MBH respond to M&M
Jim Norton
NOTE ON PAPER BY MCINTYRE AND MCKITRICK IN "ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT"
Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes
The recent paper by McIntyre and McKitrick (Energy and Environment, 14,
751-771, 2003)
claims to be an "audit" of the analysis of Mann, Bradley and Hughes (Nature,
392, 779-787,
1998) or "MBH98". An audit involves a careful examination, using the same data
and following
the exact procedures used in the report or study being audited. McIntyre and
McKitrick ("MM")
have done no such thing, having used neither the data nor the procedures of
MBH98. Thus, it is
entirely understandable that they do not obtain the same result. Their effort
has no bearing on the
work of MBH98, and is no way a "correction" of that study as they claim. On the
contrary, their
analysis appears seriously flawed and amounts to a gross misrepresentation of
the work of
MBH98. The standard protocol for scientific journals receiving critical
comments on a
published paper is to provide the authors being criticized with an opportunity
to review the
criticism prior to publication, and offer them the chance to respond. Mann and
colleagues were
given no such opportunity.
It seems clear that MM have made critical errors in their analysis that have
the effect of grossly
distorting the reconstruction of MBH98. Key indicators of the original MBH98
network appear
to have been omitted for the early period 1400-1600, with major consequences
for the character
of the MM reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over that
interval.
MM do not list the number of indicators in their putative version of the MBH
network (which is
based on an odd combination of data from MBH98 and other sources). The reader
must do a
considerable amount of detective work, based on scrutiny of the Tables in their
pages 20-23 and
the indicated data links, to determine just what data have been eliminated from
the original MBH
network. A preliminary attempt to do this already demonstrates that their
deletion of key early
proxy information produces anomalous warming in the 15th century at odds with
the
reconstructed cold conditions of the period by MBH98 and virtually all other
published Northern
Hemisphere temperature reconstructions.
MM appear to have eliminated key proxy indicators from the MBH98 network by the
following
actions:
1) MM (see their Figure 4) describe the substitution of a shorter version
(available back to mid
16th century) of one of the Jacoby et al (1989) Northern Treeline ring width
series for the longer
version (available back to mid 15th century) used by MBH98.
2) MM appear to eliminate, without any justification, the entire dataset of 70
Western North
American (WNA) tree-ring series available between 1400 and 1600. This dataset,
as several
other regional tree-ring data networks, is represented by MBH98 in terms of a
smaller number of
representative Principal Component (PC) time series for each interval. The
authors eliminate all
of these data by not following (see technical point "b" later on in this
document) the procedure of
MBH98 of calculating the PC series separately for all intervals used in their
stepwise
reconstruction approach. The leading pattern of variance in this data set
exhibits conditions from
1400-1800 that are dramatically colder than the mid and late 20th century, and
a very prominent
cooling in the 15th century in particular. The original individual proxy data
used by MBH,
including all of the WNA data have been available since May 2000 on the public
ftp site
provided by Mann and colleagues:
ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/TREE/ITRDB/NOAMER/,
and on the NOAA Paleoclimatology website:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/treering/chronologies/northamerica/usa
3) MM appear to eliminate the entire dataset of Stahle and coworkers of
Southwestern
U.S./Mexican late wood ring width measurements prior to the 17th century (12
back to 1500, 6
back to 1400) under the same false procedural premise described in (2). Once
again, the data
were available at the Mann et al public ftp site:
ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/TREE/STAHLE/SWM/
We have not determined yet, just how many important indicators were eliminated
from the
MBH98 dataset by the various subjective substitutions described by MM on pages
20-23.
However, we have confirmed that elimination of the critical datasets (1)-(3)
alone from the
MBH98 network during the interval AD 1400-1500 yields the spurious result
obtained by MM.
(see Figure 1).
FIGURE 1. COMPARISON OF MBH98 RECONSTRUCTION (BLUE) WITH RECONSTRUCTION
RESULTING FROM THE ELIMINATION OF KEY PROXY DATA SETS (1)-(3) OVER THE AD 1400-
1500 INTERVAL. THIS YIELDS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME RESULT OBTAINED BY MM BY
ELIMINATING A SIGNIFICANT FRACTION OF THE MBH98 DATA AVAILABLE FOR THAT
PERIOD (BOTH SERIES HAVE BEEN SMOOTHED WITH A 40 YEAR LOWPASS FILTER).
