APS and the Global Warming Scam

[BaalChatzaf]

36 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Now you're assuming standard today-type nuclear plants can't do the job. In the US the cost of building them is up by a factor of maybe three because of excessive regulations and lawsuits by environmentalists. Won't more CO2 mean more plant life mean more plants eating CO2? Now look at your second sentence: "So natural gas will heat up the surface region at 1/6 the rate of coal." What does that mean? A heat island? Okay, I guess. BFD. AGW? The conclusion doesn't follow. More CO2 doesn't mean more retained heat and even Litzen saying doubling CO2 is generally thought to raise global temps by 1 degree C. is no established fact. When we get there--when?--it might be zero, one degree or two. He doesn't know. Nobody knows or can know.

Humans can adapt to warming much easier than cooling if we assume cooling, not warming, could trigger the next ice age. But the adaptation will be much harder if humans are much poorer because they are denied "access to energy."

Anyway, the political debate is about over. (There goes the money, honey.)  AGW was tossed out by the environmentalists because it was too hard to defend in favor of CC. They are now finding out the weaker term has no punch at all. CC was a strategic retreat but the retreat will continue. There's no way to reverse direction if for no other reason the other big non-western emitters never gave a good God-damn about the environmental ruckus over here except how it benefited them economically and weakened us.

I look forward to the environmentalists kicking out the fascists and getting back to true environmentalism.

--Brant

save the whales, save the fishes, save the oceans (from plastic)!

Actually I favor fission produced heat.  The newer reactors are much more modular and much safer than the kind of reactors that were built in the 50s and 60s. Just on technological grounds I would like to see this nation powered  by  thorium  and breeder reactors.  No CO2 effluent. The breeders could dispose of 90 percent of the so-called waste products.  They rest could be borated and dumped in the deepest part of the Pacific, 35,000 feet deep.  No radioactive blow back.

For political reasons it will be difficult for the American public to accept large scale construction of  fission reactors.

Possible future solutions:   large capacity energy storage devices that are economical.  Such technology would make solar and wind generation feasible since energy storage could cover the intermittent nature of solar power generation and wind generation.

The real Prize Winner would be to discover a chemical catalytic means to break down water into H2, O2  powered by the sun.  This photosynthesis analog is the ultimate solution to energy production on earth.  All the H2 we can use  and H2O is the only "waste" product.   Nature has done this with plants (photosynthesis).  If we could do it with water and a catalyst this would be the Ultimate clean energy solution.  I can dream,  can't I?

[william.scherk]

23 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Nobody knows or can know.

There's the rub.

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, Ben Santer said:

So this is a moment when people -- when people are willing to listen, when I can come on your show and say, "Nobody really knows" is wrong, it's fake news. 

That's the other rub.

Edited February 26, 2017 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is this called rub-science?

   

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Actually I favor fission produced heat.  The newer reactors are much more modular and much safer than the kind of reactors that were built in the 50s and 60s. Just on technological grounds I would like to see this nation powered  by  thorium  and breeder reactors.  No CO2 effluent. The breeders could dispose of 90 percent of the so-called waste products.  They rest could be borated and dumped in the deepest part of the Pacific, 35,000 feet deep.  No radioactive blow back.

For political reasons it will be difficult for the American public to accept large scale construction of  fission reactors.

Possible future solutions:   large capacity energy storage devices that are economical.  Such technology would make solar and wind generation feasible since energy storage could cover the intermittent nature of solar power generation and wind generation.

The real Prize Winner would be to discover a chemical catalytic means to break down water into H2, O2  powered by the sun.  This photosynthesis analog is the ultimate solution to energy production on earth.  All the H2 we can use  and H2O is the only "waste" product.   Nature has done this with plants (photosynthesis).  If we could do it with water and a catalyst this would be the Ultimate clean energy solution.  I can dream,  can't I?

Some will say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one . . .

There are always problems needing solutions. Your energy utopia would be no different.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

There's the rub.

I said that, not Bob.

--Brant

rub, rub, rub

[Brant Gaede]

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

That's the other rub.

I can't track this down. Where did he say it, again? This guy is posting on OL?

