Climate change another name for Weather

[Smurf1976]

The correct point is not that climate change science is all tied up with economics and politics, but the response to it must be.

The continuing petty point scoring does not change the science. Nor can it change the data.

Trouble is, we keep hearing "scientists" demanding specific political and economic actions rather than focusing on the science.

Stick to actual science - saying that some ice melted somewhere so we have to increase funding for public transport is blatant politics, not science. Just say that the ice is melting and we need to cut emissions - leave the "how" part, which is the politics, out of it if you want any respect as a scientist.

The level of public misinformation on this whole issue is incredible. I'd guess that no more than 5% of people here (or anywhere else) could explain why replacing the bulbs at home with energy savers actually leads to a slight increase in emissions, not a decrease. Same as they couldn't explain why switching from electric hot water to solar will have zero net impact on emissions either way (assuming coal is used to generate the power).

Anyone game to have a go at answering that question? It's a simple answer that doesn't relate to power station efficiency or anything technical like that. Just about everyone has actually heard the answer already via the media and it's been widely discussed on this forum. It's just that the politics and commercial interests have effectively covered it up in order to profit - and that's my point.

Any takers?

 

[basilio]

The level of public misinformation on this whole issue is incredible. I'd guess that no more than 5% of people here (or anywhere else) could explain why replacing the bulbs at home with energy savers actually leads to a slight increase in emissions, not a decrease. Same as they couldn't explain why switching from electric hot water to solar will have zero net impact on emissions either way (assuming coal is used to generate the power).

Excellent point Smurf and delighted that you have brought it up.

My understanding is that the relatively small "savings" made by changing light globes simply make the current power stations a little more inefficient. They still have to run but the juice is not being used. In fact as I understand it at night when there considerably less power used many areas have problems with over voltage which can reduce the life of electric motors.

This goes back to the core issue. We need to replace the electricity energy source to a less polluting or non renewable supply or if we are going to reduce energy use , reduce it by enough to close down an entire coal fired power station.

_________________________________________________

Climate Change and Peak oil - The right solutions, right now

 

[Smurf1976]

Excellent point Smurf and delighted that you have brought it up.

My understanding is that the relatively small "savings" made by changing light globes simply make the current power stations a little more inefficient. They still have to run but the juice is not being used. In fact as I understand it at night when there considerably less power used many areas have problems with over voltage which can reduce the life of electric motors.

The answer is far simpler than that...

As for generation efficiency, it's massively complicated but in general yes, a plant run at half load is less efficient than one run at full load. Gas turbines in particular don't like running at part load but everything from nuclear to hydro does have an optimum efficiency level at a given output.

That's one of the reasons why, to the extent that we are going to keep using fossil fuel generated power, it's best to keep the loads relatively stable. Hence the benefits of shifting some consumption to off-peak times and the problem with high levels of wind etc generation.

The answer to the original question is a lot more fundamental than that however and doesn't depend on the thermal efficiency of power generation being altered by changing consumer behaviour. I'll post the answer tomorrow if nobody's answered it by then.

 

[basilio]

Interesting Smurf....

I think the point about the change of electric hot water to solar hot water is that off peak electric is in fact using power at night which would otherwise be wasted. Refer back to the comment on power stations working at lower efficiences. Of course this wouldn't necessarily be the case with on demand electric hot water units.

And you may be suggesting that the production of the Solar hot water unit produces more emissions than are saved.

Are you also suggesting that the production of Compact Fluorescent globes in itself causes more emissions that may be saved over its life? Is there also a power factor consideration in the use of CFLs that results in more power being used than actually measured?

And I will be very interested to see your answer and references.

Cheers

 

[2020hindsight]

..1. Stick to actual science - saying that some ice melted somewhere so we have to increase funding for public transport is blatant politics, not science.

2. why replacing the bulbs at home with energy savers actually leads to a slight increase in emissions, not a decrease.

3. Same as they couldn't explain why switching from electric hot water to solar will have zero net impact on emissions either way (assuming coal is used to generate the power).

Here's my
1. well if CO2 causes warming, then ice will melt, albeit by a long circuitous route.

2. dunno - Would you accept that instead of 60 x 100W lamps, you could run 100x 60W lamps instead?

