Jumping into the Klotzbach

As the innocent little bunnies may have observed there is a rather teapotish tempest going on about Roger Pielke Sr.'s work. For the most part the way science deals with stuff no one believes or cares about (pick one) is to ignore it, and a lot of what RPS has published fits into that category which irritates the old guy no end. Recently he and Jr. published a paper, Klotzbach, et al. which purports to show that there should be a significant (as in measured) difference between GLOBAL surface temperatures and those higher up. This would be a real difference, not an instrumental effect.

The idea is that nighttime inversion layers form near the surface limiting near surface cooling. As has been pointed out, first by Michael Tobis, the edifice rests on Pielke papers all the way down

That, of course, was only the beginning. Since then we have the prequel
e Pur Si Scalda - MT (8/3)

Enter the protagonists
Evidence that global temperature trends have been overstated - RPJ
Warm bias in the surface temperature trend - RPS at his "Climate for Dummies" site
New Paper Documents a Warm bias in the Calculation.... - RPS (8/13)

and the follow-on
Pielkes all the Way Down - MT (8/14)
Klotzbach in the Blogosphere - MT (8/17)
Evidence for Bias in Atmospheric Temperature Trends - JEB (in Stoat speak) (8/17)
An Exchange with Gavin Schmidt on Klotzbach - RPJ at his new lemonade stand (8/17)
Speeding through Haldane's Four Stages - RPJ (8/18)
Curiouser and Curiouser - JEB (8/19) where James swallows a Pielke and goes down the Rabett hole
The Global Average Temperature Warming Really Is Overstated - RPS (8/20)
The Paper “Heat Balance In The Nocturnal Boundary Layer During CASES-99″ By Sun Et Al 2003" - at the New Pielke Sr. Times
My Final Word on Klotzbach - MT (8/20)
Comment on MT's Final Word on Klotzbach - RPS (8/20)
Pathologies in Climate Science - RPJ (8/20)
PM05 Resolved - JEB
Pielke and Matsui Revisited - JEB (8/22)
Major Errors in James Annan's Post PM 05 Revisited - RPS (8/23)
Oh dear - JEB (8/23)
Comments on an Email Exchange with James Annan - RPS (8/23)
Does Gavin Schmidt Understand Boundary Layer Physics - RPS (8/23)
My Craven Rave - MT (8/24)
The Issue that James Annan and Gavin Schmidt Should Focus On - RPS (8/24)
A Bizarre Rewriting of History - JEB (8/25)
The Santer, et al View of The Importance of Error in the Surface Record - RPS (8/28)
Comments on a New Post by James Annan - RPS (8/28)
Scientific Arguments as Climate Science - RPJ (8/29)
Remarkable Admission by James Annan on Klotzbach, et al - RPS tag teaming (8/29)
But they Also Laughed at Bozo the Clown - JEB (8/31)

Well, now that the class has RTFR, Eli would like to drive a carrot truck through the procedings. As MT first, and later James, point out, Klotzbach's rests on Pielke and Matsui 05 which is connected to Eastman, Coungenour and Pielke, and so on.

Let us, as James did, get off at the first stop, Pielke and Matsui, 2005, which is an attempted refutation of Parker 2004. PM05 claims that there should be different trends in temperature records at different heights

Long-term climate trends of surface air temperature should not be expected to have the same trends for light wind and stronger wind nights, even if the trends in the boundary layer heat fluxes were the same. Parker (2004) segmented observed surface temperature data into lighter and stronger wind terciles in order to assess whether the reported large-scale global-averaged temperature increases are attributable to urban warming. We conclude, however, that trends at an individual height depend on wind speed, thermodynamic stability, aerodynamic roughness, and the vertical gradient of absolute humidity. We present an analysis to illustrate why temperature values at specific levels will depend on wind speed, and with the same boundary layer heat content change, trends in temperature should be expected to be different at every height near the surface when the winds are light, as well as different between light wind and stronger wind nights.

So Eli went and read the paper, which is really a thin thing that comes down to calculating the potential temperature profile at a height z (more or less quoting here) Δθ(z) for a "continually turbulent stable clear night boundary layer over a flat surface"

Δθ(z) = Δθ_s exp(-z/H_e)

where H_e is a scale length approximately equal to

H_e ~ a (V_RL)^0.75t^0.5

a is a constant, V_RL the wind speed and t the time from when the inversion is established (not quite, but close enough). Also

θ_s = Q_AK/H_e

Q being the cumulative heating. They calculate the profiles, lapse rates, etc for wind speeds from 1 - 10 m/s and different cumulative heating, but the rubber meets the road in that formula for θ_s.

Drive the wind speed to zero and you end up with a zero thickness scale length, an infinite temperature difference between ground and the layer a micron up. In other words, at some point this little model fails. It probably is not too bad for the upper range of the wind scale used, but, of course, in that case the scale length will also be larger, e.g. the layer thicker and the lapse rate not as extreme.

This calculation, borrowed from Stott's text, by itself is inappropriate for at least some of the conditions Pielke and Matsui are trying to model. Perhaps more kindly put, it may be right about the part of the system it is trying to model, but something is missing. The near ground lapse rates for windless conditions are too high and the scale height for the layer in contact with the surface too small. It is trivial (Eli does not do hard work) to reduce PM05 to an absurdity as a complete description of a real surface inversion layer and if it is not a complete description it is inappropriate and wrong as a refutation of the observation based work of Parker.

UPDATE: Having thought about this while watering the carrot patch, it must be that the estimate of the scale length H_e ~ a (V_RL)^0.75t^0.5 must have a minimum value and not go to zero when the wind velocity does. This basically means that the temperature differences between the 2 m surface temperature measurements and the satellite measurements are smaller than PM05 would imply.

Comments?

Getting Rudy's Back

The next latest issue of C&E News, house organ of the American Chemical Society continues the back and forth about Rudy Baum's forthright statement on climate change on which Eli has been making a reporting from the scene. There has been an intelligent response to the harumphing chorus. We start with something nice

I am writing to thank you for your editorial on climate change. I understand that you're being bombarded by the forces of ignorance, but as a climate scientist, I can assure you that your views of the science are spot on. Keep up the good work, and don't be intimidated by the screaming from those for whom politics matters more than science.
Andrew Dessler

something old

Readers who may be confused about the causes of climate change might want to read the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) summary report, "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate" (www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf). The title tells the story. . .
S. Fred Singer

something useful

Many chemists are skeptical about the science of global warming because it doesn't fit well with the frame of their chemistry mind-set. An example is the letter by Thomas E. D'Ambra in which he asks, "How many kilocalories of infrared energy can a ton of carbon dioxide absorb?" (C&EN, July 27, page 6). The question implies that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be insufficient to cause a change in the trapping (the greenhouse effect) of the outgoing energy by Earth's thermoradiation.
I encountered questions from professional chemists similar to this while giving presentations on global warming, and I was initially unable to come up with a satisfying answer. The basis of the question is legitimate: CO₂ absorption in the infrared region of the spectrum is weak on a per-molecule basis, and CO₂ is a minor component of the atmosphere, with a current concentration of 380 ppm (only 380 molecules out of 1 million molecules in air are CO₂).
Any person, particularly a skeptical chemist, would expect that, with the nonstop emission of thermoradiation from Earth's surface, all CO₂ molecules would soon be in the excited vibrational and rotational levels of their molecular energy states, and none would be left to absorb more outgoing energy. Hence, the greenhouse effect would be very limited.
However, CO₂ molecules do not exist alone in the atmosphere. The excited molecules can and do transfer their excess energy to other molecules and return to ground states and are therefore ready to absorb thermoradiation again. The transfer of the initially absorbed energy to other nonabsorbing molecules, called "quenching" in photochemistry, enables a relatively small amount of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ to continuously absorb the thermoradiative energy, which otherwise would escape into space, and to convert the radiation back to thermal energy that stays on Earth.
Therefore, the answer to D'Ambra's question is that an unlimited amount of infrared radiative energy can be absorbed and returned back to Earth by small quantities of atmospheric CO₂ and other greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect is continuous along with Earth's thermoradiation.
Jihong Cole-Dai

