Climate Change is a Hoax

[Doug1029]

5 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Well I obviously defy your "consensus"! I'm not anti-environment at all in any way! Period. 

I grew up on Farmland and my Mother's Family are Cattle ranchers. You don't make a living polluting the Land! 

Ever seen a feed lot?

Doug

[Emma_Acid]

15 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Here is what U.S. temperature adjustments look like between 2000 and 2016.

Here between 1930 and 2000 everything has been adjusted "hotter", but you can clearly see that now 1998 is hotter than 1934. Can Doug or ChrLzs or anyone explain these "adjustments"? I say they can not. I say they simply want to see these "adjustments" because they fit with their Global Warming beliefs. 

Typical science denier stance. "I'm not going to bother looking at the details, I'm just going to decide what reality is based on my preferences"

[Doug1029]

15 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Here is what U.S. temperature adjustments look like between 2000 and 2016.

Here between 1930 and 2000 everything has been adjusted "hotter", but you can clearly see that now 1998 is hotter than 1934. Can Doug or ChrLzs or anyone explain these "adjustments"? I say they can not. I say they simply want to see these "adjustments" because they fit with their Global Warming beliefs. 

Throughout most of the US, 1998 was hotter than 1934 (or 1936).  In the American Southwest, 1936 had the hot days.  On August 8 and 10, 1936 temperatures at Poteau and Altus, OK reached 120 degrees F.  They have not gone that high since.  Not even close.

But climate change is based on AVERAGE temps.  In 1936, the average temp was 61.7 at OKC.  In 1998 it was 63.2.  The same difference applies to most cities in the Southwest.

Maybe the reason that 1998 has the higher temperature on your graph is that:  THE TEMPERATURE WAS HIGHER.

Doug

[RoofGardener]

3 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

Yes.  The armadillo study I mentioned above, to name one.  Ecology has such articles in nearly every issue.  Use Google Scholar to dredge up hundreds of them - whichever branch of biology science you're interested in.

I study trees.  Growth rates are dependent on weather; thus one can identify an ice storm signature in tree rings and even tell something about the storm.  We have had four instances of "double" storms in Oklahoma (1823, 1836, 1911 and 2000) where an initial storm lightly damaged the stand and was followed about two weeks later by another that caused severe damage.  The 1836 storm was worse around Ft. Towson than it was near Booneville - we can study geographic features of storms from centuries ago.  We have used tree rings to study the frequency of hail storms.  And the use of tree rings to study drought has been on-going since the 1920s (North America's most severe drought was in 1580, which was also the year of our most-severe June frost. I used tree rings to determine the date of the most-recent 100-year flood on the Lower Deep Fork (1921) and the most-recent 50-year flood (2007).  The weather patterns in tree rings have even been used to identify the date and location where Viking burial ships from Sweden were built (near Dublin about 836).

Temperature leaves its signature in trees, too (See Post 93.).  The Regionally Standardized Curve I described is the current preferred method, but I think there's another possibility using regression analysis.  That ought to be worth a paper.

There's even a paper out that details prevailing wind direction from tree rings (They used oxygen isotope ratios in wood to identify oceanic regions from which the wind blew.).  And there's a history of hurricanes in New England created using carbon 14 and the orientation of uproot mounds.  Another history of hurricanes has been recovered from the Gulf coast using submerged trees, preserved underwater for centuries.

There are literally thousands of articles on how climate change is affecting different species.

Doug

And you do this for a job ? It sounds fascinating ! 

[AnchorSteam]

4 hours ago, Emma_Acid said:

Typical science denier stance. "I'm not going to bother looking at the details, I'm just going to decide what reality is based on my preferences"

Fudging the data after the fact ain't science, its Political. 

 

Go try and convince China & India you are right, and get them to commit to the same expenses you are demanding of the US, then get back to us.

M'kay? 

[Doug1029]

1 hour ago, AnchorSteam said:

Go try and convince China & India you are right, and get them to commit to the same expenses you are demanding of the US, then get back to us.

China is already spending more than we are on wind and solar and has made a massive investment (Three Gorges Dam) in hydro.  What I want to see is the US catching up.

