I only recently became aware how much worse red meat is than other meat for GHGs. The reason why this gets little attention is likely because it doesn't fit into the standard ideological division between meat-eaters and vegetarians. The reality for climate is that there's closer to three categories, not two: beef and sheep are worst, all other meats have half or much less than half the effect, and then vegetarian foods have less than half the effect of the other meats.
This is a simplification of course - here in the SF Bay Area, free-range cattle grazing provides an alternative land use to low-density sprawl in the hills, so I think that ranching has a positive climate impact. Still, the disparity speaks for itself.
Switching to vegetarianism can be a difficult change in personal behavior, but as someone pointed out in a presentation I saw this summer, getting chicken instead of beef isn't that big of a switch. The same presentation claimed a 20% reduction in GHGs from a "typical" Californian just by making the switch.
The policy implications of this are less clear. Getting an adequate price on carbon equivalents could sort things out in theory, but we're still from that day. Letting people know for their personal choices can help, and institutional food providers like schools should keep it in mind as well.
John Hockenberry who has got four Emmys and three Peabody Awards called David Titley up and asked him about the Cruz Pause and the Cruz Conspiracy. Now if you listen to the first part of the interview, well Hockenberry is a little unhappy with his long ago and former employer, NPR and the Cruz interview they put on a couple of days ago, with "a radio host". Peter Gleick was unhappy enough with the interview that he fisked it. Dave Titley, anger is not his style, but accepting nonsense is also not his style. Eli has transcribed the part of the interview about the sainted satellite temperatures:
The science, the factual components of this are several. One that the satellite is in fact not measuring temperature it measures basically microwave returns. It turns out as I mentioned in the testimony, it is actually not rocket science but it is a lot harder to convert that into temperatures. The people who have done that before have in fact had numerous errors, which had to be corrected by independent analysis. And as those errors are being corrected that satellite data in fact shows more and more warming.
But even if you say, accepted the data that Sen. Cruz presents at face value, he is actually averaging parts of the atmosphere that we know are cooling. The top of the atmosphere, the stratosphere is cooling, while the bottom is warming. So if you average, just anybody if you take +1 and you take -1 and add them up together, what do you get, you get zero.
Then he takes this very, very specific 18 years. He is very much on message with his 18 years. Why. Because he is starting from a point that we had a huge El Nino in 1998 and he is connecting it to today. So a question that you could ask Sen. Cruz is if there are these natural variations and you started from a very high El Nino its amazing sir that your data in fact does not show a decrease. If we were just having natural ups and downs this where a down would be. So why didn’t we get a down. Why have we had we have so many years, what is it 10 of the last 12 years of being some of the warmest on record. It doesn’t sound like no global warming, it sounds like we had a very high plateau and now 2014 and 2015 we are going back up the staircase again. That is how climate changes. It doesn’t change in a nice straight line you have ups and downs but the downs are now flat and the ups are really up.
Oh yes, Tamino has the radio sondes between his teeth and is chewing Roy and John's SST calibration up. Eli thinks, more and more, that something is happening with the AMSUs, maybe an aging effect to the receivers or the hot target. That is just a bunny's wild hare guess.
As somebunnies may have noticed, the CO2 is life, or plants or green line is being peddled by the denialati. It was the one line Will Happer remembered to peddle during the recent Cruz farago. Indur Golkany, beloved of Roger Sr. even wrote a paper about it that was peer reviewed (does that mean Chris Monckton? Why yes it does, and Happer even told Greepeach about it and how peer review works on his side of the aisle).
Bernard J has an excellent deconstruction of the Cruz four in the comments to a previous post. Suffice it to say he would rather discuss climate change with pond scum than Mark Styne but one point stood out.
The next time somebunny tells you between the 5th and 12th floor that CO2 is not a pollutant because we breath it out reply:
Right. There's a reason why we breathe it out... We also shit, and shit is also great for plants, but too much of it in too constricted an environment...
