Save the world, install an LPG tank.

[Construction Channel]

41 minutes ago, Big Neil said:

There's a new World Foods shop opened where the old Aldi used to be, on Seymour Grove in Trafford. I'm told they've got a great range of Dolmio. Probably go and check it out on my Lunch!

 

Sounds nice. I had a chicken cesar sandwich from Dorringtons. It was OK but I left it on the dash since breakfast so it was a little warm 

[epsilonGreedy]

41 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

This wasn't something I was familiar with, so I've spent some time (including ten minutes on the phone) to try and understand what actually happened with the re-baselining of historical measurements.

 

 

My alternative sources of news have at-least enlightened you about the core event though you are comfortable with the official explanation.

 

I sense large segments of the population will polarize around different interpretations of the same basic facts for years to come. Now that the BBC has declared there is nothing left to debate and hence they will no longer even bother to present opposing views on climate change, people are going to seek alternative sources of opinion.

 

My concern is how will people react when the Government demands true lifestyle changes. Most people pay lipservice to Climate Change today but should the Government announce each citizen now has a co2 flight budget of one foreign holiday every 5 years things could get ugly with inconvenient facts like climatic data adjustment lurking out there. 

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

My alternative sources of news have at-least enlightened you about the core event though you are comfortable with the official explanation.

 

 

No, I've not just accepted any single source explanation at all, I took the time to look at half a dozen raw data sources and the corrections that were applied.  Was I mislead?  I doubt it, if only because the corrections were far from all being in the same direction.  Some made the historical record fit more closely with the current climate model, and some made the historical records fit even further away from the current climate model.  The most obvious variation away from agreement with the current model seemed to be the corrections applied to historical oceanic temperatures, which tend to make the ocean temperature predictions look less accurate.

 

Overall, the corrections that were applied haven't made a significant difference, in as much as the corrections were still within the normal error bounds for the measurements, as far as I can see.   I'd be the first to say that I really don't know what is and is not significant, but corrections that just fine tune a data point within the pre-existing error bounds don't seem to me to be that significant.

[jack]

13 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Now that the BBC has declared there is nothing left to debate and hence they will no longer even bother to present opposing views on climate change, people are going to seek alternative sources of opinion.

 

The details are still being worked out, and the models are being improved all the time, but there's very strong consensus in the international scientific community on climate change. The voices against this mainstream position are few, and most of their arguments are easily debunked. 

 

With this context, why would the BBC give alternative climate change arguments debating time? I say that as someone who's sceptical of science reporting in general (as mentioned above in relation to nutritional science). Surely if there's a genuine scientific discussion needed, the BBC is the last place you'd expect to see it aired?

[Jeremy Harris]

When I was asking lots of questions about climate modelling, and trying (in vain) to get my head around it, my former colleague used an analogy that I could get my head around (well, to some degree) which was trying to model the flow of air around a hand-held fan. 

 

In still air this is a (relatively) simple CFD solvable problem (although it needs a fair bit of computing power to do it in 3D just for a room-sized model).  In normal air conditions, where the initial conditions for the model will vary over a wide range (due to convection currents, draughts, small scale temperature fluctuations etc) the model gets to be hellishly complex, and will tend to produce a different result for every run.

 

The fact that the model is damned difficult to refine, and has a result with a fair degree of uncertainty, doesn't change the overall conclusion, which is that waving a fan moves air.

[epsilonGreedy]

21 minutes ago, jack said:

With this context, why would the BBC give alternative climate change arguments debating time?

 

 

Because if there is some incontrovertible climatic event such as the arctic sea becoming entirely ice free in summer or 5 years of sea level rise at 10mm a year then mankind will have to exercise some remarkable changes in everyday behaviour and self restraint. Trying to effect such changes across a whole population will be nigh on impossible if there is a raft of suppressed counter opinion left bubbling away for years.

 

29 minutes ago, jack said:

Surely if there's a genuine scientific discussion needed, the BBC is the last place you'd expect to see it aired?

 

 

Actually no, we have already had far too much climate change science spouted by the BBC. What would be needed in the event of an ice free summer arctic is grass roots consensus on the necessity to act and in the era of YouTube that consensus will not be achieved through suppression of climate change skeptics. I say hand over BBC 4 to the skeptics with unlimited air time.

