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.

Department of Oops - Another Steve Goddard Edition

Five years ago, William Connolley and Rob Dekker made a gutsy $10,000 bet about Arctic sea ice.

If both NSIDC and IARC-JAXA September 2016 monthly average sea ice extent report are above 4.80 million km^2, RD pays WMC US$ 10,000. If both are below 3.10 million km^2, WMC pays RD US$ 10,000. In all other cases the bet is null and void.

This year's September average isn't in yet, of course, but the month-to-date average for NSIDC SIE is 4.25 Mkm2, and the full month average will be about 4.3-4.4 Mkm2.

So their bet will be null and void. But here was what "Steve Goddard" (real name Tony Heller) wrote at the time:

"What a dumb bet. There is an excellent chance of 4.8, and zero chance of 3.1." 

Well, like most of what Steve Goddard writes, he was wrong.

It's worth pointing out when deniers are wildly wrong. With Steve Goddard it's pretty easy -- remember this turd, when he had to retract -- and The Register agreed, for some reason, to publish an article under a fake name -- unless Heller never told them it was false(?).

Global Warming's Impact on Wheat Production

Another paper has been published showing that warming reduces wheat yields.

B. Liu et al, "Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yields by three independent methods," Nature Climate Change (2016).

Their conclusion, from several different angles:

With a 1°C global temperature increase, global wheat yield is projected to decline between 4.1% and 6.4%.

They write that "Global demand for food is expected to increase 60% by the middle of the twenty-first century."

Many skeptics say "but crop yields are going up!" Which is true. Here is the annual global wheat production for 1996-2014. And it's going up, though not on a per capita basis (see the graph to the right), in a world where 800 million people "do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life." (That one of of every nine people.)

Harvests can increase for several reasons:

* more acreage planted
* better fertilizers
* genetic modification
* better farming technology and techniques
* more CO2
* changes in government farming subsidies
* higher demand
* better weather
* more desirable temperatures
* more desirable precipitation
* etc.

Saying that yield has increased says nothing about why. Nor does it say anything about the influence of each factor, or whether yields are going to keep increasing. In particular, yields can (obviously) increase even while some of these factors are contributing to a decreasing sub-trend. And that's what scientists say is happening regarding climate change, like the paper above, and this 2007 paper by Lobell and Field, two recognized experts:

“For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002.”
-- “Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming," David B Lobell and Christopher B Field, Environ. Res. Lett. 2 014002 (2007).

And there's this paper:

"We also find that the overall effect of warming on yields is negative, even after accounting for the benefits of reduced exposure to freezing temperatures."
-- "Effect of warming temperatures on US wheat yields," Jesse Tack et al, PNAS 4/20/2015.

So interpreting yields is complicated. I guess we can hope that agricultural acreage and techniques keeps at least on its trend (and hopefully increasing per capita, in order to truly feed everyone), even in the face of lower yields as temperatures rise and planting zones moving towards the poles. Or we can just ignore climate change and hope it all works out.

Added: Wheat sells for about $4 per bushel, and there are e/100 bushels in a metric ton (very close!), so the value of the global wheat crop in 2014 was just over $100 billion. So a 1°C global temperature increase would cost about $40-60 million/year $5 billion/yr in lost production.

Arctic Sea Ice Has Nadired

Is "nadired" the opposite of "peaked?"

Anyway, that's what I'm going with. Arctic sea ice extent has bottomed out for the year.

JAXA:   4.02 Mkm²

NSIDC: 4.08 Mkm²

Hey, what's a difference of 60,000 km² between friends? 

West Virginia!

(There's an old joke from where I grew up, that West Virginia would be the largest state in the Union if you flattened it out.)

For both datasets, 2016 is the 2nd-lowest extent minimum in the satellite record (1979-present), after only 2012. 

Recall this year has the lowest maximum extent (NSIDC: March 21st). But there isn't much variation in that number -- just -2.4% per decade (NSIDC data, which I'll focus on from here on out). 

Compared, the September minimum is decreasing at -12% per decade.

For the year-to-date average Arctic SIE -- through Sept. 12 -- 2016 has the lowest average extent of any recorded year, at 11.05 Mkm². 

This YTD number is decreasing at -3.7% per decade.
(= overall_trend/overall_average)

Second YTD-lowest is last year, at 11.34 Mkm². A good bit higher. 2012's value is 11.36 Mkm².

So I would say, what we have is continued melting, though it hasn't yet reached the point where it will seriously threaten 2012's very low fluctuation due to a big summer storm in the Arctic that year.

But I remember when 2007 seemed like an unbelievable low. Though I can't find a link where I wrote about it.

The minimum extent's trend is -85,000 Mkm²/yr, which suggests it might be up to nine or so years before the 2012 minimum is...nadired. Likely, some future summer storm will send the September minimum more below the trendline by then, setting a new record low.

I guess I should put up a graph here, even though personally the numbers make more sense to me than the words or a picture (not a good quality for a science communicator):

Peter and the Farm

Even the dog is intense:


Music is Jumbo's by Protomartyr.

Variety's review.

The farm.

Clarifying a Past Discussion on the Greenhouse Effect

Guest post by Bryan Killett

Dumb Scientist wrote this article in response to a comment Lonny Eachus recently left at the end of this conversation about the greenhouse effect and a solution to Dr. Spencer's thought experiment which helps demonstrate how CO2 keeps Venus warmer than Mercury.