So the Cruz follies are on the air, feel free to add your comments
Christy, Curry, Happer and Steyn, with Dave Titley for the forces of rationality.
Christy and Happer are pushing for Team B. Conservative pushed Team B exercises has a long history of being wrong. Happer sounds shaken.
---------------------- UPDATE: He damn well was shaken
Steyn, well, Steyn is saying that Mike Mann is not a Nobel Prize winner. Tell Richard Tol. At this point he is on to the persecution of Exxon and that the science is not settled. Awfully loud, may be mike hugging
Titley is up now. As a former naval officer he starts with sea level rise, points out that risk management shows there is a serious problem putting theory and observation together. What do we know, that the earth's climate is changing, that it associated with greenhouse gases, that we can mitigate the problem. "If you wait for 100% certainty on the battlefield, you will probably be dead"
What to do. We are already paying the costs, New Orleans, Sandy, Alaska. Not some mid-tropospheric change in the atmosphere.
Decarbonization will happen, the only question is how fast. US must lead.
----------------
Cruz is talking to Happer, basically pushing that CO2 is good. Happer backs off pointing out that higher CO2 was 5 million years ago.
Cruz says that this proves that high CO2 not related to industrialization.
Pulls up Christy's chart (its using RSS but it is the same). It looks like TMT, not TLT (but has red line) Of course UAH 6.0 was adjusted to match RSS.
Cruz talks to Titley about the pause. Titley points out that unlike Christy he is not talking about the last 40 years.
Titley says what pause? Points out that satellite data has had major errors in it.
Cruz says that gee, no rise for seven years, etc. Titley takes his head off, pointing out that the argument requires end point picking (Ei's prediction Reps are going to stay away from Titley)
------------------------------
Peters points out that 97% of scientists hold the IPCC consensus position, as do major companies.
Goes to Titley about planning for the military and how there are always caveats but what sort of certainty will be needed. Titley says 97% is like great. Points out that intelligence evaluations deals with people who are trying to deceive us, but with climate we are dealing with physics.
Peters shifts to certainty that mission commanders have with weather forecasts. Titley points out that weather uncertainty can be framed in terms of risk. The other part of risk is impact management.
Peters asks about difference btw weather and climate. Titley says you live in weather, you plan in climate.
--------------------------
Danes Montanta (R) starts on coal jobs. Tries to middle btw coal and jobs and environment. Goes after EPA clean power plan. Interesting that he does not go full Cruz. Talks to Christy about impact on ghg.
Christy dons bleeding heart. Says war on coal is a war on Africa and Clean Power Plan will have no effect on GHGs. Mentions China under-reporting but not that China emissions have decreased.
Asks Curry about how the Clean Power Plan will stifle innovation. Curry looks under desk for an answer, finding none says we need more research. Finally comes up with you have to give people funding to fail to find good ones. This should go well with those who went after Obama for funding Solyndra.
-----------------------
Schatz (D) says, hey, maybe everybody else is wrong, but otoh, bet with the 97%. Points out that deniers are not funded much because everyone else thinks they are fantasizing. Gives a shout out to John Cook and SKS. Points out that there may be a quack out there who thinks that smoking does not cause cancel (down Russell), but please keep that one away from him.
Asks Titley to describe the GHG mechanism. Titley points out that that is cutting edge 19th century science. A bunch of old white dudes figured that out. Fast description of GH effect, and that while it is necessary, too much of a good thing is bad.
Schatz points to Titley's testimony on relationship btw ghg, temperature, ocean etc.
Steyn butts in. Says the 97% does not argue for action, uses term pro climate people. Who is against climate Eli asks. Says you need 100% agreement. Gliver, etc. Let's build the Dutch barrier around New York.
-----------------------
Cruz plays Galileo card.
----------------------
Next up is Udall (D). Cruz can't get his R colleagues to come to the meeting. Udall points out that this meeting is an attack on scientists.
Asks Titley if there is any time. Titley says that there is nothing as useless as the runway behind you. Points out that even Curry said that more research on energy is needed.
