Tuesday
Jan032012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Windy
Jan 3, 2012 Climate: Sceptics It has been very windy here this morning. My parents just telephoned to say they have just had next door's solar panels through their conservatory roof.
So end all who question the AGW consensus...
Reader Comments (181)
Bishop's Father has FIT from flying photonics?
Must be a headline in there somewhere...
Philip, I have some sympathy with the scientists, they are, after all, making a living, and doing things they're interested in at the same time, so, as I personally give new depths to the meaning of the word "shallow", I know that in a similar situation I'd stay schtum and get on with my work and let the money roll in.
What I'm attempting with Richard, who seems a sensible sort of cove, is to get the message over that if this all goes tits up, i.e. that they have it wrong, and that they've led the politicians up the garden path, there will be all hell to play as the politicians punish the scientists so they, the politicians, can somehow make it up to the public.
It is to Richard's credit that he interacts with us, but I don't want him to run away with the idea that the same civilised discourse he's getting here will occur once, and they will, the politicians and public realise that the dangers of CO2 have been grossly exaggerated and that we've diverted money from educating our children, or housing, or the health service or a million other things more deserving of the money than wind farm manufacturers and second rate scientists at the UEA, they've been had.
There will be a payback time for this charade and it will be bloody, and the shame is that Beddington, Nurse, May and various other second rates who have brought science into politics, will walk away and leave the younger scientists to pick up the pieces.
Sorry, ranting.
"prices amd quality to have dropped dramatically"
Can I re-phrase that to "the prices to have dropped and the quality improved dramatically".
"it's common to see relatively modern industrial roofs fail spectacularly and blow away"
A car showroom nearby lost its roof a couple of years ago in strong winds. It is profiled in an almost perfect aerofoil section, and faces directly into the prevailing South Westerly winds...
Scenario: A guy walks up to a wind engineer and says….
I just got off the phone with a grad student at the local university who was breathless with good news for me – with the new wind deflector he’s just designed for my roof-mounted solar racking system, the wind actually pushes the panels down into the roof! I won’t need any ballast at all!
Is that so?
Yes, when the student first observed this result in his computer CFD steady-state simulations, he wasn’t sure it was real. So, with his advisor’s help, he put a full scale prototype of my new 9° tilted rack in the university’s high-speed aerospace wind tunnel and measured the lift and drag forces. They were even able to test at 90 mph, the design wind speed in my target market. “The tests confirm what we saw with the CFD,” the student told me. “The panels were pushed down into the floor of the tunnel.”
So now it looks like I’m ready to win jobs and begin installations on commercial roof tops across the country! What more could I need?
Must be the same company Bish.........
Gulp ... the Carbon Plan makes me think that perhaps Brownedoff was right and I was wrong in the disagreement we had in the "Shukman on windfarms thread".
Having read the document, the get out is nuclear [75 GW].
The rest is made up to please the greenies including Mrs Cameron.
The level of engineering ignorance in the plan is astonishing too with no understanding that beyond about 15% real wind penetration you produce more CO2 than without wind.
Geronimo
"we can expect the prices and quality to have dropped dramatically in the next ten years"
You were right the first time, IMO. Cheap Chinese panels will not last in our climate - I doubt that many will make their break-even point, especially if the inverters need replacing, as they often do.
This must be what Pachauri had in mind when he
predictedprojected in Nov. 2007:h/t Donna Laframboise
But more seriously ... I do hope that all who have sustained damage to their homes in this latest havoc wreaked by mother nature have not also sustained any personal injuries.
Jan 3, 2012 at 6:01 PM | Stephen Richards
Stephen
Firstly, please don't tell me to keep quiet, especially on a blog for which one of the key tenets is supposed to be freedom of speech. I'll say what I like as long as it's on topic and not offensive, and if the host doesn't like it he can delete it.
Secondly, just to clarify, are you accusing me of lying? If so, perhaps you could be more specific about exactly what I have said that is allededly a lie.
Thank you.
@Richard Betts.
Here in Scotland we received a YELLOW Met Office warning for windy conditions yesterday and it took until 8.30am TODAY before that was upgraded to a RED warning - when the winds had already taken out our electricity supplies and demolished our garden.