[jack]

9 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Because if there is some incontrovertible climatic event such as the arctic sea becoming entirely ice free in summer or 5 years of sea level rise at 10mm a year then mankind will have to exercise some remarkable changes in everyday behaviour and self restraint. Trying to effect such changes across a whole population will be nigh on impossible if there is a raft of suppressed counter opinion left bubbling away for years.

 

Actually no, we have already had far too much climate change science spouted by the BBC. What would be needed in the event of an ice free summer arctic is grass roots consensus on the necessity to act and in the era of YouTube that consensus will not be achieved through suppression of climate change skeptics. I say hand over BBC 4 to the skeptics with unlimited air time.

 

To the extent that I can follow your arguments, I don't find them convincing.

Edited to add:

If I understand you, you're now saying that even faced with incontrovertible proof that the worst of what was feared has come to pass, the existing raft of counter-opinion will prevent action being taken.

 

First, the counter-opinion is in the minority. If things start moving in the direction of the worst, then it will shrink further, thereby increasing the chance of action.

 

Second, even if it doesn't, then there's still a majority who will see the problem and realise they need to act.

 

Third, the sceptics currently say that there's no ACC. How does handing BBC 4 over to them improve the chances of being able to act in the event things turn out to be at the bad end of what's feared? Surely they'll just foment a larger population of sceptics who'll be less likely to act?

 

Perhaps this isn't your argument, but that's my best guess at understanding what you're saying.

[ProDave]

4 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

These are persuasive numbers but I think you have swayed the figures to support you point.

1. The average turbine is much smaller than 8MW.
2. Some of that daily revenue will be at times of day when the energy is not needed hence you are counting subsidized revenue.

Since posting I found a report that the average offshore turbine maintenance cost is $48k a year. The industry is also fretting about the number of turbines now coming out of warranty which suggests current average maintenance costs are for a youthful population of turbines.

 

I might also have misstated the gearbox repair cost, that £40k might be the ship charter cost, I read something a long time ago.

So what DO you want?

 

You want us to take climate change seriously, but when we do and there are loads of wind farms you start complaining they are unreliable.

 

What is your proposal?  Back to the reduce the human population theory?  Who do you propose we start with?

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, jack said:

If I understand you, you're now saying that even faced with incontrovertible proof that the worst of what was feared has come to pass, the existing raft of counter-opinion will prevent action being taken.

 

 

Not quite, I am saying human nature empowered by unaddressed counter opinion will forestall attempts at action. Consider mandatory pricing on plastic bags, minimum pricing on alcohol and sweets lined up at supermarket checkouts. Politicians have found it very hard to act on such trivial but socially beneficial policy for years. The changes that might be necessary for climate change are orders of magnitude more imposing on everyday life.

 

The only time the Government has attempted such wholescale micro management of the country for the common good was in WWII.

 

1 hour ago, jack said:

First, the counter-opinion is in the minority. If things start moving in the direction of the worst, then it will shrink further, thereby increasing the chance of action.

 

 

I am not talking about opinion sources, I am concerned about the opinion receptors, i.e. The People. Subscription to Climate Climate culture today is a cost free fashion statement for the average person today. Now take their cars away for any journey under 5 miles and imagine the response.

[Ed Davies]

5 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

These are persuasive numbers but I think you have swayed the figures to support you point.

1.  The average turbine is much smaller than 8MW.

 

Many existing turbines are smaller but most being installed now are about that size and are expected to be larger soon. E.g., the 82 turbines installed/being installed outside my bedroom window are 7.7 MW each.

 

5 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

2. Some of that daily revenue will be at times of day when the energy is not needed hence you are counting subsidized revenue

 

Yes, it's well understood that storage and flexibility of consumption needs to be part of the equation for widespread use of renewables. Now tell us something interesting.

 

5 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Since posting I found a report that the average offshore turbine maintenance cost is $48k a year.

 

That sounds a bit on the low side. The Beatrice field will have 82 turbines and employ 90 people full time. The cost of employing approx one person per turbine would seem likely more than $ (or £) 48k/year. Whatever, at 5p/kWh the turbines would be earning a revenue of slightly over a million a year so even double that maintenance cost isn't going to make much of a dent.

[Ed Davies]

5 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Hmm I am not familiar with that prediction but my thoughts immediately turned to something I read on how NOAA recently re-calibrated over of 100 years of US climate readings because the original numbers were disproving climate change.

 

Then it sounds like you've read some utter bullshit.