Asks Titley was he always convinced. Titley says that not always, because he comes from a weather model background. Uses initial value vs. boundary value point. When asked by CNO to look at this, like a reformed smoker, he saw all these independent lines of evidence.
Asks Titley if science has progressed. Titley says progress in science is not linear. Overall level of confidence in basic GHG theory has increased
----------------------
Another Democrat (Markey) If there was an R in the room it would have been his or her turn. Every Republican hates Cruz and won't show up.
Asks Titley about weather 2014 was record year.
Answer is yes. Senator turns to COP 21. Calls committee last redoubt of denial. Points out that the panel has 4 deniers and 1 scientist. Tells Titley that, unlike Galileo he will get his apology faster than Galileo.
Senator invokes Kennedy's race to the moon as a challenge. Says that as this was to meet the threat from communism, we now face a threat to our national security from climate change and need to meet is.
Happer Christy and Curry are sitting there like wooden indians.
Senator says that Climate Science sits on a foundation of 150 years of basic research. Republicans insist that this existential challenge is an illusion. It is time to stop this denial. Strong statement.
Martin lists the many signs of global warming and says that the Earth is in the emergency
Curry demands to not be called a denier. Steyn bigfoots. Curry talks about Antartica, rise in temperature. Markey points out that 2015 is warmest ever, that this warming may have variability but the trend is straight up. Steyn tries to bigfoot, finds that Markey knows more than him.
Steyn tries to say that it was cold in Plymouth Rock
Food fight breaks out on percentage of human responsibility
Titley playing the voice of reason (somebunny had to) points to IPCC report saying humans are responsible for vast majority of warming.
-----------------------
Bill Nelson (another Dem) asks about surface temp chart and relation to SST. Titley says that 90% of the excess heat goes into the ocean. Nelson asks what happens to warm water. Answer it expands. Nelson point out that this will increase sea level
Nelson starts talking about GoreSAT measurements of heat in and heat out as a future indicator. Titley points out that this would be basic physics
Titley describes problems climate change is making for military.
---------------------
Cruz starts with second round. Asks Curry about the statistical prob that 2014 was not the warmest year. Trying to make out that 2014 was not the warmest year. See earlier this year discussion.
Cruz gets into discussion about homogenization
Curry does not quite go there, retreating to natural variability. Happer is playing potted plant. Curry tries to say ocean temperatures are not well characterized, satellite data is the gold standard. Throws a wrench into Cruz by pointing out that going from emissions to temperature is not trivial.
Cruz invites Steyn to beat on the hockey stick and homogenization. Steyn picks up cudgel. For some reason Steyn is shouting. Beats on Gavin Schmidt for not standing next to thermometers. Gavin, of course is a juggler.
Tries to go after Titley for not talking about ISIS. Points out that there are a lot more Africans and that is the security threat. Does a Trump imitation.
Happer goes to cross calibration with sondes.
Cruz is not happy with https://www.barackobama.com/climate-change-deniers/#/
Curry agrees.
Curry says she has no federal funding. Interesting.
Cruz asks about AAAS letter. Curry says that Marsha McNutt has stated that the debate is over. This must not be allowed, we must have debate about whether the earth is flat.
Steyn says that statisticians think climate science is not very good. Lies about majority of engineers, physicists, etc not holding to IPCC consensus.
Cruz trying to corner Titley about which is greater climate change or ISIS. Titley says both.
---------------------------
Nelson points out that seal level rise in Bangladesh will cause a huge displacement and that is not a good thing. Nelson prepares dagger. How he respects Cruz, etc. Points out that the Rs. have tried to stake Mike Mann in the Serengheti, that the words climate change were outlawed, etc. When talk about muzzling of scientists on climate change, scientists actually had two Rs vote not to.
------------------------
Peters points out that the three scientists on the R side are way out of the consensus, Steyn is a political commentator. OK, says Peters, thats the 3, where are the 97.
