together as well as paragraphs. It is a shotgun scattering of factoids meant to tweak emotions not make coherent points. This seems to extend up into real professional papers ( to the extent they exist ). GTTofAK has pre deployed a mechanism to avoid having to deliver specifics. However we aren't fooled by that are we. He is harmless. Beej , GregLocock, and Zdas carry the skeptic argument much more skillfully. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming #### Quote (rconnor) The Clean Power Plan was never designed to single handedly prevent global warming. It doesn't impact global warming at all, according to the EPA's models, yet the EPA claims it will avert 30 billion dollars worth of climate related damages. Explain that. I have an explanation, that goes like this: "The EPA cooked the books." What is your explanation? #### Quote (rconnor) The Clean Power Plan was designed to be an important first step towards reducing emissions. It's a great first step towards reducing emissions, because it reduces emissions. But there's a complete disconnect between reducing emissions and global warming, as evidenced by the EPA's own models. And that first step cost us the same amount of money as preserving an amount of rain forests equal to the entire country of Honduras. #### Quote (rconnor) The Clean Power Plan will provide benefits to Americans through reducing health issues associated with pollution Freeze right there. Ok, great. But you don't save any money from that, because people still die and dying still costs money. #### Quote: and damages from climate change. What damages? The damages from going up 0.02 extra degrees centigrade over the next century? What damages are those? #### Quote (rconnor) If you don’t believe the latter is real, then ok, your issue should be with the science the policy is predicated on, not with the policy itself. I'm presuming the EPA's science is absolutely real, and that they're not lying to us with the MAGICC model, and based on that presumed real science, the policy does not produce anything like what the EPA and Obama claim the policy produces. My issue is absolutely with the policy, and with the organizations proffering that policy lying to everyone about the effectiveness of that policy. I may have issues with the science, but I can set those issues aside, presume that the science is 100% correct, and the policy is still dumb, as verified by the science. #### Quote: However, even if you feel the latter isn’t real, then even ignoring it, there is still a large net benefit to Americans. What benefit? Are you moving the goal posts a third time? There is no climate benefit of any kind from a 0.02 degree difference over 100 years, so we can throw that dollar figure in the EPA's fact sheet out the window. There is no financial benefit from the health benefits gained by reducing pollution, when you take into account the fact that everyone dies eventually, and no matter what they die from we don't save money, unless they're dying from car crashes or falling off cliffs. There is a lifespan benefit from reducing pollution. I will not deny that. But the EPA fact sheet said nothing about that benefit. If the EPA would like to reissue their fact sheet saying that the 8 billion dollars on reduction of carbon emissions is going to increase life expectancy, amortized across the entire american population, by four months, I might buy that. If they did that, we could compare other ways to spend 8 billion dollars to expand life expectancy, to have an honest policy comparison. We could also throw different ways to eliminate the harmful pollutants from CO2 emitting power sources into the discussion, to see which is the best way to spend our money. But nobody's saying that, now, are they? Here's what Obama's saying: #### Quote: The Clean Power Plan has public health and climate benefits worth an estimated$55 billion to $93 billion per year in 2030, far outweighing the costs of$7.3 billion to $8.8 billion. The whole thing is cooked books. No honest scientist would stand by this. Go back and read the two links you quoted to me earlier. Read them in detail. They're cooked. And your camp keeps dodging this question, so I'll keep posting it until you guys quit dodging it: #### Quote (the big question) Someone gives you 8 billion dollars to spend on protecting the environment. Pick which will have the most impact: A) Preserving 75,000 square miles of rain forest, or B) Curbing 0.02 degrees of warming in the 21st century. Pick. In particular, lets be very clear that (A) isn't fanciful, it's an actual number that could be actually realized without leaning on science some people find questionable, and (B) outright presumes that the EPA and AGW camps are correct in their modeling. The truth is this: You carbon people are destroying the future credibility of the entire environmentalist movement with your attitude of spending infinite amounts of money on tiny climate returns, while the whole world goes extinct from stuff that has nothing to do with the tiny changes in climate you might be able to achieve. The world is going extinct because of toxic pollution (not CO2), increased disease/invasive species vectors, and loss of habitat. And you are fiddling with models while the world burns. Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming Breaking this out separately: #### Quote (rconnor) The CATO analysis of of X tons of CO2 saved = Y deg C lower temperature =$Z saved in climate change related costs is not how it climate change works as the relationship between tons of CO2 saved, temperature changed and climate costs are not perfectly linear. Climate cannot be parsed so easily. Climate change mitigation must be looked at as a cumulative goal towards a specific ppm target. Many studies have done this properly and you’re welcome to research them. The CATO analysis is fundamentally misleading (which, I’d argue, is their intent). So this isn’t dismissing the CATO analysis because it comes from CATO. It’s dismissing a fundamentally flawed analysis because it’s fundamentally flawed.

CATO did not claim the relationship was perfectly linear. CATO used a very nonlinear EPA model to determine what the savings were. CATO even ran three different IPCC scenarios, to make sure they had all their bases covered.

If those 8 billion dollars spent were the "first tiny step" towards your cumulative goal, and the money spent on that "first tiny step" could also just as easily permanently preserve 75,000 square miles of rain forest, (math above) then I contend that we could probably save the entire South American rain forest, every single acre of it, for the cost of about ten of those first tiny steps.

So which is better for the environment? Preserving all of South America's wilderness and biodiversity for future generations, as well as its very real effect on global climate, or making ten tiny steps towards CO2 reduction which might amount to a whopping 0.2 degrees difference a century from now?

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

mendinho,

Yes I've read Kuhn. It's quite good. I have my qualms with the state of the science, and I've expressed those in another thread, but the larger issues to me is that even if the science was right, there's a complete disconnect between the science and the policy. And the scientists conveniently clam up on making any kind of assertion about the effectiveness of any policy proposal, other than "well we have to do something."

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"I'm quoting you but your link included that very same sentence. But, the link is for the GOES-R satellite. At the top of your linked page it's entitled "Future Capability Product Description." The satellite's main page (http://www.goes-r.gov/) says, "The first satellite in the GOES-R series is scheduled for launch in early 2016." Why are you including and quoting verbatim a link to a site that is about a future satellite and its future capabilites?"

The website is an informative website on the new satalite. The page gives definitions of OLR and TOA radiation. The fact that the satellite is new has nothing at all to do with the definitions of OLR and TOA. You will find nothing to support rconnor assertion that I was confusing OLR and TOA or his definitions of them such as OLR, from scientific pages all the way to the wiki page, being only clear sky conditions. There is OLRc which is clear-sky outgoing long wave radiation. In short he made it up and hoped that he was right.

"I could say that any engineer who doesn't understand that everything ultimately has a statistical nature to it and casts scorn on
"statistical exercises" is also not an engineer."

I didn't say just a "statistical exercises" "purely statistical exercise" meaning that there is no underlying science. Mann's reconstructions are what are known as statistical reconstructions. The man doesn't even collect his own data. He takes what may be proxies throws them into a statistical meat grinder and sees if they somehow correlate to temperature somewhere. This is a purely statistical exercise, correlation = causation, Mann does not purport to show how these proxies correlate to temperature only that they do for his calibration period and therefor are temperature proxies for their entire record. Contrast this with the aforementioned ice cores which are scientific proxies. They have a solid established and verified scientific relationship to temperature in their oxygen isotope ratios. While some statistics may be involved ice core analysis is not a purely statistical exercise as is the case with Dr. Mann's reconstructions.

mendinho,
"Have you ever read the Structure of scientific revolutions by Thomas Kuhn?"

Yes I have and Kuhn does not mean that in a positive sense. Kuhn argue that scientists tend to stick to the current paradigm and that science advances on funeral at a time. People on both sides of the issue try and claim Kuhn as you are doing here. Personally the people who try and argue as you did are wrong. As Einstein showed falsification precedes paradigm shift. Science had already moved on. There were plenty of young minds like Einstein trying to figure out what was wrong with classical mechanics. It was the scientists that were stuck in the paradigm. My statement was the science advances through falsification and paradigm shifts. I'm right you are wrong. You need to learn to read more critically.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"GTTofAK has pre deployed a mechanism to avoid having to deliver specifics. However we aren't fooled by that are we."

If you stop making logical fallacies I wont stop pointing them out. There is no need to go wrestling with pigs in mud. I'm not going to dirty my hands arguing against what is an obvious logical fallacy.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

GTTofAK

If MBH98 data sources were not good proxies the statistics would not work. The sources of data in the study are quite varied with
solid established and verified scientific relationship to temperature including your acknowledged ice core data.

""
The network includes (Fig. 1a) the collection of annual-resolution dendroclimatic, ice core, ice melt, and long historical records used by Bradley and Jones 6 combined with other coral, ice core, dendroclimatic, and long instrumental records.
""

Combining many disparate sources of data that share a common factor in their evolution is a well know and accepted statistical technique see for example
sensor data fusion.

If you wish to dismiss these techniques as "purely statistical exercises" then have at it but science uses the methods to draw very reasonable conclusions
nearly daily.

BTW point out an example of a result where "correlation is causation" is not the sole deciding factor in human decision making.

How do you know that if you drop a rock it will fall to the ground. If you are honest all you can say is that is what most people think will happen and that is
what I have always observed to happen. No matter how well a phenomena is understood and considered solid science or is one of "law" or "accepted" and "established" it always comes down the the degree of correlation that has been observed.

I missed another of your fine techniques. Beside claiming your arguments rest on common knowledge to avoid filling in pesky details you also deploy the
" logical fallacy " discussion excuse without backing it up so as to avoid the holes in your ideas.

Tell me again how asking a person in a debate to support their assertions is a logical fallacy.

BTW i think your quote is a direct logical fallacy or a Freudian slip.