This time there are 16 letters supporting Baum's editorial and 4 opposed. Many of the supportive letters are quite blunt

After reading your editorials of June 22 (page 3) and July 27 (page 5) and the letters to you about the June 22 editorial, I am amazed. The level of illogical thinking and ignoring of obvious evidence in many of the letters is appalling to me. I expect such stuff in my local newspaper, the Seattle Times, but not from such a highly educated readership as yours.
It makes me ashamed of my profession (chemistry). But then again, it just drives home to me that even educated people who are talking about something that is not in their area of training and/or expertise sometimes act in strange ways. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with their religious outlook, their political leanings, or their paranoid ideas regarding conspiracies.
Your editorials were right on the mark. They contain some of the most concise and pointed discussions of climate change I have seen. . . .

Harvey F. Carroll

and how can Eli do anything but close with

Ouch! I think you got a taste of what it has been like teaching environmental chemistry in Utah.
Stephen E Bialkowski

Here we went again

UPDATE: MT asks why me? Eli points out that he quoted a major part of this proposed statement which asks the members to actively participate in professional education and discussion activities so as to be technically well informed about the latest advances in climate science and to engage in public education activities in the community, including at the local level.

The bunny more than suspects this is the result of shared experiences among the drafting committee. Contrast the GSA statement with that from the ACS or the APS. Now go read Only In It for the Gold where today Michael appeals to the scientific community

The scientific community has stood firm with climate science throughout, but this fact has had very limited recognition. The preponderance of evidence that CO2 accumulation must be not just slowed but essentially halted becomes more inescapable every year.

Yet many people believe exactly the reverse, largely under the influence of organized PR efforts intended to obscure the evidence.

Scientists have constraints on the time they have to devote to public communication and the ways in which they are expected to communicate. At present the most effective communication seems to come from a few climate bloggers, some anonymous, or from amateurs like Greg Craven or Peter Sinclair. These efforts only arose to fill a gaping vaccuum in professional communication.

However we got to this state, it has to be reversed.

You may connect the dots.
--------------------------------------------------

The Geological Society of America has a new draft policy statement on climate change which starts

The Geological Society of America concurs with key elements of recent assessments by the National Academies and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Global climate has warmed by ~0.7 °C since the middle to late 1800s, and human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. If current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twenty-first century will result in large negative impacts on humans and other life forms. Addressing the challenges posed by future anthropogenic warming will require a combination of national and international emissions reductions and adaptations to those changes that occur.

The details of the statement are a quite conservative statement of the science with measured policy recommendations, and importantly recommendations for members

To facilitate implementation of the goals of this position statement, the Geological Society of America recommends that its members take the following actions:

• Actively participate in professional education and discussion activities so as to be technically well informed about the latest advances in climate science. GSA should encourage symposia at national and regional meetings to educate members on mainstream understanding among geoscientists and climate scientists of the causes and future effects of global warming within the broader context of natural variability. These symposia should seek to actively engage members in hosted discussions that clarify issues, possibly utilizing educational formats other than the traditional presentation and Q&A session.

• Engage in public education activities in the community, including at the local level. Public education is a critical element of a proactive response to the challenges presented by global climate change. GSA members are encouraged to take an active part in outreach activities to educate the public at all levels (local, regional, and national) about the science of global warming and the importance of geological research in framing policy development. Such activities can include organizing and participating in community school activities; leading discussion groups in churches or other civic organizations; meeting with local and state community leaders and congressional staffs; participating in GSA’s Congressional Visits Day; writing opinion pieces and letters to the editor for local and regional newspapers; contributing to online forums; and volunteering for organizations that support efforts to effectively mitigate and adapt to global climate change.

• Collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to help educate and inform them about the causes and impacts of global climate change from the geosciences perspective. GSA members are encouraged to discuss with businesses and policymakers the science of global warming, as well as the opportunities for transitioning from our predominant dependence on fossil fuels to greater use of low-
carbon energies and energy efficiencies.

• Work interactively with other science and policy societies to help inform the public and ensure that policymakers have access to scientifically reliable information. GSA should actively engage and collaborate with other earth-science organizations in recommending and formulating national and international strategies to address impending impacts of anthropogenic climate change.

They solicit comments from members, and the word is out in denialsville, so if you are a member, go over there and put in your two cents, or whatever the dues are.

You would think that Michael Tobis had written the thing, but among the names Eli knows, Warren William Ruddimann (ear tip to JMashey) and Judith Lean are on the drafting committee.....Michael????

Eli the Prophet

Not so long ago, James Inhofe, Senator from the Paleozoic was heard to say about cap and trade

"Without participation from China and India, anything we do here at home would impose burdensome costs on consumers in the form of higher electricity, gas and food prices, all for no climate gain," said Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the panel drafting the Senate's version of the bill.

"Unless supporters of cap-and-trade legislation can develop a plan to convince China and India to make meaningful emissions reductions on par with the United States, no such bill will pass the U.S. Senate," he said.

Eli, of course, has been pointing out that India will be the first and hardest hit by climate change when the Himalayan glaciers disappear, the Ganges follows in the summer and the wells go dry. The Bunny pointed out that this means that India must lead. Indeed the key to solving the problem is that one of the world's great societies perceive climate change as the existential threat that it is, and nature has nominated India (China will not be far behind.)

A shoe has dropped

India has approved in principle new trading plans centered on energy efficiency as part of efforts to shift to a greener economy to fight climate change, opening up a potential market worth more than $15 billion by 2015. Energy efficiency is a key focus in India's national climate change policy, unveiled last year and which lays out a roadmap to a green economy but doesn't fix a target for carbon emissions. Officials said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday approved in principle the national energy efficiency plan, which puts in place new financial architecture chiefly centering around trading of efficiency certificates and the carbon market.

Remember young coneys, you read it on Rabett Run before it happened.

Who ordered that II

Back at the beginning of time, well, to be honest Rabett Run, but did anything exist before, Eli had two excellent rants (Rant I and Rant II) about textbook prices and the machinations of the publishers. With the new term, the new students, and the new higher prices, it is time to revisit the problem. As you may have noticed in the US when your kid goes to college, the price of General Chemistry textbooks new is threatening the $200 barrier.