Briefly: mainstream science says that adding CO2 warms Earth's surface, just like wrapping a blanket around a constant heat source in vacuum without them touching warms the heat source. The temperature increase after enclosing the source is exactly the same whether the surfaces are all treated as black bodies (which don't reflect radiation) or all treated as gray bodies (which can reflect radiation).
================

... I will remind Bryan Killett, aka Dumb Scientist, what I've had to remind him of several times since in other media: my initial exchange with Appell was about a misunderstanding of whether Pierrehumbert meant NET flux or just SOME flux, in a passage from his book. However, Appell and Killett jumped on this, and decided to try to school me here on how thermodynamics works, based on an old argument I (as mentioned) had already changed my mind about. ... [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-16]

Nonsense. Lonny "decided to try to school" yet another physicist by flooding Appell with Sky Dragon Slayer arguments. If Lonny really had "already changed" his mind, why did Lonny write all this in response to a single tweet?

@davidappell David, this claim has ZERO bearing on the physics of a MT hotspot "warming the surface". The physics are well-known. He states "The greenhouse effect shifts the planet's surface temperature by reducing the rate at which the planet loses energy at a given surface temperature." Which SOUNDS reasonable, but there is no physics behind it. The radiative power output at a given temperature is Area x (sigma x epsilon) x T^4, as described before. Atmosphere has no power to slow down this basic physics equation. As long as the atmosphere is COLDER than the surface, the surface will continue to radiate AT THE SAME RATE, until it in turn cools off. HEAT TRANSFER to other objects might vary... but the radiative power output associated with a given temperature remains the same. Atmosphere has no power to alter it. AND... I repeat: CO2 is NOT any kind of "insulating blanket", either. CO2 is a very efficient convective cooler... not an insulator. So I don't care what your "authority" says; he has his physics wrong. If forcing exists, that's not how it works. Let me give you a concrete example. You can do the math. Take a very big vacuum chamber (to keep it all radiative). Put a 1m^2 plate inside heated to 300°K. A meter away is a 10m^2 plate at 200°K. The radiative output of the hot plate is 1m^2 x εσ(T⁴). (We're assuming no reflection, and same emissivity for all materials.) The time for the hot plate to cool to 280°K is measured. Now... same setup, but you put a 275° plate near the 300° plate. How long will it take for the 300° plate to cool to 280°? The answer is: THE SAME. Because the other plate doesn't have any power to magically "reach out" and alter the radiative output of the 300° plate! The temp. starts the same and the radiative output will follow the same curve as before. AS LONG AS the other plate is colder. Further, since the other plate is colder, 1st & 2nd laws of thermodynamics say they can give no NET energy to the warmer plate. So there is no mechanism by which the colder object can warm (or keep warmer) the hotter object, RADIATIVELY. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-04-07]

Lonny's incorrect Sky Dragon Slayer answer is "THE SAME" but mainstream physicists know that the 300K plate cools slower if the 280K plate is near it. (Presuming that Lonny's vacuum chamber walls are colder than 280K.) If Lonny actually had solved the problem I'd solved for him, he'd have realized that his "discussion" with Appell was about Lonny repeating all that Slayer nonsense.

As I've explained to YOU, the discussion with Appell was about whether Pierrhumbert meant NET flux in a passage from his book. Yet you don't mention that anywhere here. Which, yet again, shows the dishonest purpose of your attacks. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Dishonest? Again, you were actually just repeating Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense in your "discussion" with Appell. In fact, screaming the word "NET" in ALL CAPS while pretending(?) to be hopelessly confused about its definition is one of your Sky Dragon Slayer behavior patterns that I've repeatedly mentioned. So is this:

@davidappell ... I repeat: CO2 is NOT any kind of "insulating blanket", either. CO2 is a very efficient convective cooler... not an insulator. So I don't care what your "authority" says; he has his physics wrong. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-04-07]

Once again, CO2 is an insulator, not a "very efficient convective cooler". I've showed Lonny evidence that increasing CO2 warms the globe. If CO2 isn't an insulator but a "very efficient convective cooler" then why does increasing CO2 warm the globe?

Simplified: Earth emits IR. GHGs absorb upgoing IR, then reemit IR in random direction, some of it downward = warming. [David Appell]

A cooler gas does not radiatively warm an already warmer surface. Not by any physics I ever learned. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-04-08]

Nonsense, Lonny. I've repeatedly told you that the greenhouse effect disappears if the upper troposphere isn't colder than the surface. That's also what the US NAS says: "The strength of Earth's greenhouse effect depends on the fact that the temperature decreases with height in the troposphere, so that emission from water vapor and clouds in the colder upper troposphere is less than that from the surface."

The irony deepens because this fact implies there's a situation where increasing CO2 actually can cool (part of) the Earth's surface. This happens if the upper atmosphere is warmer than the surface. At 5:09 in Andrew Dessler's video he explains why this happens. There's also a real-world example in Schmithüsen et al. 2015:

How increasing CO2 leads to an increased negative greenhouse effect in Antarctica

CO2 is the strongest anthropogenic forcing agent for climate change since preindustrial times. Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 absorbs terrestrial surface radiation and causes emission from the atmosphere to space. As the surface is generally warmer than the atmosphere, the total long-wave emission to space is commonly less than the surface emission. However, this does not hold true for the high elevated areas of central Antarctica. For this region, the emission to space is higher than the surface emission; and the greenhouse effect of CO2 is around zero or even negative, which has not been discussed so far. We investigated this in detail and show that for central Antarctica an increase in CO2 concentration leads to an increased long-wave energy loss to space, which cools the Earth-atmosphere system. These findings for central Antarctica are in contrast to the general warming effect of increasing CO2.