--Brant

you seem to be getting sloppy

[Ellen Stuttle]

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ellen,

I read the transcript above and all my warning bells went off.

A few bells clanged when I saw a so-called scientist call an opinion by a politician "fake news."

News in this specific cultural context is presented by news organizations, not by individuals in other professions. "Fake news" is a jab at news organizations and newscasters. You would think a scientist would know something that elementary. Cognitively, he is terrible at basic identification. It makes you wonder if he identifies correctly what he tests and measures.

But when he said "teachable moment" two times in a row, I wanted to run for cover.

Michael

I would think that Santer DOES know "something that elementary."  How about slick?

I also think that he correctly understands what the scientific results actually are, that he's a case of having to understand the results or he couldn't be so smooth at presenting a misleading appearance.

Ellen

[william.scherk]

UPDATE: Global, Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Spiral #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming pic.twitter.com/WuTip4XK4m

— Kevin Pluck (@kevpluck) February 28, 2017

[Peter]

Yikes, Kevin Pluck, hash tag chicken little. The Arctic is spiraling? Oh my gosh! I will keep my attic ladder and door open in case I need to get up there in a real hurry.  And I better look up “rubber rafts” on the internet too.

If I am reading that map right, it looks like the ice shelf grows a bit here, and decreases a bit there. Is there any significance to picking George Orwell’s “1984” as a starting point?

Just what do you think William? Any mountains close by to be used like in the movie 'Deep Impact" with Tea Leone?

Peter

[BaalChatzaf]

On 2/26/2017 at 10:14 AM, Brant Gaede said:

Now look at your second sentence: "So natural gas will heat up the surface region at 1/6 the rate of coal."

Natural gas burns hotter than coal.  It produces one sixth the CO2 that coal does per Joule of energy produced by combustion. 

[william.scherk]

-- from a talk given late last year. This may be of interest to Bob (Navier-Stokes!) for the parts of the talk dealing with clouds ... the video is cued up at six minutes in.  Palmer is a research professor at Jesus College, Oxford, and Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge.

Quote

Published on Jan 10, 2017 [from the Youtube notes]
This talk was held at the Cambridge Conference on Catastrophic Risk on December 12-14, 2016.

In a recent talk at the Royal Society, climate sceptic Matt Ridley proposed a novel trichotomous characterisation of the climate-change problem, as outlined in the title above. He described himself as a “lukewarmer”. However, by virtue of the complex nonlinear nature of climate, such a categorical delineation of the problem is inappropriate. Rather, to be consistent with the nature of key uncertainties in estimating how increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide interact with the natural climate system, notably with the hydrological cycle, estimates of future climate should instead be framed in terms of probability and risk: What, for example, is the risk of catastrophic climate change (the sort that would pose an existential threat to significant sections of humanity) in the coming century or so? It is simply inconsistent with our present state of knowledge to conclude that this risk is negligible. Indeed, according to both observations and modelling, this risk lies in the 10s of per cent, and is therefore substantial by any relevant measure. 

The biggest uncertainty preventing a more categorical estimate of future climate lies in the problem of cloud feedback: How will low- and high-level cloud respond to increasing levels of carbon dioxide? Current computers are not powerful enough to allow clouds to be resolved and they must therefore be represented by quasi-empirical parametrisation formulae. Here I call on the climate sceptic community (including, perhaps, the incoming US Administration) to acknowledge this risk-based approach to the assessment of future climate and to broadly accept IPCC estimates of risk (whilst recognising that these estimates can and must be improved). I call on economists and climate scientists to work closer together to provide the most reliable estimates possible of expected climate impacts. To aid such work, I call on European countries to come together to fund a dedicated (exascale) flagship climate-computing centre – a sort of Climate CERN – which would allow the resolution of global climate models to be driven down to scales where key cloud systems can be represented using the laws of physics. Such a centre is essential if we are to understand and quantify better the nature of climate extremes.

Of interest to others following what could be described as popular-science commentary, an interesting column from Robert Tracinski at the Federalist. Published today.

What It Would Take to Prove Global Warming

Quote

Recently, Reason‘s Ronald Bailey asked what it would take to convince conservatives and libertarians that global warming is real.