Our text, Brown, LeMay and a couple of other authors added later, Chemistry: the Central Science, is OK. A good, middle of the road textbook. As a reformed physicist, Eli would prefer an atoms first approach but there are also chemists teaching the course. Recommended retail cost $194. You can do about $150 at Amazon. If you sell it in very good condition after taking the course, you get about $80 back. If a student buys it new at the college bookstore their net cost is $110, buy it at Amazon and the net cost is $70. Keep those numbers in mind. At this point Eli will scream, please put your sunglasses on:

ELI WANTS HIS STUDENT TO KEEP THEIR BOOKS.

You may take the sunglasses off now. Books on the shelf are a good trusted source of basic information. Having a small library is necessary for any educated person and one's college textbooks provide a wonderful basis. A house without books is a wasteland.

But, dear bunnies, let us look at this from the standpoint of the publisher. The current strategy is to make a maximum profit on each book. Since the people who order the books, the professors, don't buy it (see Rants), their is no restraint on prices. Contrast this with the K-12 market where the schools buy the textbooks. In that case the cost is pushed down to the limit.

On the other hand, in markets where students are free to buy their own books, the price is much lower. For example, the International paperback edition (you can only get the hardcover in the US) costs ~$80 list and you can get it discounted. That means that by selling the paperback in the US Pearson could kill the used book market and double their volume, not have the expense of putting out a new edition every three years or so, and very probably make more money and the students would, even on net, pay less and might keep their books.

At RSU, we have tried to approach this problem by contracting for a special edition which only includes the chapters we use and costs ~2/3 of the full edition. General Chemistry books are kitchen sinks, with every possible chapter because the absence of material near and dear to some professor could kill a sale. This also means that you need to lift weights to carry the thing to class (OK, it weighs 2.75 kg, but no one is going to carry it around). The resale value is not as high, but neither was the cost. We also had it bundled with a cut down lab manual (only the experiments that we do). We wish we could order the international edition for our students but it cannot legally be imported.

Make it so.

PhD. Mills


The bunnies were buzzing when they found out that they could get their degrees by Email rather than slaving in Rabett Labs. Over the weekend a scandal broke in Germany involving lots of faculty at lots of places who took money to take graduate students who went on to become Doktor Ret. Nat. This bites particularly over there because, while in most of the world, we Ph.D.s are entitled to all the rights and privileges belonging to the position, it doesn't even get you to the head of the food stamp line, in Germany there are some goodies.

As with everything in life, there were Doktor coaches who took the money and found the place and persons who would "help" along. The universities include some excellent places: Frankfurt, Tübingen, Leipzig, Rostock, Jena, Bayreuth, Ingolstadt, Hamburg, Hannover, Bielefeld, Hagen, Köln and the Freie Universität Berlin It looks like there were a minimum of 100 "helpers" in the universities, although most appear to be lower level, private dozents and adjunct (no cost) professors, who are allowed to teach courses and act as thesis advisors.

According to the Prosecuting Attourney in Koln those who bought the degrees probably can't be prosecuted, because they most likely would deny bribing the professors, but that doesn't get them out from under. Should it be the case that rules were broken to admit them to the doctoral programs or at the actual oral exams, there are clear sanctions according to the NRW-Education minister Andreas Pinkwart

According to the law governing universities, the misuse of an academic title can be sanctioned by fines up to a half a million Euros. Any Professors that allow a degree to be awarded for money or even makes it easier, can lose their civil service status (and pension -ER) and their position as university professor; a private dozent can lose their teaching license and position according to Pinkwart.

Only buy the best.

**There are positions in the US places where bought degrees have value, such as HS teachers where extra degrees bring extra $$ and yes, we have had our scandels.

$$Drawing from Pearls Before Swine, a Rabett Run endorsed addiction

Low and dry

Eli has been pointing out that India is in no position to oppose a climate change treaty as their country is the one most at immediate risk outside of a few South Pacific Islands. As the Himalayan glaciers melt, the drinking water supply for close to a billion people disappears, a point made to some derision by Al Gore, but repeated complete with footnotes in the WGII report of the IPCC.

Gore was careful to say drinking water and he said within the next half century. The IPCC said maybe by 2035, which is only 25 years from now.

It's worse than that folks. The Indians have been drawing down the ground water at a much faster rate than anyone thought as measured by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) instrument

We don’t know the absolute volume of water in the Northern Indian aquifers, but GRACE provides strong evidence that current rates of water extraction are not sustainable," said Rodell. "The region has become dependent on irrigation to maximize agricultural productivity, so we could be looking at more than a water crisis."

Yep

Smoke gets in Eli's ears

There have been interesting developments in the big smoke. To start with something old, Gunnar Myhre has narrowed the uncertainty for directs aerosol forcing from -0.9 to -0.1 W/m² to -0.3 + 0.2 W/m². This means that not only is the negative direct aerosol forcing less than previously thought but that the range is much smaller.

In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth AssessmentReport, the direct aerosol effect is reported to have a radiative forcing estimate of –0.5 Watt per square meter (W m^–2), offsetting the warming from CO₂ by almost one-third. The uncertainty,however, ranges from –0.9 to –0.1 W m^–2, which is largely due to differences between estimates from global aerosol models and observation-based estimates, with the latter tending to have stronger (more negative) radiative forcing. This study demonstrates consistency between a global aerosol model and adjustment to an observation-based method, producing a global and annual mean radiative forcing that is weaker than –0.5 W m^–2, with a best estimate of –0.3 W m^–2. The physical explanation for the earlier discrepancy is that the relative increase in anthropogenic black carbon(absorbing aerosols) is much larger than the overall increase in the anthropogenic abundance of aerosols.

Myhre compares results from observation based estimates of aerosol optical depth and those derived from modeling. The observation based estimates start with measured aerosol optical depth (AOD) or radiative emission. Estimates are made of the human contribution to the scattering. In the second approach aerosol models are used to estimate how humans have changed the amount and type of aerosol with radiative transfer models that calculate the forcing. Previously there was a significant difference between the two. A key assumption for the observational models has been that the nature of pre-industrial aerosols was the same as today but the amount has simply increased. Myhre observes that the black carbon component has grown roughly twice as fast as the other anthropogenic aerosols. When the observational models are corrected for this, they come into agreement with the model based estimates.

The much stronger increase in the anthropogenic fraction of absorption AOD than total AOD will to some extent be model-dependent but will be robust because of the much stronger growth in the BC emissions than the growth in the rest of the aerosols and their precursors. This suggests that the global annual average single scattering albedo of the aerosols has been reduced because of human activity. The global mean annual average single scattering albedo computed in the model for all aerosols at 5 µm is 0.986 at preindustrial conditions and 0.970 at present-day conditions. Thus, aerosol in present times is approximately twice as absorbing as that in preindustrial conditions.

The net effect would be to slightly lower the estimated greenhouse gas forcing since a higher aerosol forcing would have to be counteracted by a larger CO2 forcing. Watch the bounding ball.

The reverse iris

About ten years ago Richard Lindzen proposed that the climate system had an "adaptive infrared iris" which allowed more IR light to escape to space when the sea surface temperature warmed

“We wanted to see if the amount of cirrus associated with a given unit of cumulus varied systematically with changes in sea surface temperature,” he says. “The answer we found was, yes, the amount of cirrus associated with a given unit of cumulus goes down significantly with increases in sea surface temperature in a cloudy region.”

