Global Sea Ice Extent Is Plunging

Arctic sea ice extent is at a record low for this date of the year, and Antarctic sea ice extent is second-lowest. The results is that global SIE's anomaly is in completely new territory. (NSIDC data; anomaly relative to 1981-2010.)

And here's the global SIE for October 29th of each year since 1979:

70% of US CO2 Reduction Due Simply to Cheaper Natural Gas

US annualized CO2 emissions peaked in January 2008, at 6.01 gigatons of CO2 per year.

The latest US EIA data shows that July 2016 had annualized emissions of 5.12 Gt CO2/yr. 

("Annualized" just means the moving sum of the latest 12 months.)

That's a 15% decrease, and it's not trivial, especially in just 8+ years. Per capita emissions are down an impressive 29% from their peak.

How much of this decline is due to fracking, versus deliberate efforts to reduce our CO2 emissions? 

I estimate about 70% of this decline is due to exchanging coal power for power from natural gas, for electricity generation. Some of this is due to fracking, some due to simple economics of power plants, if indeed there's any difference. 

Oil emissions are up in recent months because oil prices are down. 

The result is

where the energy delivered from coal + natural gas hasn't changed much for about 15 years

indicating the difference in emissions isn't due much to reduced energy usage, but from switching from coal-genereated power to natural gas-generated power.

(The units energy engineers use suck. 1 Quad = 10¹⁵ BTU = 1.055 exajoules. 1 BTU = 1,055 Joules.)

The latest numbers say that the total change in CO2 emissions is down 896 Mt CO2 from its peak, whereas the change in CO2 emissions from coal + NG is down 634 Mt CO2 from its peak. 

So coal + NG makes up 71% of the decline. What remains -- less than 1/3rd -- is due to slightly more efficient cars, perhaps more efficient lighting, etc. 

But the bulk of the decline has come without individuals, or Obama, doing much in the way of CO2 reductions. Instead it's mostly from the switch of generating power via coal to generating power from natural gas. Because natural gas is now cheaper. 

So that reduction could well not hold if the relative prices of natural gas and coal, per BTU generated, stop holding or reverse.

So we, or Obama, don't really deserve a lot of credit. 

Nostalgia

"Nostalgia locates desire in the past where it suffers no 

active conflict and can be yearned toward pleasantly."

- Robert Hass

Callendar's 1938 Figure

And via Ed Hawkins on Twitter, here's an interesting figure from Guy Callendar's 1938 scientific paper:

It's from "The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and its Influence on Temperature," G. S. Callendar, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society v64 Issue 275 pp 223-240 (April 1938). [PDF]

Callendar also mentions the "well known" heat island effect, on page 235.

Note Callendar didn't attribute all the temperature rise to CO2. I don't see in his paper (though I haven't read it carefully) where he considered possible changes in solar irradiance (or, for that matter, a reduction in volcanic cooling that was part of the Little Ice Age). But those would be small, perhaps just a few hundreths of a degree (climate sensitivity to changes in solar radiance is small, about 0.1°C/(W/m2), for solar radiance measured at the top of the atmosphere; see the  IPCC 5AR).

1912 Newspaper Article on CO2 and Climate

Here's an interesting 1912 newspaper article from New Zealand:

The reference is: “Coal Consumption Affecting Climate,” Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, August 14, 1912.

Andrew Revkin has more here.

Fwd: New offering of Climate1x coming up soon! Starts Nov 1st.

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	New offering of Climate1x coming up soon! Starts Nov 1st.
Date:	Wed, 19 Oct 2016 17:06:33 +0000
From:	Climate Change: The Science Course Staff <Climate1x-no-reply@courseupdates.edx.org>
To:

Course Update Course Update from: Climate Change: The Science Go to Course Dear David Appell, Know anyone who wants to learn more about climate science? We have a new offering of Climate Change: The Science open for registration at https://www.edx.org/course/climate-change-science-ubcx-climate1x-2!  The course will start Nov 1st.   If you have friends, colleagues, students, teachers, family, neighbors or anyone you think might enjoy this course, please feel free to pass along the link above.  Or maybe you would like to join us again, if you didn't have time to finish, or you're interested in earning a verified certificate.  We'd love to see you! If you're active on twitter, facebook, or other social media, or if you are connected with listserves that might reach interested people, it'd be great if you could help spread the word. #climate1x, #climatechange, #mooc, and #edx are all useful tags.  Thanks for helping us connect with others! Good luck to you with all your future climate-change-related activities! Sara Harris and your Climate Change: The Science course staff

The Dirt from Anthony Watts and His Blog

Warning: Don't invite Anthony Watts to your parties. He has a habit of leaving a lot of vomit on the floor. Or Eric Worrall, who has been nothing but wrong.