MBH98 employed the standard statistical tool of cross-validation to verify the
skill of their
reconstructions. MM describe no such tests. Since increasingly sparse networks
are used
progressively farther back in time, a series of cross-validation experiments
have to be performed
to estimate the skill for different time intervals. For the AD 1400-1500
period, this involves, in
MBH98, performing the reconstruction over the interval 1400-1901 based on
calibration against
the instrumental record over the interval 1902-1980, using the specific network
of proxy
indicators available for the AD 1400-1500 period. The reconstruction is then
independently
compared against the instrumental record over the interval (1854-1901) not used
for calibration.
The skill can be described by a verification coefficient of determination (RE),
which is bounded
by negative infinity and positive one, with substantially positive numbers
indicative of
predictive skill. The mean expected value for a random estimate is -1.
For the reconstruction with the data eliminated in a manner similar to that
implicit in the MM
approach, the RE score (-6.6) is far worse than even a typical random estimate,
and such a result
would have been discarded as unreliable based on the cross-validation protocol
used by MBH98.
The anomalous warm values during the 15th century are the artifact of an
entirely unreliable
statistical estimate. By contrast, the MBH98 reconstruction indicates an RE of
0.42 for the
1400-1500 interval, indicative of significant predictive skill during that time
interval.
The above discussion should be adequate to provide readers with a sense of the
depth of the
flaws underlying the reconstruction achieved by MM that is so at odds with at
least a dozen
other recently published empirical and model-based estimates of Northern
Hemisphere mean
temperature changes in past centuries.
There are numerous other additional, more technical problems in their approach
that would
appear to have rendered the MM analysis flawed irrespective of the elimination
of important
data. We briefly list the few most significant of these:
(a) Use of Internally Inconsistent Surface Temperature Estimates
MM appear to combine gridpoint standard deviations estimated from one version
of the University of
East Anglia surface temperature record, with standardized EOFs from MBH98 based
on a different
temperature data set. MM also appear to inconsistently use standard deviations
of un-detrended data,
while MBH98 had normalized their EOFs by detrended gridpoint standard
deviations.
(b) Incorrect representation of the MBH98 proxy data set.
MBH98 calculated PCs of proxy sub-networks separately for each interval in
their stepwise
reconstruction. This is the only sensible approach, as it allows all data
available over each sub-interval to
be used. This requires 159 independent time series to represent all indicators
required for reconstructions
of all possible sub-intervals, even though the maximum number ever used for a
particular sub-interval is
112. By not following this protocol, MM appear to have eliminated in the range
of 100 proxy series used
by MBH98 over the interval 1400-1600.
(c) Lack of the use of an objective criterion in the determination of the
number of retained instrumental
PCs in the reconstruction:
Since the proxy data network developed by MM differed from that used by MBH98
for all intervals, it
was inappropriate for MM to use the same instrumental temperature eigenvector
subsets that had been
selected by MBH98 for their reconstruction. The subsets were selected by MBH98
based on the
application of an objective criterion to the specific available proxy networks
available, and were
optimized with respect to those networks. The basis sets used by MM have thus
appear not to have been
optimized with respect to the different proxy network they actually use.
====================================================
Anti-environmental myths
http://info-pollution.com/myths.htm
Practical skepticism
http://info-pollution.com/skeptic.htm
Dr. Convection
> http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/paleo/EandEPaperProblem.pdf
>
> NOTE ON PAPER BY MCINTYRE AND MCKITRICK IN "ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT"
> Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes
> The recent paper by McIntyre and McKitrick (Energy and Environment, 14,
> 751-771, 2003)
These sorts of public exchanges could go on for a long time. NATURE has a
complaints policy. The editors of NATURE should speak up and provide some
discosure of the review history of Mann et al.
Jim Norton
>complaints policy.
They do? Never heard of it. And since M&M was not published in Nature I don't
know what the relivance is.
>The editors of NATURE should speak up and provide some
>discosure of the review history of Mann et al.
Why?
David Ball
This "article" was published in E&E. Why should Nature respond
at all?
Titan Point
>>These sorts of public exchanges could go on for a long time. NATURE has a
>>complaints policy.
>
>
> They do? Never heard of it. And since M&M was not published in Nature I don't
> know what the relivance is.
Since Nature has declared that the peer-review system they employ should
prevent junk science being published as true, they should be able to prove
it.