This is the finding that led Lindzen’s team to propose that the Earth has an adaptive infrared iris—a built in “check-and-balance” mechanism that effectively counters global warming (Lindzen et al. 2001). Much like the iris in a human eye contracts to allow less light to pass through the pupil in a brightly lit environment, Lindzen suggests that the area covered by high cirrus clouds contracts to allow more heat to escape into outer space from a very warm environment.

Other researchers found a weak positive feedback in the tropical Pacific, rather than the stronger negative feedback Lindzen claimed

That is, Lin found that clouds in the tropics do change in response to warmer sea surface temperatures, but that the cloud changes serve to slightly enhance warming at the surface. Specifically, whereas Lindzen’s experiment predicts that cirrus clouds change in extent to reduce warming at the surface by anywhere from 0.45 to 1.1 degrees, Lin’s experiment predicts that changes in the tropical clouds will help warm the surface by anywhere from 0.05 to 0.1 degree (Lin et al. 2001).

In the 24 July issue of Science, Clement, Burgman and Norris report a positive feedback in the NE Pacific.

Feedbacks involving low-level clouds remain a primary cause of uncertainty in global climate model projections. This issue was addressed by examining changes in low-level clouds over the Northeast Pacific in observations and climate models. Decadal fluctuations were identified in multiple, independent cloud data sets, and changes in cloud cover appeared to be linked to changes in both local temperature structure and large-scale circulation. This observational analysis further indicated that clouds act as a positive feedback in this region on decadal time scales. The observed relationships between cloud cover and regional meteorological conditions provide a more complete way of testing the realism of the cloud simulation in current-generation climate models. The only model that passed this test simulated a reduction in cloud cover over much of the Pacific when greenhouse gases were increased, providing modeling evidence for a positive low-level cloud feedback.

Opening the IRIS, might let more IR out, but it lets more sun in to warm the ocean surface also and this accounts for the positive feedback. A comment by Richard Kerr describing the result notes that

When the results were in, only two models showed low clouds producing a positive feedback as observed. One of them stood out from the pack. The HadGEM1 model from the U.K. Met Office's Hadley Center in Exeter produced patterns of warming and circulation changes during greenhouse warming that resembled those of all 18 models averaged together—the best guide available. The group also concluded that HadGEM1's simulation of meteorological processes in the lowermost kilometer or two of the atmosphere—where the key low-lying clouds reside—is particularly realistic. As it happens, the HadGEM1 model is among the most sensitive of the 18 models to added greenhouse gases. When carbon dioxide is doubled, the model warms the world by 4.4°C; the median of the models for a doubling is 3.1°C.

Worry and comment.

The Northeast Passage

Reuters: (saw this in German a couple of weeks ago)

Two German ships set off on Friday on the first commercial journey from Asia to western Europe via the Arctic through the fabled Northeast Passage – a trip made possible by climate change. Niels Stolberg, president and CEO of Bremen-based Beluga Shipping, said the Northern Sea Route will cut thousands of nautical miles off the ships’ journey from South Korea to the Netherlands, reducing fuel consumption and emissions of greenhouse gas. I had the chance to ask Stolberg a few questions about the Arctic expedition:

Eli took some heat from Fergus Brown about calling the sea route over the top of Russia the Northeast Passage. The Old Man has not posted since January, hope he is well. Anyone have news?

Things to be thankful for

Eli has been at conferences. At the next to last one he met an old friend who had recently retired from teaching, but is staying on for research. In his words "The day after I retired, I sat quietly in my office and gave thanks that none of my students or associates had ever been seriously hurt in my lab."

Female Science Professor comments on an assault in a lab that took place at night. It is dangerous to work in a locked lab alone because no one can see if you are lying on the floor gasping for breath, bleeding out or high as a kite on various organic molecules, and even if they could, they would have trouble getting in. This exposes you to assault and battery and worse. Locked buildings are no panacea either as the comments show. Someone mentioned that every lab should have a panic button, but the problem with alarms and panic buttons is that many times no one responds to the alarm. Respect for campus security is not high.

One place where this issue is no issue is government weapons labs. They log you in and out. You HAVE to log in if you are there late. If you don't you are liable to meet the local SWAT team. If you do, they check on you every hour or so. There is no chance that anyone will get in late at night without showing up on a sniperscope.

Most departments discuss this issue in the famous make sure that no one is recording what we say room. It is a real worry. Something like a panic button that really worked would be a great idea. And then Eli remembered that Mom Rabett, when she was living at home had an emergency response system, a panic button that she wore around her neck (when she remembered, Mom was a very active bunny with a lot to do), and which, when pushed would bring a response from the monitoring system operator.

Here is an example http://www.lifestation.com/

We all could use something like this when working alone in a lab and you only would need one or two for a group since if many people are working late they can cover for each other. They only cost about $30 a month. When activated, the service listens to what is happening and calls the police/fire/ambulance/pizza as needed

Comments?

Chilingar Redux

Werner Aeschbach-Hertig noted that Chilingar and Assoc. have committed self-plagiarism again, their twin papers, having gotten a triplet. He figures he ain't gonna get no satisfaction from the editors of various journals of last resort. What to do, what to do?

Interestingly there may be an answer. Turns out that like most places USC (the C is an emeriti there) USC has a bunch of IRBs and the IRBs have guidlines on the Responsible Conduct of Research. If you traipse over there they mention a few (see page 10)

Issues in Publication and Peer Review
• Redundant publication
• Unacknowledged self-plagiarism

which seems to match well with WAH's issues. He might want to drop a dime. There is even an anonymous tip line

Oh yeah, anyone have a clue about what the American Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences is? If you look at the triplet paper, two of the authors are

L. Khilyuk³ and M. V. Gorfunkel⁴
3. Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, American Branch, Los Angeles, CA, USA
4. Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, American Branch, Coppell, TX, USA

Evidently C is the President thereof.....

Comments?

This is gonna be fun

A notice flows into Eli's mailbox

If you are planning to attend the meetings of the American Chemical Society in Washington DC Aug 16-19, be sure to visit the booth of the Heartland Institute and sign up to protest the ACS statement on climate change. If you cannot attend and are a current or former ACS member, contact Dr Peter Bonk at peterjbonk@gmail.com

UPDATE: FWIW, Google be praised, Peter Bonk is Chair of the Small Chemical Businesses Division of ACS if anyone is interested on where this is coming from

Eli plans to stop by and discuss the issue with them. He thinks it would be a good thing to have a petition of support, but bunnies are not very good at organizing things. Now, as they say is the time to step up and let your opinion be known. You can find the ACS statement on climate change here. You can also send letters of support for Rudy Baum, editor of C&E News who is being Moranoed for committing the truth about climate change here

Chemical & Engineering News Letters To The Editor
E-mail address is edit.cen@acs.org.
Fax number is (202) 872-8727.
Or you can send your letter to:
C&EN Editor-in-Chief
1155--16th St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

As if this were not enough, we have news of another fun event at the Fall AGU meeting we have

U06:Diverse Views from Galileo's Window: Researching Factors and Processes of Climate Change in the Age of Anthropogenic CO2 Sponsor: Union

Convener: Sultan Hameed
Stony Brook University
School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