If generally rising temperatures, decreasing diurnal temperature differences, melting glacial and sea ice, smaller snow extent, stronger rainstorms, and warming oceans are not enough to persuade you that man-made climate [change] is occurring, what evidence would be?

This has since been picked up by Jonathan Adler at the Washington Post‘s token right-leaning blog, the Volokh Conspiracy. There’s no pressure: Bailey and Adler merely insinuate that you are “obscurantist”—that is, you hate new knowledge—if you don’t agree.

That, by the way—the smug insistence of global warming alarmists on presenting themselves as the embodiment of scientific knowledge as such—is one of the reasons I stopped taking them seriously. In fact, I have thought about what it would take to convince me global warming is real. And it’s pretty clear that Bailey has not thought about it.

He really hasn’t. [...]

Another absorbing discussion to be had is at Judith Curry's blog, Climate Etc. She highlights and discusses remarks uttered by EPA head Scott Pruitt, and the media kerfuffle following it; the discussion is now at 385 comments ...

Scott Pruitt’s statement on climate change

Quote

[...]

What Scott Pruitt actually said

Listen to what Scott Pruitt actually said on CNBC and then compare it to the portrayal in the media.  Here is the key text:

I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.  But we don’t know that yet.  We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.

Can you square what Pruitt actually said with the distorted quotes and headlines about this?  I can’t.

[...]

Weather porn!

-- I am taking bets on a return of El Niño in 2017.  If I lose, twenty bucks to OL for the continuance of this site ...

WSS bets:  El Niño conditions by the end of 2017.

Backgrounder from Forbes contributor

This week some chatter was getting around Twitter and within climate circles about the possibility of El Niño returning in 2017. Wait, El Niño? Didn't we just have a major El Niño in 2015? The answer is yes. The 2015-2016 El Nino was a very strong El Niño. It affected weather patterns around the world, the Atlantic hurricane season, and global temperature records in 2015. With the "shares" and "retweets" about another El Niño returning so quickly, it felt prudent to consult with some of my tropical meteorology colleagues for their thoughts about the latest speculation.

[link]

 

Edited March 14, 2017 by william.scherk
De-botched spoiler contents; added notes on Palmer and link to his faculty page.

[BaalChatzaf]

I am glad you posted that.  I was going to post Palmer's lecture.  it is excellent and it deals quite well the difficulties in making decent models of climate.  His discourse on the Navier Stokes equation which he likens to an array or Russian dolls  (of decreasing scale)  is first rate. 

The interesting and ironic thing is that the climate alarmists might be right (although they have not proven themselves so).  I think good sense should prevail and we should really get busy transitioning our power producing technology away from those means which produce a CO2 overload.  While I do not believe we we turn in Venus in the next century, the longer we put the task off the harder it will be to avoid climatic effects from CO2,  CH4 and increased water vapor production.  I think a steady business like program to develop non-combustion means of generating electricity will not only improve technology over all, but may be beneficial in terms of avoiding  climatic extremities.  In conjunction with such a technology progression I think stopping the Boys from Brazil from leveling the Amazon Rain Forrest  and  planting many many trees would be good for the planet. 

[Ellen Stuttle]

8 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The interesting and ironic thing is that the climate alarmists might be right (although they have not proven themselves so).

Changing the prediction to something or other, we know not what, might or might not happen an unknown X number of years from now wouldn't retroactively make the string of failed predictions right.

And I hope you're aware of the kind of financial drain being called for in an appeal to "European countries to come together to fund a dedicated (exascale) flagship climate-computing centre – a sort of Climate CERN [...]."  Europe isn't being burdened enough already with the financial and lifestyle hardships produced by climate alarmism?

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Changing the prediction to something or other, we know not what, might or might not happen an unknown X number of years from now wouldn't retroactively make the string of failed predictions right.

And I hope you're aware of the kind of financial drain being called for in an appeal to "European countries to come together to fund a dedicated (exascale) flagship climate-computing centre – a sort of Climate CERN [...]."  Europe isn't being burdened enough already with the financial and lifestyle hardships produced by climate alarmism?