In the US it is private money being spent on wind.  Over 3000 windmills along I-35 and I-70 between OKC and Denver.  Paid for by private money (OK.  The Dept of Energy is a part-owner of the Plains and Eastern Clean Line.  But that's just three wires from Oklahoma to Memphis.).  We're not even talking about Wind Catcher (the world's largest wind farm) and several others that won't be using P&E.

About three days a week I see a massive semi (24 wheels on the trailer alone) come up US-177 hauling a base for a wind tower.  The truck is nearly 100 feet long with a lead and a tail car.  Three days a week all summer.  I think they're going to the Kay County WF.  That's a H-U-G-E investment in wind power - billions of dollars.  And that's all private money - loans.  The electric companies are planning to pay it back with the 3.5 cents/kwh price advantage that wind has over coal.  Not to mention that they're worried about not having enough coal.  There ain't anything Trump can do about it - if there isn't enough coal in the ground, you can't mine it.  And Uncle says they have to share that 50/50 with consumers.

And China is seeing the same advantage.  Wind is free and you don't have to haul it on a railroad.

 

Indian is investing heavily in wind, too.  Same reason - wind is cheap.

Doug

Edited September 20, 2018 by Doug1029

[Doug1029]

1 hour ago, AnchorSteam said:

Fudging the data after the fact ain't science, its Political. 

I'm about to ask you the same question I've been trying to get Lost_Shaman to answer:  What evidence do you have of altered data?  Who's doing it?  Which papers were affected by it?

 

There are lots of reasons to change data:  back in the 1830s they had no way to record high and low daily temps.  So they took readings three times a day.  How do you change those into daily high and low figures?

I used a regression model:  Daily high (or low) = b1*(7:00 a.m. temp) + b2*(2:00p.m. temp) + b3*(9:00p.m. temp).  I got a standard deviation of 4.6 degrees - not very accurate.  So I'm hunting for a better model.  The goal is to get SDEV down to 2.5 degrees.  That, of course, requires altering data:  three observations go into making one datum.  As of right now, I have not solved this problem.  If I want to get my weather data back to 1826, I have no choice:  I have to solve it.  If I don't, the record probably won't be valid before the Civil War.  And that's the other way of handling bad data:  don't use it.

Doug

[TigerBright19]

Quick question.  During the summer my local weather forecast said the temperature was 29 degrees centigrade and for about 10 minutes it reached that temperature high up in the remote hills at only one specific location.  My question is, do the scientists care that the peak temperatures were recorded in remote areas for only a fraction of minutes or seconds, or do they sensibly look at the average daily temperature in the wider region which is significantly much lower?  Not to mention the strength of the wind because it greatly affects the temperature.

 

 

[ChrLzs]

7 hours ago, RoofGardener said:

Let me guess... each time the dataset was 'superseded', global temperatures went up ?  

As has been pointed out multiple times by not just me... if you are arguing that adjustments should be random or always negative or always positive, then you need to actually give at least ONE example showing that those adjustments were not warranted.

That's what LS has been completely unable to do, and the best his few supporters can do, like you, is just to make the same whine about distrust.  The data is available.  Most of the adjustment justification data is also available (Indeed, I'd suggest ALL of it is available to those who need it or have the appropriate subscriptions in place).

And yes, it's fair to say that most adjustments have added to the perceived - and now very obvious - problem, but can you possibly be seriously arguing that because they mostly go in one way, you don't make those adjustments simply because they don't fit your worldview?

 

I'm sorry, but only a fool would take that approach.  And only a fool would make claims about falsehoods or data manipulation without giving a single example of same.

And on the topic of the USA 'cooling'... if you roll that out simplistically, then it's clear you haven't done any decent research on this topic at all.  In simplistic terms (which seems to be all some here can grasp), let's try to explain how 'global averages' work.

A global average is a figure that can be used to summarise what is happening to the WHOLE PLANET..  Global, you know?

The USA, despite what most GW deniers seems to think, is actually not the entire planet. Whoda thort?  It's a moderately large land mass, but certainly not the biggest.  It also has several unique characteristics, like being surrounded on both east and west by oceans. Oceans that contain significant currents and heat distributions, that all work differently and have different effects on the 'Global Average'.