 

I'm less familiar with the NOAA data than the NASA GISS and the UK HadCRU datasets. The GISS and HadCRU datasets take historical meteorological readings of temperatures since the 1800s (different start times for the different datasets) and apply corrections because of known problems with the way measurements were made such as the effects of stations being moved and times of observations being changed, changes to the way water temperatures were measured by ships and so on. They then use this corrected data to work out temperature anomalies (differences from the average temperature in a baseline period) for different areas of the world and thereby come up with temperature anomalies for the whole globe, each of the hemispheres, land and ocean, etc.

 

This corrected data indeed shows a general warming trend over the last 100 years or so.

 

Guess what? If you take out the corrections they apply, just using the raw measurements as input the data shows a somewhat larger increase in temperature.

[Ed Davies]

6 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

Hansen's predictions from the 1980s have been pretty accurate.

 

5 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Hmm I am not familiar with that prediction

 

It's the ones where he stood up before a congressional committee and predicted warming over the coming decades. You know, Al Gore and all that. Lead to the formation of the IPCC and so on. But obviously something somebody seriously researching the subject could easily miss.

[Ed Davies]

37 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Not quite, I am saying human nature empowered by unaddressed counter opinion will forestall attempts at action.

 

So why are you so busy spreading this counter opinion rather than addressing it? The problem is that there are many thousands of scientists who have looked at climate science (it's probably been reviewed more thoroughly, both formally and informally, than any other branch of science - rightly, because it's important) and broadly accept its results. Sure, many will have quibbles with one aspect or the other but I really think that if there was any fundamental flaw it would have been widely publicised by now. Even if there's some sort of closed shop in the climate science publishing area (which I doubt) anything significant could have got published elsewhere, in some geology and astronomy journal for example, easily enough.

 

An example of outsider review: you mentioned the supposed manipulation of the NOAA dataset. As well as the NASA GISS, HadCRU and Japanese datasets there's also BEST (Berkley Earth) by Richard Muller and co, a physicist who doubted the accuracy of the existing datasets so set up a project to create a new, better, one, funded by the Koch brothers because they thought it would disprove AGW. Here's what he has to say afterwards (in less than 5 minutes):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTk8Dhr15Kw

 

[oldkettle]

I will likely regret it but I have to agree with some of the statements made by @epsilonGreedy  

 

1. Yes, people in massive numbers will rightly decline to subscribe to some of the sacrifices that are going to be requested from them. Just look at the BBC article on McDonald's replacing plastic straws with paper ones. I don't go to McDonald's but this whole straws business is... wrong and pointless - and this is just the beginning. At some point a party that will say "we will stop the madness" will probably give the bloody nose to the established ones the same way Farage did with Brexit. 

 

2. I am certain I am not alone in finding self-righteous 16y.o. explaining the UK is not doing enough on climate change quite ridiculous. 

 

3. There are good economists who rightly point out that instead of taking measures that will inevitably slow economic growth now we should wait and let China, India and other larger countries catch up as relatively prosperous five billion people can afford much more than one billion. At the same time there is a good chance much simpler and cheaper measures will be developed that will help deal with CO2 increase. 

 

4. I cannot speak for others but I won't be surprised if the problem of over-consumption will resolve itself as people need/use less and less, making do with their mobiles or whatever comes to replace them. Fewer (autonomous) cars - seems almost inevitable, meat for masses coming out of labs (I have absolutely no doubt this will be an exercise for masses, not for the chosen). You have heard it before. 

 

As for Al Gore, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-gore-2014/. The next date of their predictions is 2020, something tells me that ice free Arctic sea will fail to materialise again.

Edited April 24, 2019 by oldkettle
Typo

[Tennentslager]

Steady boys...

[Onoff]

Save The World....great choon!

 

 

?️

[Jeremy Harris]

3 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

Guess what? If you take out the corrections they apply, just using the raw measurements as input the data shows a somewhat larger increase in temperature.

 

I've just found a graphical representation of the NOAA data, showing the corrected and uncorrected figures, which makes it clear that the uncorrected data does indeed show a slightly larger increase in temperature than the corrected data:

 

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

I've just found a graphical representation of the NOAA data, showing the corrected and uncorrected figures, which makes it clear that the uncorrected data does indeed show a slightly larger increase in temperature than the corrected data:

 

This gets to the core of the problem for me, my source presents a graph showing the complete opposite. How will policy makers persuade the people to abandon their fossil fuel based lifestyles when apparently authoritative sources present opposing interpretations of the same numeric event?