... if the surface is colder than the atmosphere, the sign of the second term in equation (1) is negative. Consequently, the system loses more energy to space due to the presence of greenhouse gases. The GHE and the instantaneous radiative forcing turn negative. ... The TES results demonstrate that the yearly averages of GHE_TES being negative are unique to the Antarctic Plateau and nowhere else observed on the planet. This is due to the fact that Antarctica is the only region on Earth where the surface is frequently colder than the stratosphere. ...

So Lonny wasn't discussing "whether Pierrehumbert meant NET flux in a passage from his book" as much as he was getting the physics completely backwards by repeating Slayer talking points. CO2 isn't a "cooler" globally because increasing CO2 warms the globe. However, when the atmosphere is warmer than the surface, the greenhouse effect reverses and increasing CO2 cools that surface. It couldn't work any other way. Not by any physics I (or any other mainstream physicist) ever learned.

This is yet another reason why Lonny's comments about Antarctica are incredibly ironic.

Explain where the "slayer" comments are? I am not, never have been, one of them. So point out: where is the "slayer" comment on that page? [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Right here:

Comparing greenhouse theory to "thicker blanket" is ignorance of the physics of how it's supposed to work. ... [A blanket works by] preventing convection and conduction. That is NOT how greenhouse effect works. ... A "blanket" does NOT block "thermal radiation". You don't know anything about this, do you? ... NORMAL blankets do not "block thermal radiation". That's just false. ... You don't know squat about this. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-04-16]

No, Robert Ellis was right: blankets block conduction, convection, AND thermal radiation. Once again, Jane/Lonny Eachus is (unintentionally?) echoing Joseph Postma's Slayer nonsense:

Slayer Double Victory ... A blanket is about preventing convection, and has nothing to do with radiation. ... both versions of the greenhouse effect are debunked. The blanket analogy where radiation from a cooler object slows emission from the warmer object is false, because you cannot "slow emission" from the warmer object, and originally, the cooler object doesn't transfer heat to the warmer object. ... The Slayers won... the Slayers are the victors. [Joseph Postma, 2016-02-26]

Contrast Lonny's and Postma's and Latour's claims with mainstream science from NASA: "A blanket around the Earth... A layer of greenhouse gases - primarily water vapor, and including much smaller amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - acts as a thermal blanket for the Earth, absorbing heat and warming the surface..."

And once again, chapter 3 of this NAS video says: "... As concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere, Earth's natural greenhouse effect is amplified, like having a thicker blanket, and surface temperatures slowly rise. ..."

Think of greenhouse gases like a blanket. The more we add to the atmosphere the thicker the blanket and the warmer it is under it. [Dr. Michael SanClements via @realscientists]

That's a very BAD analogy. Blankets prevent conduction and convection. They have nothing to do with radiative "warming". [Lonny Eachus, 2015-07-31]

No, blankets also have something to do with radiative warming. Imagine a constant heat source like a human body with a constant metabolism, or an electrical heater drawing constant electrical power, or a planet with a constant albedo in a circular orbit illuminated by constant sunlight. Now imagine this heat source is suspended in the vacuum of space so it can't lose heat via conduction or convection. Allow the heat source enough time to reach a steady temperature T₁.

Now wrap a blanket around the heat source without them touching. Again, allow the heat source to reach a new steady temperature T₂. Unless the "blanket" is somehow completely transparent to the (probably infrared) radiation emitted by the heat source, T₂ will be hotter than T₁. For instance, under these conditions T₁ = 150°F and T₂ = 234.1°F. The blanket can't insulate the heat source via conduction or convection here. The blanket warms the heat source by blocking thermal radiation and radiating part of it back at the heat source.

How does colder insulation make a house warmer? [David Appell]

It doesn't. Insulation PREVENTS COOLING by inhibiting conduction and convection. It has nothing to do with radiation. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-04-08]

No, Prof. Robert Brown already told Jane/Lonny: "... Some things he [Sky Dragon Slayer Joseph Olson] states are blatently [sic] silly -- the assertion that a "space blanket" (reflective mylar sheet) works by blocking convection instead of trapping radiation (it's both, but the human body loses heat primarily through radiation, a simple fact that can once again be directly photographed). ..."

The Sky Dragon Slayer CEO John O'Sullivan also rides the Slayer "blanket" hobby horse:

... the 'blanket' analogy of the GHE is nonsense. ... [Sky Dragon Slayer CEO John O'Sullivan, 2012-11-20]

... We even involved leading space scientists to refute Spencer's absurd notion that outer space was 'cold' and that our atmosphere keeps us 'warm' like a 'blanket.' Also, the notion that any gas can 'trap' heat is one of the most absurd 'explanation's offered by these pseudo scientists. ... [Sky Dragon Slayer CEO John O'Sullivan, 2013-03-15]

And hey: when someone says "heat-trapping", tell them they don't understand the physics. Because they don't. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-11-29]

Nonsense. Once again, Lonny Eachus and John O'Sullivan are wrong. NASA and the US NAS and the AIP and the AGU and UCAR and MIT (etc.) understand the physics when they say "heat-trapping".