The entire planet consists of those oceans plus all the others, the American, European, African, Asian, Oceania land masses, etc.  Do you think that in amongst those, that some of the regions may be cooler, while some may be warmer, as that rather complex weather / climate system continues over the years?  Hint. YES, of course they will be. (And if you do some really basic research you will find plenty of discussions on the USA's slight cooling trend).

So, does cooling in one region mean the global average is cooling?  Of course it dam well doesn't.

Now, look up CHERRY PICKING, and CONFIRMATION BIAS, and see if you can work out how all that fits together.....

Look, climate science is actually very complex and difficult to model, but here's the thing.  There are literally multitudes of scientists and researchers across the globe working on this stuff (and even checking on those adjustments).  They actually know what they are doing, and in my non-conspiratorial opinion, the overwhelming majority of these smart, educated and hard working people:

- know an absolute shi+load more than the armchair 'experts' posting here

- are actually not paid by some huge world-wide gubmint slush fund where all countries have got together (hahahahah) to deceive the populace.

And there is a huge consensus that GW is real, and is a big threat to our society.  You may think the deniers have a big following, but that's cause you are hanging out at a forum where conspiracy lovers get together...

 

And all I am asking here is that if anyone wants to claim that the temperature adjustments are unjustified/falsified, they need to show evidence for that.  Surely if they make that claim, they MUST have reason to do so.  Surely if they expect to be taken seriously, they should simply post the best example of that falsification.

But no, all we get is insults, how dare we ask for it, indignation, personal incredulity, every logical fallacy that exists, and a complete and utter avoidance of doing that one simple thing - POST THE EVIDENCE that the adjustments are wrong and thence the global averages are wrong.

Oh, and we keep getting the LIE that they have already done that.  If they had, why do they point blank refuse to give a link to where they did it?  (I'll tell you - they DIDN'T do it - it was all handwaving).

BTW, I love debating science, and would be delighted to engage in a wider discussion about actual data and look at all the reasons behind particular adjustment regimes.  And I'm also sure that there would be some disputes and perhaps some areas that could be done lots better, and justifiable complaints.  But let's start with a set of adjustments chosen by the GW denier, where they are claiming so vehemently the adjustments are wrong and and/or deliberately falsified..

 

Finally, in case you haven't yet worked it out, do you know why Lost Shaman and ilk will almost certainly NOT pick out an example of falsification, even if they have one (which I doubt)?  I'll tell you.  If this stuff is discussed in proper detail, their level of knowledge and understanding will be revealed for all to see.  And if it should so happen that the best example *they* pick is shown to be correct and justified... well, we will all know why these folks are not working for climate research organisations..

 

[ChrLzs]

BTW, I think we've waited long enough for the Lost one to post his best example of ebil manipulation, so perhaps it's time for me to add a link that may be of interest to those curious on how all this stuff works (and also just how complicated it is..).

So here's a publicly accessible pdf, as a good starting point - GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE CHANGE (J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, K. Lo, 2010) - oft referred to as 'Hansen 2010'.  It's been mentioned a few times hereabouts and if you look at the summary you'll work out where it fits into the scheme of things.  Note, please only download this if you are genuinely interested - it's a large (6Mb) pdf, currently freely available but if it gets overloaded they might whack it behind a paywall..

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2010RG000345

May I suggest that if anyone is genuine about picking through this whole adjustment process, it might pay to start a new thread, as this one has now devolved into a basket case.

 

[AnchorSteam]

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

China is already spending more than we are on wind and solar and has made a massive investment (Three Gorges Dam) in hydro.  What I want to see is the US catching up.

Then why is Gang Green trying to rip out all the dams on the Klamath River, among others?

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

In the US it is private money being spent on wind. 

Which is the way it should be. Why does Taxpayer money have to be spent on that, or Carbon Credits and all the other crap we are supposed to be forced to comply with?

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

Over 3000 windmills along I-35 and I-70 between OKC and Denver. 

How often are they running?

I see hundreds along the Columbia River valley, famous for always being windy. Most of the time, most of them are shut down, and I hear the same thing about the huge wind farms in California in the Mohave. Seem slike every time a bird is killed, the same people that wanted them made in the first place start screaming that they need to be closed up.