3. (if everyone uses less power, then surely the power stations can scale down - or if you prefer there's no need for them to scale up when population increases.

what if you go to nuclear - plus your proviso that there's a hydro or some other "battery" somewhere to store offpeak output.

(or a network grid where we share power with the Indian subcontinent and /or Europe)

 

[2020hindsight]

NASA's graphs again ...

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Our traditional analysis using only meteorological station data is a line plot of global annual-mean surface air temperature change derived from the meteorological station network [... Hansen et al. (2001).]

Uncertainty bars (95% confidence limits) are shown for both the annual and five-year means, account only for incomplete spatial sampling of data

.

The annual mean graphs will be updated around January 15, 2009

 

[Smurf1976]

Interesting Smurf....

I think the point about the change of electric hot water to solar hot water is that off peak electric is in fact using power at night which would otherwise be wasted. Refer back to the comment on power stations working at lower efficiences. Of course this wouldn't necessarily be the case with on demand electric hot water units.

And you may be suggesting that the production of the Solar hot water unit produces more emissions than are saved.

Are you also suggesting that the production of Compact Fluorescent globes in itself causes more emissions that may be saved over its life? Is there also a power factor consideration in the use of CFLs that results in more power being used than actually measured?

And I will be very interested to see your answer and references.

Cheers

Nope, it's far simpler than that.

The CFL's do save energy overall although most of them do use more than is measured by an ordinary household electricity meter or is stated on the packaging. Yes this is due to power factor - some of them are surprisingly low. The extra energy isn't to the point of making them a waste of time though - in themselves they do save energy and emissions according to all calculations I've seen on the subject.

The solar HWS is also viable purely in energy terms. Actually, they are basically the only thing on the energy supply side that stacks up financially as an alternative to conventional large scale generation. The answer to the question doesn't relate to how the solar HWS works - they do save energy and emissions as long as we're comparing the same source of boost energy with what would otherwise be used to heat all the water if you didn't buy the solar HWS. That is, electric off-peak versus solar with electric off-peak boost or gas compared to solar with gas boost. If you start comparing a gas HWS with a continuous electric boost solar then that's when it all goes wrong economically and envrionmentally.

The answer to the original question doesn't relate to the technical efficiency of power generation or any specific appliance, solar HWS and CFL's included. It's something far broader and simpler than that.

 

[Panacea]

The answer to the original question doesn't relate to the technical efficiency of power generation or any specific appliance, solar HWS and CFL's included. It's something far broader and simpler than that.

Population growth perhaps?

 

[2020hindsight]

"The annual mean graphs will be updated around January 15, 2009"

No-one said this was a monotonically increasing function. It's chaotic to the extent that it dances around the trend line.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotonic_function

The meteorological year, December 2007 through November 2008, was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis of surface air temperature measurements.

It was the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880.

The nine warmest years all occur within the eleven-year period 1998-2008.

Here's also a graph of CO2 from wiki. Worse to come folks (both for CO2 and temp).

 

[wayneL]

Someone for you to vilify:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24820442-5000117,00.html

 

[2020hindsight]

so Bolt (like you perhaps) doesn't understand chaos theory lol.
ooohh

 

[wayneL]

so Bolt (like you perhaps) doesn't understand chaos theory lol.
ooohh

You, unlike the IPCC climate change hypothesis, are totally predictable.

Ergo, my theory on you stands (viz

), whereas the IPCC's hypothesis doesn't even qualify as a theory.

Thank you for contributing to my research.

BTW, why do warmers only invoke chaos theory when the data contradicts (as expected by true scientists) your hypothesis? Genuine question.

 

[2020hindsight]

Wayne read the post mmediatelty before yours (#469)

It's chaotic to the extent that it dances around the trend line.

I realise it's hard to understand - but try ok?

PS Joe - gee you've got some classy posters on this website .

 

[spooly74]

The meteorological year, December 2007 through November 2008, was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis of surface air temperature measurements.

It was the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880.

The nine warmest years all occur within the eleven-year period 1998-2008.

UAH MSU satellite data suggests 2008 will end up about the 15th warmest (16th coldest) in their 30 years of lower tropospheric data.

Is your chart above land based temp only?

http://surfacestations.org/

 

[Smurf1976]

Population growth perhaps?

It's simpler than that...

It's not economic growth either.