Cruz has to sit there because there are no Rs to pass the gavel to. He must have to use the men's room.
Peters enters the report of the US Climate Change Program into evidence.
Peters asks Titley to deal with the problems of the satellite measurements. Titley says it's not rocket science, it's harder. No thermometers in space. Mispronounces microwave. Points out there are different frequencies which are mostly sensitive to different altitudes, but not entirely. Talks about number of satillites, etc. It is hard
Peters asks how climate models compare. Titley goes with George Box that all models are wrong, some useful. Says that GCMs are useful. Refers to the 1980 Hansen and Lacis paper which pointed to warming, but less than observed. Climate models are useful and they help us understand the future.
Peters asks about skepticism and peer review. Titley says that skepticism drives science, and how it sometimes changes orthrodoxy. Peer review is not a guarantee says that field is well summarized and manuscript is not off the wall.
Christy is chopped liver. Will he say something.
Peters asks Titley about natural variability. Titley says human impact mostly about GHG but also land use and ag. That fossil fuel burning is putting billions of tons into atm. Seeing rainfall. Atm cn hold more water. Temperature is melting ice. We have built human civilization on climate stability.
Titley says we can put our seat belts on and have a bumpy ride, or we can ignore the warning and have a very bad ride indeed.
Peters asks about higher CO2 in the distant past. Titley points out that then there were few (no) people. Plants do better, but so do weeds. There are ag thresholds, what about water cycle, there are huge issues of ag in a changing climate.
Peters enters studies by Long and Meyers about CO2 levels.
Peters enters Whitehouse speech to refute statements of Steyn
------------------------
Cruz gets ready to wrap up
Happer says, hey you use IR to measure temperature in the hospital.
Cruz tries to wrap up with a Gish Gallop.
---------------------
Send some whiskey to Dave Titley and some donations to the Democratic Senators.
For a moral argument about adaptation that mirrors what Eli was saying, ask Thilmeeza Hussain from the Maldives, on To the Point. When asked about how much funding the people of the Maldives might expect to deal with the impacts of climate change, she addresses the real issue:
I think we cannot put a price tag on people's lives. We cannot afford not to act on climate.
Yes, funding is important for adaptation, but no amount of adaptation can save the islands without mitigation. I think everyone, both rich and poor countries, need to look at what is at stake.
Maldives is known for its beautiful beaches and people of these islands have lived there in harmony with nature for over three thousand years, and they definitely don't want to trade their homes for some refugee camps. In Paris we cannot afford to be stupid quite frankly.
Really what is there to negotiate when it comes to climate? I really cannot comprehend the fact that we are negotiating. I think the world should be gathered around to find a solution. There really is nothing to be negotiated when it comes to climate.
I think only drastic and bold action needs to be taken when it comes to climate change.
There may be a bit of daylight between Eli and me on adaptation - I think it could be a bridge towards mitigation actions for people who are still shaking off denial - but she is right about the core issue.
So the forces of denial gathered together for a strategy session yesterday and played a mean game of climate bingo. They also didn't listen when a reporter for Open Democracy UK mentioned that he was a reporter and they let it all hang out. Eli will not steal the eyeballs from Adam Ramsey, but he simply notes that this answers the question of how arrogant are these people.
Monckton
suggested that they should accept that the greenhouse effect is real.
There was a fair amount of disagreement in the room. The chair said
“I'm trying to appeal to left wing journalists”. For a moment they lost control as a number of people shouted out their various
objections. The conclusion?:“The Greenhouse Effect – the
debate continues”.
And, of course, this is a good time to bring back global climate denial Bingo. Y3!!
The news has been full of Lamar Smith, Chair and Poohba of the House Science Committee fulminating about NOAA and his attempts to gangplank Tom Karl. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Times (fishrap whose time and sugar daddy has come and gone) Smith writes
NOAA often fails to consider all available data in its determinations and climate change reports to the public. A recent study by NOAA, published in the journal Science, made “adjustments” to historical temperature records and NOAA trumpeted the findings as refuting the nearly two-decade pause in global warming. The study’s authors claimed these adjustments were supposedly based on new data and new methodology. But the study failed to include satellite data.