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

About three days a week I see a massive semi (24 wheels on the trailer alone) come up US-177 hauling a base for a wind tower.  The truck is nearly 100 feet long with a lead and a tail car.  Three days a week all summer.  I think they're going to the Kay County WF.  That's a H-U-G-E investment in wind power - billions of dollars. 

Just curious, how many of them were made in China?

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

And China is seeing the same advantage.  Wind is free and you don't have to haul it on a railroad.

Its even better if you can undercut everyone else and export them all over the world. 

China shut down the last of their coal-powered trains about a decade ago, and they are still burning a tremendous amount of it, we export some to them. Why is nothing ever said, even by you when directly asked, about China's use of coal? 

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

Indian is investing heavily in wind, too.  Same reason - wind is cheap.

Doug

Fine, but how is that paying billions into the Paris Accords? That is what I am talking about; demands made of the US Govt by other world powers that will cost US Taxpayers (the primarysource of wealth for the Govt.) their standard of living and freedom of choice in a great many fields, such as transportation or even the freedom to have two refrigerators in their own homes (see California brown-outs).

[Farmer77]

4 minutes ago, AnchorSteam said:

Then why is Gang Green trying to rip out all the dams on the Klamath River, among others?

Because dams interfere with migratory patterns of native fish in the western US.

[AnchorSteam]

7 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

I'm about to ask you the same question I've been trying to get Lost_Shaman to answer:  What evidence do you have of altered data?  Who's doing it?  Which papers were affected by it?

....

Glad you asked!

 

 

Quote

 

Former NOAA Scientist Confirms Colleagues Manipulated Climate Records

Feb 5, 2017  

Press Release 

WASHINGTON – U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology members today responded to reports about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 2015 climate change study (“the Karl study”). According to Dr. John Bates, the recently retired principal scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the Karl study was used “to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy.”

Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas): “I thank Dr. John Bates for courageously stepping forward to tell the truth about NOAA’s senior officials playing fast and loose with the data in order to meet a politically predetermined conclusion.  In the summer of 2015, whistleblowers alerted the Committee that the Karl study was rushed to publication before underlying data issues were resolved to help influence public debate about the so-called Clean Power Plan and upcoming Paris climate conference.  Since then, the Committee has attempted to obtain information that would shed further light on these allegations, but was obstructed at every turn by the previous administration’s officials.  I repeatedly asked, ‘What does NOAA have to hide?’

 

https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/former-noaa-scientist-confirms-colleagues-manipulated-climate-records

 

 

A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington D.C. often uses “misleading” news releases about climate data to influence public opinion.

https://dailycaller.com/2017/04/24/former-obama-official-says-climate-data-was-often-misleading-and-wrong/

 

 

How to manipulate climate data files

http://www.conservationphysics.org/datalog/datlog10.php

 

The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever

New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified. 

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

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

 

 

 

Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data

• The Mail on Sunday can reveal a landmark paper exaggerated global warming
• It was rushed through and timed to influence the Paris agreement on climate change
• America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration broke its own rules
• The report claimed the pause in global warming never existed, but it was based on misleading, 'unverified' data
• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

 

I don't use Google, I can get unbiased search results whenever I like   

[ChrLzs]

Anchorsteam, those are truly lovely anecdotes and stories, but they are exactly the same as Lost Shaman's debacle.  SHOW US THE DATA that has been manipulated.  Don't just talk (ie handwave) about it.  The data, and all of the adjustments are all PUBLICLY available.

If you can't do that, then clearly you have not fact checked anything.  It's lazy, and by doing this you are the one presenting fake news.....

 

Thing is, it is easy to find articles that support any given conspiracy claim.  Easy and MEANINGLESS.  Here's my reply to your articles - I'll be kinder to our dear readers and just give the link, which exposes just one of Paul Homewoods faked arguments.

You expect us to read yours, so how about you address the behavior shown here:

http://greatwhitecon.info/2017/02/not-a-lot-of-people-know-how-paul-homewood-propagates-fake-news-about-the-arctic/

 

Thing is, none of this to and fro bullmanure is worth a damn without a proper analysis and proper citation of the data and its sources, along with the actual original data and also the details of any adjustments or calibration etc.  I've yet to see a single one of these pretend researchers pony up and do this properly.