Now, is this total failure due to incompetent 'professionals' or the lack of a 'better super-computer'? How is it the millions and millions spent on processing power and 'supposed' experienced meteorologists can't get a simple wind prediction right actually BEFORE THE EVENT??? All we hear now are invitations to the Met Office website to see the weather 'as it was'.........
For all the discussion about AGW and the predicted results from the Met Office computer models, if your office can't get a weather prediction right until it actually happens then your credibility in other issues has to be seriously compromised.
Yes, I am aware that 'weather is not climate' but fer gawd's sake, not even knowing the night before has to be bordering on sheer incompetence.
And I have the privilege of paying for this?
@Richard Drake, the Spartans reply? My dear mater born near the banks of the fair Mersey would have said something slightly more classical,
If my Aunt had balls she'd be my uncle...
Jan 3, 2012 at 7:18 PM | Dave_G
Dave the Red warning was posted at 8.14am exactly as the wind meters bust the 90 mph so yes the Met Office was caught out, the Scotrail guy on Radio Scotland said they knew is was bad and not Yellow warning type wind at 6:30am when the Saltcoats electric cables were swamped with sea water spray, based on the yellow that should have not happened until later in the day.
The Met Office spokesman failed to forecast the winds as it was caused by a freak spiral event which they only discovered a few years ago which their spokesman said caused a rapid drop in pressure they could not know about in advance.
Best comment I heard all day way a complaint about the Scottish Govt only issuing a yellow warning, if he had got the red warning he could have brought his roof and trees indoors in advance ;) .
Jan 3, 2012 at 4:39 PM | Foxgoose
I don't agree with that 300,000 deaths number, it's not well-founded, and I've said so here (see 3rd paragraph from end). I wish people would stop quoting it!
It's very difficult, if not impossible, to say, especially if we mean anthropogenic climate change which is the implication here. First of course you'd have to have an idea of mortality rates in the absence of anthropogenic climate change. Who knows? You can never attribute an individual event to climate change - the best we can do is try to estimate the probability of such an event now (ie: with human influence on climate) and also estimate what the probability would have been in the absence of human influence on climate. eg: the 2003 European heatwave is estimated to now be twice as likely due to anthropogenic climate change - but that still doesn't really prove that the excess deaths that year weredue to climate change. We can only estimate changes in risk.
There may be positives for jobs here. If you parents are able to achieve a large claim for damages from their neighbours, then the insurance companies may insist on annual inspections of solar panels and improved fastenings and wind deflectors. This will provide much needed work for the newly unemployed in the solar panel industry, without a penny of government subsidy required.
"This will provide much needed work for the newly unemployed in the solar panel industry, without a penny of government subsidy required."
Who's going to pay then? The householders may reasonably claim that they expected the work to be done properly in the first place (well, I would)...
Interesting that we have Richard Betts here, who I believe is from the Met. Office. Perhaps he might wish to understand that I and may hundreds of highly experienced professional scientists and engineers have since Climategate dissected the IPCC climate science and found, with no axe to grind, that it truly is a mess.
1. the back radiation concept is a form of perpetual motion machine: it cannot exist; the engineers are particularly incensed at this because we have to make things work, not create political gestures.
2. the only way the wrong aerosol physics of clouds can offset this vastly exaggerated GHG warming is by having double real optical depth of low level clouds and a net AIE that is highly negative when it's really slightly positive now [but much more so over ice].
3. 33K present GHG warming used to calibrate the 'projections' is really ~9K.
4. you explain end of ice age warming by reduction of cloud albedo, also recent Arctic melting.
5. climate science and particularly the models needs to be reconstructed from the ground up by professional scientists of high quality on a tenured basis.
6. I realise the Met Office is using solar effects in its weather forecasting models; you need to do it in the climate models with a maximum CO2 climate sensitivity of ~0.45K, and be prepared if it is proved, to drop it to just below zero.
7. those who want to assert politics over science must leave.
8. the likely climate impact is 1 -1.5 K cooling by the mid 2030s with falling sea levels as the new LIA arrives.
9. this total failure to miss the bad IPCC science being put in by political activists and incompetents has been very costly to the UK; we may recover if we immediately replace leaders who can't change their mindset from the comfort zone of false consensus to reality.