>
>>The editors of NATURE should speak up and provide some
>>discosure of the review history of Mann et al.
>
> Why?
>
Why? Because if the Mann Hockey Stick proves to be false, it could take
the credibility of climate science, the IPCC, the reputations of not a few
scientists and politicians and the public trust of science generally, with
it.
These are not trivial issues any more.
Thomas Palm
news:pan.2003.11.03....@myrealbox.com:
I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the public
trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a scientific
paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not unique. Things
like that happen, but most of the time the hyenas are not as ready to leap
into the battle. For example, Spencer and Christy has been forced to revise
their algorithm to calculate temparature trends from MSU-data several time.
Where were those people then? Did people lose trust in science?
Strangely enough, these people in other cases expect us to have blind faith
in science, i.e. when a scientist says something is safe. Of course, that
is not possible, if you encourage belief in conspiracy theories that will
make the public distrust all authorities. Nuclear power and GMO:s are
likely to be some of the victims of such an increased distrust.
Juan Herberto
that will make the public distrust all authorities..."
The "public trust" (& public distrust) may be affected by the opinions
of experts, but the general 'path of least resistance', tempered by
guilt & common sense have a lot more affect upon behavior among the
general populace than the findings of the scientific community. When we
'know' that petrochemical resources are finite, that the right hand of
petrochemical companies are busily finding 'cures' for the woes brought
on by the products of the left hand, that car companies will prefer to
sell customers a 5000 pound vehicle rather than a 2000 pound one, that
split cedar roofs look 'swell' in the California sunlight (in the '50s
the thickest butted shakes were called 'heavy Hollywoods' at NW US cedar
mills), that cheap oil means an oak logged in Missouri can be shipped to
Taiwan for milling & then shipped back to St. Louis (via Seattle) & sold
as 'unfinished' furniture (wrapped inside cardboard made from Alaskan
old-growth hemlock) & politicians consider this a 'win-win' situation,
that spending a trillion US$ every 3 or 4 years on armaments isn't a
problem as long as foreigners will lend their trade surplus $$ to the US
bond market, why, who CARES what a bunch of scientists think? They're
all 'bought & paid for', just like the rest of us (who have regular jobs
&/or mortgages, &/or children in school). We put up with it because it's
more comfortable than challenging it, despite the obvious contradictions
& long-term damages & the self-loathing that drives us to send a few
bucks to Greenpeace or World Wildlife Fund, etc etc. If "we" can only be
convinced to become SHAREHOLDERS (ie someone who expects something for
nothing) then 'we' can afford even more 'charitable donations, as long
as 'we' don't question how the profits are made.
Sweet deal, huh? ^..^
Got Problems?
Get RIDOVEM
Titan Point
> "Titan Point" <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote in
> news:pan.2003.11.03....@myrealbox.com:
>
>> On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 03:42:42 +0000, Jim Norton wrote:
>
>>>>The editors of NATURE should speak up and provide some
>>>>discosure of the review history of Mann et al.
>>>
>>> Why?
>>>
>> Why? Because if the Mann Hockey Stick proves to be false, it could
>> take the credibility of climate science, the IPCC, the reputations of
>> not a few scientists and politicians and the public trust of science
>> generally, with it.
>>
>> These are not trivial issues any more.
>
> I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the public
> trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a scientific
> paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not unique. Things
> like that happen, but most of the time the hyenas are not as ready to leap
> into the battle. For example, Spencer and Christy has been forced to revise
> their algorithm to calculate temparature trends from MSU-data several time.
> Where were those people then? Did people lose trust in science?
False analogy. The adjustments were of the order of hundredths of a
degree. And more importantly, a mega-expensive world economic death pact
did not hinge on it.
>
> Strangely enough, these people in other cases expect us to have blind faith
> in science, i.e. when a scientist says something is safe. Of course, that
> is not possible, if you encourage belief in conspiracy theories that will
> make the public distrust all authorities. Nuclear power and GMO:s are
> likely to be some of the victims of such an increased distrust.
Like the conspiracy theory that opposition to the Kyoto treaty is funded
by oil companies?
Vito De Lucia
Titan Point wrote:
> False analogy. The adjustments were of the order of hundredths of a
> degree. And more importantly, a mega-expensive world economic death pact
> did not hinge on it.
Uh? "mega-expensive world economic death pact"??