Lonny continued to discuss "whether Pierrehumbert meant NET flux in a passage from his book" with David Appell by saying:

CO2 is NOT an "insulator". Mainstream climate scientists acknowledge that. Insulation is a failed analogy. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-04-08]

No, Sky Dragon Slayers like Postma, Latour, O'Sullivan and Olson object to the insulating blanket analogy used by mainstream scientists at NASA and the US NAS, etc. Ironically, Appell had just told Lonny about yet another mainstream scientist who uses the insulation analogy:

... So after 6 pages of "science", he tells us WRONGLY that CO2 acts like a "blanket" or a reflector? Really? Here's the kicker: He writes: "Hot as Venus is, it would become still hotter if one added CO2 to its atmosphere." Venus' atmosphere is 96% CO2. So I have no choice but to presume this Pierrehumbert paper is a joke. I won't even bother to pick apart the rest. ... [Lonny Eachus, 2015-04-07]

Nonsense, Lonny. That Pierrehumbert paper isn't a joke. It's yet another example of a mainstream scientist debunking Slayer nonsense by CORRECTLY explaining that "carbon dioxide is just planetary insulation."

Lonny falsely claims Pierrehumbert's paper is a joke because Venus' atmosphere is 96% CO2. But even if it were 100% CO2, Venus would become still hotter if one added CO2 to its atmosphere. That's because the total mass of atmospheric CO2 would increase, raising the effective radiating level even higher, further insulating the surface. Ironically, this is yet another way to see that Lonny's "saturation" argument is wrong.

Slayers make a similar mistake when they claim that the Martian atmosphere's ~95% CO2 is making it "non-hot". However, the strength of a planet's greenhouse effect is set by its effective radiating level height, which is controlled by the total mass of atmospheric CO2, not its percentage. I've explained that since the Martian atmosphere is very thin, the total mass of Martian CO2 is much lower than the total mass of Venusian CO2. I've also shown Jane/Lonny this LASP link which explains how the small mass of Martian CO2 is responsible for its ~5°C greenhouse effect.

... Tc can never cause Th to be Th+anything. Ergo no GHG warming. [ASKirkpatrick]

We're in front of a fire - the sun; but our radiation doesn't make sun hotter. Heat flows H to C, no excep [ASKirkpatrick]

NET heat flows H to C. Radiation shields make thermocouples hotter: Daniels 1968 [DumbSci]

As usual, what he says here may have some truth but is highly misleading. On the second page of his lined paper, item 2, it says very clearly that the most important factor in radiation shielding of thermocouples is radiative transfer TO the thermocouple from outside sources. While surrounding a thermocouple with shielding MAY make it warmer, that effect is almost certiainly due to reflection. Or at least mostly. But core AGW theory has little to do with reflection. It's about absorption and re-emittance. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-16]

Nonsense. I repeatedly gave Lonny links to Daniels 1968 because thermocouple radiation shields can be analyzed using the same solution I'd already given Lonny. The temperature increase after enclosing the source/thermocouple is exactly the same whether the surfaces are all treated as black bodies (which don't reflect radiation) or all treated as gray bodies (which can reflect radiation). I've even specifically told Lonny that "my black and gray body calculations yielded identical enclosed steady-state temperatures".

So surrounding a thermocouple with shielding really DOES make it warmer, and under these conditions that temperature increase is completely independent of the presence or absence of reflections. Lonny's claim is incorrect.

[A rock at night radiating its daytime heat] cools slower if covered by a blanket because of conduction, convection AND radiation. [DumbSci]

Not unless it's a low-emissivity or reflective blanket. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Unless you're talking about a low-emissivity or reflective blanket, which is NOT what most people mean when they say "blanket". They mean a comforter. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Nonsense. The temperature increase after enclosing the source/thermocouple is exactly the same whether the surfaces are all treated as black bodies (which don't reflect radiation) or all treated as gray bodies (which can reflect radiation). Seriously: covering a hot rock with a black body comforter (without reflections) makes it cool slower because of conduction, convection and radiation.

Also, blankets block thermal radiation in addition to the conduction/convection effects. [DumbSci]

Out of context. Blankets don't "block" thermal radiation. They radiate it back out. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Nonsense. Blankets block thermal radiation by absorbing it, then radiating part of it back at the object or person surrounded by the blanket. That's the radiative part of how blankets insulate us, and how adding blankets WARMS us. Note that "block" isn't a synonym for "reflect".

... But core AGW theory has little to do with reflection. It's about absorption and re-emittance. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-16]

Just like blankets. That's why mainstream scientists use the blanket analogy even though Sky Dragon Slayers keep objecting to it.

Out of context again. The back radiation does not WARM. It prevents cooling. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Wrong, Lonny. Of course back radiation warms! Enclosing the 150°F source/thermocouple with a radiation shield/blanket WARMS it to 234.1°F. And once again, adding CO2 to the atmosphere WARMS the surface via back-radiation.

The simple fact is, Appell tried to claim a dynamic system, actively heated at one end and actively cooled at the other, was in "thermal equilibrium". As far as I was concerned, that was the end of "rational discussion", and I left. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Once again, I repeatedly told you that Appell and I were using the same definition of "equilibrium" (no change with time) used here by LASP to describe the Earth. So did Prof. Denning. In fact, Lonny himself has used the term "Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity" (ECS) many times. Even though the Earth is being actively heated at one end by the Sun and actively cooled at the poles and the nightside. Is that the end of "rational discussion" with LASP, Prof. Denning and Lonny Eachus?