Ellen

There is a genuine climate question that ought to be researched  carefully.   The heat trapping effects of CO2  and other trace gases have been known since the 19 th century.  There is a genuine question or questions.   What natural drivers affect the temperature of sea,  air and land?   What effects do trace gases have on the temperature of sea air and land.   All of our weather  is generated by the movement of heat in the atmosphere and oceans.  One could say with fair accuracy that our weather systems are the result of  the sea and the atmosphere cooling the tropics (which are hottest because the tropics get the most direct sunlight).  So the question of what  drives and moderates weather and climate is a genuine scientific question given what  we know of ice ages and cold periods, some very serious consequences flow from the temperature being too low.   High temperature along with limited rain fall produces deserts.  So knowing what is likely to cause high temperatures and droughts is an important issue.

It will cost us something to find out how this is going to work.  The alternative is not to study the issue and deal with whatever weather and climate conditions come our way.  This is also going to cost us something. 

Do you think it is worth the cost of finding out if  human activity will produce harmful weather and climate effects,  or what natural weather and climate effects are going to happen regardless of what we do?   I think it is worth the cost.  The cosmos is not entirely friendly to us.  There are things that can happen and harm us.  It behooves us to know what they are and take appropriate steps to protect ourselves. 

I would even go as far as saying we should mount a thorough asteroid and comet watch to  see what earth orbit crossing bodies  are out there in the solar system.  The survival of the human race may depend on knowing such things.

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Changing the prediction to something or other, we know not what, might or might not happen an unknown X number of years from now wouldn't retroactively make the string of failed predictions right.

The problem with the current climate models is that the DO NOT make testable predictions.  They do indicate a range of effects produced by temperature variations.  It is the climate alarmists who invalidly use the output of these not very good models  to tell us that the sky is falling or that we are going to become Venus in a hundred years (or less!).  It would be very useful to have better models that are capable of making testable predictions. 

Testable predictions have to be quantitative, specific  and come with error bounds. The predictions  have to be such that we can subject  corroborations to a statistical test  to see what the probability is that we are seeing a false positive  (this is done with Bayesian hypothesis testing).

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is something from our climate past  which could be our climate future.

 

The Little Ice Age   from 1300 to 1800 or there about.   The climate shift  from the very warm  Optimum (warmer than it is today)  to  freeze your ass off cold took a little  over a decade to happen.  Some of the results of the Little Ice Age: The French Revolution  and Napoleon's debacle at Moscow. To say nothing of the Black Death.  The earth has had a chronic sequence of ice ages over the past few million years, the last great ice age ending about 12,000 ybp.  If I had to bet on the next great climate shift I would be on an extended cold period.  Fortunately we have the technology that can deal with it.

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: The Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1800 or there about . . . . The earth has had a chronic sequence of ice ages over the past few million years, the last great ice age ending about 12,000 ybp.  If I had to bet on the next great climate shift I would be on an extended cold period.  Fortunately we have the technology that can deal with it. end quote

 

Could we still get Columbian coffee in Starbucks or home brewed in a Folgers’ can? William lives in British Columbia but he may have some ideas using Canadian’s ice coping abilities. Greenhouses can only grow a small quantity of wheat, corn, and soybeans, and with the earth’s huge population it would be hard to feed us all. If the temperate zone shrank towards the equator, there might be a migration towards the warmer zones too which could cause strife.

 

Personally, I think a combo of atmospheric volcanic debris and decreased solar output could easily account for the Little Ice Age’s “shorter” duration. How much warning would we need to cope with a deep freeze without triggering wars or starvation? Could we come close to reversing a cold snap? If America remains free and a superpower, give humanity a hundred years to develop solar mirrors to warm the earth up. I read somewhere about using moon rocks to create mirrors on the moon or in earth orbit to direct more heat and light our way. And we could always head underground, but I think humanity would prefer insulated cities as are found in the great white north.