Willie Soon
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

David R Legates
University of Delaware

Description: Understanding the Earth’s climate and its ecological system requires knowledge that spans across an extremely diverse range of expertise in which no single person or organization can master or capture. Synthesizing the myriad of complex inter-relationships that comprise the Earth’s climate system requires an integrated assessment of the vast array of disciplines that affect and, in turn, are affected by, the Earth’s climate. Thus, our proposed session is open to all scientists who are interested in such a master synthesis. Invited speakers will discuss emerging progress in the key areas of atmospheric processes, oceanography, hydrologic variation, paleoclimatic research, biological processes, geological sciences, mathematical and computational sciences, and solar variability. The ultimate goal of this session is to contribute to the scientific discussion for the upcoming UN IPCC’s fifth assessment report which is due 2014. We plan to publish new results from this session.

and

GC07: Solar Variability and its Effect on Climate Change
Sponsor: Global Environmental Change

CoSponsor: Atmospheric Sciences
SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics

Convener: Nicola Scafetta
Duke University Dept. of Physics

Richard Willson
ACRIM

Description: Solar variability and its climate change significance are to be explored. We invite papers relevant to solar variability and its effect on climate on all time scales including theoretical and empirical papers dealing with: 1) total solar irradiance observations and proxy reconstructions, solar magnetic activity, solar cosmic ray modulation and solar activity forecasts; 2) solar variation effects on global and local temperature cycles and trends, cloud cover, precipitations, droughts, floods, monsoons and stream flow.

Eli and Ethon will be flying out to enjoy the denial fest. Among other things asking the right question can be .... useful. See you in SF. Remember, it only costs a few bucks to join AGU:)

Inefficient = Useful, sometimes

Essentially everyone has battery operated devices that they charge using battery cheaters. How about a small, inefficient solar cell pack or tiny windmill that you could hang out the window to charge them. It does not have to be efficient because the sun/wind are free and in most cases time is not an issue. You might even be able to cook something up that runs off the temperature difference between your attic and basement. Such things probably do exist. A market where they have established themselves is solar cell powered calculators (Eli's is about 20 years old).

Comments

As predicted (Update below)

Eli has always been pretty good at figuring out where the fruitcake will be deposited, so a couple of weeks ago when he pointed to an editorial by Rudy Baum in C&E News (the American Chemical Society house organ)

The science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established. The scientific consensus on the reality of climate change has become increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers (for brevity’s sake, CCDs).

We were fully confident that

Rudy Baum, editor in chief of C&E News (ACS's membership magazine) had a stemwinder of an editorial in the June 22 issue which will, without a doubt, encounter much snorting in the near future to be featured in Rabett Run.

UPDATE: Thanks to Big City, we have Baum's reply to Joe the Chemist reads in part

ACS, in fact, has an official position on climate change, which is easy to find under the "Policy" section of www.acs.org. The position statement opens with the following: "Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth's climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol particles (IPCC, 2007). There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change."

I am also struck by the contempt of many of the letter writers for the thousands of scientists who work for government agencies such as EPA, NASA, NOAA, and DOE. Their harshest vitriol is aimed at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many of the letters dismiss out of hand any report from IPCC or any U.S. government agency that supports the idea of human-induced global warming, calling such reports irredeemably "politicized." I am startled that they so blithely impugn the integrity of so many of their colleagues.

Baum also includes an interchange with a mysterious interlocutor, later shown to be one Steven J. Welcenbach. First we had Joe the Plumber, later shown to be Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher who was no plumber, now we got Joe the Chemist, who has a BA and runs some sort of disposal company. Joe's Emails are right out of denialdepot
--------------------------------------------------
And sure enough, the harumphing(c) has begun with a whole bunch of letters, but if you actually read them, over half support Baum.

The criticisms ranges from simple, I don't know therefore everyone don't know (a

How many readers of C&EN even know why carbon dioxide is the "culprit"? How many kilocalories of infrared energy can a ton of carbon dioxide absorb? What is the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed in fresh or salt water, and how is that equilibrium impacted by temperature or other environmental factors? What are some of the other variables that can cause an increase or decrease in temperature?


To the evergreen OISM petition

Man-made global warming is a theory that is supported by a "consensus" of investigators in the field of studying the relationship of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its effect on Earth's global temperature. Consensus is not proof, and a petition has been signed by more than 30,000 persons with scientific academic degrees (9,000 of them having Ph.D.s) who are skeptical of global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

and of course

Your editorial in the June 22 issue of C&EN was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!


Are you planning to write an editorial about the Environmental Protection Agency's recent suppression of a global warming report that goes against the gospel according to NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James Hansen? Or do you only editorialize on matters in keeping with your biased views on global warming?


It's actually quite staid (that's what editors are for silly with a balancing amount of support for Baum

The more people try to trivialize global warming, the more we and our descendants will suffer the results, some of which have already been quantified (for example, glacier melting and polar ice disappearing). Weather disruptions and shore erosion, for example, will begin to occur. The people who deny global warming are in the same class as those who rejected the negative effects of DDT, those who denied the negative effects of CFCs on the atmosphere, and so on.


and

Your comments about the climate-change deniers are right on target. In fact, your closing paragraph, "Sow doubt; make up statistics," etc., was one of the best summaries I've seen of the deceitful practices that the deniers are allowed to get away with.


We humans seem to learn from experience, and thus our modern systems of justice are not well geared for dealing effectively with climate-change deniers. This is a shame, because every month's delay in taking meaningful action likely will lead to more climate-related death and destruction in the future. There should be a law.


Including this from Eric Heller

I understand that letters published in C&EN do not necessarily reflect your views. I also appreciate the benefits of publishing a diversity of opinion. However, I am sure you exercise editorial discretion in choosing which letters are to be published and that you would not want to appear to be giving credibility to unscientific thinking and irresponsible conclusions.

But that is exactly what you did when you published the letter on global warming by Albert Z. Conner (C&EN, April 20, page 6). A quick Internet search reveals statements by Conner in a letter to the editor of a Delaware newspaper, complaining about higher taxes on cigarettes: The government "continue[s] to promulgate the outright lie of the dangers of secondhand smoke and the fictitious statistic that 400,000 people die each year in the U.S. from smoking." To deny the link between smoking and lung cancer and other diseases in this day and age and in face of all the evidence is absolutely inexcusable and irresponsible.

Believing that global warming is not at least partially caused by humans and believing that cigarette smoke does not cause cancer are becoming roughly equivalent in credibility. I doubt that C&EN would want to publish, in 2009, a letter that claimed that cigarette smoke does not cause cancer.

It would make the publication look frivolous and irresponsible, even if the editors disagreed with the writer's conclusions. But in 2009, denying the connection between carbon dioxide and global warming is just as frivolous and irresponsible, indeed even more so, because of the consequences of ignoring the problem.

This indeed is an excellent example of RTFR. Look at our friends over at denial central and you would think that the entire ACS membership is screaming for Baum's head. Send the guy a letter of support.

Chemical & Engineering News Letters To The EditorOur e-mail address is edit.cen@acs.org.Our fax number is (202) 872-8727.

Or you can send your letter to:

C&EN Editor-in-Chief
1155--16th St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Letters should generally be 400 words or fewer and should include the writer's full name, address, and home telephone; letters may be edited for purposes of clarity and space.