I've also showed Lonny the same definition being used in Dr. Spencer's original thought experiment: "Eventually the second plate will also reach a state of equilibrium, where its average temperature (let's say 100 deg. F) stays constant with time."

And while solving a similar thought experiment that's actively heated and cooled at different ends, Prof. Steve Carson used "equilibrium" and "steady state" interchangeably: "What is the equation for the equilibrium surface temperature of the sphere, Ta? ... This is a "find the equilibrium" problem. ... Steady state means temperatures have stabilized and so energy in = energy out. ... its equilibrium temperature must be determined by P ..."

No, I'm telling you that your STATED objection to Appell also applies to many scientists [DumbSci]

... who would say steady-state is equivalent to equilibrium. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Yes, those terms are used interchangeably by many scientists. For instance, Lonny quoted a page written by Dr. Stephen O. Nelson where he explicitly states that "steady state = equilibrium". So Lonny's stated objection to Appell also applies to many other scientists, including the scientist Lonny quotes to "support" his argument!

Let's review again: conservation of energy says that power going in through some boundary minus the power going out equals the rate at which energy inside that boundary changes (dE/dt).

power in - power out = dE/dt      (Equation 1)

If nothing inside that boundary is changing with time, the rate at which energy inside the boundary changes (dE/dt) is zero.

power in - power out = 0            (Equation 2)

Physicists describe the situation in equation 2 as having no "net flow" of power through that boundary. Note that conservation of energy isn't specifically referring to heat flow because electricity flowing into the boundary still increases the energy inside the boundary even though electricity isn't heat.

Since all the temperatures calculated in this thought experiment aren't changing in time, they're all calculated using equation 2. Lonny's "confusion" regarding the label we use to describe "no change with time" simply isn't relevant because regardless of which label we choose, we still just use equation 2.

No, I'm telling you that your STATED objection to Appell also applies to many scientists [DumbSci]

But I also quoted one who disagrees. In thermal equilibrium, NO HEAT TRANSFER OCCURS. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Nonsense. Once again, you quoted Dr. Stephen O. Nelson saying that equilibrium is defined as "no net flow". He did not say "NO HEAT TRANSFER OCCURS". In fact, Dr. Nelson is simply repeating the explanation I've repeatedly given Lonny about the assumption behind equation 2: that there's no net flow of power through the boundary. There can be net heat transfer, as long as that outgoing net heat transfer equals the incoming electrical power. Which is true in this case.

Lonny: if you're right, why did Dr. Stephen O. Nelson explicitly state that "steady state = equilibrium" on the same page you quoted? Don't you see that he's just repeating the same physics principle I've been trying to explain to you?

... However, the discussion HERE never got past the stage of agreeing on initial conditions, because Appell would not even agree that a system that is being actively heated on one end, and actively cooled on the other, is not in thermal equilibrium. Why would I every try to discuss thermodynamics under such circumstances? With someone who won't even agree on something that simple, and even tries to label it a character flaw on my part for insisting on such a simple thing? It sure looked like a waste of time to me. ... [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-16]

A few days ago, Dr. Guillem Anglada-Escudé announced (at ~27:50 into the press conference) that the newly discovered exoplanet Proxima b has an "equilibrium temperature" of ~235 K and used the term "equilibrium temperature" in Anglada-Escudé et al. 2016 (PDF). They did this even though Proxima b is likely tidally-locked to Proxima Centauri so it's being actively heated on the permanently illuminated hemisphere and actively cooled on the permanently dark hemisphere. In that case, why would Lonny Eachus ever try to discuss thermodynamics with the scientists who discovered the nearest potentially habitable exoplanet? It seems like that would look like a waste of time to Lonny.

Further, when I tried to simply establish that we were all agreeing on the nature of system being discussed, Appell repeatedly berated me for being "unscientific". [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

That's funny, the word "unscientific" doesn't appear anywhere in that "discussion". And the "nature of the system being discussed" was that it wasn't changing with time. You were pedantically arguing about the label used to describe "no change with time". Worse, you were being incorrectly pedantic by incorrectly lecturing physicists about physics terminology.

I told Appell I was leaving when he wouldn't agree there was no thermal equilibrium. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-16]

Let's temporarily overlook the fact that even the scientist Lonny quoted explicitly states that "steady state = equilibrium", rendering Lonny's argument self-contradictory and incoherent.

Instead, let's focus on the fact that David Appell told Lonny to call it whatever he wants and I've repeatedly told Lonny that I'll call the system in "steady state" when its temperatures don't change with time, in the naive hope that we might actually be able to finally take the very first step in this calculation.

So Lonny isn't just still being incorrectly pedantic and self-contradictory. Lonny's still being incorrectly pedantic and self-contradictory about a topic where several physicists had already magnanimously decided to let Lonny decide which label to use, in the naive hope that we might actually be able to finally take the very first step in this calculation.

Why would Lonny do that if he's not just frantically trying to avoid showing the solution he keeps saying he has?

You've spent several hours now claiming I should argue with somebody about heat transfer, but he wouldn't even agree on conditions that make transfer possible. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

Nonsense, Lonny. I've spent several years now claiming that you're spreading Sky Dragon Slayer misinformation, and repeatedly explaining that you might be able to recognize that and finally stop if you'd just solve this thought experiment you've spent years wrongly lecturing physicists about. Instead, you keep frantically weaving a maze of words to avoid showing the solution you keep saying you have.

