Monday
Nov082010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A letter to DECC's chief scientist
Nov 8, 2010 Climate: HSI Climate: Models Climate: other Energy Do take a look at Matt Ridley's letter to David Mackay, chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Hockey Stick Illusion is mentioned.
Update on Nov 9, 2010 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Matt has now posted up David MacKay's original letter.
Reader Comments (113)
Oh dear
- Pointing out that you are incoherent is a statement of the obvious, not character assassination. You are being paranoid.
- 'What I meant to write' well, you wasted plenty of my time last night NOT expressing yourself at all clearly. Please write what you 'mean' to write in future. It makes life simpler.
- If you want a simplified model that demonstrates the CO2 greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, how about MODTRAN?
- Talking utter nonsense, without supporting any of it, until the other party gets irritated is not a debate, nor does it 'win' an 'argument' that is not taking place.
Grow up Phinnie, or nobody here will engage with you.
Phinnie
And what is your point with the Navier Stokes equations exactly? I never once mentioned them.
I assume that you are picking at the uncertainty associated with calculations of turbulence, convection etc. If you read what I said earlier in this thread you will be aware that I too have my doubts about the 'consensus' estimate for climate sensitivity for CO2.
To some extent this will be influenced by getting moist convective transport wrong in the GCMs. Obviously.
Since you seem to find it impossible to 'write what you mean' I am repeatedly left guessing.
"preferably with many 1000s of pages"
That's so, when a mistake is found, the excuse can be rolled out that such things are to be expected in a document of so great a length...
James P
Before any further confusion creeps in, I am not defending AR4 here. Neither am I advocating CAGW.
I do have an old-fashioned attachment to factual accuracy and logical discourse.
It helps get things done.
"Bad Andrew said
Turn the actual heat source down = C02 is irrelevant.
I assume you are asking to turn down geothermal energy or solar output? Pray explain how this is to be achieved?"
Jerry, my assumtion is that the output of earths heat sources go up and down. So when these outputs are down, it gets colder. I didn't imply that there were people controlling this. That's kinda silly.
The point is, again, that if the temperature goes down, it's going to go as far down as it's going to, and C02 ain't gonna stop it.
Andrew
@Justice4Rinka
No doubt you are right about the original reasons for fitting catalysts. But that did not prevent the German politicians of the day insisting that they be fitted to cars to respond to their perceived forest problem. It does not make sense to you now. It did not make sense then to the engineers at Daimler Benz and Volkswagen either. But what do you expect from the political class?
@Justice4Rinka
No doubt you are right about the original reasons for fitting catalysts. But that did not prevent the German politicians of the day insisting that they be fitted to cars to respond to their perceived forest problem. It does not make sense to you now. It did not make sense then to the engineers at Daimler Benz and Volkswagen either. But what do you expect from the political class?
BBD
ok sorry : we might have sparred unnecessarilly as I have no issue with your opinions really, I got upset with the climate science at large.
there is too little well founded methodology and too many anecdotes (and publications!) around.
I do not know about modtran but still, i think simplified simulations would show the modest effect of CO2 by itself.
by doubling CO2 you'll have in the end equilibrium as well between radiation received and remitted, and the temperature of the ball is eventually determined by its radiation spectrum only.
so the question is how can more CO2molecules fundamentally change the radiation spectrum , and the answer is I think that they cannot . they act only on very small ir bands.
There is laboratory measurements on how CO2 behaves.
So that's why all the "science" focuses on transient and "non linear" effects caused by CO2 increase on the atmosphere. But nobody can calculate this correctly.
Phinnie
Okay, no problem. Let's move on before this thread gets any longer.
Good synoptic treatments of the scientific case for CO2 causing measurable temperature rise are surprisingly rare. The material presented by Science of Doom is among the best I have seen:
http://scienceofdoom.com/roadmap/co2/
All topics are covered, including spectroscopy, logarithmic decline in effect, field work, key papers etc.
As I said right at the outset, there is no argument about the 'modest effect of CO2 by itself'. Approximately +1C per doubling of the pre-industrial level.
The issue has always been the assumption that all feedbacks net positive.
Sorry we seem to have got off on the wrong foot.
J4R
"car engines wore out more quickly because sulphur is a lubricant and it had been removed from fuel"
I thought lead was the lubricant that got taken out (hence the burned valves in the early days of unleaded petrol)? No argument with your general thrust, but I wondered about the sulphur...
James P:
My oil CH boiler maintenance man told me that the removal of sulphur had led to a reduction in the life of the oil pumps in such boilers. He suggested I buy an additive to compensate for the sulphur removal. Since he was not selling such additives, I had no reason to doubt his veracity.
FWIW
James P - lead protected the valve seats by allowing for a soft seal which reduced pitting:
http://www.mgcars.org.uk/news/news386.html
Jane Coles - pumps are a different issue but they are helped by slippery fuels:
http://www.eercare.com/commercial_SRX.html
Cylinder lubrication is mainly from the engine's pumped oil system:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=262867