Comments on: Wind turbine failures

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:28:02 +0000

They complained about an article by David Rose in the Daily mail. This is a different article by Jonathon Leake in The Sunday Times that I am referring to

To my knowledge, there have been no complaints about that

By: wINdSider

wINdSider — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:09:07 +0000

@Andy, there have been complaints from the Met Office: “the climate scientists came out fighting, starting with a furious blog posted by the Met Office itself which attacked the Mail on Sunday article as “entirely misleading”.” This from: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/warming-data-show-shades-of-grey/story-fnb64oi6-1226264121900

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:37:10 +0000

Dunno bout the CO2 thing in 1) (don’t care really) but in regard to 2) I refer you to what the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) have to say in POSTNOTE 400 in an apparent acknowledgment that natural variability has dominated recently, quoting Hawkins and Sutton 2009:-

“Natural forms of climate variability are likely to be the main influence on the UK’s climate over the next few decades”

A “selective selection of quote” by POST puts them in the same category as those “climate change deniers” doesn’t it wINdSider?

And adding a “few decades” to the last decade of climate hiatus will take the climate well outside the IPCC SRES scenarios (it’s already outside now) too so when will the fabled “climate change” kick in? And why if it isn’t now?

POST’s answer is a “selective” quote from H&S09 again:-

“Then, as the century progresses, the influence of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations is likely to be of growing importance”

Ed Hawkins sole support for this (so far) is (citing H&S09):-

“…for a few decades the signal increases faster than the uncertainty, so the signal-to-noise increases initially”

Except that what Ed doesn’t say (sometimes the more telling) is that H&S09 Figure 5: (A) Signal to noise ratio for decadal mean surface air temperature predictions, shows that the Global signal to noise ratio DECREASES from about 2040. Furthermore, we’ve already had a decade since 2000 where “the signal-to-noise increases initially” but that has not helped the early predictions as this up-to-date plot of IPCC estimates vs observations by Nir Shaviv shows:-

http://www.sciencebits.com/files/pictures/climate/IPCC-Prediction.jpg

But now there’s a competing hypothesis to consider (astronomical cycles) that postulates cooling so at this juncture, because no-one knows what will happen over the next 5-7 years (i.e. it’s in the future) a responsible climate risk assessment using simple probabilities should be:-

0.33 warming
0.33 no change
0.33 cooling

Instead of:-

1.0 warming (IPCC version)
0 no change
0 cooling

Not factoring in the alternatives would be negligent, do you agree wINdSider?

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:59:49 +0000

“Climate Change Messages”

says it all really.

Actually, Richard Betts, the author of that piece, seems like quite a good bloke. He frequently comments on Bishop Hill and seems to take the punches in good humour.

By: wINdSider

wINdSider — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:47:56 +0000

On CO2 as plant food and the ‘No Warming for 15 years’ red herring:
1) If CO2 is plant food (which I agree it is, among other things), what happens to all the excess CO2 now that vast tracts of previously hungry-vegetation-covered land have had the hungry plants removed? Only if we assume that the marine algaes have become a lot hungrier can we assume that the excess CO2 is not left to remain in the atmosphere.
Also on this point, it must be remembered that humans input 7 times the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere than what is usually produced naturally (by volcanoes, oceans, exhaling mammals, etc.). Source for this is this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjbNU7mvh_c, from about the 6:00 minute mark, the NASA dude explains that ‘nature’ inputs 1 gigaton of CO2 (from all sources) into the atmos., while human activity provides a further 7 gigatons of CO2. So, you have a non-industrialised world with lots of trees, then remove a great many of those trees as you industrialise yourselves, and concurrently ramp up the release of ‘locked-up’ CO2 to the point that it outnumbers natural CO2 provision by a *factor of 7*, and expect that nothing will go wrong in the only atmosphere available to us? That would be fool-hardy in the extreme…
2) Climate-change deniers frequently accuse climate scientists of using ‘short periods’ of measurement as the basis for scare-mongering long-term predictions. Now we have some deniers and their media opinion columnist buddies carefully and selectively pouncing on ONE sentence from ONE statement from the UK Met Office and trumpeting ‘No warming for 15 years = Climate Change does not exist!!’. Now that would be hypocritical in the extreme, I think.
For an explanation of measurement baselines, short time periods and selective selection of quotes and paraphrases in relation to climate change, see this: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/explained/messages, from the UK Met Office. They’re a good source of info, aren’t they?
Masticate on that.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:55:30 +0000

The quote I saw is here
http://thegwpf.org/science-news/4902-sunday-times-why-has-it-warmed-so-much-less-than-ipcc-predicted.html
and is reproduced from an article in The Sunday Times.

I haven’t heard any complaints from the Met Office so I assume the quotes are correct.

In terms of the “warmest year” thing above, imagine yourself hiking up a mountain, reaching a plateau, and then starting to descend just off the summit.

During the period you are on the plateau. you may be at any time at the “highest point on record”, and you might also be about to descend. You may also observe that the trend of your altitude is close to zero.

I am not trying to say this is exactly what is happening to our temperature series, but hopefully it indicates how these statements are mutually consistent.

By: De-wayne

De-wayne — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:39:59 +0000

Yeah, just did think about it and I would like it explained. My questions remain, where’s the quote referred to? Is that the view of the met office?

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:36:14 +0000

Do we really have to explain the difference between the “warmest year on record” and no temperature increase?

All the following statements are mutually consistent (but not necessarily true)

(1) There has been no increase in global mean temperature for the last 15 years
(2) Year NNNN was the “warmest on record”
(3) The world is cooling

Think about it.

By: De-wayne

De-wayne — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:15:32 +0000

@Richard

I can’t seem to find that quote from the UK Met Office. Can you give me the date of the press release?
I would also be keen to hear your explanation of how you think there has been no warming in the past 15 years when the temp anomaly has ranged from .36 °C above long-term average to .52°C and everything in between and given that Met office does say (faq section of website) “the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1998 (as of July 2011).”

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:34:28 +0000

The Rape of Britain
Wind Farms and the Destruction of our Environment

Hard-hitting attack on the government’s windfarms policy, backed up by data and delivered in an engaging style.

In this hard-hitting booklet, Struan Stevenson MEP demonstrates how Britain is being raped by the current mad race for renewable energy sources, and particularly by wind power. The manic scramble is responsible for the rape of Britain.

Wind turbines violate the principle of fairness by transferring vast amounts of money from the poor to the rich. They despoil our unique landscape and environment; and through noise, the flicker-effect and vibration, they abuse the health and welfare of people and animals which have to live near them. Far from being an eco-friendly answer to our energy needs, windfarms are an environmental disaster being inflicted on Britain that we will live to regret.

http://www.epaw.org/multimedia.php?lang=en&article=book5