I have solved it on my own. Thanks very much. [Lonny Eachus, 2016-07-15]

That seems unlikely given the incorrect claims Lonny made above after claiming to have solved it on his own. Instead of just solving this thought experiment, Lonny has been frantically weaving a maze of words for years. Presumably to cover up the fact that Lonny can't correctly solve the simple thought experiment he's spent years wrongly lecturing physicists about. As part of his maze of words, Lonny has hurled other false accusations at me which I won't rebut in this article. Rebutting those accusations wouldn't be educational for anyone, and it wouldn't help Lonny finally find the courage to stop frantically weaving a maze of words and actually solve this simple physics problem.

Appalachian Trail, 20 Years Ago April

(Click for calf size.)

Hansen quote

La Nina Looking Even Less Likely

The monthly ENSO forecast for the next several months is out from the Climate Prediction Center/NCEP/NWS and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University.

Upshot: They think the chance of a La Nina this fall and winter has fallen below 50%.

The multi-model averages favor borderline Neutral-La Niña conditions (3-month average Niño-3.4 index less than or equal to -0.5°C) during the Northern Hemisphere fall, continuing into winter (Fig. 6). However, the more recently updated model runs from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) more strongly favor ENSO-Neutral (Fig. 7). The forecaster consensus prefers this outcome, which is supported by the lack of significant anomalies in several indicators over the past month (winds, convection, subsurface temperatures). Overall, ENSO-Neutral conditions are slightly favored (between 55-60%) during the upcoming Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2016-17 (click CPC/IRI consensus forecast for the chance of each outcome for each 3-month period).

(emphasis mine.) Here the La Nina probability is in blue:

This is the third month in a row when the forecasted chance of a La Nina has fallen: from about a 75% forecasted chance in June, to 60% in July and in August, and now to about 40-45%.

Why does this matter? Well, it's inherently interesting, since La Ninas usually follow El Ninos. And, even though a natural fluctuation (up or down) says nothing about climate change, it would take away a talking point of those who think cooler temperatures are on the way. As Eli once said, somewhere, there is so much horseshit flying around that you almost want to see warming just to shove it in their faces. (That might not have been his exact wording; apologies if not.)

Teddy Drops Politics to be Out in the Open

Teddy Roosevelt's letter to John Muir, 1902:

Via Andrew Revkin on Twitter

Is Proxima b Our Refuge from Climate Change?

So it's been announced (the rumors were right) that scientists have discovered a potentially Earth-like planet around our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, which is only 4.25 light-years away.

Assuming that's where the last group of surviving humans will go after Anthony Watts' denialism leads to an Earth too hot for habitation, what does this planet look like?

First, I hope nobody suggests calling this planet "Vulcan." For now it's just "Proxima b," which needs improvement; hopefully those who discovered it will get to name it. (Please don't use "Earth 2," "Neoearth," or anything of the sort.)

Nobody knows yet what this planet looks like, though telescopes may be able to able to glimpse it in their next generation. (A proposed $175 million space telescope could help -- surely some billionaire can afford that, right. I mean, just write a check.)

Proxima b is only 0.05 AU from its star, Proxima Centauri, and tidally locked -- like our Moon. One side is in permanent starlight and the other side is permanently dark.

Proxima Centauri has a luminosity of only 0.15% of the Sun, 85% of it in the infrared. So humans, take your night vision goggles.

The irradiance onto the planet is 65% of Earth's, or about 890 W/m². By comparison, Mars's solar constant is 589 W/m². So not too shabby.

What's the planet's surface temperature? There isn't enough information to say -- we don't know the planet's albedo, its radius, or the eccentricity of its orbit (the paper says it's < 0.35).

The paper says the equilibrium blackbody temperature of the planet is 234 K. That's -39°C, which is -38°F. But without the above information, the average surface temperature can't be calculated, so we don't know if liquid water can exist there.

I tried calculating the effective blackbody temperature, but got 352 K. I think because an eccentricity of 0.35 is fairly high, and I used the semimajor axis, not the average distance from the star. (That difference increases with eccentricity.)

It seems unlikely advanced life exists there -- else, why haven't they come here, or sent small ships, much like Stephen Hawking and crew want to sent out iPhone sized ships in the next few decades? Planets are old -- a few million years -- the time for our transition from apes to small ship launchers -- doesn't matter much. So it's unlikely they'd be at the same point of development we are, and since we haven't heard from them they must be behind us, if at all.

Speaking of which, the upcoming movie Arrival looks excellent. Trailer:

Are Flood Costs Decreasing?

ClimateDepot offers this graph, from Roger Pielke Jr:

And that is indeed what you get if you take the NWS's data on annual flood damage and divide it by inflation-adjusted GDP. 

But the problem with this simple calculation is that it ignores all the money spent to reduce or prevent flooding -- dams built, rivers dredged and rerouted, streams widened, rip rap installed, house and town relocations, etc. 

This has come up on his blog before, and I also heard it from an NCAR hurricane expert I talked to a few years ago at a summer workshop in Boulder. Until you include this spending, you don't get an accurate picture of the true cost of flooding. I don't suppose the latter amount is easy to calculate though, but it may exist somewhere. 

And how do you factor in better forecasting and better telecommunications, and the cost of establishing that? The years have seen great improvements in weather forecasting, and better communications mean people have gotten more and more accurate warnings over the years. (Lack of good forecasting and communication was a big factor behind so many deaths (682) in the 1938 New England hurricane.) Some amount of the immense spending by the US on installing radar systems and launching and operating satellites has to be counted too, in lieu of flood losses. 