10. what's needed is a War Game which assumes cooling not warming, there is no EU cap and trade and we are alone in pushing ruinous measures to destroy our industry to benefit international Marxism, and consign the present carbon plan to the dustbin, to be replaced by a pragmatic approach to minimise energy costs thereby maximising the earnings of the UK as a manufacturing exporter to markets other than a deeply damaged EU.
OT, but I was just sent this:
Bish - photos have been mentioned a few times. We're all voyeurs, of course, but your parents really should have a good selection for the loss adjusters, if no-one else. I'd include pain and suffering, too!
Phillip
:-)
Huhne's Law; resistance is negative when there is political gain to be made.....
Dr Betts, your appearances here are most welcome. I thought the tone of Stephen comment was snarky. However, I do have one suggestion for the Met Office website section on climate change. A page about Crazy, Risible, Unfounded Predictions which lists them, the idiots/gullible fools/wilful manipulators who print or broadcast them and then a debunking. Ok, so they don't have to have judgemental titles/categories/tags. How about Fact or Fiction? You could even make it into a quiz.
PS Curry has given up pushing 'back radiation' perpetual motion. Spencer is wavering as he apparently realises that mainstream climate science has such a narrowly and wrongly based physics' underpinning.
ManicBeancounter:
Not to mention the possibility of the unemployed constructors/installers being employed to service and clean the panels that they installed to try and get at least a little bit of the energy they claimed they would produce.
Burning wind turbines. Flying solar panels. It's been quite a season in Scotland so far. Those of us in earthquake prone NZ are playing close attention.
It will keep windy for the next days, may be you would like to wear a helmet in those places.
Wind power density in Germany and Denmark is at its maximum: http://tinyurl.com/7zydyzu
It woul be interesting to know what's the performance of windmills, aka aerogenerators, these days
coniston
Thanks, yes, I have also thought that the "climate change facts / myths" pages (which are seen on many websites as well as the Met Office's) ought to include a debunking of daft statements / predictions on from the "we're doomed" side as well as the usual countering of sceptic arguments. Another thing to add to the list of things to do.... :-)
Richard
Of course AGW climate change is meant..
Do you really think anyone that quotes climate change deaths means natural...
when,. in fact they are all just weather (extreme weather) OF WHICH THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF INCREASED FREQUENCY, OF THE WEATHER, OR OF THE DEATHS (THE CONTRARY IN FACT)
PLEASE....
'they have just had next door's solar panels through their conservatory roof'
Andrews Dad -'I've heard of energy conservation, but this is taking things too literally'
Andrews Mum -'Andrew warned us that those ecofreaks ...better give him a ring and tell him.'
OOPS - hit CAPS lock on that one by mistake...
my take on the 150k, '300k 'climate change' deaths'..
http://www.realclimategate.org/2010/12/lost-in-alarmism-150000-climate-change-deaths-a-year/
Richard
I second coniston's suggestion. Perhaps something like the HSE's myth of the month. They also suffer from adverse press coverage.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/
Question for Dr Betts
Is the Met Office (or anyone else) looking at the local effects of tall buildings on microclimates or UHI? I'm curious having been almost blown off my feet coming out of Canary Wharf tube this morning. Then as a supposed science denier, looked for anemometers. Presumably clusters of tall buildings like that can have a reasonable effect on local conditions? Also noticed wheelie bins have good aerodynamic properties judging by the number piled up downwind this morning. I didn't spot any low-flying solar panels though, but I guess the building industry and insurers would be looking closely at any data coming in.
I followed the link to the ten year old article in the Grauniad and was interested in the bit about cycle helmets being of limited value in the case of collisions with motor vehicles. I was wearing a cycle helmet when I wrote off an errant Ford Fiesta with my head. I came away with only minor injuries, had I not worn a helmet it is quite possible that I would be dead. I do of course realise that this is a single anecdote and his statement may have been generally true, but it made me smile anyway.
Philip Bratby's comment on the politician changing Ohm's Law, classic, and inspirational!
Richard Betts
Like others here, I really appreciate your tenacity in returning to the bear pit again.