Atmospheric satellite data, considered by many to be the most objective, has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. This fact is well documented, but has been embarrassing for an administration determined to push through costly environmental regulations.
Now this is very popular on the SKS list of denial as the El Nino driven SURGE is pushing global temperatures through the roof. Certain folk, including Congressman Smith, invoke the UAH MSU global temperature record as their gold standard. Yet anybunny looking into the matter knows of the serial screwups and the teeth pulling needed to get any information about the majic Spencer and Christy use to transform microwave intensity to temperatures and how it is hard to figure out what and where is actually being measured.
All is not clear in Alabama.
A friend of the Rabett Run knows quite a bit about MSU units and how Roy Spencer and John Christy have danced with the data.
He wrote a letter to Lamar Smith.
Eli thought reproducing the letter would be a public service. It is a bit long for a tweet, and, indeed some additional comments have been added at the end.
--------------------------------------------------
Rep. Lamar Smith,
Chairman House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
2321 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
RE: your Op-Ed 26 November in The Washington Times
Chairman Smith:
I read your op-ed with considerable interest. I’m a retired engineer whose work experience included several years in satellite design. As I read your article, my impression was that you do not understand the so-called “satellite temperature” data developed by Roy Spencer and John Christy of UAH. Allow me to provide some information.
The MSU series of instruments and the later AMSU measure microwave intensity from orbit, that is, from the top of the atmosphere. Theoretical work has been developed to support the claim that these measurements for each channel of the instrument correspond to a “bulk” temperature profile thru the atmosphere. When Spencer and Christy presented their first effort in 1990 (1), they worked with data from channel 2, which they still produce, (now labeled TMT for Temperature, Middle Troposphere).
However, in 1992 (2), they presented results which showed that the channel 2 data is distorted by emissions from the stratosphere, which has exhibited a well known cooling trend. For this reason, they proposed a modification of the channel 2 data, (now labeled TLT for Temperature, Lower Troposphere) which they claimed removed the distortion from the stratosphere in the MSU data.
The TLT computation begins with the 11 scan positions which the MSU produces for each swath across the ground track below. There are 11 positions, labeled 1 thru 11, with #6 being straight down (nadir). There are also 2 more positions at the ends of each swath, one viewing deep space and the other viewing a heated target which is monitored for temperature with two accurate resistance thermometers. The TLT algorithm actually includes only 4 of the 11 positions, throwing out 5, 6, and 7 and using 1, 2, 10 and 11 as a correction for the data from 3, 4, 8 and 9. Thus, the resulting TLT data can not be said to “ provide “complete global coverage”. Also, the data can only be provided between 82.5N and 82.5S, due to the inclination of the orbit. Spencer and Christy calculate a gridded data product including higher latitudes, which they calculate by interpolation, artificially extending beyond the range of available data.
The TLT algorithm is based on theoretical calculations, using a model of the microwave emission and adsorption at each pressure altitude added together from the surface to satellite altitude. Spencer and Christy have never publicly revealed the method they used to create their algorithm, which is rather curious, as the assumptions used may be critical. Some of the microwave energy in channel 2 comes from the Earth’s surface and the TLT computation adds more surface effects, thus the TLT is not a pure measure of temperature. As the MSU instruments are retired, newer AMSU instruments are replacing them and Spencer and Christy have created a different algorithm in order to include the AMSU data into the TLT. They claim that they are simulating the TLT from the MSU, again without specifying the method used to do so. They have continued this lack of transparency with the latest TLT (version 6), which Spencer briefly described on his blog, but which has not been published after peer review.