Buildings are constructed better, too. A brick house may survive a flood today whereas a wooden house of 50 years ago wouldn't have survived the same flood. Brick houses cost more.

In short, that's what civilization does -- it provides ever more security via planning, management and technology. But all that isn't free.

These criticisms apply to many such graphs Roger promotes -- hurricanes, for example. But it seems to me especially for flooding. Roger acknowledges some of the complications -- see the next paragraph -- and gives some other one, but this graph in particular is simplistic and misleading. 

This is from Downton and Pielke Jr, Natural Hazards (2005):

Accounting for the costs of disasters is inherently complicated for three reasons. First, disasters have direct costs, such as the destruction of a building, but also indirect costs. For example, a community may see property values decrease in years after a disaster and experience a corresponding loss of property tax revenue. Disasters also have direct and indirect benefits, such as when a community receives an infusion of disaster relief funds that pours money into the local economy (cf. Changnon, 1996; Pielke and Pielke, 1997). Second, a disaster’s losses are a function of the spatial and temporal scale that the analyst chooses as the focus of a particular loss analysis. For example, federal disaster assistance shifts some of the losses from the local economy to the federal government; and, for more than 100 years the sea wall built after the 1900 Galveston hurricane has provided benefits in lives saved and losses avoided in subsequent storms. For the same event, analysts can develop equally rigorous analyses of losses that differ a great deal (cf. Guimaraes et al., 1993). Finally, many losses (and benefits) associated with a disaster are intangible. For example, widespread damage to agricultural land that results in crop losses can affect commodity prices and thus necessitates a counterfactual argument (i.e., what would commodity prices have been without the event) in order to estimate the economic losses associated with the crops that never went to market. Thus, the true costs of disasters include hidden costs and benefits which are difficult to identify and quantify.

"Water is for Fighting Over"

That's the title of John Fleck's new book about the Colorado River.

And it's true. Water is an issue in the western US unlike anything the eastern US can understand.

I never understood it until I moved to the west.

River flow here matters. Snow pack matters. Lake Mead storage matters.

Droughts can be devastating -- in the southwest, or California, or Oregon. Farmers suffer terribly in droughts, and fires burn in droughts.

Cities in the West -- Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and more -- are literally built on the water they have arranged to have delivered to them.

Take away their water, and these cities will cease to exist in short order.

What they get is not natural water -- not water that would flow to them anyways -- but water produced only by the machinations of man. And, people are starting to think, it's not water that is always going to be guaranteed.

If you live in the west, or if you want to understand the west -- the Sun Belt and the Pacific Northwest -- you have to first read Marc Reisner's 1986 book Cadillac Desert. It will open your eyes to the aquatic Disneyland that has been create here.

Fleck is an optimist about water in the western US.

I haven't read John's book yet -- just ordered it -- but my impression so far, based on some good reviews his book has gotten, is that it is probably the followup to Reisner's book that people have been waiting for 30 years.

Disclosure: I've known John for several years, first as a blogger covering climate for the Albuquerque Journal, then as he transitioned to water issues in the southwest. I've had dinner with him a few times in Albuquerque, when I was back there for family business. (I was an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico.) I like him a lot, and am looking forward to reading his book, which I know he certainly worked hard on. And its has impressively already gotten him appointed as the Director of the UNM's Water Resources Program.

I'll write more after I read his book.

PS: Fleck blogs here.

Where is La Nina?

From the Australian Bureau of Meteorology:

In the Pacific Ocean, only two of eight international climate models monitored by the Bureau indicate La Niña is likely to develop during the austral spring, with two more indicating a possible late-forming event in summer. The remaining models suggest neutral or near-La Niña conditions. A La Niña WATCH remains in place, but if La Niña does develop it is likely be weak.

IRI's forecast is about identical to last month's:

Conclusion of the Last Event in the Men's Decathlon, Rio Olymptics

"A jetliner is just aluminum wrapped around a theory."

Piers Sellers, an upper-level official at NASA, wrote an interesting essay for the New Yorker this week: "Space, Climate Change, and the Real Meaning of Theory."

He points out that we design bridges based complicated models that apply Newton's laws of motion and the observed properties of materials, and these bridges are build and they (rarely) fall down.

We build airplanes based on the physics of fluid mechanics and the dynamical laws of motion and properties of substances, and they are rolled out of hanger, pointed down the runway, and take off.

And in exactly the same way, we project climate based on elementary laws of physics proven a century or more ago -- the Planck Law, the Stefan Boltzmann law, the measured absorption properties of gases. And many other laws of physics that represent the real world. Just look at all this physics.

Manmade global warming isn't rocket science. I mean, Arrhenius put the pieces together in the late 1800s, though not quite prefectly. Lots of improvements and additions have come since. This is basic, even obvious stuff.

All climate models ever constructed show warming from human emissions of greenhouse gases. Given CO2's role in the greenhouse effect, it is hardly surprising that 45% more CO2 in the atmosphere would cause more warming.

It'd be far more surprising if it didn't.

--

It is perfectly legitimate to make predictions based on observations combined with well established physical laws. That's how geologists discovered tectonic plates. How Neptune was discovered. How the atomic nucleus was inferred. And so on.

There is no experimental proof that smoking is harmful -- it's unethical to do such experiments, and impractical -- yet we know that it is. This conclusion isn't going to be reverse next year, or in 20 years.