I predict Worrall's string of failures, shown below, won't change his inept and stubborn mind one bit.

"Everyone knows the Paris agreement was dead on arrival."
- Eric Worrall, WUWT 5/28/16

"It seems likely Lord Deben’s concerns about the Paris Climate Treaty are shared by other prominent green politicians."
- Eric Worrall, WUWT 3/9/16

"If the Paris Climate Agreement was already a joke, the Chinese electricity export plan is surely the punchline."
- Eric Worrall, WUWT 4/17/16

"Aussie academic David Holmes, of the University of Melbourne, suggests that Politicians are using the Paris Agreement to defuse climate concerns, by claiming Paris “solved” the climate crisis – and he’s not happy about it."
- Eric Worrall, WUWT 5/23/16

"The initial explosion of green Euphoria at the announcement of the COP21 climate agreement, is rapidly giving way to dismay, as various environmentalists and other expectant parties realise how feeble their climate “victory” really is."
- Eric Worrall, WUWT 12/15/15

"It’s been a few weeks since the U.N.’s Paris Climate Conference (COP21) ended. Mainstream media from around the globe praised the impotent agreement, as though anyone expects political promises to be kept. The COP21 agreement reminded me of the proverb A promise is a comfort for a fool."
- Bob Tisdale, WUWT 12/30/15

PS: Doesn't Anthony Watts ever contribute to his own blog anymore? Then what are his sponsors paying for?

DeSmogblog has more.

Hayhoe Response to a Climate Denier

From a comment by Layzej, here's an instance of Kathleen Hayhoe smoothly dealing with a Texas city counciler...maniac...about his (quite trivial) objections to AGW.

Note the city councilor has a self-proclaimed "visceral" reaction to climate change -- not a rational reaction:

Notes from Those Underground

Some of the emails received by Kathryn Hayhoe, who was recently profiled in the NY Times. More here.

When Bob Dylan Defended Zionism

Don't let the title, "Neighborhood Bully," fool you.


Lyrics:

Neighborhood Bully

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

All Of America's Science Nobel Prizes This Year Were Won By Immigrants

All Of America's Science Nobel Prizes This Year Were Won By Immigrants

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nobel-prize-immigrants_us_57fbdf51e4b068ecb5e0cd4e?section=

Mosher

Steven Mosher, at Judith Curry's blog:

In short, there is PLENTY of ROOM within the climate science to hold extreme views, both about the science and policy. However, there is no room for the luncacies of unicorns, for sun nuts, fo folks who dont get chaos, for radiative physics deniers, because you cant hold those views and actually Do science. you can do blogs and blog comments.. but that is about it

Sugar

Again About the Word Denier

Some who are called climate "deniers" resent that word (a few embrace it) because, they claim, they're being compared to Holocaust deniers. But it can't be that simple, because even the Holocaust denier David Irving resented being called a denier.

I was lead to the quote below from a New York Review of Books article about the recently released movie Denial, which is about the David Irving vs. Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin books trial in the UK in 2000.

Lipstadt had published a book in 1993, Denying the Holocaust, in which she called the British amateur historian David Irving “one of the most dangerous spokesmen for Holocaust denial.” Irving actually confronted her in the middle of a class lecture at Emory University, and went on to sue her and her publisher. But instead of sueing them in the US where the book was published, he filed his suit in the UK, where those who make potentially libelous remarks must prove they are true. The trailer is a good introduction to the film, which came out about three weeks ago.

Lipstadt's lawyers attacked Irving hard, simply on the facts, and made Lipstadt stay quiet during the proceedings. She, being Jewish, was more emotional about all of it because she considered herself to be defending her people, but her lawyers opted, no doubt correctly, that the case would be won on the facts and not on emotions.

This is from Irving's opening statement:

"The book purports to be a scholarly investigation of the operations of an international network conspiracy of people whom the Second Defendant has dubbed "Holocaust deniers." It is not. The phrase itself, which the Second Defendant prides herself on having coined and crafted, appears repeatedly throughout the work, and it has subsequently become embedded in the vernacular of a certain kind of journalist who wishes to blacken the name of some person, where the more usual rhetoric of neo-Nazi, Nazi, racist, and other similar epithets is no longer deemed adequate. Indeed, the phrase appears over 300 times in just one of the Defendants' experts reports!