""If you stop making logical fallacies I wont stop pointing them out""

In other words you are going to point out logical fallacies that have not actually materialized. Yup I say it was a Freudian slip.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"If MBH98 data sources were not good proxies the statistics would not work." ... NO, the math will work on whatever data it's given. as shown, Mann's statistical model gives the same hockey stick with a noise input.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"If MBH98 data sources were not good proxies the statistics would not work. The sources of data in the study are quite varied with
solid established and verified scientific relationship to temperature including your acknowledged ice core data."

Which Mann throws out the moment he throws the proxy in his statistical meat grinder. Mann's methods ignore any established scientific relationship. Its a purely correlative model. Mann's methods have been shown to turn proxies upside down to their scientific relationship which happened with the Tiljander lake sediment data.

"I missed another of your fine techniques. Beside claiming your arguments rest on common knowledge to avoid filling in pesky details you also deploy the
" logical fallacy " discussion excuse without backing it up so as to avoid the holes in your ideas."

I have named every single logical fallacy and shown how they apply. Your argument here is a fallacy as well. You and others have put forward the claims. I am not the one who has made the claims. I have only refuted them. It was rconnor who brought up the issues of stratospheric cooling as well as down-welling and outgoing radiation. It was you who brought up MBH98. It is not on me to prove these things. It is on you onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat, the burden of proof is on he who makes the claim not the he who denies it. The burden of proof is on you because you are the one introducing the claims. I'm only refuting them. The fallacy you are engaging in now is commonly called shifting the burden.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Furthermore I never dismissed purely statistical exercises. I simply pointed out that I would not trust such things coming from non statisticians published in non-statistical journals. I am also amazed at how so many people took it at face value since its varsity is highly questionable given the sources that both wrote it and reviewed it.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

GTTofAK

So you don't consider yourself qualified to find the errors directly in MBH98 ( not just raising doubts ) The math in MBH98 is not
really groundbreaking or unusual, matter of fact the same stuff is used in many psychological and sociological research. So i do not find
your complaint regarding its use in a non statistical journal all that relevant.

Principle Component Analysis

""Mann's methods ignore any established scientific relationship"" Actually he does not. The proxies were selected on some
understanding of their relationship. Otherwise he might have included the historical ratios of cats to dogs in London.

The fact is that any proxy that has even an unknown linear correlation to climatic temperature improves the estimates regardless of
whether the science is exactly nailed down.

Lastly where is the credible rebuttal to the paper, feel free to write your own, and no the McKitrick thing doesn't qualify.

rb1957 I don't agree that the method gives the same hockey stick on average with different realizations of the noise.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote:

The fact is that any proxy that has even an unknown linear correlation to climatic temperature improves the estimates regardless of
whether the science is exactly nailed down.

What about human population? Does that correlate to climactic temperature?

If so, does it correlate better or worse than CO2 concentration?

I want to hear an atmospheric scientist give a straight answer to this question. An intellectually honest scientist in this field, who's goal was to show that carbon is the only problem, would start by showing that all the other possible sources of warming related to population expansion correlate worse with warming than CO2 does.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"So you don't consider yourself qualified to find the errors directly in MBH98 ( not just raising doubts ) The math in MBH98 is not
really groundbreaking or unusual, matter of fact the same stuff is used in many psychological and sociological research. So i do not find
your complaint regarding its use in a non statistical journal all that relevant."

PCA might be common but Mann's use of short centered PCA is not. And many statisticians who have looked at his use of short centered PCA have criticized it. Perhaps if he had published in a statistical journal instead of a natural science journal a reviewer would have caught it. Furthermore even if Mann did do correct PCA analysis his method of recalibrating the series after PCA selection undoes the PCA. Again something that might have been caught if some real statisticians were co-authors or it had been published in a stastical journal.

" The proxies were selected on some understanding of their relationship."

Please give a formula of how tree ring width is related to temperature.

"The fact is that any proxy that has even an unknown linear correlation to climatic temperature improves the estimates regardless of
whether the science is exactly nailed down."

How do you know the correlation is linear? Trees have an optimal growing temperature. If anything their relationship to temperature is parabolic which makes them useless as a temperature proxy, previous warm periods beyond the optimal growing temperature would be interpreted as cold.

"McKitrick thing doesn't qualify"

Who the hell are you to set the rules?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

beej67 that is a good point.

My only response is that the proof is in the bandwidth of the results. As an example. To test a new fertilizer vs and old one. Which is better.

1 half the field covered with new and half the field covered with old.
2 Stripes of new fertilizer laid down the width of the harvesting equipment adjacent to the old laid in similar strips.

Obviously 2 yields more believable results because the field conditions are very unlikely to correlate with the chosen stripes
and the assumed effects are zeroed by the pattern to a large extent.

There is no doubt that humans have altered the heat balance in ways other than greenhouse gasses. I have heard that cutting forests
increases heat retention due to reduced albedo but paving roads and building structures does the opposite for the same reason.

The historic proxies are relatively rich in patterns that yield credence to their correlations ( they don't just rise monotonically like population ).

Surely someone has made a reasonable attempt at quantifying these impacts. I don't think any scientist would say "only problem" but they might
say the main one by a factor of 10 or so.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"I don't agree that the method gives the same hockey stick on average with different realizations of the noise."

All statistical reconstructions tend towards hockey sticks. This was shown quite well in both Burger et. al. and Stockwell et. al. The problem is fundamental. Use of short centered PCA and other statistical techniques are just icing on the cake.

The fundamental process is to take series and see how well they correlate to temperature during the 20th century calibration period. If they correlate well they are deemed to be a temperature proxy.

Problem, temperature only did one thing during the calibration period. It went up. If temperature were more varied during the calibration period straight correlations might be more useful. However, it’s not so spurious correlations are going to be common.

Now we take the series that correlate well to temperature and average them together. TAH DAH temperature reconstruction. There are other things involved here the author might use PCA or some bastardized PCA but that is really just pepsi and coke. The above is the basic process for making a statistical reconstruction.

So what happens with random data. Well random red noise will have some series that have a sharp uptick at the end. In a statistical reconstruction these series will be selected as being representative of temperature. If we average these series together you will have the uptick at the end average together while the rest of the series average out to 0. TAH DAH hockey stick.

This is outlined in more detail by both Burger 2006, and Stockwell 2006.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"" And many statisticians who have looked at his use of short centered PCA have criticized it.""

No they haven't. Ritson straightened it out thoroughly and simply.

Mann and McKitrick are witch hunters plain and simple. Their potion stuck to the wall for a while but it has faded to a stain.

www.climateaudit.info/pdf/ritson.240708.pdf

""Trees have an optimal growing temperature. If anything their relationship to temperature is parabolic""

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

FWIW, 2dye4, I'm a huge believer in AGW. The correlations are too strong. I am not remotely a believer in CO2 being the only, or maybe even the primary culprit. And I find it highly questionable that the carbon-only fixes proposed by the carbon-only crowd are going to fix anything, particularly when their own models don't seem to indicate that they will. And the costs are so outrageous, compared to simple things such has habitat preservation that not only have a carbon component, but also an albedo component and a hydrologic component, which are both neglected or ignored by the carbon-people, and also a habitat component, which is the A#1 most important thing for environmental conservation.

#### Quote:

There is no doubt that humans have altered the heat balance in ways other than greenhouse gasses. I have heard that cutting forests
increases heat retention due to reduced albedo but paving roads and building structures does the opposite for the same reason.

Yep. The rank sloppiness of how these guys handle albedo is alarming. For instance, I've seen IPCC studies saying that the net effect of urbanization since the industrial revolution is an overall cooling effect, which only a loony would believe after glancing for any more than five minutes at orbital IR imagery of anywhere civilized.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Hit 'submit' too soon, sorry.

#### Quote (2dye4)

Surely someone has made a reasonable attempt at quantifying these impacts. I don't think any scientist would say "only problem" (is carbon) but they might say the main one by a factor of 10 or so.

There are ways to determine the relative weight of anthropogenic warming sources, purely statistically, with regression analyses and the like. Those ways have not been done responsibly.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

and if you go to McKitrick's site you can see his reply ... but then of course you've already written him (along with Mann) as irrelevent (ie "witchhunters").

this is my problem with all this ... for every single comment there is an equal and opposite comment from an apparently equally learned party. this stuff is outside of my experience and if i put aside a month of sundays i might be able to understand the nuances of the technical discussion. two things raised my hackles with MBH98 ...
1) why did Mann put up such resistance to making his data and analysis available ? (this indicates to me that none of the reviewers asked for this, which sounds like an odd review)
2) why is there so much incorrect data in the model ? as i understand it (and i haven't seen any rebuttle) values were copied incorrectly from one parameter to another, from one time to another, and a bunch of zeros.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

@2dye4,
"""Trees have an optimal growing temperature. If anything their relationship to temperature is parabolic""

from greg's post (19th august, it took some scrolling to find !) ...
"indicating that for every study that found increased growth with warming, there were a similar number that found a decrease"

@BJ,
you having an interesting take on AGW. it'd make an interesting thread (ok, it'll devolve into the same cat-spat but it'll be good for 400 more comments) and another "one engineer's perspective on global warming" ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

www.climateaudit.info/pdf/ritson.240708.pdf
"All that is required, to refute their claim that full-centering is requisite, is to show that the same results are obtained irrespective of centering method."