Peter

 

What caused the Little Ice Age? By Deborah Byrd in Earth | August 9, 2012: A recent theory came in early 2012. It’s the idea that an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions triggered the Little Ice Age between 1275 and 1300 A.D. Those dates might correspond with the beginning of the Little Ice Age, which might have begun as early as the 13th century. Meanwhile, others say the beginning was more like the 16th century. The scientists with the volcano theory – at University of Colorado Boulder with co-authors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations – have evidence for volcanic eruptions between 1275 and 1300 AD. They say these volcanoes triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries. Their results are in contrast to the work of other scientists who contend that decreased radiation from the sun is what caused the Little Ice Age. Their study was published in January 2012 in Geophysical Research Letters . . . .

Meanwhile, there is still the idea of decreased radiation from the sun, as evidenced by, for example, a decline in visible spots on the sun during the period of the Little Ice Age. The researchers addressed that question by setting solar radiation at a constant level in their climate models. They said the simulations indicated that the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. Bottom line: What caused the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that’s generally agreed to have ended in the 19th century. One idea is that decreased radiation from the sun caused this period of widespread cooling on Earth. In early 2012, scientists at University of Colorado Boulder with co-authors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations announced evidence suggesting that volcanoes caused the Little Ice Age. They used radiocarbon-dating of samples of dead plant material, collected from high northern latitudes, in combination with a computer model, to show that four massive volcanoes could have triggered the widespread cooling. Their study was being published in Geophysical Research Letters in January 2012 . . . .

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

Ba’al wrote: The Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1800 or there about . . . . The earth has had a chronic sequence of ice ages over the past few million years, the last great ice age ending about 12,000 ybp.  If I had to bet on the next great climate shift I would be on an extended cold period.  Fortunately we have the technology that can deal with it. end quote

 

Could we still get Columbian coffee in Starbucks or home brewed in a Folgers’ can? William lives in British Columbia but he may have some ideas using Canadian’s ice coping abilities. Greenhouses can only grow a small quantity of wheat, corn, and soybeans, and with the earth’s huge population it would be hard to feed us all. If the temperate zone shrank towards the equator, there might be a migration towards the warmer zones too which could cause strife.

 

Personally, I think a combo of atmospheric volcanic debris and decreased solar output could easily account for the Little Ice Age’s “shorter” duration. How much warning would we need to cope with a deep freeze without triggering wars or starvation? Could we come close to reversing a cold snap? If America remains free and a superpower, give humanity a hundred years to develop solar mirrors to warm the earth up. I read somewhere about using moon rocks to create mirrors on the moon or in earth orbit to direct more heat and light our way. And we could always head underground, but I think humanity would prefer insulated cities as are found in the great white north.

Peter

 

What caused the Little Ice Age? By Deborah Byrd in Earth | August 9, 2012: A recent theory came in early 2012. It’s the idea that an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions triggered the Little Ice Age between 1275 and 1300 A.D. Those dates might correspond with the beginning of the Little Ice Age, which might have begun as early as the 13th century. Meanwhile, others say the beginning was more like the 16th century. The scientists with the volcano theory – at University of Colorado Boulder with co-authors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations – have evidence for volcanic eruptions between 1275 and 1300 AD. They say these volcanoes triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries. Their results are in contrast to the work of other scientists who contend that decreased radiation from the sun is what caused the Little Ice Age. Their study was published in January 2012 in Geophysical Research Letters . . . .

Meanwhile, there is still the idea of decreased radiation from the sun, as evidenced by, for example, a decline in visible spots on the sun during the period of the Little Ice Age. The researchers addressed that question by setting solar radiation at a constant level in their climate models. They said the simulations indicated that the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. Bottom line: What caused the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that’s generally agreed to have ended in the 19th century. One idea is that decreased radiation from the sun caused this period of widespread cooling on Earth. In early 2012, scientists at University of Colorado Boulder with co-authors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations announced evidence suggesting that volcanoes caused the Little Ice Age. They used radiocarbon-dating of samples of dead plant material, collected from high northern latitudes, in combination with a computer model, to show that four massive volcanoes could have triggered the widespread cooling. Their study was being published in Geophysical Research Letters in January 2012 . . . .

Over the the next ten million years the Malincovich Cycle and the sunspot minimums will regulate solar irradiance.  Another ice sometime in the future is almost a sure thing.  Throw in a few big eruptions and it is in the bag.