Krammies

Eli has been mining Gerhard Krimms contribution to arXiv and has come up with yet another Krammi. We had a recent discussion of the surface temperature of the moon here at Rabett Run,

The Moon is a good example to contrast with the Earth. It rotates much more slowly, and therefore has a temperature distribution that approaches what is used by Gerlich and Tscheuschner to derive their "T_phys". Each point on the Moon's surface is tolerably close to radiative balance with the solar input at that point.

The Moon has an albedo of about 0.12. It therefore absorbs more of the incoming solar energy than Earth. Using the solar constant of 1369 W/m², the absorbed radiation for the surface facing the Sun is about 1205 W/m². Hence T_eff for the Moon is (1205/4/σ)^0.25 = 270K, or -3C. This is the temperature that would radiate back the solar energy, if evenly distributed over the moon. But directly facing the Sun, the temperature will be more like (1205/σ)^0.25 = 382K, or 109 C. Albedo is not uniform. In any particularly dark patches, the temperature could even get up to (1369/σ)^0.25 = 394K, or 121C. On the night side, however, temperatures will fall toward absolute zero. Bear in mind that as temperatures fall, so too does the rate of emission of energy. Hence it takes a long time to fall all the way to zero. Say rather that temperatures should fall far enough for the emission of energy to be small.

Now consider data on the Moon from http://www.solarviews.com/eng/moon.htm

Average day temperature is 107 C. Maximum day temperature is 123 C. These are close to theoretical expectation, to within a couple of percent.

The mean night temperature is -153C. This about 120K, and radiates a bit less than 12 W/m². That's less than 1/100 of the solar constant, so the temperature has indeed fallen close to zero, using radiated energy as the basis for comparison.

There's no average temperature given, but the mid point of mean day and mean night temperatures is in the ballpark. This is -23C. And, just as should be expected, it is somewhere between T_phys (-120C) and T_eff (-3C). But it is closer to T_eff, because it is the cool side of the moon that is most different, in absolute temperature, from the unphysical extreme that is the basis of Gerlich and Tscheuschner's T_phys

On Earth, fortunately, we have an atmosphere that has to be heated from the surface. By basic thermodynamics, the Earth's average surface temperature is therefore substantially warmer than our airless moon. where surface radiation escapes directly to space.

but Gerhard shows a contradictory example

Figure 5: Moon's disk temperature at 2.77cm wavelength versus moon phase angle φ during two complete cycles from twice new moon via full moon to new moon again (adopted from Monstein.)

with a comment below of

Our Moon nearly satisfies the requirement of a planet without an atmosphere. It is well known that the Moon has no uniform temperature. There is not only a variation of the temperature from the lunar day to the lunar night, but also from the Moon equator to its poles.

Using Eqs. (1.4) would provide T 270 K e ≈ when the albedo, 0.12 M α = , and the emissivity, 1 M ε = (black body), are considered. However, as illustrated in Figure 5, the mean disk temperature of the Moon observed at 2.77cm wavelength by Monstein (2001) is much lower than this equilibrium temperature

There is nothing necessarily wrong with the Krammigraph (Eli has not checked, but it compares reasonably to similar ones that he has seen. What's up? Work out your answer and send it with to box tops (we are not particular about the boxes) to Rabett Run Krimmi Kontest @ yahno.con. Extra prizes for those who figure out how to send the boxtops.

ANSWER: Look carefully at the wavelength that the brightness temperature was measured at little bunnies. Hmm, 2.77 cm. That's pretty long wave. It turns out that long wavelength radiation (and 2.77 cm is pretty long wave compared to IR even which is micrometers) penetrates through about 4 to 8 times the wavelength. Thus if you use 2.77 cm, what you are measuring is the temperature of the moon 10 - 20 cm below the surface and that is a lot cooler and has a lot less variation with the diurnal cycle. What about if we measured at the surface. Well Apollo 15 left a temperature measuring instrument and this is what it found

Fig. 2. Lunar surface temperature time series from the landing site of the Apollo 15 mission. The series are part of the historical data archive PSPG-00093 of the US National Space Science Data Center. The color-coding of the temperature series used in this diagram is also used in Figs. 3 and 4.

The answer is that the Krammi did not show surface temperature, but below surface temperature.

Posturing

Eli has been asked to respond to recent posturing by various Indian officials and non-officials about their government climate change policy.

AS THE visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listened, Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh on Sunday made an apparent gesture of his anger over the ‘pressure’ exerted by the rich nations at the recent Major Economies Forum in Italy to force India into agreeing to a 2 degree C cap — one that has received much flak back here and also led to speculations over a difference of opinion between the foreign and environment ministries over the contentious issue of climate change. It means despite being one of the countries with the lowest per capita emissions, India would still need to work towards emission reductions to ensure the global temperatures do not increase beyond 2 degrees above 1990 levels even though the developed countries, the biggest emitters, have refused to agree to 40 per cent reductions by 2020, to match the cuts.

“Even with 8-9 per cent GDP growth every year for the next decade or two, our per capita emissions will be well below that of developed country averages. There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions. As if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,” Ramesh said in an obvious reference to Clinton while making his opening remarks at the ITC Green Building event at Gurgaon.

Eli had previously dealt with the per capita emissions argument but in a recent lecture at Bunny State, he pointed out some home truths:

To our Indian friends it is my sad duty to point out that among the great civilizations India will be hit first and hardest by climate change, if not within my lifetime which grows short, certainly within the next three decades. As the IPCC WPII group pointed out

Himalayan glaciers cover about three million hectares or 17% of the mountain area as compared to 2.2% in the Swiss Alps. They form the largest body of ice outside the polar caps and are the source of water for the innumerable rivers that flow across the Indo-Gangetic plains. Himalayan glacial snowfields store about 12,000 km³ of freshwater. About 15,000 Himalayan glaciers form a unique reservoir which supports perennial rivers such as the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra which, in turn, are the lifeline of millions of people in South Asian countries (Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Bangladesh). The Gangetic basin alone is home to 500 million people, about 10% of the total human population in the region.

Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km² by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005). The receding and thinning of Himalayan glaciers can be attributed primarily to the global warming due to increase in anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases. The relatively high population density near these glaciers and consequent deforestation and land-use changes have also adversely affected these glaciers. The 30.2 km long Gangotri glacier has been receding alarmingly in recent years (Figure 10.6). Between 1842 and 1935, the glacier was receding at an average of 7.3 m every year; the average rate of recession between 1985 and 2001 is about 23 m per year (Hasnain, 2002). The current trends of glacial melts suggest that the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra and other rivers that criss-cross the northern Indian plain could likely become seasonal rivers in the near future as a consequence of climate change and could likely affect the economies in the region.

When that happens, not only will Indians beyond counting suffer, starve and die in disasters worse than the worst famines of the past centuries, but the basis of their religion, beliefs and civilization will become a seasonal chimera. Food and water sent as aid from the outside will at best sustain a small remnant. Can the Indian government survive such a disaster? Likely not. Nor will Indian society be able to withstand. It will wither and die on the sere ground of the Ganga valley and those who temporized today will be cursed forever.