Not a valid hypothesis. It all depends on the nature of the data. Short centering and centered PCA might give the same result on one series and a different results on another. For instance a random red noise series will have the same value regardless if it is short centered or centered. However a hockey stick series will have a far higher value it is short centered as opposed to centered.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"nalysis of the noise simulations finds hockey-sticks heights randomly distributed up or down and thus with an ensemble mean height of zero,"

This is also a very poor understanding of Mann's method. Up or down doesn't matter to Mann. His method simply takes the down as an inverse correlation and turns it upside-down. The sign of the hockey stick does not matter.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Beej67,
I’m going to try and explain your reasoning as honestly as I understand it. If I get it wrong, please correct me.
• The CATO analysis says that the plan will reduce warming by 0.02 deg C
• The EPA says that the plan will save ~$30 Billion (depending on the run and discount rate) through climate change mitigation • For the sake of the argument, you will temporarily permit the concept that reducing CO2 actual does have benefits • You believe the CATO analysis and therefore do not believe that reducing warming by 0.02 deg C will save ~$30 Billion
• You conclude that the EPA must be cooking the books.
As I previously stated, the CATO analysis for X tons of CO2 saved by this one measure = Y deg C less temperature rise is very misleading. To then extend this to say “because Y is near zero, $Z saved in climate change damages must be near zero” is based on a flawed premise. To think that the total result of the Clean Power Plan will only be the direct ~550 MtCO2 in 2030 is wrong. For one, the benefit of increasing numbers of electric vehicles in combination with a clean source of power means that transportation emissions will also reduce. This alone could be larger than the direct benefits. For another, it is incredibly important for the US to (finally) start to get serious about emission reductions, as it sends a strong message to other countries. Saving ~550 MtCo2 in 2030 is by no means the panacea for global warming but is also by no means insignificant. For reference, the difference in 2030 between RCP85 (close to the “business-as-usual” scenario) and RCP45 is (13.839 - 10.953 =) 2.886 GtCO2. The temperature difference in 2100 between those two scenarios is (4.777 - 2.598 =) 2.2 deg C. The Clean Power plan, alone, would represent 19% of the difference between RCP85 and RCP45 in 2030 – that’s significant. The fact that the Clean Power Plan represents such a large percentage of the difference between those scenarios makes me question how CATO actually performed their analysis. I tried to recreate it but they just give such little information that it’s impossible to recreate. Did they just subtract 550 MtCO2 from each year past 2030? If so, this is wrong as a “base-case” option would continue to increase CO2 emissions, so that number should grow as well. Given this and CATO’s track record, I’m rather skeptical about using the CATO analysis as the basis of my argument. Now, I should note that large reductions in CO2 between RCP85 and RCP45 happen after 2050 but this does support my first point which is that the world is not a vacuum. The Clean Power Plan is seen by many in the international community as the US (finally) seriously getting on board with climate change mitigation. The first step in cooperation is participation and the Clean Power Plan is just that. So, I have two issues with your argument. (1) I’m skeptical about the accuracy of the CATO analysis but CATO has not given enough information to prove or disprove it. (2) Even if true, it is misleading and doesn’t take into account any further or indirect emission savings that will result from the Clean Power Plan. It is incredibly unrealistic. For these two reasons, I’m not ready to agree with CATO’s conclusion that the Clean Power Plan will result in 0.02 deg C. Now to your choice between “Preserving all of South America’s wilderness” or 0.02 deg C lower temperatures. This is a much different question than realistic forest conservation or the Clean Power Plan. But to answer the (absurdly loaded and unrealistic) question (1) “preserving all of South America’s wilderness” or (2) 0.02 deg C lower temperatures, I’d choose (1). As I’ve said before, your question really brings up a false choice. Firstly, I feel there might be some political issues with the US spending$8 Billion to turn every square inch of South America’s wilderness into a nature reserve. This just might have a slight economic impact on South America which just might be a tad bigger than $8 billion. In other words, it’s unrealistic. The Wood Land Trust, as great an initiative as it is, would not be able to take a$8 billion to save “75,000 square miles of rain forest”. I’m sure that the US could provide a large sum to conserve a large sum but it would not be anywhere near “preserving all of South America’s wilderness”. I don’t know how much that would be and I don’t know what the benefit would be.

Secondly, as I’ve argued above, the Clean Power Plan will not lead to only 0.02 deg C in temperature mitigation. It represents 19% of the difference between RCP85 and RCP45 in 2030, which lead to massively different temperatures in 2100 (2.2 deg C). Furthermore, I feel that the indirect emissions savings through increased electric vehicles and encouraging adoption of similar initiatives in other countries will lead to more than the direct emission savings of ~550 MtCO2.

Thirdly, the original phrasing of your loaded question ignores the health benefits of the Clean Power Plan. You’ve commented that these savings will just be turned into some other form of healthcare cost in the future. I’d argue that this isn’t entirely true as chronic respiratory issues are very long and very taxing on a healthcare system (and families).

To answer the more realistic and appropriate question (1) realistic forest conservation or (2) the Clean Power Plan, I’d choose (2). Developing a clean energy supply as soon as possible is just too important to pass up. It maybe not as aggressive as I’d want it to be but, given the amount of foot dragging by the US, it’s a great sign of progress. This is not to say that forest conservation isn’t important and, again, I don’t feel we need to treat this as an either/or issue. How about a revenue neutral carbon tax, where part of the revenue goes towards forest conservation. Would you support that?

Beej67, you are certainly the only person I’ve meet that is so passionate about protecting the environment and yet so passionate about rejecting the idea that CO2 emissions might be the biggest threat to the future state of the environment. What’s the most puzzling is that you feel that the global push to mitigate climate change will be bad for the environment. How? Climate change mitigation is about smarter and more sustainable consumption. How could this possibly be bad for the environment? Reducing deforestation and increasing reforestation is intrinsic to mitigating climate change. Protecting wildlife is one of the chief goals of mitigating climate change. Climate change mitigation is finally putting environmental concerns to the forefront. Environmentalism is no longer something that “long-haired hippies” talk about; it’s discussed in our classrooms, boardrooms and, slowly but surely, our political system. The ACC theory didn’t hijack the environmental movement, it gave it a stronger voice.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

3
Holy moly. Are you serious?

As I previously stated, the CATO analysis for X tons of CO2 saved by this one measure = Y deg C less temperature rise is very misleading. To then extend this to say “because Y is near zero, $Z saved in climate change damages must be near zero” is based on a flawed premise. To think that the total result of the Clean Power Plan will only be the direct ~550 MtCO2 in 2030 is wrong. For one, the benefit of increasing numbers of electric vehicles in combination with a clean source of power means that transportation emissions will also reduce. This alone could be larger than the direct benefits. For another, it is incredibly important for the US to (finally) start to get serious about emission reductions, as it sends a strong message to other countries. The clean power plan doesn't buy anyone electric vehicles. It doesn't make electricity any cheaper. And it doesn't make any other country do anything else they're not already doing. So all three of the things you just listed are completely made up. You are literally inventing new, un-accounted-for sources of emission reduction on the fly, completely on your own, to try and justify the EPA's numbers. And I know this because the EPA explicitly did not count any of the reductions you just listed. It says in their report, very specifically, which reductions they counted, and the reductions they counted were only from power plants. Nothing indirect. This is the kind of "reasoning" that makes people skeptics. You're making people more skeptical right now. Your words are doing it. #### Quote: Saving ~550 MtCo2 in 2030 is by no means the panacea for global warming but is also by no means insignificant. For reference, the difference in 2030 between RCP85 (close to the “business-as-usual” scenario) and RCP45 is (13.839 - 10.953 =) 2.886 GtCO2. The temperature difference in 2100 between those two scenarios is (4.777 - 2.598 =) 2.2 deg C. The Clean Power plan, alone, would represent 19% of the difference between RCP85 and RCP45 in 2030 – that’s significant. Now you're cooking the books right in front of us! RCP85 in 2100 is like 29 GtC, and RCP45 in 2100 is like 3 Gtc. Here's a graph. The difference between RCP85 and RCP45 in 2100 is a lot bigger than in 2030, and you're presuming that the Clean Power Plan somehow jumps the whole world from one scenario to the other. That's asinine. Either you apply the net difference from the clean power plan to one scenario the whole way through or you apply it to the other the whole way through. #### Quote: The fact that the Clean Power Plan represents such a large percentage of the difference between those scenarios makes me question how CATO actually performed their analysis. The difference in the two scenarios in 2100 is 29-3=26 GtC, so the 550 MtC would account for 2% of the difference between the two scenarios. 2% is not a "large percentage." #### Quote: Now, I should note that large reductions in CO2 between RCP85 and RCP45 happen after 2050 but this does support my first point which is that the world is not a vacuum. The Clean Power Plan is seen by many in the international community as the US (finally) seriously getting on board with climate change mitigation. The first step in cooperation is participation and the Clean Power Plan is just that.{/quote] Well by identical rationale, we could buy 75,000 square miles of rain forest and signify to the international community that we were serious about saving the rain forests, and they'd go and buy the rest of them for us. If you get to claim unspecified international benefits from the international community as a result of policy decisions, I can too. [quote]Now to your choice between “Preserving all of South America’s wilderness” or 0.02 deg C lower temperatures. This is a much different question than realistic forest conservation or the Clean Power Plan. But to answer the (absurdly loaded and unrealistic) question (1) “preserving all of South America’s wilderness” or (2) 0.02 deg C lower temperatures, I’d choose (1). I don't see how it's absurdly loaded or unrealistic. I, me, beej67, can flat out buy an acre of rain forest to be preserved in perpetuity for a whopping hundred and fifty bucks, depending on exchange rates. Links above. It's not unrealistic at all. People are actually doing it. Private persons, businesses, charities, etc, are actually doing it. Please explain to me how something that lots of people are actually doing, with no government help whatsoever, is completely "absurd and unrealistic" for the government to do. When you're done, I want you to compare and contrast that with this idea that our government can influence CO2 emissions world wide simply by cranking our own emissions down and hoping for the best. Your entire case is "we should do this and hope for the best." If we just went south and bought rain forest with the money, we wouldn't have to hope others did it for us. We'd own the freaking land. We could prevent anyone from burning it for cattle grazing area because we'd own it. #### Quote: As I’ve said before, your question really brings up a false choice. Firstly, I feel there might be some political issues with the US spending$8 Billion to turn every square inch of South America’s wilderness into a nature reserve. This just might have a slight economic impact on South America which just might be a tad bigger than $8 billion. In other words, it’s unrealistic. Yeah, it'd be the shot in the arm that South America needs economically to get out of the stone ages, so they could have functioning economies without burning their rain forests and turning them into crop land. Which is what they're doing now. Nothing in your post explains why it's a false choice, and I've already explained in detail above why it's not. #### Quote: Beej67, you are certainly the only person I’ve meet that is so passionate about protecting the environment and yet so passionate about rejecting the idea that CO2 emissions might be the biggest threat to the future state of the environment. What’s the most puzzling is that you feel that the global push to mitigate climate change will be bad for the environment. How? Because the backlash from all your fuzzy math and your blind support of things that are really poor science is going to whip back against environmentalism in general, right when we need a commitment more than ever to conservation. You are pissing away every good intention that the environmentalist movement has, by dumping every dollar down a lava pit. Put simply, entire species are going to die because of you and people like you, who have chosen a side on policy that even your own science doesn't support. Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming Meh, broke a quote box above. This forum needs an edit function. Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming beej67, a deep breath might be in order. Your last few sentences make it clear that you're becoming overly emotional. You're better than your final sentence, that's all I'll say about it. Firstly, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles are expected to increase. More electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles plugging into a cleaner power source than the status-quo power source will further reduce emissions. So that is far from "completely made up". Secondly, your repeated appeals to argue in some imaginary vacuum world where actions have no secondary impacts is growing stale. The world, especially the developing world, needs to see that the most powerful country and historically the biggest polluter (now 2nd largest) is taking climate change mitigation seriously. This will be important in gathering more international commitment as, currently, one of the biggest roadblocks at climate conferences is the argument that "we'll do something when you (the US) does something". To think that the Clean Power Plan will have absolutely no effect on pushing other countries to adopt similar measures is not a reasonable position to take. Thirdly, you've inexplicable failed to notice that EPA's Clean Power Plan has estimates up to 2030 and, instead, argued about 2100. Again, have you read the reports? The Plan estimates ~550 MtCO2 savings in 2030. This represents 19% of the difference between RCP85 and RCP45 in 2030. This is not cooking the books, this is you failing to read. Again to argue that this will also mean 550 MtCO2 in 2100 is wrong because the baseline would continue to increase, hence the Clean Power Plan would have much higher savings in 2100. If the CATO analysis assumed this, which I believe they did, then they and their analysis are wrong. If the Clean Power Plan is successful in pushing other countries to adopt similar measures, then a jump from RCP85 (which is more or less "business-as-usual") to RCP45 or RCP6 is not unrealistic. Increases in clean energy, increases in vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, increases in demand side management, improvements in building codes, and, yes, carbon taxes are all important and effective ways of reducing CO2 emissions. While difficult, it's not impossible. Fourthly, you really don't see there being any political or economic issues with the US spending$8 billion to prevent any forestry or agricultural or urban growth in the entirety of South America? Really? "We'd own it"? Every inch of forest in South America? No political issues? No economic qualms? In fact, it would be welcomed by the South Americans? Really? I guess maybe in this magical vacuum world this would be a serious alternative.