I've skimmed your October 11 report you referenced above and this final para of the summary stood out:-
Apparent changes in statistics of events can be easily perceived even if they are statistically random. Attempts to attribute weather-related humanitarian disasters to climate change should, in our view, be treated with caution. Nevertheless, human responses to environmental changes may depend on perceptions of change and not just on actual change.
My take from that is that you couldn't find any positive attribution - but you are cautioning that hysteria about perceived climate change may be enough, of itself, to lead to adverse consequences.
If that were true, it would mean that the only detectable result of the millions of man years of research effort and billions of dollars that has gone into "climate science" would be damage to humanity in general.
Despite this however, you make this comment above:-
You can never attribute an individual event to climate change - the best we can do is try to estimate the probability of such an event now (ie: with human influence on climate) and also estimate what the probability would have been in the absence of human influence on climate.
There is a clear implication in the bracketed phrase that you personally think there is a "human influence on climate".
Which is it Richard? - What do you really believe?
You know where you get splinters if you spend too long sitting on the fence don't you?
I really think the only way to get back to real science in this ghastly mess is for perceptive people like you, with influence on the "consensus" side, to decide what you actually believe and take a high profile stand against the alarmists.
Richard Betts
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in science means that you be COMPLETELY honest. That means that you give both sides of all the equations, you express the doubts and margins of errors, that you admit when you are wrong and don't cloud your responses to failure in PR speak. It si that you behave like a bone fide scientist.
Now, NOWHERE in my text did I accuse you of lying. Secondly, It should have been obvious in the context of the Met Off that the "you" was a contextual or royal you. And lastly, the "best keep quiet" was friendly advice to one who appeared to be unaware of the feeling that pervades the web about the BBC, the UK Met off, the CRU and The IPCC.
Judgeing by some of the comment which followed it seems I may have been right.
HOWEVER, I have NO wish to stop you commenting and indeed would be most interested in you continuing so to do. An insight into how those scientists who take taxpayers money (not mine incidently) to be advocates of a non falsified theorem which seeks to destroy the lives and the jobs of their compratiots woudl be very informative. Please continue, otherwise you will disappoint.
I really think the only way to get back to real science in this ghastly mess is for perceptive people like you, with influence on the "consensus" side, to decide what you actually believe and take a high profile stand against the alarmists.
Jan 3, 2012 at 9:22 PM | Foxgoose
Good comment. But it's not believe I want, IT'S SCIENCE. All I ever hear from the climate science community is advocacy. I want to know exactly how they have proved the CO² theory and what measurements they have that support their theory. None I'd wager.
BUT, I DO understand why a scientist in the pay of the taxpayer would want to not rock the boat. I've been in that situation. I got out as soon as I could but that's not easy when your skills are limited to climate and weather.
Coniston
Dr Betts, your appearances here are most welcome. I thought the tone of Stephen comment was snarky.
Not snarky, anger. I've studied weather and climate all my live from 1960s and remeber well the work of Lamb et al. In the early to mid years, the Met off was a much respected ( by me as well) science institution. It behaved in the way you would expect of a branch of the armed forces. In recent years it it appears to have been overrun by ex-members of NGOs and rabid PR people. The Bar-B-q report being a classic example of something that would never have happened under the old regime. I remember the like of Peter Webb explaining where his forecasts had gone wrong from the day before and the why.
Philip Bratby's comment on the politician changing Ohm's Law, classic, and inspirational!
Jan 3, 2012 at 9:16 PM | Josh
Josh
I can feel a cartoon coming on.
Re: Stonyground
> and was interested in the bit about cycle helmets being of limited value in the case of collisions with motor vehicles
There is an old story that when they changed the leather helmets for metal ones in the Great War (1914 - 1918) the number of head casualties actually increased. The reason for this was because more soldiers survived being shot in the head when wearing a metal helmet and so where counted as a head casualty rather than a fatality.
A similar argument for cycle helmets causing more head injuries could be made :)
For some reason a Mark Twain quote comes to mind.
Richard Betts, question re climate models.
I see many quotes or comments that the "climate models" predicted the decade+ long "hiatus" in AGW citing "climate variability".
Did the MO models provide similar projections and if they did when did it become known?
