Climate Change

[ewmayer]

Regarding the KISS report, funny that they mention "the currently large uncertainties in observations", but not "the currently even larger uncertainties in climate models". Bit of a computer-modeler's bias there, mayhap?

If I have a set of predictions on either side of zero, all with huge error bars, it is just as wrong to infer a positive, negative or null trend ... all you can say with any confidence is "the current level of uncertainty is so large that we can say nothing with confidence about a trend."

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Getting back to my longstanding theme about the CO2 obsession being in many ways a distraction from the undisputed harmfulness of all the other crud that *accompanies* most of those CO2 emissions:

As China runs out of landfill space, it is racing to build incinerators, a growing source of toxic emissions.

SHENZHEN, China — In this sprawling metropolis in southeastern China stand two hulking brown buildings erected by a private company, the Longgang trash incinerators. They can be smelled a mile away and pour out so much dark smoke and hazardous chemicals that hundreds of local residents recently staged an all-day sit-in, demanding that the incinerators be cleaner and that a planned third incinerator not be built nearby.

After surpassing the United States as the world’s largest producer of household garbage, China has embarked on a vast program to build incinerators as landfills run out of space. But these incinerators have become a growing source of toxic emissions, from dioxin to mercury, that can damage the body’s nervous system.

And these pollutants, particularly long-lasting substances like dioxin and mercury, are dangerous not only in China, a growing body of atmospheric research based on satellite observations suggests. They float on air currents across the Pacific to American shores.

....
The Chinese government is struggling to cope with the rapidly rising mountains of trash generated as the world’s most populated country has raced from poverty to rampant consumerism. Beijing officials warned in June that all of the city’s landfills would run out of space within five years.

The governments of several cities with especially affluent, well-educated citizens, including Beijing and Shanghai, are setting pollution standards as strict as Europe’s. Despite those standards, protests against planned incinerators broke out this spring in Beijing and Shanghai as well as Shenzhen.

Increasingly outspoken residents in big cities are deeply distrustful that incinerators will be built and operated to international standards. “It’s hard to say whether this standard will be reached — maybe the incinerator is designed to reach this benchmark, but how do we know it will be properly operated?” said Zhao Yong, a computer server engineer who has become a neighborhood activist in Beijing against plans for an incinerator there.

Yet far dirtier incinerators continue to be built in inland cities where residents have shown little awareness of pollution.

Studies at the University of Washington and the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., have estimated that a sixth of the mercury now falling on North American lakes comes from Asia, particularly China, mainly from coal-fired plants and smelters but also from incinerators. Pollution from incinerators also tends to be high in toxic metals like cadmium.

Incinerators play the most important role in emissions of dioxin. Little research has been done on dioxin crossing the Pacific. But analyses of similar chemicals have shown that they can travel very long distances.

A 2005 report from the World Bank warned that if China built incinerators rapidly and did not limit their emissions, worldwide atmospheric levels of dioxin could double. China has since slowed its construction of incinerators and limited their emissions somewhat, but the World Bank has yet to do a follow-up report.

My Comment: "...are setting pollution standards as strict as Europe’s..." - Excuse me while I laugh. The Chinese bureaucrats are famous for setting standards for all sorts of things (like the maximum allowable lead content in children's toys, say) and writing sensible-sounding regulations of all kinds, simply to say they did it and that "there are laws on the books". A kind of Potemkin-village legal code, if you will.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

If I have a set of predictions on either side of zero, all with huge error bars, it is just as wrong to infer a positive, negative or null trend ... all you can say with any confidence is "the current level of uncertainty is so large that we can say nothing with confidence about a trend."

... if the differing predictions were equally distributed between positive and negative trend, that is.

But that's not what's happening with climate models. Their predictions have scatter, but it's scatter around a positive trend (of temperature), not scatter around zero that hides whether the trend is positive or negative.

Furthermore, addition of new data (and re-examination of old data that had seemed to contradict the positive trend) over the past decade has repeatedly reinforced the prediction of that positive trend, not weakened it.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I thought I was careful to avoid the second person when stating my counters to each of the items, so as not to seem to be directing my counterarguments at you, but instead to be directing my responses to a hypothetical third party raising those arguments. (I remember, when proofreading, catching a couple of "you"s I'd automatically used without thinking, then rewording those sentences.) Where did I fail?