"It has become one of the most potent phrases in the arsenal of insult, replacing the N-word, the F-word, and a whole alphabet of other slurs. If an American politician, like Mr. Patrick Buchanan, is branded even briefly a "Holocaust denier," his career can well be said to be in ruins. If a writer, no matter how well reviewed and received until then, has that phrase stuck to him, then he too regard his career as rumbling off the edge of a precipice.

"As a phrase it is of itself quite meaningless. The word "Holocaust" is an artificial label commonly attached to one of the greatest and still most unexplained tragedies of this past century.

"The word "denier" is particularly evil: because no person in full command of his mental faculties, and with even the slightest understanding of what happened in World War II, can deny that the tragedy actually happened, however much we dissident historians may wish to quibble about the means, the scale, the dates and other minutiae.

"Yet meaningless though it is, the phrase has become a part of the English language. It is a poison to which there is virtually no antidote, less lethal than a hypodermic with nerve gas jabbed in the neck, but deadly all the same: for the chosen victim, it is like being called a wife beater or a pædophile. It is enough for the label to be attached, for the attachee to find himself designated as a pariah, an outcast from normal society. It is a verbal Yellow Star.

"In many countries now where it was considered that the mere verbal labelling was not enough, governments have been prevailed upon to pass the most questionable laws, including some which can only be considered a total infringement of the normal human rights of free speech, free opinion and freedom of assembly."

We Americans take free speech for granted, and it's easy for us to question German and French laws against denying the Holocaust. But I'm sure we have little idea of the paroxysms and spasms that shook German society, or Europe, after the war.

Irving's attack on the word "denier" appear pompous and bombastic (as he came across in person, too). I've never seen anyone hint that their use of it was akin to "being called a wife beater or a paedophile." I see it as a word, with a definition that predated the Holocaust, that has a certain meaning that conveniently and accurately describes the cruder blunt dismissals of anthropogenic climate change -- denying the greenhouse effect, the enhancing greenhouse effect, basic measurements, ridiculing and attacking scientists, always finding an excuse to dimiss the evidence one doesn't want to hear, etc. I suspect it comes more from a mindset than anything else -- some climate deniers seem to be conservatives who disagree with the general direction of the USA & World, a mindset that has infected the GOP in the age of the Internet, or just like being contrary.

Some people deny basic climate change; wilder ones deny the Sandy Hook shootings. A few crazies still deny the Holocaust. But if Irving was so upset about the word "denier," then clearly complaints about the word don't simply spring from a simaliarity to Holocaust denial but have an earlier origin, and those now using it aren't "global warming Nazi's," a rather ironic turn of phrase.

Irving, of course, played the victim, as you can read thoughout his opening statement. He lost the case, and, on appeal a year later, the case was dismissed.

After the trial, he was asked, "Will you stop denying the Holocaust on the basis of this judgment?" Irving replied, "Good Lord, no."

NASA: Hubble May Have Detected Water Plumes on Europa

NASA just held a press teleconference (images) where they announced the possiblity of the detection of water plumes spurting from the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa. (They did not announce the discovery of life, or anything close to it, as some media irresponsibly speculated after NASA's announcement of today's teleconference.)

It's not a definite discovery. They observed Europa transiting in front of Jupiter -- an idea from what's being done with exoplanets -- in the UV, and on 3 of 10 transits saw evidence of water vapor from water plumes off Europa's southwest limb:

It's the green flares at about five thirty to nine o'clock that represent the possible plumes. Seeing this evidence on three times out of ten means the plumes may be intermittent.

If true, this could be significant, because it means access to Europa's ocean -- which is global, saline and beneath miles of ice, and could potentially host life -- would be available near the surface, without having to drill through miles of ice (which, on a foreign moon, only looks easy in the movies).

Here's an artist's interpretation of one possible scenario:

I guess you could call these Europaean fistules. But plumes sounds better.

The surface tempeature of Europa is about -160 C (-260 F) at the equator and no higher than -220 C (-370 F) at the poles. So any water is going to instantly freeze. I guess the idea is to look for signs of life -- or at least organic compounds -- in the refrozen surface ice. Unless the plumes are huge and powerful, that's going to limit any detected life to microbes and not alien tuna.

Here's another scenario that was presented, expanding on one section above, which looks more amenable to finding tuna:

A paper is coming out soon in the Astrophysical Journal -- I'll try to remember to link to it.

The scientists said they were stretching Hubble's capabilities to the limit, so this isn't a definite discovery, and they "remain cautious."

Finally, here's another image that was presented, with a self-explanatory caption:

In Oregon Gubernatorial Debate, Now, Republican Governor Admits Climate Change

In the OR gubernatorial debate now, the Rep candidate, @BudPierce4Gov, quotes the Nat Acad Sci and Roy Soc London about C pollution.