But honestly beej67, this is nuts. Just say a "large sum" of forest conservation for a "large sum". Neither of us know how much is politically and economically possible but it's certainly much less than the entirety of South America. It doesn't really change your argument, it just makes it sound less ridiculous. And yes, I'll give you that a strong push by the US to preserves forests would likely have so influence on similar measures in other countries.

If you feel that the ACC theory is destroying support for forest conservation, then why does the Woodland Trust's website say "Planting new native woods in the UK increases the size of the carbon "sink", helping to mitigate the effects of some of our greenhouse gas emissions"? Again, it's very bizarre to so passionately (and admirably) fight for forest conservation but think that the ACC theory is the bane of your (and "entire species") existence. In reality, these two concerns are intertwined.

I'll leave your tired and weak argument with the following: we need forest conservation AND we need a clean power supply. I hope we can agree on that. I'll let you have the final word beej67 (except for blatant falsehoods...and please, a little more civil than your last post).

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

BJ, I think you're distorting things. I may not be as up to speed on some of the ins-and-outs and inner workings of all of this. But, it is pretty clear to even me that US reduction initiatives are meant to work alongside other nations. Your own graph shows it pretty simply. The green line is do something early and forcefully, the blue line is do something to some degree at some point, and the red line is well don't do anything until it becomes a serious problem. All the nations are expected to contribute some sort of reductions. Your line of logic also seems to be confusing to some degree what rconnor said about 2030 vs 2100.

Your argument against the clean energy initiatives actually strike a small chord with my own not insignificant cynicism about how much it might matter. But, your argument can be turned back on yourself. The South American rain forests aren't the only ones in the world. How much of the world's total natural rain forests, coral reefs, rangelands, wetlands, etc would be saved if the only areas saved were rain forests in South America? Would it be even 10%. How much of only the South American rain forests have these private initiatives saved? Someone cynical might suggest it's such a small percentage of the total, what's the point? I actually think we should and can try to do both, though I'd suggest that South American rain forests have a lot more to do with what South Americans think and do than North Americans.

"Put simply, entire species are going to die because of you and people like you, who have chosen a side on policy that even your own science doesn't support."

Huh, entire species are going to die entirely the fault of a few Americans who think solar panels or windmills make some sort of sense?!? I missed the connection there....

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Reading D. Ritson and his point on the an equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks it just leads to the issue of how dishonest Dr. Mann is. Dr. Mann allowed Dr. Ritson's critique to be posted on his blog realcliamte as well as others that make the same claim. Dr. Ritson made the error that Dr. Mann's method was sensitive to sign and an equal number of positve and negative hockey sticks would average out to 0. Dr. Mann never corrected anyone on this. He even posted such claims made by others like Dr. Ritson on his blog without bothering to offer any correction. Now McIntyre and others always responded to these criticisms of equal postive and negative hockey sticks with the simple truth. Mann's method is insensitive to the sign of the predictor. A positive hockey stick is seen as having a positive correlation to temperature a negative hockey stick is seen as a negative correlation to temperature. Negative hockey sticks are then inverted creating a positive hockey stick. That Mann's short centered PCA selects and equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks simply does not matter to the final result. His method is insensitive to the sign of the predictor.

In 2008 Mann produced another hockey stick this hockey stick used a series known as Tiljander, a lake sediment series. The science of lake sediment analysis says that varve thickness should be inversely correlated to temperature. Basically sediment is a proxy for lake freezing. More sediment more freezing, inverse correlation. In the case of the Tiljander series starting at about the industrial revolution the series becomes polluted with human farming infulences. Farming is increasing sediment so the series is no longer a temperature proxy starting in the late 18th century and by the early 20th century the series is useless as a temperature proxy. Dr. Tiljander was very clear on this.

"This recent increase in thickness is due to the clay-rich varves caused by intensive cultivation in the late 20th century… There are two exceptionally thick clay-silt layers caused by man. The thick layer of AD 1930 resulted from peat ditching and forest clearance (information from a local farmer in 1999) and the thick layer of AD 1967 originated due to the rebuilding of the bridge in the vicinity of the lake’s southern corner (information from the Finnish Road Administration)."

Dr. Mann totally ignored this and use the series anyways with a calibration period in the early 20th century right at the peak of the peat ditching and forest clearance data contamination. Now based upon the scientific inverse correlation to temperature the tiljander series shows both a strong medieval warm period and a strong little ice age. However, when passed into Dr. Mann’s statistical meat grinder which care nothing for the science behind the proxy the meat grinder interpreted the 20th century contamination as a temperature signal and and correlated the varve thickness positively to temperature. The exact opposite of how varve thickness actually correlates. The meat grinder inverted the series creating a super hockey stick. The medieval warm period became a super cold period, the little ice age became a warm period, and the post industrial revolution contamination became a super warming.

This didn’t stand for long. Shortly after publication Dr. Mann was called on his error by McIntyre and many others including the original author of the series Tiljander for inverting the sign of the correlation. Dr. Mann’s response was rather revealing.

“The claim that ‘‘upside down’’ data were used is bizarre. Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors. Screening, when used, employed one-sided tests only when a definite sign could be a priori reasoned on physical grounds. Potential nonclimatic influences on the Tiljander and other proxies were discussed in the SI, which showed that none of our central conclusions relied on their use.”

Now mind you for the previous 3 years Mann let others make the claim that his short centered PCA will select and equal number equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks. Dr. Mann never once corrected them on this. He even pushed their claims as proof that he was correct. Revealingly he never once made the claim directly because he knew full well that M&M and others were right and his method was insensitive to the sign of the predictor. Three years later when his feet were to the fire on upside down Tiljander he says exactly what M&M and others have been saying about the positive and negative hockey stick claim, “multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors”. Tottally invalidating every single argument that had ever been made about an equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks. Arguments the he had been pushing for three years but never directly making because he knew full well that they were wrong.

This goes right at the heart of his credibility. How can we trust a scientists who will so easily back science that he knows full well is wrong just because it suits his objective at the present moment?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Lets just put up what Ritson found WRT Mann and McKitricks complaint.