"Diatribe?"

Webster's (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diatribe) says the non-archaic definitions are:

2 : a bitter and abusive speech or writing
3 : ironic or satirical criticism

What was bitter, abusive, ironic or satirical (or, for that matter, hyperventilatory) about my posting?

I regret that my posting appeared so negatively directed toward you. Can you help me understand where I went wrong with it?

I can see that it might have helped if I had explicitly pointed out that my counterarguments were to be interpreted as being directed toward a hypothetical third party AGW-denier raising the three examples you presented. But I recall thinking that you were no longer as much of an objector to AGW as you seemed to be two years ago. It didn't occur to me that you might think I was casting you in the role of AGW-denier even though I (a) avoided second-person and (b) acknowledged your disclaimer -- am I mistaken about your current orientation in regard to AGW-objecting?

Well, Ernst?

Are you willing to explain just what led you to accuse me of aiming my counterarguments at you? Are you willing to explain what was bitter, abusive, ironic or satirical (or, for that matter, hyperventilatory) about my posting that you complained about?

Or are you willing to admit that, upon more careful consideration of what I actually wrote (rather than some fantasy version), you find that your previous criticism and ridicule were unjustified?

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Well, Ernst?

Are you willing to explain just what led you to accuse me of aiming my counterarguments at you? Are you willing to explain what was bitter, abusive, ironic or satirical (or, for that matter, hyperventilatory) about my posting that you complained about?

Or are you willing to admit that, upon more careful consideration of what I actually wrote (rather than some fantasy version), you find that your previous criticism and ridicule were unjustified?

No, and no - but feel free to keep obsessing (dare I say, "hyperventilating?") about it... It's possible I misinterpreted what you wrote, but it's simply not important or current enough for me to give a rat's ass about anymore.

Cheesehead, you remind me of a kid I went to school with ... he was the kind of person who, even when you agreed with the substance of what he said, you often found yourself taking the opposite side of the argument/discussion/issue because his manner was so bloody annoying.

[cheesehead]

Ernst,

I'm sorry you picked the wrong side in the AGW debate, but you don't have to blame me -- you can just switch.

[Zeta-Flux]

http://byunews.byu.edu/archive09-Aug-glaciers.aspx

BYU geologist solves mystery of glaciers that grew while Asia heated up

(Go BYU!)

[cheesehead]

From the article:

The story of these seemingly anomalous glaciers underscores the important distinction between the terms “climate change” and “global warming.”

“Even when average temperatures are clearly rising regionally or globally, what happens in any given location depends on the exact dynamics of that place,” Rupper said.

Of course.

[Zeta-Flux]

Of course.

I'm not so sure it is as obvious as you make it out to be. At least the tone of the article made is sound like the result was a surprise. The world-wide temperature raises 5 degrees (even in the surrounding area, and over a very extended period of time) and yet these glaciers grew.

[garo]

I think Zeta does not "get" the fact that Science doesn't mind being surprised and scientists are always on the lookout for fresh evidence to prove or disprove their theories. If they find contradictory evidence they have no problem changing their theory. In this case, even though the finding was a surprise it does not negate the climate change hypothesis.

[axn]

Originally Posted by garo

I think Zeta does not "get" the fact that Science doesn't mind being surprised and scientists are always on the lookout for fresh evidence to prove or disprove their theories. If they find contradictory evidence they have no problem changing their theory. In this case, even though the finding was a surprise it does not negate the climate change hypothesis.

I think he is confusing the obviousness of the general principle -- "Even when average temperatures are clearly rising regionally or globally, what happens in any given location depends on the exact dynamics of that place" -- which Cheesehead asserted, with the "surprise" of this particular instance.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

No, and no - but feel free to keep obsessing (dare I say, "hyperventilating?") about it... It's possible I misinterpreted what you wrote, but it's simply not important or current enough for me to give a rat's ass about anymore.

Cheesehead, you remind me of a kid I went to school with ... he was the kind of person who, even when you agreed with the substance of what he said, you often found yourself taking the opposite side of the argument/discussion/issue because his manner was so bloody annoying.

"Pas devant les enfants" as my parents used to say, when I
promptly pricked up my ears

Love to you both,
David