— David Appell (@davidappell) September 25, 2016

Latest on the Not-Happening La Niña

Here:

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center say there is unlikely to be a La Niña event in late 2016.

We may be stuck with this El Nino warmth after all -- NOAA just posted the warmest August in their records, which go back to 1880. Warmer (more anomalous) than May 2016, or June '16 or July '16.

In fact, every month since May 2015 is the warmest in the record. 16 straight months now.

At this point we really have to start asking, not if AGW is true, but is it accelerating, and if so, by how much?

Deep Ocean Warming: How Much?

Since this blog likes big summed-up global results, it needs to mention the new paper by Damien G. Desbruyères et al, including Greg Johnson of NOAA, for the heating rate of the deep ocean (< 2000 m) for the period 1991-2010:

0.065  ±  0.040 W m⁻² applied over the Earth's surface area.

You can read the abstract here, but deep ocean heating is only about 1/10th of total ocean heating. I guess we'll know more when deep Argo comes out, which I suspect will reduce the error bars significantly. Not sure when that will be, though.

Remember, it's only been since 2005 that Argo has been measuring the temperature and salinity of the top half (< 2000 m) of the ocean. If deep Argo happens by, say, 2020, that will be an amazing achievement -- because ocean heat content is by far the best way to measure the global energy imbalance that causes global warming.

Can 375 Great Scientists Correct Donald Trump on Climate Change?

Of course not.

But still, yesterday 375 members of the National Academy of Science published a letter saying

Human-caused climate change is not a belief, a hoax, or a conspiracy. It is a physical reality. Fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution. But the burning of oil, coal, and gas also caused most of the historical increase in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. This increase in greenhouse gases is changing Earth’s climate.

...During the Presidential primary campaign, claims were made that the Earth is not warming, or that warming is due to purely natural causes outside of human control. Such claims are inconsistent with reality.

That's a good, strong phrase -- "inconsistent with reality."

The letter isn't addressed to anyone specific, but it's said to be directed at Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, Trump shows little interest in knowledge, and I doubt this is going to change his climate idiocy, even if he is elected.

I doubt Trump has the guts to do this, but a few of these scientists should get together and offer to go to Trump and, in one hour, present him the evidence behind manmade climate change. Like those brave scientists did for the governor of Florida. Publicize the hell out of the offer, and, if it happens, of the followup.

As it is, I wonder if a single debate moderator -- who think they are "journalists" -- is going to ask a single question of either presidential candidate about the most important topic of the 21st century.

Unfortunately, the moderators of the first debate have announced their topics, and it looks to be the usual network fluff that makes intelligent people want to vomit.

Anyway, so who do we know? Well, for me, a lot of scientists I know and/or have interviewed and/or recognize and respect a great deal. (I'm always surprised at how many great scientists I don't know, like when it comes to the Nobel Prize announcements or NAS inductions):

Benjamin D. Santer, Member, National Academy of Sciences^

Kerry A. Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology^

Phillip W. Anderson, Princeton University

Sir Michael Atiyah, University of Edinburgh

David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology

Wallace Broecker, Columbia University

Steven Chu, Stanford University

Ralph Cicerone, Professor Emeritus, University of California

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Laboratoire Kastler Brossel

James Cronin, University of Chicago

Paul J. Crutzen, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

Howard Georgi, Harvard University

Sheldon Glashow, Boston University

Roy Glauber, Harvard University

Peter H. Gleick, Pacific Institute

David Gross, University of California Santa Barbara

Jim Hansen, Columbia University

Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University

Donald Kennedy, Stanford University

Wolfgang Ketterle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Margaret Kivelson, University of California Los Angeles

Daniel Kleppner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jane Lubchenco, Oregon State University

Mario Molina, University of California San Diego

Jim Peebles, Princeton University

Peter H. Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden

Maureen E. Raymo, Columbia University

Martin Rees, Cambridge University

Adam Riess, Johns Hopkins University

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

James Simons, Chairman, Simons Foundation

Susan Solomon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Kip Thorne, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Rainer Weiss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University

Robert W. Wilson, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Personally I think Adam Riess ought to run for President. He's young, well spoken, and really smart. Just what the American people are looking for, right?

Right?

One Smart Cat

I could never trust my cats to do this -- I prefer not to think about what they do when they're out -- but as the driver says, "Spot on!"


Although actually my cats don't seem to go very far when they're out, somewhat to my surprise. They almost always come back in, in a minute or five, when I call them. Unless it's 11 pm and I want to go to bed.