The important point to remember from all of this is that the TMT is not useful for measuring climate change and the TLT is highly theoretical. In spite of being aware of these limits, Spencer and Christy have presented the TMT in testimony to Congress, showing a comparison between the TMT and the results of computer simulations, both globally and over the tropics. What they don’t mention is that to produce their graphic, they have simulated the orbital altitude TMT measurements from the GCM results (3), using CMIP5 data from the KNMI Climate Explorer website (4). The model results from KNMI are monthly averages and include only temperatures at 3 pressure levels, the surface, 500mb and 200mb pressure height, as I understand it. The method to translate those monthly values into simulated TMT results remains an unpublished mystery.
Spencer and Christy’s claim (which you repeated ) that the satellite data does not exhibit as much warming as that from the surface is not surprising. The 13 satellites’ orbits take the instruments across each latitude at the same time of day with each orbit, the equator crossing times being nearly constant. The surface temperature record is usually an average of the temperature at a location, computed as an average of the daily low and high temperatures. This average will not be the same as the temperature measured at a fixed times of the day, say 10AM and 10PM, which the satellite might see over mid-latitudes. And, at the highest latitudes, each pass provides measurements half way between the equatorial crossing times, 3AM at one pole and 3PM at the opposite pole. At polar latitudes, the orbits overlap, giving multiple measurements during the day, which are summed into a grid box, while in mid latitudes, there are missed areas between the ground swaths, which exacerbates the lack of coverage in the TLT.
Twelve years ago, my curiosity led me to perform an analysis of the UAH TLT data, the results of which I published in a peer reviewed journal in 2003 (5). I found an apparent discrepancy at high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, which I suggested might be due to the effects of sea-ice. After my report, the group at Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) decided to exclude any coverage to the south of latitude 70S from their version of the TLT, their reasoning being that the high elevations over the Antarctic was distorting the measurements. RSS also excludes data from other regions with high elevations, such as the Andes and the Himalayas. I later performed an analysis using the TMT product, finding that these data did not exhibit the anomalous characteristic which I noticed in the TLT. These results have not been published, but can be made available on request. It would be of interest to see the result of a similar analysis using the latest version 6 of the TLT, though I am not likely to perform such an effort.
In conclusion, I think these facts provide very good reasons to discount the “satellite temperature” data when assessing the climate change resulting from mankind’s activities adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Best Regards,
Richard Eric Swanson, AAAS, AGU
References:
1. Spencer, R. W., J. R. Christy, Precise monitoring of global temperature trends from satellites, Science 247, 1558 (1990).
2. Spencer, R.W., J. R. Christy, Precision and radiosonde validation of satellite gridpoint temperature anomalies, Part II: A Tropospheric retrieval and trends during 1979-90., J. Climate 5, 858 (1992b).
5. Swanson, R. E., Evidence of possible sea-ice influence on Microwave Sounding Unit tropospheric temperature trends in polar regions, Geophysical Research Let., doi:10.1029/2003GL017938, (2003)
--------------------------------------------------------
Eli asked for and received permission to publish this letter and also got some additional comments in the return Email. The Rabett had asked about some documentation S&C had provided, housed at NOAA
-----------------------------------------------
As usual, I thought of some additions, such as a mention of the fact that the early satellites exhibited a drift in equator crossing time as well as orbital decay, both of which result in the need for corrections to the time series. And, as you know, there were several other problems found over the years as well, which further complicate the MSU/AMSU products.
I had previously seen some version of the MLT document in your link. That document deals only with the processing of the data, which is quite convoluted. However, there's no discussion of the derivation of the actual algorithm used to convert the data from individual MSU and AMSU scans into a single value for the TLT. Of course, S&C still fail to mention the impact of surface emissions, hydrometers and rain fall on their time series. I looked around and was reminded of 3 papers by Prabhakara, et al in Climatic Change from 1995 and 1996 on these issues. There were other reports as well, which raise questions regarding the validity of the TLT.
I think it's rather damning that Christy used the TMT in his committee presentation on 13 May this year. He appears to be completely ignoring the contamination due to stratospheric cooling.
Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid. The students are naive but great and the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional. His colleagues are smart, but they have a curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they occasionally heed his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.
Posts