However in a billion years the sun will be 15% hotter than it is now (that is because the hydrogen is being used up and helium fuses at a higher temperature) so eventually the Earth will be more like Venus,  but the human species will be long gone from the Earth (almost certainly by extinction)  by then. 

[Ellen Stuttle]

On March 14, 2017 at 7:42 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Do you think it is worth the cost of finding out if  human activity will produce harmful weather and climate effects,  or what natural weather and climate effects are going to happen regardless of what we do?   I think it is worth the cost.  

Well, that's nice and vague.  You think "it is worth the cost."

What cost? What price tag do you have in mind? Money provided by whom? Collected how? Allocated how?

Research conducted by whom? Overseen and vetted by whom?

The same pseudo-scientific modelers who have given us a stream of unfalsifiable crud and who you said above "might be right"?

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

10 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Well, that's nice and vague.  You think "it is worth the cost."

What cost? What price tag do you have in mind? Money provided by whom? Collected how? Allocated how?

Research conducted by whom? Overseen and vetted by whom?

The same pseudo-scientific modelers who have given us a stream of unfalsifiable crud and who you said above "might be right"?

Ellen

Cost as  in survival.  Suppose for the nonce, that global warming (an established fact)  is the result of natural drivers.  If so, we ask what steps could preserve us that we must take to survive.  So there is a cost to finding out HOW to survive  and a cost to DOING what it takes to survive.  But first we must identify what is happening (determine causes).  Now  suppose some of the global warming is due to human activity.  Then to assure our health and well being we must modify what we are doing.  Do you remember leaded gasoline,  petrol with lead tetra-ethel added as an anti-knock component?  Well,  use of that was causing wide spread lead poisoning in the population.  Not enough to kill us dead, but enough to degrade the operation of our brain and nervous system.  It cost the entire population some degradation of their thinking ability.  Now, by analogy,  are there some activities or substances that can cause wide spread harm and damage by way of the warming?   If there are human activities that is causing wide spread harm or is likely to cause wide spread harm if increased,  then there is a cost to finding out what these are and there is a cost  to modifying what it is that we are doing to bring about harm or potential harm.

Is that un-vague enough for you?  

I don't think we are on the verge of wrecking the planet for human habitation,  but we are doing things which if carried out long enough and far enough very possibly and even very likely might cause death and destruction.  That is why I am a strong advocate of nuclear fission generated electrical power. No CO2 overload in the atmosphere is produced by nuclear fission generation and the (so-called) waste problem can be addressed using breeder reactors and serious disposal (not just storing spent uranium in water tanks which can degrade and leak).  I also am very much in favor of reforresting certain areas which are in the process of becoming deserts and I would very much urge the Boys in Brazil to stop destroying the Amazon Rain Forrest.   It turns out trees and other plants are the best way of regulating the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.   I don't think anything humans can do will destroy life on this planet in the next billion years,  but some of the things we do  can make life tough and painful for us humans.  Does any of this sound pseudo-scientific?  

 

[Brant Gaede]

What are the references for the effect of leaded gasoline degrading the intelligence of the general population and--if true--what's the logical connection to AGW?

Leaded fuel is still made and used for and in small airplanes with reciprocating engines. By your implied but unstated metric can we assume that intelligence is therefore still being degraded?

Decades ago a study was done showing--so said showing--that the children living on the lower floors of an apartment house built over the NYC approach to the George Washington Bridge had lower IQs than those living on the upper floors and supposedly this had something to do with the use of leaded fuel. It would be interesting to see that study repeated today. I don't recall if they were tested for lead. 

The demonstrably bad thing going on now is gross air pollution out of China. Again, AGW is out of the loop.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

47 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Cost as  in survival.  Suppose for the nonce, that global warming (an established fact)  is the result of natural drivers.  If so, we ask what steps could preserve us that we must take to survive.  So there is a cost to finding out HOW to survive  and a cost to DOING what it takes to survive.  But first we must identify what is happening (determine causes).  Now  suppose ....

STOP! Do your "first" first. You're just projecting hypotheticals. The hypotheticals don't support science facts. You've been seduced into the CC bullshit context which is not science but political which is force dressed up in money and power for those playing "If I Were King of the World."