 

 

https://realclimatescience.com/2018/03/noaa-data-tampering-approaching-2-5-degrees/

[Bitpipe]

Dara, as ever, is on the money here...

 

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

5 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

Then it sounds like you've read some utter bullshit.

 

 

Does it not strike you as odd that the largest historical set of climate readings covering +100 years has only now being declared unreliable and needing to be twiddled towards the truth?

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula/

 

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-major-global-defended.html

 

https://canadafreepress.com/article/fiddling-with-temperature-data

Edited April 24, 2019 by epsilonGreedy

[Ed Davies]

39 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

How will policy makers persuade the people to abandon their fossil fuel based lifestyles when apparently authoritative sources present opposing interpretations of the same numeric event?

 

Sorry, I missed in your initial post that it was contiguous US data only. For such a small area of the planet (about 5%) no trend would “disprove” climate change. I don't know the specifics of this one to be sure but if it's the one I think it is he (Tony Heller) was not area weighting the data (or not doing it properly) so the apparent decrease in the raw temperatures was a result of more weather stations being added to the network in the northern parts of the US during the time period.

 

Taking just your Telegraph link, Christopher Booker is not a reliable source for this sort of thing: http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2015/02/evil-nazi-communist-world-government.html

 

Edit to add: An example of Tony Heller/Steve Goddard doing that sort of thing (not area weighting): https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/usa-temperature-can-i-sucker-you/ though I'm sure I remember a similar article from longer ago.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Ed Davies

[epsilonGreedy]

2 hours ago, oldkettle said:

2. I am certain I am not alone in finding self-righteous 16y.o. explaining the UK is not doing enough on climate change quite ridiculous. 

 

 

I am not sure how I feel about this. During the 20 year credit boom up to 2007 young people disengaged from politics, philosophy and activism, they were instead seduced by brand label consumerism and easy credit for junk-bond higher education. Brexit, Trump, housing and student debt have had a shock effect. A 16 yo lecturing the establishment is a positive sign of change.

[vivienz]

Well, I've just made a load of beeswax cotton wraps to cut out the need for clingfilm. A very small contribution but a positive one, nonetheless.

[oldkettle]

19 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I am not sure how I feel about this. During the 20 year credit boom up to 2007 young people disengaged from politics, philosophy and activism, they were instead seduced by brand label consumerism and easy credit for junk-bond higher education. Brexit, Trump, housing and student debt have had a shock effect. A 16 yo lecturing the establishment is a positive sign of change.

 

I absolutely don't mind her saying whatever she wants to say, this is why we are young and confident and of course clueless without realising it. What I do mind is the platform given and the so called Conservative Gove reacting the way he apparently did. And of course she is a Swedish teenager, not a British one which means none of the stuff you mentioned actually affected her. 

The young are seduced by Corbin and Co. no less than they are by consumerism. If parents are unwilling or incapable to explain what is right and what is wrong climate change is the least important problem these kids are going to face. 

[jack]

9 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Does it not strike you as odd that the largest historical set of climate readings covering +100 years has only now being declared unreliable and needing to be twiddled towards the truth?

 

No, I don't find these adjustments at all odd.

 

This is critical science - possibly one of the biggest global challenges we've faced. It's hugely difficult and complex. With that context, I can't understand why it strikes you as odd that scientists continue to work to improve the quality of the data for the models they're using. As others have said, some of the adjustments result in less temperature increase. 

 

9 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-major-global-defended.html

 

I only had time to read this one (need to finish something this morning before heading out for a bit).

 

In summary:

• One guy claims that data wasn't handled properly, but admits there was "no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious".
• He believes his boss had his "thumb on the scale", but only in relation to "documentation, scientific choices and release of datasets". 
• He states that his boss rushed to get a study published before major international negotiations. If you were in the boss's shoes, why would do anything but rush to try and get out your report in time for it to be be considered as part of such an important set of discussions?
• A subsequent independent study looking at the same corrections came to the same conclusions using different methods.
• The data involved was only in relation to ship-based measurements of ocean temperatures. 

On balance, I can't see anything in this article that supports some sort of conspiracy among scientists to corrupt any significant proportion of the data upon which the consensus position on ACC relies.