 

[Panacea]

I'd guess that no more than 5% of people here (or anywhere else) could explain why replacing the bulbs at home with energy savers actually leads to a slight increase in emissions, not a decrease. Same as they couldn't explain why switching from electric hot water to solar will have zero net impact on emissions either way (assuming coal is used to generate the power).

Anyone game to have a go at answering that question? It's a simple answer that doesn't relate to power station efficiency or anything technical like that. Just about everyone has actually heard the answer already via the media and it's been widely discussed on this forum. It's just that the politics and commercial interests have effectively covered it up in order to profit - and that's my point.

I've just re-read the question (quoted) and I must say you have me stumped. I'm sure it'll be one of those 'Doh!' moments when you finally pony up the answer.

Intrigued...

 

[basilio]

Re Andrew Bolts latest story

Someone for you to vilify:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...000117,00.html

He is a very special writer.... In fact he has few peers as far as distortion, deception and abuse. Unless I can find external proof of anything he says I put it in the same category as a 1950's tobacco company.

Just to pick one example of his work look at his quotation on Robyn Williams

The seas will rise up to 100m by 2100, claims ABC Science Show host Robyn Williams

Gee that looks really alarmist doesn't it? Right off the planet stuff.

But if you actually were interested in the truth you could simply go to the ABC website which has a word for word transcript ( yes it is tautologous) of the interview where this issue came up.

Guess what? Robyn was interviewing Jonathon Overpeck a researcher who in 2006 showed that the sea levels on earth were 100 metres higher when there wasn't Arctic or Antarctic ice. Basically he found all these ancient coral reefs around the world 100 plus metres higher than present sea levels. His point (Jonothans) was

Jonathan Overpeck: Greenland is accelerating in it's contribution to sea level. It's still pretty small compared to what we're likely to get in the future; but to melt all of Greenland could take centuries, even millennia. The ice sheet that we're more worried about is the west Antarctic ice sheet because that one's underneath sea level, grounded underneath sea level. It rests below sea level. And that means that we might be able to get it to disintegrate by warming the ocean, and having the glacier flow more rapidly out into the ocean.

Robyn Williams: And as it goes out, as the ice melts, the reflection of the sunlight is diminished; more heat is absorbed and the effect is then increased.

Jonathan Overpeck: There's a big positive feedback. If you can melt ice, less radiation is reflected back to space, that means the Earth warms more, and that amplifies the melting.

Jonathan Overpeck: When you first made this prediction of possibility of those numbers of metres of sea level rise, there was a world reaction in the newspapers. What did you think of the way you were reported?

Jonathan Overpeck: I was pretty happy. Most of the stories that I saw both in print and in television media seemed pretty accurate. The big misunderstanding is that we could get that amount of sea level rise in this century, when in fact it will take centuries to get that amount of sea level rise.But the important thing is that we could commit ourselves or rather future generations to that amount of sea level rise some time in this century. All we have to do is get CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere to a certain level, and because that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, we'll be committed to that ice sheet melting and large sea level rise.

One could easily take apart the rest of the disinformation Andrew served up today but life is too short to waste on him.

For the full text of the interview check out

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/1879875.htm

If you want to understand why Johnathan research is so critical check out

Has the Arctic melt passed the point of no return?

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...lt-passes-the-point-of--no-return-1128197.htm
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Global Warming and Peak OIl - The right solutions, right now.

 

[spooly74]

It's simpler than that...

It's not economic growth either.

Was Basilo on the right track in earlier posts?

Virtually everything we do, uses CO2 eventually. It's all energy!

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

WTF?

Möglicherweise konnten Sie dieses Lied für uns übersetzen.

sprechen Sie Englisch Sie, krauts bumsend

gg

 

[spooly74]

If you want to understand why Johnathan research is so critical check out



http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...lt-passes-the-point-of--no-return-1128197.htm
______________________________________________________

Global Warming and Peak OIl - The right solutions, right now.

Basilo did you read the latest report from U.S. Climate Change Science Program ? Available from http://climatescience.gov

Considerable effort is now underway to improve the models, but it is far from complete, leaving us unable to make reliable predictions of ice-sheet responses to a warming climate if such glacier accelerations were to increase in size and frequency. It should be noted that there is also a large uncertainty in current model predictions of the atmosphere and ocean temperature changes which drive the ice-sheet changes, and this uncertainty could be as large as that on the marginal flow response.

CCSP vs The Independant?