""
Section 2 of the M&M GRL analyze results from simulations based on trend-less red-
noise and conclude that the MBH analysis produced hockey sticks “some of which bore a
quite remarkable similarity to the actual MBH98 temperature reconstruction”. The units
used by M&M to compare between MBH results and simulated noise results were arbitrary
and unrelated. To check the significance of this M&M claim we followed similar procedures
and simulated an ensemble of seventy-member data sets based on lag-coefficient 0.5 AR1
noise and analyzed them via short centered ( 1 Y). (m = 1 was used to bring our results
into correspondence with M&M’s). Analysis of the noise simulations finds hockey-sticks
heights randomly distributed up or down and thus with an ensemble mean height of zero,
The standard deviation of the heights about the zero mean is ∼ ±0.025. Our figure
1 A contains a ‘typical’ simulated hockey stick in units identical to those of the real
MBH signal. At first sight the hockey-stick appears to be a ‘zero-baseline’. Only when
multiplied by ∼ 50 does it become comparable to the MBH98 data.
""

So lets clear up GTTofAK's confusion. Ritson was responding to M,MK claim that the methods produced hockey sticks
when the climate data was exchanged with red noise. Ritson found that using the same methods as MBH98 the
hockey sticks so discovered ranged between + 1/50 th to minus 1/50 th of the results in MBH98 with random
distribution in the interval. To a reasonable person this is not relevant.

GTTofAK said
""That Mann's short centered PCA selects and equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks simply does not matter to the final result. His method is insensitive to the sign of the predictor. ""

Utter nonsense, this 'selection' was only a characteristic of the particular realization of red noise used in the very limited method test and had no
bearing on the results when applied to the real data.

The whole post is an exercise in misunderstanding what MBH98 attempted. Intentional or accidental ??

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

it's not "Mann and Mckitrick", it's McIntyre and McKitrick ... geeze

have you read McIntyre's side of things ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

“So lets clear up GTTofAK's confusion. Ritson was responding to M,MK claim that the methods produced hockey sticks when the climate data was exchanged with red noise. Ritson found that using the same methods as MBH98 the hockey sticks so discovered ranged between + 1/50 th to minus 1/50 th of the results in MBH98 with random distribution in the interval. To a reasonable person this is not relevant.”

Simply put neither you nor Dr. Ritson have any clue what Mann’s method actually does. The next step after calculating the PC1 is rescale the PC1 and apply that result in the regression step. The original scale of the PC1 means nothing. Dr. Ritson’s comment about the original scale is totally ignorant of the method involved. There is a reason we haven’t heard from Dr. Ritson in a very long time. He realized that the totally screwed up on many levels.

“GTTofAK said
"That Mann's short centered PCA selects and equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks simply does not matter to the final result. His method is insensitive to the sign of the predictor. "

Utter nonsense, this 'selection' was only a characteristic of the particular realization of red noise used in the very limited method test and had no bearing on the results when applied to the real data.”

The only utter nonsense is the argument you just made. Dr. Ritson’s claim was clear as day. There is an equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks and their aggregate is 0. This claim has been made by many others and is a totally ignorant statement that just proves and abject failure to even try to understand the nature of Dr. Mann’s statistical meat grinder. The fact that Dr. Mann for 3 years let these statements sit even on his own blog without correction knowing full well that is method was insensitive to the sign of the predictor, so positives and negatives do not average to 0, shows him to be a very dishonest. He has pushed claims of others that he knows full well to be wrong because they suit his objective.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

What you posted has absolutely nothing to do with ( McIntyre and McKitrick )'s complaint about noise making hockey sticks.

""The next step ""

There is no next step in what was being discussed which was the substitution of red noise for the proxy data and IT making hockey sticks.

Then you seem to be completely unable to grasp that this experiment with red noise has absolutely NO bearing at all on the results when
the original proxy data is used and processed as claimed.

Please do explain in detail to this poor clueless wanna be engineer what you are talking about.

""There is an equal number of positive and negative hockey sticks and their aggregate is 0""

It only refers to the noise experiment and actually proves the method used to be unbiased in a statistical sense "unbiased estimator"

""
The next step after calculating the PC1 is rescale the PC1 and apply that result in the regression step. The original scale of the PC1 means nothing
""
Yes that is true but irrelevant. PCA attempts to isolate a common signal in a group of signals and it makes total sense to normalize their variance
and subtract their mean before inclusion. Why do you think otherwise.

Do try to break from skeptic tradition and post coherent and well explained thoughts that flow together to make a good case.
I know I am not as smart as you so I will admit you post seems like strung together bits of emotional persuasion.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Then you seem to be completely unable to grasp that this experiment with red noise has absolutely NO bearing at all on the results when the original proxy data is used and processed as claimed." ... you mean you can't appreciate that if the temperature data is replaced with a noise input and this is processed and produces a hockey stick, then it's the analysis method creating the hockey stick, not the input ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"There is no next step in what was being discussed which was the substitution of red noise for the proxy data and IT making hockey sticks."

You are proving more and more that you don’t know what you are talking about. There definitively is a next step in Mann's method. He rescales the PCs then runs that into the regression. Dr. Ritson’s claim that the hockey sticks were too insignificant misses this step. Once the a red noise PC1 is scaled using Mann's method it is very significant. Dr. Ritson missed a step because he obviously did not read either paper.

"Then you seem to be completely unable to grasp that this experiment with red noise has absolutely NO bearing at all on the results when the original proxy data is used and processed as claimed."

That doesn't even make any sense. Red noise matters because red noise also produces hockey sticks. So hockey sticks are an artifact of the method. As M&M showed quite easily the method will mine the data for hockey stick series. As long as some hockey stick or sticks exist in the data sets a hockey stick will dominate the reconstruction. Inability for a method’s output using the data to be distinguishable from its output using noise falsifies the method. This is what R2 verification is.

“Yes that is true but irrelevant. “

What the hell? Your first sentence said that there is no rescaling “There is no next step”. Now you say that yes there is a rescaling, in the same post no less.

“PCA attempts to isolate a common signal in a group of signals and it makes total sense to normalize their variance and subtract their mean before inclusion. Why do you think otherwise.”

That is centered PCA. You just got done arguing that PCA doesn’t need to be centered, quite to the objection of those who developed PCA BTW. It also has nothing to do with Mann’s rescaling.

Your posts are getting more and more incomprehensible. You really have no idea what we are talking about do you?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

OK, I'll bite as one who isn't up to speed on most of this. Who are Mann, McIntyre, and McKitrick?

OK, well, Mann is a climate scientist, McIntyre is a Canadian mining exploration company director (?!), and McKitrick is an economist (?!, this stuff just writes itself):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McKitrick

OK, I need to fill myself in more on the hockey stick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controve...

The hockey sticks main inquisitors are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_In...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer#SEPP_and_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_con...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Enterpris...

...and the above Canadian mining exploration company director and economist.

Well, of course, there are a bunch of people who support the hockey stick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large-scale_t...

Why does it always have to be some oil industry lobby or Koch Brothers think tank that funds the skeptics or skillfully behind the scenes creates exaggerated controversy?

The science of global warming may not be the most clear cut science, but the best of the skeptics attempts to undermine it at times is simply, well, unscientific. In a few cases, they come off as just pathetic. I really tried to educate myself (Salby, satellites that aren't even in orbit yet, this hockey stick "controversy"), but as before I end up just shaking my head.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

who is more up to speed on statistical analysis, Mann or McKitrick ?

if you want to poke holes in the analysis that M&M did on Mann's published work, then challenge that. don't say "oh they aren't climate scientists so 1) they don't have a valid comment, and 2) they must be in the pay of "Big Oil".

as have as I know M&M didn't say "therefore there isn't any climate change" they just said "Mann's analysis, producing the hiockey stick, is crap". They addressed his statistical analysis, something they have an understanding of.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Mann is, of course, THE lightning rod of climate skeptics, but one of the reasons that he's STILL the lightning rod is that those that came after him are much more careful with their data and analyses, and are substantially less assailable, statistically. Mann's work is >15 yrs old, and that were the only thing to look at, then there would indeed be a host of issues with the state of the art.

However, there have been additions to the body of work, and they are all consistent with Mann's suspect work. For a nice, technical summary, see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stic...

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### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

surely if they (the subsequent studies) are consistent then there was an underlying "truth" in Mann's work, and M&M are just pesky theoreticans fussing over details.

or if essentially the same data has essentially the same things done to it and producing essentially the same result, consistently; and one of these is proven to be false, invalid, then are others are ...
a) false, invalid, or
b) true, valid ?

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

[quote="GregLocock"]2dye4- you are aware that Mann's hockey stick generating code is available and that you can repeat the red noise experiment for yourself? [/quote]

If he looked at the code he would also see the rescaling step of the reconstructed principle component to the observed principle component(measured temperature) plain as day. Not that he would ever understand it. This rescaling makes making Ritson's argument both moot and frightfully ignorant. He obviously read non of the supporting information before making his comment.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Not that he would ever understand it." ... now, now; play nicely.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Mann is, of course, THE lightning rod of climate skeptics, but one of the reasons that he's STILL the lightning rod is that those that came after him are much more careful with their data and analyses, and are substantially less assailable, statistically. Mann's work is >15 yrs old, and that were the only thing to look at, then there would indeed be a host of issues with the state of the art.

However, there have been additions to the body of work, and they are all consistent with Mann's suspect work. For a nice, technical summary, see: "

A shotgun approach to science is meaningless. If you set out to create a hockey stick you will probably create a hockey stick. Statistical analysis that starts at the conclusion and works its way back is meaningless.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

GTTofAK

"" Once the a red noise PC1 is scaled using Mann's method""

1 I don't find this method called out in MBH98 from a quick reading.
2 Ritson used PC1 ONLY to duplicate what McIntyre and McKitrick did to form their complaint.

from Ritson

"" analyzed them via short centered ( 1 Y). (m = 1 was used to bring our results into correspondence with M&M’s) ""

So it appears that it was really the two Mc's who got it wrong and Ritson was only responding to THEIR error.