And for chrissake, this isn't about some obscure thermometer stuck away in Paraguay - there are innumerable scientists and researchers involved in the data gathering - and the datasets from all those sources point the same way.

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by ChrLzs

[ChrLzs]

Oh, and also read this, Anchor:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/feb/09/whistleblower-i-knew-people-would-misuse-this-they-did-to-attack-climate-science

 

See, we can pretend we're not using Google too, and post all kinds of supportive and meaningless garbage.  

SHOW US THE DATA.

Edited September 21, 2018 by ChrLzs

[DingoLingo]

On 9/15/2018 at 7:43 PM, FurriesRock said:

Climate change is an outright hoax peddled to the masses to provide justification for the further erosion of our human rights.

having just read through the whole thread so far.. (hey Doug1o29 you made this thread worthwhile reading.. thank you.. facts and knowledge is always a pleasure to read)

Furries.. you have been asked a couple of times and to be honest the reason why I read the thread was to see what human rights you believe are being eroded by the so called climate change hoax?

what I have read is.. deniers not really posting up anything to show its a hoax.. believers routing them on it.. then you have Doug.. (I think I could seriously have a bromance with him lol) facts.. figures able to actually explain what he is posting.. 

so.. deniers .. step up your game..

believers.. take a note from dougs book and explain it in a way that a every day person could understand..

and you will probably ask .. yes.. I do believe in climate change.. I do believe man has made a impact on it.. though as to how much of a impact there is not truly enough data for me to fully credit everything to man made climate change..

though for the green movement to clean and renewable energies.. cutting down pollution.. I am all for it.. 

a beach I grew up on you used to be able to go fishing and get some really nice fish.. now days.. the pollution from the factories further up the coast has killed that.. and if you really want to know what air pollution was like when I was growing up in the 70's.. try living 3 streets away from a nickle refinery.. some nights it was that bad mum and dad would pack us kids up in the car to sleep at a friends place to get away from the rotten egg smell..

the same refinery.. your lucky if you catch a bit of a wiff of the same smell these days.. 

 

[Doug1029]

16 hours ago, Aaron2016 said:

Quick question.  During the summer my local weather forecast said the temperature was 29 degrees centigrade and for about 10 minutes it reached that temperature high up in the remote hills at only one specific location.  My question is, do the scientists care that the peak temperatures were recorded in remote areas for only a fraction of minutes or seconds, or do they sensibly look at the average daily temperature in the wider region which is significantly much lower?  Not to mention the strength of the wind because it greatly affects the temperature.

Daily averages are averages at one station.  We now have automated stations that can read weather conditions every twenty seconds.  The average of those would be very close to the true average.  But back in 1870 they didn't have those, so they used just the high and the low.  After 150 years recording the high and the low, it's pretty hard to change.  And whatever you come up with will have different statistical characteristics so it will be difficult or impossible to make comparisons.  So we continue using the high and the low to summarize weather.

Whatever temperature a station records, it will be different from the average for a region, say a state (The Weather Bureau/Weather Service uses climate districts, equivalent to three or four counties.).  To calculate the average for a state requires spatial corrections, so that one station is going to be combined with data from other stations anyway.  A single station a long way from others will get a greater weight.  That's both good and bad:  good because some areas, like mountains, are difficult to site stations in, and bad because there are fewer stations to produce an accurate average.

So whatever the particular situation is, we work with it.

Doug

[Doug1029]

9 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

Then why is Gang Green trying to rip out all the dams on the Klamath River, among others?

Returning streams to natural flow restores the ecology of the stream.  The major issue for the Klamath is salmon.  With wind coming online, dams that produce little or no power aren't needed.

I've been to Klamath Falls (Where are the falls?).  God's country up there.  Been thinking about retiring there.

Doug

[Doug1029]

10 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

Which is the way it should be. Why does Taxpayer money have to be spent on that, or Carbon Credits and all the other crap we are supposed to be forced to comply with?

Why DOE has to have a part-ownership in P&E is beyond me.  But at any rate, it's only a tiny part of what's happening with wind power.