 Sellers writes:

Climate models are made out of theory. They are huge assemblies of equations that describe how sunlight warms the Earth, and how that absorbed energy influences the motion of the winds and oceans, the formation and dissipation of clouds, the melting of ice sheets, and many other things besides. These equations are all turned into computer code, linked to one another, and loaded into a supercomputer, where they calculate the time-evolution of the Earth system, typically in time steps of a few minutes. On time scales of a few days, we use these models for weather prediction (which works very well these days), and, on longer time scales, we can explore how the climate of the next few decades will develop depending on how much carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere. There are three items of good news about this modelling enterprise: one, we can check on how well the models perform against the historical record, including the satellite data archive; two, we can calculate the uncertainty into the predictions; and three, there are more than twenty of these models worldwide, so we can use them as checks on one another. The conclusions drawn from a careful study of thousands of model runs are clear: the Earth is rapidly warming, and fossil-fuel burning is the principal driver.

But theories are abstract, after all, so it’s easy for people to get tricked into thinking that because something is based on theory, it could very likely be wrong or is debatable in the same way that a social issue is debatable. This is incorrect. Almost all the accepted theories that we use in the physical and biological sciences are not open to different interpretations depending on someone’s opinion, internal beliefs, gut feelings, or lobbying. In the science world, two and two make four. To change or modify a theory, as Einstein’s theories modified Newton’s, takes tremendous effort and a huge weight of experimental evidence.

And this is where politics and science can find themselves at cross purposes. In many political discussions, climate science gets treated like family planning or tax restructuring. When it comes to these social issues, convictions or personal views count for a lot, and rightly so. But the climate issue, and the business of climate prediction, is different. The changes we’ve seen over the past hundred and thirty years are incontrovertibly documented: they are facts.

I think the prediction of manmade warming, based on our emissions and the known laws of physics, is perfectly legitimate and adequate to prove AGW. Sure, you have to get into some of the weeds to get all the details, but physicists have been doing this for decades and have the radiative transfer down pat.

I'm not sure how many people realize this, but the role of CO2's radiative effects (and the other main GHGs) is the best know part of climate science. Because it's the most amenable to a standard treatment by fundamental physics.

So deniers thinking that someday CO2's role in climate change is going to be negated based on some new observation or some future pause or something else are very wrong and very lost. The uncertainities all lie elsewhere, especially in the details of clouds and in the details of the carbon cycle and how it will change in the future.

So the arguments CO2 looks increasingly naive and foolish. CO2 from fossil fuels will never go back to being an innocent substance. Ever.

On the contrary -- future generations will look back on us as dumb greedy idiots for thinking we could dump massive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere and expect there would be no result.

We may (and probably won't) zero in on the exact value of climate sensitivity -- too may uncertainties in too many variables. But knowing it's 2°C or more is perfectly sufficient to know we have a big problem.

Piers Sellers didn't have room, or the audience, to point out that this isn't all theory. There are many -- increasingly many -- observations that verify the vital parts of AGW theory -- the enhancing greenhouse effect, the radiative forcing of CO2 (which agrees with the predictions of climate models), the observed ocean warming and energy balance of the planet.

And more. There is so much evidence from so many different angles that, like the health effects of smoking, the result is surrounded by evidence and cannot escape it.

But I'm probably repeating myself.

La Nina Looking a Little Less Likely

From the Australian Bureau of Meteology:

In the Pacific Ocean, only two of eight international climate models monitored by the Bureau indicate La Niña is likely to develop during the austral spring, with two more indicating a possible late-forming event in summer. The remaining models suggest neutral or near-La Niña conditions. A La Niña WATCH remains, but if La Niña does develop it is likely be weak.

Here's the latest for the Nino3.4 Index:

Stuff That at the Moment Seemed Like it Mattered

Big news: Canada will establish a national price on carbon by the end of the year. (The Hill) "Four provinces representing about 80 percent of Canada’s population currently have some kind of carbon pricing policies, which usually consist of either a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system."

Earthquakes in Oklahoma are down since new regulations on oil and gas drilling operations were put in place.

Avik Roy, "Republican intellectual," in Vox: “Goldwater’s nomination in 1964 was a historical disaster for the conservative movement,” because for the ensuing decades, it identified Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party opposed to civil rights.”

PS: I would also put quote marks around "Democratic intellectual."

Roy again: “The gravitational center of the Republican party is white nationalism."

US oil and gas tax preferences: $4 B/yr.

SLR: "...the Florida Keys, where even a half-foot more ocean will inundate large chunks of some islands like Big Pine. That’s sobering when a conservative projection from a regional climate change compact predicts at least two feet by 2060.

This says a textbook says land depression under a 3,000 meter ice sheet could be as much as 800 meters. I would never have guessed that much, by a factor of at least 10. (Without thinking much about it.)

A community that cares, about something more than money.

WWPFCCOWOTO: Miami Spending $400 M to Adapt To Sea Level Rise

Dept of WWPFCCOWOTO*: Miami is planning to spend $400-500 M over the next 5 years to deal with rising sea levels. (Miami Herald)

*We Will Pay for Climate Change One Way or the Other.

YCC: The Netherlands Moving to Ban Diesel and Gas Cars

Today's postings ...

The Netherlands Moving to Ban Diesel and Gas Cars The Netherlands wants to outlaw sales of diesel and gasoline cars by 2025, though hurdles remain. Listen now