3 Mann appears to use a number of principle components to do the reconstruction selecting them based on a least squares fit
to the calibration period. So where do you get the idea that they did otherwise.

Much of this criticism of MBH98 is secondhand, thirdhand.... N'thhand retelling of the story with errors added each time to suit the teller.

It makes it convenient for critics to regurgitate and sound like they know something so I want to look at the core of it.

One question I have.

Is there a significant difference between the methods outlined in MBH98 and those actually used. IE. coded up in the software
used directly for MBH98. Just so I don't waste my time posting first about the paper and then have to deal with complaints that
the actual method used was not that outlined in the paper.

Another question on second though.

"" He obviously read non of the supporting information before making his comment.""

What supporting information..Do you mean source code ??

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"OK, I'll bite as one who isn't up to speed on most of this. Who are Mann, McIntyre, and McKitrick?

OK, well, Mann is a climate scientist, McIntyre is a Canadian mining exploration company director (?!), and McKitrick is an economist (?!, this stuff just writes itself):"

McIntyre is a degreed mathematician with a specialization in statistics. He has used his statistical expertise in to make a good career in minning. McKitrick is an econometrician. I'm currently working with a group of econometricians to parse through years of 2 second power data. They are absolutely excellent at time series analysis and can apply their expertise to any field.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

The only argument more trite than the “pause” is the “hockey stick”. rb1957 has just nicely wrapped up the decade of squawking from skeptics in this one sentence:

#### Quote (rb1957)

surely if they (the subsequent studies) are consistent then there was an underlying "truth" in Mann's work, and M&M are just pesky theoreticians fussing over details.

Could not have said it any better (and certainly not with such brevity!).

(rb1957, with regards to your “or” statement, see Wahl and Ammann 2007 or Mann et al 2008 or NOAA Paleoclimate Reconstruction Network.)

On top of all this, the “hockey stick” is really just the “it’s natural” argument phrased differently. Again, if recent climate change really is “natural” then one needs to explain how all natural drivers should be leading to lower temperature and energy uptake, not higher. Since the 1950’s, Solar activity is down, volcanic aerosols are up and anthropogenic aerosols are up but global temperature has risen and OHC has increased, both at very quick rates.

By whatever metric you want to use, the climate is seeing a positive total energy uptake. But is this due to increases in incoming energy, redistribution of energy, “generated” energy or decreases in outgoing energy? Solar and aerosol trends lead to reduced incoming energy. Energy redistribution seems unlikely as geothermal flux is far too weak (flux of 47 +/- 2 TW = 0.09 W/m^2 compared to an extremely conservative TOA imbalance value of 0.58 +/- 0.15 W/m^2 or solar radiation at 341.3 W/m^2) and far too consistent (minor changes on geological timescales, let alone the past 50 years) (see Stein and Stein, 1992 or Davies and Davies, 2010) to explain the recent trends. Energy “generated” (really redistributed) by waste heat of human activities is even less significant at 0.03 W/m^2. It’s almost as if there’s a decrease in outgoing energy. Hmmm….

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"GTTofAK

"" Once the a red noise PC1 is scaled using Mann's method""

1 I don't find this method called out in MBH98 from a quick reading.
2 Ritson used PC1 ONLY to duplicate what McIntyre and McKitrick did to form their complaint.

from Ritson

"" analyzed them via short centered ( 1 Y). (m = 1 was used to bring our results into correspondence with M&M’s) "

Yet more proof that Ritson is an ignorant boob who didn't read the papers or any of the supporting material before making his comment. M&M carried their PCA all the way to PC4. So m=1 is wrong on its face. He clearly never read any of the papers or supplementary materials. Almost everything Dr. Ritson says from the number of PCs used, to what PCA is sued for is on its face wrong. That man is clueless.

I don't know why you keep trying to publish this turd. There is a reason we haven't heard from Ritson in almost a decade. Everything he said in his comment was wrong.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Solar activity is down"

Turn a gas stove to high, put a pot of water on it, heat for 2 minutes. Lower to 7 continue to heat. Does the pot stop warming?

Seriously are we engineers?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""Turn a gas stove to high, put a pot of water on it, heat for 2 minutes. Lower to 7 continue to heat. Does the pot stop warming?""

It certainly could.

Do you have a point ??

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

No it could not. The only thing that will stop the pot from warming is phase change to gas, boiling.

The arguments being posted here by you and rconnor are not arguments designed to convince engineers and other scientifically educated people. They are arguments designed to fool laymen who dont know any better. They are propaganda for the masses nothing more.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""No it could not. The only thing that will stop the pot from warming is phase change to gas, boiling.""

Is it possible you are pulling our leg..

Surely you could imagine a state where " 7 " is not enough heat transferred to boil the water.

My stove goes all the way up to 100. So 7 is quite low. I bet you don't have a stove that goes as high as mine..

In case you are serious spend more time looking in the mirror before casting insults about knowledge.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Really we your argument is going Spinaltap.

You aren't even trying to make reasoned arguments anymore. You are just trolling.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

2dye4,

I think he was joking. For his analogy to work the sun would have to be “off” (i.e. the earth would have to be receiving no energy from the sun) prior to turning to “high”. Furthermore, for this analogy to work, the earth would have to be continually warming until it approached the temperature of the sun. He’s far too strong a debater to use such a comically bad analogy, so I’m pretty sure he said it sarcastically as a joke. Made me laugh.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

No rconnor saying "I have a stove that goes to 100" is the joke.

And no you are dead wrong. I think you are assuming that the earth's climate has no lags and is always at equilibrium temperature which is profoundly ignorant. Im sorry I work in the real world, everything is lagged.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

So to salvage your analogy you'd need a some magical 50+ year lag between Earth's energy balance and solar activity, that all but washes out any correlation over that 50+ year period, that never existed before. Please do explain how this works! You may use this graph, from the Stanford Solar Center, for reference (most folks here are getting tired of seeing it but I figure you may not have):

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""
Yet more proof that Ritson is an ignorant boob who didn't read the papers or any of the supporting material before making his comment. M&M carried their PCA all the way to PC4. So m=1 is wrong on its face. He clearly never read any of the papers or supplementary materials. Almost everything Dr. Ritson says from the number of PCs used, to what PCA is sued for is on its face wrong. That man is clueless.
""

The two Mc's absract.

""
The ‘‘hockey stick’’ shaped temperature reconstruction
of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) has been widely applied.
However it has not been previously noted in print that, prior
to their principal components (PCs) analysis on tree ring
networks, they carried out an unusual data transformation
whichstrongly affects theresulting PCs.Theirmethod,when
tested on persistent red noise, nearly always produces a
hockey stick shaped first principal component (PC1) and
overstates the first eigenvalue. In the controversial 15th
century period, the MBH98 method effectively selects only
one species (bristlecone pine) into the critical North
American PC1, making it implausible to describe it as the
‘‘dominant pattern of variance’’. Through Monte Carlo
analysis, we show that MBH98 benchmarks for significance
of the Reduction of Error (RE) statistic are substantially
under-stated and, using a range of cross-validation statistics,
we show that the MBH98 15th century reconstruction
lacks statistical significance.
""

Now who didn't read the relevant material -> GTTofAK maybe ??

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
rconnor,
You keep rolling that same tired graph out. Look at it. CO2 data from before 1960 gets so very smooth. That is kind of an indication that the granularity dramatically changed in 1960. They pretty much made that data up to fit a script.

How rigorous were the sunspot counts in 1860? Did they have the same threshold as today? There is no way to tell. This is just like the dramatic increase in Atlantic hurricanes after 1994--prior to 1994 they counted hurricanes that made landfall. After 1994 they started counting the occurrence of rotation, and every few years after that the instruments used to detect the onset of rotation improved and more rotating storms were counted. It doesn't mean that there really are more, just that the definition has changed. Same with sunspots.

And then there's global temperature. In 1860 there were not very many high quality weather stations, and those that did exist had analog instruments that were read by people with varying interest in reducing uncertainty. But still the authors of the graph put that data on -0.4 to +0.4 C scale. The chance of that data being read to ±1 C is exceedingly small, reporting it a couple of orders of magnitude finer than it was recorded is just dishonest.

I am so sick of that particular piece of creative writing that I could spit.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

this has gotten past silly.

Mann published the original article. M&M analyzed it and found it wanting. Ritson et al critiqued the critique. and so it goes.

some accept Mann and his supporters; others accept M&M. in both camps the other is an anathema. and so it goes.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
I'm in a similar discussion in the comments under my paper at ENGINEERING.com an one of the pro-ACC guys was singing the praises of Berkeley Earth Project being able to get to raw data. So I looked. Here is an example of their "raw data" Annual Data[/img]. These guys have spent years and many millions of dollars to "fix" the data in many of the world's data repositories.

Look really hard at the variability in 1850 on the Berkeley data. -1C to +0.3C. That is a bigger range than you entire cartoon allows.

I have never once claimed any particular relationship between sunspots and temperature. I would not be surprised if there were one, but I think we are drawing conclusions form data made up to fit an agenda. What I said above is

#### Quote (zdas04)

How rigorous were the sunspot counts in 1860? Did they have the same threshold as today? There is no way to tell.
You say that the theory was not fully developed until 1948, what standard was used to identify a sunspot in 1860?

My response to him was:

#### Quote (David A Simpson)

Interesting link. I especially like the almost honesty in the statement "Whenever possible, we have used raw data rather than previously homogenized or edited data" I say "almost" because they don't really say if "possible" was 99% or 1% of the time.

Glad to see that they are finally flagging "dubious data" instead of overwriting it with "corrected" data like was done on the datasets that they are accessing.