About carbon credits:  that's private money, too.  Carbon credits are bought and sold on futures markets, like the Chicago Board of Trade.  We don't have required carbon credits in the US, but in many European countries, they are.  The idea is that polluters can buy permission to emit a certain amount of pollution.  If they can secure ownership of a carbon sink, they get credit for the amount of carbon being sequestered and that can be used to offset the amounts they emit.  Governments limit the total amount of credits on the market, so industries must bid competitively for what's available - capitalism at work.

I have my doubts about that whole system.  It doesn't reduce pollution - it just moves it around.  In the US it is the industrial fallback position.  If they lose the environmental battle, they consent to carbon credits and keep right on polluting.  For that reason, you who favor releasing poisons into the air should be backing it - it would do what you want.

But I don't think it works.  Forests are being touted as a way to sequester carbon.  I am involved with a study of carbon sequestration in the litter layer (leaves and needles) on the floor of a shortleaf pine stand - figure 1.2 kg C/m^2 - you heard it here first.  That is the amount being retained in the leaf litter at any given time.  That isn't much and the only way to increase it is to let the stand grow.  When you cut it, only about 40% of the carbon in the wood gets sequestered as building materials - the rest decays back to CO2.  And any residual carbon in the soil soon decays back to CO2.  So we have to grow the trees and leave them out there.  Which puts a limit on how much carbon the stand can hold.  It's a stop-gap measure at best.

And carbon credits require a whole bureaucracy of inspectors, certification organizations, brokers and others - all paid for in the price of the credits.  So a lot of the money doesn't go into carbon sequestration.  When an organization buys land to use in carbon storage, a large amount of money goes to change the name on the deed and has no effect on carbon storage.  Altogether, carbon credits are not a very efficient system.

Doug

[Doug1029]

10 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

How often are they running?

I see hundreds along the Columbia River valley, famous for always being windy. Most of the time, most of them are shut down, and I hear the same thing about the huge wind farms in California in the Mohave. Seem slike every time a bird is killed, the same people that wanted them made in the first place start screaming that they need to be closed up.

I have no idea what is going on in the Columbia Gorge, but between here and Denver, most of the windmills are running most of the time.  Of course, most of our windpower is exported to places in the east, so whether Oklahoma's run depends on how much power is being used in Tennessee.  Peak load is usually in the evening, just after dark, so that is the time to look for activity.  Less power is needed in the morning, so many windmills are shut down at that time.  Power use is also variable by season - we use more in the summer for air conditioning than we do in the winter for heating.

My guess is that variable power needs will explain why some aren't running.

Doug

 

[Doug1029]

10 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

Just curious, how many of them were made in China?

Some parts are made in China, or were until Trump's tariffs.  The tariffs didn't raise prices high enough, so Trump added a tax on parts made here.  Somehow he thinks that will make more American jobs.  The tariffs will hurt solar more than wind, so there might be a shift in preferences coming up in a year or two.

The towers and rotors used locally are made in two plants - one in Garden City, Kansas and one near Oklahoma City.  The one in Garden City is so busy it needs two railroad sidings just to load them.  It's expensive to haul those parts, so they are usually made near the place they will be used.

Doug

[Doug1029]

10 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

China shut down the last of their coal-powered trains about a decade ago, and they are still burning a tremendous amount of it, we export some to them. Why is nothing ever said, even by you when directly asked, about China's use of coal? 

I am not up to snuff on coal.  It's not my specialty.  But here are some papers on the topic:

Zhang, J., and K. R. Smith.  2007.  Household air pollution from coal and biomass fuels in China:  measurements, health impacts, and interventions.  Environmental Health Perspectives 115(6) 848-855.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892127/

Malheur, R., S. Chand and T. Tezuka.  2003.  Optimal use of coal for power generation in India.  Energy Policy. 31(4) 319-331.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421502000678

Bonjoiur, S., H. Adair-Rohani, J. Wolf, N. Bruce, S. Mehta, A. Pruss-Ustin, M. Lahiff, E. Rehfuess, V. Mishra and K. Smith.  2013.  Solid fuel use for household cooking:  country and regional estimates for 1980-2010.  Environmental Health Perspectives 121(7) 784-790.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701999/