India has three choices. It can do nothing to meet the threat, concentrating on business as usual and increasing emissions. It can posture about energy equity as a negotiating position, ensuring that not enough will be done as the inevitable half a loaf results in most of the disaster, or it can lead by example. India, in short, by searching out ways to decrease forcings, not only of CO2, but of black carbon, and of land use changes can, by demonstrating a great heart and leading by example in the spirit of Ghandi, can bring others along.

Already we see many in the developing world who would do nothing because China and India will not do everything. If India leads, can China not follow, and if India and China lead, the world must and will change.

India is between a very hard rock and a harder hard place. It cannot do nothing. It must do a lot

Let us now reason together about what actions India must take to continue developing and avoid calamity in twenty years. There are some obvious things that can be done. Solar and wind power, for example are well suited to a country where there is no existing electrical distribution network to huge numbers of villages where many live. Improved cooking stoves coupled with digestion of animal wastes currently used for cooking to yield cleaner burning fuel and fertilizers are places where research can make an almost immediate contribution. But we must take care not to rob the livelihoods of those who currently gather and supply the fuel nor neglect the value of improving the health of those who use the fuel. India has recognized the importance of land use changes in holding back global warming, and here too, the developed world can and must help. This will not be simple, but it is necessary.

On possibility and necessity

Eli has come to understand that both frequentist (Tamino) and Bayesian (James Annan) statistical descriptions have serious problems when applied to climate from scientific and policy standpoints. The mixture of the two is quadratically difficult as anybunny entangled in discussions of future changes can tell. Local responses to global trends which are worse.

There is, however, another way of looking at things, loosely described as Possibility Theory. Possibility Theory grew from studies of fuzzy sets and is useful for analyzing situations where knowlege is incomplete and was first described by Lofti Zadeh. Wikipedia, of course, has a description.

Rather than assigning a distribution of probabilities, Possibility Theory differentiates between the possibility and the necessity of an outcome. Some are beginning to use possibility theory to describe climate related issues, for example stream flow, climate scenarios. Also take a look here

A gift for William Connolley and John Mashey

Ada, Countess of Lovelace discovers the difference engine

Via Brad de Long. In between saving the world, Eli thinks of his friends. Follow this link for more

Eli Rabett's Simple Plan to Save the World (Part II)

About a year and a half ago, Eli provided a simple plan to save the world, something that appears to be of interest to your average Nobel Prize winner.

Nations wishing to make major progress on decreasing greenhouse gas emissions should introduce emission taxes on all products. These taxes should be levied on imports as well as domestic goods at the point of sale, and should displace other taxes, such as VAT, sales taxes, and payroll (e.g. social security, health care) in such a way that tax revenues are constant, and distributed equitably.

Recently, it has come to Eli's attention that the developing countries, specifically India, and to an extent China, are behaving badly, something that the denial-o-sphere is celebrating, if not directly, quite passive-aggressively. Even there, India's POV seems to orient towards the audience, much of this is pre-negotiation tactics. There are two principle threads to the argument, the first being that the US and the rest of the developed world own the problem. According to the principal Indian negotiator, Shyam Sara

We see no link between what the United States, as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, does and India assuming legal commitments for emission reductions. The volume of US emissions today constitutes over 20 percent of the global total and 20 tons annually per person. Despite our much larger population, India produces only 4 percent of those emissions -- 1.1 tons per person. Therefore, while we would welcome a positive and forthcoming attitude on the part of a new administration to significantly reduce US emissions -- as President-elect Obama has promised -- this has no bearing on India. It will not lead India to accept rules that go beyond the current UN climate treaty, which does not stipulate legally binding reductions for developing nations.

Eli's simple plan bypasses this. While India and China may reject emissions added levies, there is not much they could do about it in their export lead economies. The second being that everyone owns a per capita emissions cap

Even though there is no legal obligation on India in this respect, the Prime Minister of India made a commitment that India's per capita emissions will at no time exceed the average of the per capita emissions of developed, industrialized countries. We have thus accepted a limit on our emissions and at the same time provided an incentive to our partners in developed countries to be more ambitious.

To wave a red flag, per capita arguments need to confront population growth. Claiming a larger emissions cap on the basis of increasing population should not exactly win any more points than similar persiflage. It is instructive to look at population growth. Europe and Japan (not shown) have essentially flat population since the 1970s, the US population has grown, but a large part of that is immigration. India, well, Eli is a compassionate, fast breeding mammal but still. OTOH, the Rabett recognizes denial when it is on display thus
Eli Rabett's Simple Plan to Save the World (Part II):
India and China and many other developing countries should reduce their emissions of black carbon by 90% or more in the next decade. This will not only significantly reduce warming of the climate, it will make a major contribution to the health of their people. Simple and economical methods of doing this are available.
Anyone doubting the dimension of the problem should read James Fallows reports from Beijing (he recently left) in the Atlantic

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More on the Emissions Added Levy (Blogger is behaving badly, but the full text is still in the Google cache)

These should be introduced as an Emissions Added Levy (avoiding the bad jokes). EAL would be imposed on sale for emissions added in the preceding step and inherent to the consumption of the product, as would be the case for heating oil and gasoline. Manufacturers would pay the EAL on electricity they bought, and incorporate this and the levy on emissions they created into the price of the product they sell.
Imports from countries that do not have an EAL would have the full EAL imposed at the time of import. The base rate would be generic EALs based on worst previous practices in the countries that do have EALs, which would be reduced on presenting proof that the actual emissions were lower.

Saving the world is hard work, Eli needs a beer. Comments

The best of the worst

UPDATE: A new classic, commented on everywhere

Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature

McLean, J. D., C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter (2009), Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D14104, doi:10.1029/2008JD011637.

With comments at Open Mind, Real Climate, James Empty Blog, In It For the Gold, Deltoid, More Grumbine Science and just about the entire Rabett Run Blogroll. An instant classic of denial and self regard.

John Mashey asks

Maybe the Rabett has this list stuffed in his burrow:

is there a nice list somewhere of truly awful climate papers published in otherwise-plausible-looking journals? (I.e., not E&E, or JSE, or things like that.)

The main use of this is to know where peer review seems to be failing.

But friend Cohenite already delivered and Eli blogged on it. Still, there is a fair amount of E&E in there, so here are Eli's top four.

Thomas Palm adds (see comments)

5. "Thermal pollution causes global warming" Bo Nordell, Global and Planetary Change 38 (2003) 305–312.

and another under review
----------------------------------------------------------
4. G. V. Chilingar, L. F. Khilyuk, O. G. Sorokhtin. Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO₂ Emission, Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 30(1), 1 - 9 (2008). Actually anything by this trio. Brings incoherence to new heights.

3. Christopher Essex, Ross McKitrick, Bjorne Andresen; Does a Global Temperature Exist? Journal of Non-EquilibriumThermodynamics, 32(1) 1-27.

2. Ferenc Misckolczi; Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary Atmospheres. Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological 111(1), January–March 2007, 1–40.
Cohenite's favorite and a hot contender

1. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf Tscheushner, Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of PhysicsInternational Journal of Modern Physics B, 23(3), 275-364 (2009). Get close and feel the spittle

Comments? Additions?.

Winter at Summit Camp

The Earth Observer, a NASA newsletter on the Earth Observation Program has been running Lora Koenigs diary describing winter at Summit Camp on the top of Greenland. Definitely worth reading.