There are still editing fingerprints in statements like " in a significant number of cases the presence of pre-existing data manipulations inhibited our tests for data duplication"

Don't get me wrong. These guys look to have done a fantastic job at trying to back out the sins of the past, but when you start with highly manipulated data, trying to back out ALL the nonsense is actually impossible. They did not "get the raw data from weather stations around the world". They went to the data stores and tried to identify and eliminate the more egregious data manipulations of the past.

This entire tedious discussion is predicated on pure belief in the Nintendo games that scientists have played to support their tenuous hypothesis.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I can't believe that pasting the same graph 3 times in the same post is anything other than wallpapering. Try shouting instead, see what that gets you.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
It has three lines. Just be happy it didn't have a dozen lines.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""Look really hard at the variability in 1850 on the Berkeley data. -1C to +0.3C. That is a bigger range than you entire cartoon allows. ""

Would you mind taking a stab at an explanation as to why this matters at all..

Take a segment of data in this range and calculate the mean and variance.

Then calculate from this the probability that the same process would exceed two standard deviations above this mean
*continually* for half a decade ( which it does from visual inspection of the graph at the end of the series).

""This entire tedious discussion is predicated on pure belief in the Nintendo games that scientists have played to support their tenuous hypothesis. ""

Hey GTTofAK if you are still here. Isn't this above quote some sort of latin enumerated logical error.

BTW Zdas where did you meet GTTofAK.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

(OP)
2Ddye4,
The reason it matters is that the Berkeley data is still highly processed (but is making an attempt at honesty) and shows a lot more variability than the cartoon. The wallpaper cartoon is taking some version of this highly processed data and smoothing it temporally and in magnitude and then taking moving averages of the processed data. This is the equivalent of plotting inconvenient data on 5 decade log-log paper in college. It implies less uncertainty than the data supports. I think the Berkeley data also shows less uncertainty than the data supports, but they are making an effort at cleaning up the sins of the past (while doing little about today's sins).

First I ever heard of GTTofAK was in this thread, but I admire his tenacity in the face of personal attacks from adherents of the religion of ACC who have nothing new to say beyond "The high priests have spoken, thus it is so" and "the magical model sees all and knows all, don't disparage the Oracle".

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""Berkeley data is still highly processed ""

Meaning what ?? Should it be unprocessed or lightly processed , just how processed should it be.

""highly processed data and smoothing it temporally and in magnitude and then taking moving averages of the processed data. This is the equivalent of plotting inconvenient data on 5 decade log-log paper in college
""

I am sorry to inform you but this is gibberish. meaningless in a mathematical or logical sense. I know you feel strongly about this but you cannot
sway opinion in this engineering forum until you express your doubts in the language of mathematics with support.

""First I ever heard of GTTofAK was in this thread, but I admire his tenacity in the face of personal attacks from adherents of the religion of ACC who have nothing new to say beyond...
""

Shall I go back in this thread and count personal attacks made by GTTofAK and others to form a score.

I admire any skeptic who raises issues and is prepared to back them up with mathematics. But I feel disdain for those who throw up
*ISSUES* without any ability to discuss them within the depth they pretend to have knowledge.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Excuse me Wolf Numbers were 1848, not 1948. That was a typo on my part (but you would have known that had you bothered to read the reference).

And GregLocock, I admit, the sole purpose of reposting the image 3 more times was just to "poke the bear", so to speak. (By the way, are you ever going to offer a defense to your whole "it's natural" argument? Or, just like the "pause", are you going to ignore my debunking and then re-bring up the same, undefended, argument again and again?)

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

'Poking the bear', aka trolling?

So far there are more than 30 possible explanations of the pause, sounds like a lot more people are working on this than would be justified if it had actually been debunked in their minds. Given that if it is associated with ENSO then it might continue for 30 years then there will be many more theories in the future no doubt, all as unfalsifiable as the ENSO one in any realistic timeframe. If I had to take a punt I'd say the long term >100 years errors are driven by cloud cover, and the short term ones 1-50 years by ocean currents, but I haven't looked at all the hypothesese, there may be better ones.

The UK met office certainly treats the pause as a real thing

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_r...

Cheers

Greg Locock

New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

If you have interest in this subject try reading the op-ed piece in the Saturday WSJ.

Climate Science Is Not Settled
We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy, writes leading scientist Steven E. Koonin
http://online.wsj.com/articles/climate-science-is-...

As Mr. Koonin has worked in this field for decades he has some well informed comments.
I won't try to summarize here, he does a much better job than I could.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Plymouth Tube

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"As Mr. Koonin has worked in this field for decades he has some well informed comments." not so sure you can make this statement, based on the article (i haven't googled him to see what he's published) ... "My training as a computational physicist—together with a 40-year career of scientific research, advising and management in academia, government and the private sector—has afforded me an extended, up-close perspective on climate science. Detailed technical discussions during the past year with leading climate scientists ..."

mind you i agree with the sense of the article, it's clearly a counter-point to the UN meetings this week.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""The science is urgent, since we could be caught flat-footed if our understanding does not improve more rapidly than the climate itself changes.""

Yet not urgent enough to enact caps on fossil fuel waste I would guess.

Wikipedia says

""In 2004, Koonin joined BP plc serving as their Chief Scientist where he was responsible for guiding the company’s long-range technology strategy, particularly in alternative and renewable energy sources""

Koonin says

""Although the Earth's average surface temperature rose sharply by 0.9 degree Fahrenheit during the last quarter of the 20th century, it has increased much more slowly for the past 16 years, even as the human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen by some 25%. This surprising fact demonstrates directly that natural influences and variability are powerful enough to counteract the present warming influence exerted by human activity.""

Seems like he believes in the trend otherwise there would be nothing for the ""natural influences and variability"" to counteract.

Isn't it reasonable to assume that ""natural influences and variability"" are zero mean processes over long periods of time, otherwise they would likely have run off in magnitude and destroyed life on Earth. If so then these natural phenomena are only masking the pain.

Amazing we are having this wildly heated debate over nothing more than conserving a limited resource.

Question: How many would be happier with direct government mandated limits on emissions, no market, no flexibility, just jail time and property siezeure of offending facilities.
Or any other solution that limits fossil fuel usage for crankys sake.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Amazing we are having this wildly heated debate over nothing more than conserving a limited resource." ... no, we're not.

we're not debating whether we should conserve FF, or be more efficient in using them. in fact many carbon sequentration methods make our energy extraction less efficient (because they're focused on limiting CO2 and not the efficient use of FF).

the debate is about whether AGH are significantly affecting the climate today.

to me it makes no sense to limit CO2 creation in the first world (NA, Europe) and let the developing world (China, India) "have at it". Developing countries want (need?) cheap energy to expand and develop (and maybe sometime in the future we'll all have access to clean water?).

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

Isen't it strange that the more laws we enact, the more theves and crooks we have?

This is the same problem we have with enforcing the drug laws. Not that I want to open that subject, but to make a compairson. The more laws, the more need for taxes to enforce those laws. And reductions in our freedom.

And it's the little things, like it takes me longer to drive the last 5 miles to work, than it does the first 15 miles. The difference is sitting at stop lights burning fuel for the sake of traffic calming.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"How many would be happier with direct government mandated limits on emissions, no market, no flexibility, just jail time and property siezeure of offending facilities." ... humm, that political system has been tried ... don't think it turned out that well ...

"Or any other solution that limits fossil fuel usage" ... you want to impose rationing ? the "best" way we have to limit usage is price.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

""to me it makes no sense to limit CO2 creation in the first world (NA, Europe) and let the developing world (China, India) "have at it". Developing countries want (need?) cheap energy to expand and develop (and maybe sometime in the future we'll all have access to clean water?).""

Let me see if I understand. We should be unwilling to give up luxury consumption in the first world because the developing world needs to build infrastructure.

How much sense does it make to the developing world to limit their own wasteful usage if the first world will not set an example.

France, UK, Germany, Japan, Spain, Switzerland all first world countries with a little more than half the USA per capita fossil fuel usage.
Is it really so hard living in these places that are starved of energy..

The argument that we would deprive developing countries of clean water is just a bogus straw man distraction, nobody is proposing any such thing or they shouldn't be.

We could use a LOT less and not miss it once we adapted to the change.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"" you want to impose rationing ? the "best" way we have to limit usage is price.""

Exactly , no argument there. But how without everyone howling about a government conspiracy and socialism.

Down at the root of many skeptics feelings seems to be the big bad ole guvurnment taking their money without just cause, and to be sure we do have to
watch the government carefully but what method would modify price that does not include the bad ole guvernment.

A big step would be to find some way to restore journalism in this country. We haven't had any for decades.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"The argument that we would deprive developing countries of clean water is just a bogus straw man distraction, nobody is proposing any such thing or they shouldn't be." ... sigh, that wasn't a "straw man" ... it was meant (as it was written) as an indication of becoming more developed.

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

I can't believe this thread is still going on.

Now that I have some free time (been very busy the past month) I'll hit back at rconnor.

No, I'm not being over emotional. You're leading the way down a rabbit hole of bad science that is going to burn the entire environmental movement once it's exposed. And in a decade, if you're honest with yourself, you'll look back on this thread and realize that you too heavily dismissed what was obvious.

#### Quote (rconnor)

Firstly, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles are expected to increase. More electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles plugging into a cleaner power source than the status-quo power source will further reduce emissions. So that is far from "completely made up".

Yes it is, because the EPA fact sheet didn't account for that, when it made its prediction.

#### Quote:

Secondly, your repeated appeals to argue in some imaginary vacuum world where actions have no secondary impacts is growing stale. The world, especially the developing world, needs to see that the most powerful country and historically the biggest polluter (now 2nd largest) is taking climate change mitigation seriously.

You need to freeze, and stop, and think.