 

China is actually mining less coal than we are:

                        USA                    China

Anthracite          5.1                      38.3

Bituminous      161.6                    78.4

Sub-bitumin     108.7                       0

Lignite               19.4                    32.7

Total:               208.1                   136.1

That's in gigatons.  The figures are listed in:

Shealy, M. and J. Dorian.  2010.  Growing Chinese coal use:  dramatic resouyrce and environmental impacts.  Energy Policy.  38(5)  2116-2122.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236109000507

 

China is continuing to build new coal plants, the same as we are continuing to build new gas plants.  It's the only way to build the capacity we need at the speed we need.  China is banking heavily on solar and currently has the world's largest workforce dedicated to conversion.  That being said, they still have a long way to go.

Doug

[Doug1029]

11 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

Fine, but how is that paying billions into the Paris Accords? That is what I am talking about; demands made of the US Govt by other world powers that will cost US Taxpayers (the primarysource of wealth for the Govt.) their standard of living and freedom of choice in a great many fields, such as transportation or even the freedom to have two refrigerators in their own homes (see California brown-outs).

Payments to the Green Climate Fund (which is how the Paris Accords are funded) are VOLUNTARY.  The US could have stayed in the Accords without paying a nickel.  The US originally pledged three billion dollars ($9.41 per person; that's what Trump calls "billions and billions and billions of dollars.").  That's certainly a better investment than the average Congressman.

Here are the world's leading contributors on a per capita basis:

Sweden     $59.31

Luxembourg     $58.63

Norway:  $50.20

Monaco:  $28.89

Britain:  $18.77

France:  $15.64

Denmark:  $12.73

Germany:  $12.40

Switzerland:  $12.21

Japan:  $11.50

US:  $9.41.  We let Luxembourg beat us out!

The numbers are straight from the New York Times.  Ordinarily, they are a terrible source of climate misinformation, but I think their writers are up to this, as all they had to do was copy the list.

Popovich, N. and H. Fountain.  2017.  What is the Green Climate Fund and how much does the U.S. actually pay?  New York Times June 2 2017.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/02/climate/trump-paris-green-climate-fund.html

Doug

 

[Doug1029]

11 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/former-noaa-scientist-confirms-colleagues-manipulated-climate-records

That's a news release by the US House of Representatives.  Not exactly the best source of scientific information.  Does it even have a scientist as a member?

A former employee of NCDC testified that there was an attempt to show that the "hiatus" didn't exist.  I'd say that "attempt," if true, was a dismal failure.  There is a definite downward trend in NCDC's own data from 1998 to 2005.  Maybe that's not as big as some would like it, but it's still there and we can now see, amounts to a minor wiggle in the temperature record.

That's not altering the data, but an attempt to put it in context.

 

11 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

How to manipulate climate data files

http://www.conservationphysics.org/datalog/datlog10.php

Did you read this?

It's about using UNIX files to analyze data.  Most data analysis is done using EXCEL files because they can be easily imported into programs like SAS.  UNIX requires a lot of prep work.  READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE YOU POST IT.

 

It's lunch time.  I'll get back to you later.

Doug

[Doug1029]

Here's an article by John Bates, the retired NOAA scientist who was critical of some of NOAA's work.

Bates, J., J. Privette, E, Kearns, W. Glance and X. Zhao.  2015  Sustained production of multidecadal climatic records:  lessons from the NOAA climate data record program.  National Center for Environmental Information, Asheville, NC.  https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00015.1

Reading between the lines, he is critical of some of NOAA's data collection and archiving methods, but not about the data itself.

 

Here is the Karl paper that Bates criticized in his testimony.  We now (2018) know that there really was a minor hiatus following the El Nino of 1998, but that's nothing new - El Ninos always produce a slight cooling after they pass.  All Karl is saying is that the 1997 and 1998 high temps were unusual and could not be explained by best-fit linear processes, which means that something more than just linear temperature rise was going on.

Karl, T.R., R.W. Knight, and B. Baker. 2000. The record breaking global temperatures of 1997 and 1998: Evidence for an increase in the rate of global warming. Geophysical Research Letters 27(March 1):719-722.  https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/1999GL010877

Doug