TIA and many thanks for your ongoing contributions.
ohm's law , that was still an old time minister who tried to think by himself.. :)
the new toffs have outsourced that to assistants (who probably outsource themselves to polish contractors)
they are all focused on voter blocks now,instead, and only concerned if they look good in the mirror and smell well , towards females.
As Ohm's law has been mentioned, I find it is useful when imagining IR flux. The impedance of CO2 reducing the incoming (day) and outgoing (night) of such a flow. What is hard to imagine is how increased impedance leads to a higher average temperature than a lower one unless it changes with orientation. Is there a plain English explanation anywhere?
Atomic Hairdryer
Thanks for the question. Yes, this is studied, some of my colleagues look at these kind of effects in collaboration with others at Reading University and elsewhere. The microclimate and windflow of an urban "canyon" is important to understand, not only for the reasons you mention (funnelling of winds causing increased hazard) but also for the dispersion of air pollution.
Thanks,
Richard
Jan 3, 2012 at 6:58 PM | Robin Guenier
Gulp ... the Carbon Plan makes me think that perhaps Brownedoff was right and I was wrong in the disagreement we had in the "Shukman on windfarms thread".
Indeed, as I said on Oct 6, 2011 at 6:34 PM under the item "Averting catastrophe" dated Oct 4, 2011:
I wonder how long it will be before the guys and gals in the ISS observe that there are more pinpricks of light showing in North Korea than in the whole of EUtopia from Galway Bay to Lake Van?
Good night.
"We can only estimate changes in risk." Jan 3, 2012 at 7:30 PM | Richard Betts
Dear Dr Betts,
In considering any investment the investor seeks to identify and assess both potential risks and potential returns, and then compare them, so that the net benefit (if any) of the investment might best be determined.
In estimating and publicising risks from climate change why does the Met Office not do likewise for returns, notably in the UK (it is, after all, funded by the UK taxpayer) such as increases in longevity due to generally more benign temperatures, reduction in deaths of the elderly from winter cold, etc. ?
Sadly, and disgracefully, the page on health on the Met Office website offers no such balance:
www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/impacts/high-end/health
And this is one of many such pages in the Climate Change section (e.g. that on Horticulture) exhibiting similar "alarmist" bias, with little or no recognition of the benefits of your projected changes in climate.
It worries me that you are apparently unable to correct such bias, in an area directly related to your role in leading studies of "Climate Impacts". When I asked you some weeks ago about this apparent lack of balance on the Met Office website you replied that it was due to be updated. It would have been far more reassuring had you written that you were driving and overseeing that process, to ensure the balance so noticeably lacking at present.
I fear that you are an innocent and trusting (and perhaps trussed) lamb in a den of jackals and hyenas.
Jan 3, 2012 at 9:25 PM | Stephen Richards
OK, thanks for clarifying.
re: giving both sides - yes of course, see my response to foxgoose above, and my other contributions on various threads here where I've been open about the uncertainties in climate science and the limitations of models. You will always get from me what I honestly believe to be the case (it may of course still be wrong, but not intentionally so!) :-)
On "keeping quiet", I am fully aware of "the feeling that pervades the web about the BBC, the UK Met off, the CRU and The IPCC". I have no formal associations with either the BBC or CRU, but I am an employee of the Met Office and am an active participant in the IPCC assessment process so feel (hope?) I can make a small contribution towards changing the negative feelings towards these 2 institutions by contributing my "view from the inside" (an honest one!) when appropriate. Also, more importantly, by voluntarily opening up my views to challenge and discussion I can see whether they stand up as well as I think they do - it's a deliberate move to avoid being part of groupthink.
OK I may need a thick skin sometimes, and more crucially I need to make sure I don't get tempted to spend all my time blogging, but hopefully dipping in from time to time will be useful!
Jan 3, 2012 at 9:22 PM | Foxgoose
Hi again,
Yes I do think there is a human influence on climate in terms of the long-term averages, but I don't think we can see an effect on disasters yet. The statistics of disasters are noisy and it's harder to discern a signal (so I'm not sitting on the fence, I just think we can say more about one aspect of climate than another).
mydogsgotnonose
All we need now is a good paper in a mainstream climate journal. Where is it, I wonder?
> All we need now is a good paper in a mainstream climate journal. Where is it, I wonder?
Closely followed by the editor resigning...