If it takes us 8 billion dollars to avert 0.02 degrees of warming, then it's going to take some other country another 8 billion to avert another 0.02 degrees. That's not 8 billion for 0.04 degrees of rise averted, it's 16 billion. If we want to avert 1.25 degrees of rise, it will take half a trillion dollars from someone, or some combination of someones. And that's half a trillion dollars that again could have been spent in conservation instead.

Just like in the science, the policy justifying this insane spending for such tiny gains only makes sense when you cheat on the control volume.

Your entire argument that "showing the rest of the world we're doing X" will cause them to do X, could apply to conservation just as easily. We could buy and preserve 75,000 square miles of rain forest, and then another developed country could preserve another 75,000 square miles of rain forest instead of doing their 0.02 degree CO2 mitigation project, etceteras. We'd have every rain forest in the entire planet permanently preserved for a fraction of the cost of half a degree of warming mitigation.

Do the math.

Fourthly, you really don't see there being any political or economic issues with the US spending $8 billion to prevent any forestry or agricultural or urban growth in the entirety of South America? Really? "We'd own it"? Every inch of forest in South America? No political issues? No economic qualms? In fact, it would be welcomed by the South Americans? Really? I guess maybe in this magical vacuum world this would be a serious alternative. If your plan is to save the world by letting South America burn all the rain forests down while monkeying about with phantom carbon taxes, then your plan is dead as fried chicken. #### Quote: If you feel that the ACC theory is destroying support for forest conservation, then why does the Woodland Trust's website say "Planting new native woods in the UK increases the size of the carbon "sink", helping to mitigate the effects of some of our greenhouse gas emissions"? Because you goddamn carbon freaks have hijacked all of environmentalism, so the only way they can get any play is by claiming to be a carbon sink. That's why. Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming Meanwhile the UN is is declaring a WOFF. it'll be interesting to see them take on China and India and persuade them to cut down on coal. Popcorn and beer recommended. Cheers Greg Locock New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming I have some problems with zdas04 article. First, this argument: Man's track record at being able to manage nature has been horrible. We want to stabilize a river bank so we bring in foreign species of plant, the new species pushes out the native species and becomes invasive. We bring in a beetle to attack the invasive and it spreads out of control to the native plants, etc. We eradicate the large predators from Yellowstone, and life is so easy for the deer, elk, and moose that they congregate near the rivers, destroying the vegetation that stabilizes the river bank, clogging the pristine mountain streams with mud. We fight fires and create an abundance of fuel that turns "just a fire" into a "fire catastrophe". ... is basically correct: Time and again, someone screwed up trying to manage nature. But digging and drilling up every bit of available carbon and adding it to the athmosphere is also 'managing nature'. Just in a totally unplanned way. There's a connected issue in the article: You (zdas04) say that models can't prove anything. We are talking about probable future events. If you rule out modeling out as a base for decisions, what base have you left? But what would it take to convince you? Your guess is: If we fail to respond to ACC, and ACC is a real threat, then the result will be environmental change that engineers will be in the forefront of the efforts to adapt to. If ACC is not actually changing the climate, then sunspots, the Yellowstone Caldera, falling stones from space, or space aliens will create change that engineers will have to rally to combat. So the model in your head says environmental change due to ACC will be managable (if it happens). This is of course not proovable, just as I can't prove that it's wrong. The model in my head says that the adaption to global warming will be hard, given 'our' track record of managing nature. Where do you take your optimism from? ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming I can't answer for zdas, but my optimism comes from a) the sensitivity of the global surface temperature to CO2 seems to be falling, as it is more rigorously analysed, away from the funny numbers that were being used to scare people back down towards the number you'd expect from lab measurements. b) therefore the expected temperature rises due to CO2 are rather small c) small increases in average global surface temperature are generally good news for human beings. 2 deg C would be fine, according to the IPCC. Yes, there would be some locally bad effects, but these are outweighed by the good ones. d) all things being equal a prosperous world can afford to build more seawalls and other rather more necessary works than a poor world. and of course no amount of ringing of hands and weeping and wailing by the rich and fat will affect the nasty truth that neither China nor India intend to do anything other than build more power stations to burn more coal at a rate that more than compensates for any token actions in the first world. Detachment is not apathy, as somebody said recently. Cheers Greg Locock New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming (OP) MartinLE, Sorry, I am on a hiatus from discussing this topic. The answers to all of your questions are in the 200+ posts I've made in the various threads on this topic. David Simpson, PE MuleShoe Engineering In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming While there is much that I disagree with in GregLocock's last post, I'll focus on his first point regarding sensitivity. As he uses this as the basis of the rest of his argument, I feel it's a rather good place to start. Climate sensitivity is an important topic and rather than tack it onto this drawn out, jumble of a thread, I'll start my own thread discussing Lewis and Curry 2014 and climate sensitivity in general. I'd invite GregLocock and others to off their input as well. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming You mind addressing my 22 Sept post before ducking out? Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming #### Quote (rconnor) I'll leave your tired and weak argument with the following: we need forest conservation AND we need a clean power supply. I hope we can agree on that. I'll let you have the final word beej67 We’ve had enough back and forth. You continue to talk around my points (I noticed you didn’t even bother addressing my third point) and claim I’m doing the same to your points. I told you I’d give you the final word. You have and I have bit my tongue. I care very little that you so desperately cling to a single, non-reviewed study from a dubious institution and the lengths to which you stretch the conclusions are completely illogical and unsupported. The article was a (purposefully) misguided attempt to throw some mud against the wall, that was rightly never given the time of day in any serious settings. So I’ve said my part and see no use in addressing this point any further. ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming If we had infinite money we could fix all of the world's problems. We've covered that. The CATO article was not a single-non-reviewed study. It wasn't a study at all. It was a simple application of the same model the EPA is using. To discredit its results, you must also discredit the EPA. Is that what you're defaulting to, at this point? You cannot poison this well without also poisoning the same well you're drinking from. The point is of paramount importance, because the science is being used to drive policy. I want you to either support the current administration's policy of spending the available money on CO2 mitigation and ignoring conservation, or abandon it. When you choose whether to support or abandon the current administration's policy, I would like you to reach sideways to the healthcare thread, and remember the part where we both vehemently agreed that all politicians are bought. And then ask yourself what's driving the policy. Think hard. Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com ### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming See my third point, which you failed to discuss. The application of the model was done incorrectly (and I would say purposefully so). Furthermore, the conclusions you've chosen to draw from the incorrect and inappropriate application of the model are even more outlandish. To conclude that it costs$8 billion for every 0.02 dec C drop in temperature is just flat out wrong (…even if we ignore the fact that the 0.02 deg C/$8 Billion value is based on an incorrect application of the model). To conclude that you could have spent the$8 billion (...spread out from 2014 to 2050 by the way...) on conserving every square inch of rain forest in South American, such that the US would “own the freaking land” (your words), without any political, social or economic issues is baffling ignorant.

This will be the last I say on this topic.

(You believe that because politicians are bought, EVERY action they take is counter to the people’s best interest. I believe that because politicians are bought, it’s DIFFICULT to enact progressive policy that’s in the people’s best interest. Hence why so many politicians, deep in the pockets of the oil and gas industry, have an ideological rejection of climate science. And if you feel that the Green Lobby is more powerful than the oil and gas lobby, you’re kidding yourself. It’s the “science lobby” and the people that are pushing for climate change action.)

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

It does not cost 8 billion for every 0.02 degree drop. It costs 8 billion for that particular 0.02 degree drop. One might reasonably assume the next 0.02 degree drop would cost more, due to the law of diminishing returns, but I've given you the benefit of the doubt on that in my rain forest preservation comparison.

For you to think you can solve the climate problem without preserving the rain forests is a lot more baffling than anything else I can think of in this thread. Your position of completely disregarding it due to nebulous, unspecified, social or economic issues confuses me, especially considering the investment we'd be making in conservation would aid their economy, and set a precedent for other first world nations to do the same.

I'll help you out with that last bit. The lobby that's pushing carbon credits is Goldman Sachs. And yes, they do have money. They were given a big pile of it by the government, remember?

I'm pretty sure I've posted this link before, but it bares reposting..

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-grea...

also worth mentioning

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=d...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/11/03/b...
http://www.insidermonkey.com/hedge-fund/generation...

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

#### Quote (beej67)

For you to think you can solve the climate problem without preserving the rain forests is a lot more baffling than anything else I can think of in this thread.

...

#### Quote (rconnor)

This is not to say that forest conservation isn’t important

#### Quote (rconnor)

Forest conservation is incredibly important to minimizing climate change

#### Quote (rconnor)

But again, let me be very clear to you (as we share a lot of common ground), forest conservation is vital.

#### Quote (rconnor)

I'll leave your tired and weak argument with the following: we need forest conservation AND we need a clean power supply.

...this is why I really need to leave this topic.

(also, when have I ever advocated for Cap and Trade? I continually support revenue neutral carbon taxes, such as in BC. Here's where the money went:

#### Quote (rconnor)

...taxes raised by the tax (which dropped emissions/capita by 10% while GDP grew 3.8% (CANSIM tables 379-0025 and 379-0026)):
•Low Income Tax Credit – $195 million •5% Reduction in first two personal income tax rates (the poorest) -$235 million
•General corporate income tax reduction (12% to 11%) - $450 million •Small business corporate income tax reduction (4.5% to 3.5%) -$261 million
Source
)

### RE: One engineers perspective on global warming

"Lets do conservation too!" again?

#### Quote (beej67)

If we had infinite money we could fix all of the world's problems. We've covered that.

#### Quote (beej67)

The point is of paramount importance, because the science is being used to drive policy. I want you to either support the current administration's policy of spending the available money on CO2 mitigation and ignoring conservation, or abandon it.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

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