Hello! My name is Lora Koenig and I am a remote sensing glaciologist and a new hire in the Cryospheric Sciences Branch at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. My research uses satellites to monitor the ice sheets and I am always interested in how well measurements from space compare to those taken on the ground.

My interest in ground truth data and learning more about ice sheets has lead me to spend this winter at Summit, Greenland (Latitude 72.5 N Longitude 38.5 W). Over the course of this weekly blog I will tell you about my life and science, in the middle of the Greenland Ice Sheet, in the middle of the winter. I will start with a quick introduction and explain how I ended up in the dark on an ice sheet.

Comments?

Say it ain't so Rudy

Rudy Baum, editor in chief of C&E News (ACS's membership magazine) had a stemwinder of an editorial in the June 22 issue which will, without a doubt, encounter much snorting in the near future to be featured in Rabett Run. He starts by summarizing the situation

The science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established. The scientific consensus on the reality of climate change has become increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers (for brevity’s sake, CCDs).

and then points to recent major reports which strengthen the case for human driven climate change, the US Global Change Research Program report, a joint statement from the Presidents of the G8+5 national academies on climate change

Climate change and sustainable energy supply are crucial challenges for the future of humanity. It is essential that world leaders agree on the emission reductions needed to combat negative consequences of anthropogenic climate change at the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009. At the same time, agreement is needed on actions to ensure basic energy services are available to all of the world’s people.

Baum's close nailed it

We see here the same tactics used by other purveyors of nonsense rejected by the mainstream scientific community. Creationists, for example, only want to expose students to “both sides of the debate over origins,” ignoring the fact that there is no debate over evolution. And, of course, it’s always useful to attack the “mainstream media.”

Heartland and its ally AmericanEnergySecurity.com are also flogging an 800-plus-page report, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)—kind of an anti-IPCC, get it?—which, of course, proves conclusively that global warming probably isn’t happening; if it is happening, it’s not due to human activity; and, besides, a “warmer world will be a safer and healthier world for humans and wildlife alike.”

Sow doubt, make up statistics, call for an “open debate,” claim that you are being “silenced and ignored by the media and politicians,” claim that your opponents are just a “few bureaucrats and environmental activists,” not real scientists—those are the tactics that will be brought to bear in the coming months by the CCDs in their attempt to derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change.

Comments?

Reality Check

Werner Aeschbach-Hertig brings interesting news about Rabett Run's friend S. Fred Singer and the Chilingar.

Comment over there

As the world wobbles

The issue of increased damage from extreme weather driven disasters as a result of climate change is attracts the same polemic that the gallery previously observed about climate change and global warming.

1. Starting Position: It ain't happening
2. Fallback Position: It has noting to do with the enhanced greenhouse effect
3. Fallfurtherback Position: There is no scientific proof, we need more research
   
4. Fallmuchfurtherback Position: If the local left (relatively) party didn't insist on building on the coast or in flood planes there would not be a problem.
5. Fallwayfurtherback Position: What have the Bangladeshi's ever done for us?

In many ways this resembles the progression we have seen throughout the history of climate change, and the answers given by the IPCC (and previous reports).

FAR: The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not likely for a decade or more.

SAR: The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate (considerable progress since the 1990 report in distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic influences on climate, because of: including aerosols; coupled models; pattern-based studies)

TAR: There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities

AR4: Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (> 90% certainty) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.

The state of the art can be found in a new paper by Schmidt, Klemper and Hoeppe that was previously commented on at Rabett Run. Particularly interesting is the correlation between sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone damage.

The bars in the figure to the right shows adjusted losses for tropical cyclones that made landfall in the US. The adjustments take account of socio-economic changes. The black line is a ten year smoothed average. The red line is the smoothed North Atlantic sea surface temperature. The good correlation of the losses with the sea surface temperature provide a cleft stick to hoist DenialCON 2 position holders on, leaving them the oxymoric position of asserting that sea surface temperature is independent of global warming. Eli is confident that they will be up to it tho.

As Chris pointed out, the conclusion brings us pretty close to having to invoke DenialCon 4.

annual adjusted losses since the beginning of the last cold phase (1971) show a positive trend, with an average annual rise of 4% that cannot be explained by socio-economic components. This increase can at least be interpreted as a climate variability impact. There is no evidence yet of any trend in tropical cyclone losses that can be attributed directly to anthropogenic climate change. But we advance the premise that if losses are affected by natural climate fluctuations, they are also likely to be affected by additional global warming due to anthropogenic climate change. This premise is supported by indications that the intensity of tropical cyclones is affected by anthropogenic climate change."

An objection to this has been raised on the basis that the trends do not extend back to the 1950s. File that one in the wishful thinking category given the physical correlation between global warming, sea surface temperature, and tropical cyclone intensity.

See Harold, not once was the name of the The Talented mentioned or even linked to.

Comments?

Science lurches forward again

About two years ago Stan Sanders group at JPL tossed a bombshell into our understanding of stratospheric ozone depletion, with a new, and much lower measurement of the chlorine peroxide (ClOOCl) absorption cross-section. This was a bombshell because it meant that there would be a lot less free chlorine in the stratosphere available for ozone depletion. Drew Shindell blogged on it at Real Climate, there was a bit of triumphalism on the denial beat.

The basic idea is that Cl catalyzes conversion of ozone, O3 to molecular oxygen, O2

(1) Cl + O3 --> ClO + O2
(2) ClO + O3 --> Cl + 2O2

ClO can dimerize

(3) ClO + ClO --> ClOOCl

which removes it from the catalytic cycle (1) and (2), but it can also be photolyzed

(4) ClOOCl + hv --> ClO + ClO

so the rate of photolysis, which is proportional to the absorption cross-section, determines how much ClO is available for the cycle. Because O3 absorbs most of the light at shorter wavelengths than 305 nm, for all practical purposes, only the absorption cross-section of ClOOCl above ~305 nm is important.

The rub, of course, is that to measure the absorption cross-section of a molecule, the lab bunnies need to know how much of the molecule is in the light path. This is not easy. As a matter of fact it is very tough, especially for ClOOCl because you cannot prepare a pure sample, there will always be Cl2, O2, and maybe other stuff hanging around. Before Pope, Hansen, Bayes, Friedl and Sander, others had tried to figure out the amount of ClOOCl in the light path by mass balance, starting from the initial reactant concentrations and using absorption spectroscopy in various regions of the spectrum to assign concentrations of the stable species where known. Sanders group did a spectral subtraction of the know Cl2 spectrum from the observed spectrum in the UV, which they assumed was a combination of ClOOCl and Cl2 (O2 does not absorb much until 200 nm).

The Academica Sinica group (H. Y. Chen, C. Y. Lien, W. Y. Lin, Y. T. Lee and J. J. Lin) chose a different path. They created a molecular beam containing the equilibrium mixture of ClOOCl and Cl2 and used a laser to photodisocciate (shoot out) each. Because they knew the absorption coefficient of Cl2 at the laser wavelengths, they could get the ratio of the ClOOCl to Cl2 cross-sections at each wavelength. The results are shown in the figure and agree well with earlier measurements. As they point out all three methods have their difficulties. They think that Pope, et al, overcorrected for Cl2, but that really is speculation.

This is the way that science auditing works. Comments?