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

37 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

STOP! Do your "first" first. You're just projecting hypotheticals. The hypotheticals don't support science facts. You've been seduced into the CC bullshit context which is not science but political which is force dressed up in money and power for those playing "If I Were King of the World."

--Brant

Science fact. The earth is warming.  It has been warming since the bottom of the Little Ice Age.  Question;  What are the drivers of the warming trend?  What are the feedbacks of the complex  thermodynamic  processes that take places in the land, sea and air.  The science  is thermodynamics.  And all science advances on hypothetical propositions and assumptions which are eventually corroborated or falsified empirically.  In point of fact we cannot do anything empirically which is not somewhat theory laden.  Example. Measure a piece of wood.  Easy you say.  Take a ruler and lay it lengthwise on the wood.  BUT!!!! you have to pick up the ruler and move it to the wood.  You have hypothesized that the mild acceleration applied to the ruler to carry it to the wood  does not distort the ruler.  In a word, you have assumed the ruler is rigid enough to withstand your handling of it to bring to the wood.  So even a carpenter cannot escape hypotheticals.....

[william.scherk]

 

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

The demonstrably bad thing going on now is gross air pollution out of China. Again, AGW is out of the loop.

-- from the South China Morning Post:

China’s ‘airpocalypse’ a product of climate change, not just pollution, researchers say
Beijing in a double bind: it must instigate clean-up to restore public’s faith, but its measures may prove useless as climate continues to unravel

Quote

China’s notorious smog problem may have been worsened by climate change in the polar regions, according to a study published in the United States on Wednesday.

According to the study published in the US journal Science Advances, the findings may provide some clues why China’s smog problem has failed to ease despite cuts in pollution-causing emissions.

When analysing the impact of global warming on regional pollution, researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology found that the level of hazardous PM2.5 particles over Beijing and other cities in the east China plain in the winter of 2013, the worst smog in more than five decades, followed record melting of sea ice in the Arctic and record high snowfall in the upper latitudes of the Eurasian continent.

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“The reductions in sea ice and increase in snowfall have the effect of damping the climatological pressure ridge structure over China,” said Professor Yuhang Wang, the lead scientist of the report and a researcher at the Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

The same weather was repeated earlier this year, with Beijing and many cities in north China suffering severe winter haze. Low levels of sea ice were recorded in September in the Arctic which was followed by heavy snow in Siberia, both caused by rising average temperatures worldwide.

China has launched what the central government called a “war on smog” costing an estimated one trillion yuan (HK$1.13 trillion) and involving such measures such as collecting sulphurous dust from coal chimneys, removing 20 per cent of vehicles on city streets, burning natural gas for winter heating and relocating polluting factories to remote areas. 

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Zhang Yaocun, a professor at the school of atmospheric sciences at Nanjing University, said it was too early to blame China’s smog on polar ice levels.

“China and the Arctic is separated by great distance, and the sophisticated mechanism between the interactions of different circulation systems cannot be explained fully by such a simple theory,” he said.

“The tale of smog and Arctic ice has prompted heated debate. The majority of the research community remains in doubt,” Zhang added.

 

The research is titled "Arctic sea ice, Eurasia snow, and extreme winter haze in China," with a full-text available at Science Advances.

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The East China Plains (ECP) region experienced the worst haze pollution on record for January in 2013. We show that the unprecedented haze event is due to the extremely poor ventilation conditions, which had not been seen in the preceding three decades. Statistical analysis suggests that the extremely poor ventilation conditions are linked to Arctic sea ice loss in the preceding autumn and extensive boreal snowfall in the earlier winter. We identify the regional circulation mode that leads to extremely poor ventilation over the ECP region. Climate model simulations indicate that boreal cryospheric forcing enhances the regional circulation mode of poor ventilation in the ECP region and provides conducive conditions for extreme haze such as that of 2013. Consequently, extreme haze events in winter will likely occur at a higher frequency in China as a result of the changing boreal cryosphere, posing difficult challenges for winter haze mitigation but providing a strong incentive for greenhouse gas emission reduction.