Talk about doom and gloom! ;-)
There is no basis whatsoever for such a dramatic statement. In fact,
climate mitigation policies need not be expensive at all. Benefits may
very well offset the costs, even in the short-term, disregarding
potential benefits for avoided climatic damages.
thanks
ciao
Vito
--
--------------------------------------
Searching for the hermit in vain
I asked a boy beneath the pines.
He said, "The master's gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere in the mounts,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown."
Chia Tao (777-841)
---------------------------------------
Thomas Palm
> On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 17:29:16 +0000, Thomas Palm wrote:
>> I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the
>> public trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a
>> scientific paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not
>> unique. Things like that happen, but most of the time the hyenas are
>> not as ready to leap into the battle. For example, Spencer and
>> Christy has been forced to revise their algorithm to calculate
>> temparature trends from MSU-data several time. Where were those
>> people then? Did people lose trust in science?
>
> False analogy. The adjustments were of the order of hundredths of a
> degree.
The adjustments were enough to shift a cooling trend to one that was
warming enough to be consistent with the ground record, even if S&C still
get a lower result than everyone else who has looked at the same data.
> And more importantly, a mega-expensive world economic death
> pact did not hinge on it.
The opponents to the Kyoto treaty sure seem interested in using that
interpretation of the MSU results since thay have so little else pointing
in their favor, so the treaty does to some extent depend on that result.
>> Strangely enough, these people in other cases expect us to have blind
>> faith in science, i.e. when a scientist says something is safe. Of
>> course, that is not possible, if you encourage belief in conspiracy
>> theories that will make the public distrust all authorities. Nuclear
>> power and GMO:s are likely to be some of the victims of such an
>> increased distrust.
>
> Like the conspiracy theory that opposition to the Kyoto treaty is
> funded by oil companies?
Some of it is. Pat Michaels and others are on record as being financed by
the fossil fuel industry.
Titan Point
> "Titan Point" <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote in
> news:pan.2003.11.03....@myrealbox.com:
>
>> On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 17:29:16 +0000, Thomas Palm wrote:
>
>>> I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the
>>> public trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a
>>> scientific paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not
>>> unique. Things like that happen, but most of the time the hyenas are
>>> not as ready to leap into the battle. For example, Spencer and
>>> Christy has been forced to revise their algorithm to calculate
>>> temparature trends from MSU-data several time. Where were those
>>> people then? Did people lose trust in science?
>>
>> False analogy. The adjustments were of the order of hundredths of a
>> degree.
>
> The adjustments were enough to shift a cooling trend to one that was
> warming enough to be consistent with the ground record, even if S&C still
> get a lower result than everyone else who has looked at the same data.
Nonsense. The cooling trend of the total atmosphere was re-confirmed. The
MSU was re-calibrated with radio -sonde and other measurements and found
to be highly accurate. The ground measurements are the ones that are
deeply flawed, but strangely they tell you what you want to hear so you
don't bother to question them.
>
>> And more importantly, a mega-expensive world economic death
>> pact did not hinge on it.
>
> The opponents to the Kyoto treaty sure seem interested in using that
> interpretation of the MSU results since thay have so little else pointing
> in their favor, so the treaty does to some extent depend on that result.
Nope. The Kyoto Protocol was built on trash science of which the Hockey
Stick is a clear example. Even its proponents admitted that the result,
even if fully implemented, would be so small as to be unmeasureable. The
economic impact would have been huge.
For the record, the satellite record is too short to establish a
meaningful climatic trend BUT it is long enough to point out the anomalous
warming seen in the surface record to be a systematic error cause by urban
heat islands.
>
>>> Strangely enough, these people in other cases expect us to have blind
>>> faith in science, i.e. when a scientist says something is safe. Of
>>> course, that is not possible, if you encourage belief in conspiracy
>>> theories that will make the public distrust all authorities. Nuclear
>>> power and GMO:s are likely to be some of the victims of such an
>>> increased distrust.
>>
>> Like the conspiracy theory that opposition to the Kyoto treaty is
>> funded by oil companies?
>
> Some of it is. Pat Michaels and others are on record as being financed by
> the fossil fuel industry.
And irrelevant. Pat Michaels in funded 97% by the taxpayers. The phrase
"and others" is a conspiracy theory. Perhaps you'd like to request
Greenpeace it return the money it received from Enron.
It is a delusion to claim that the fossil fuel industry is engaged in
some sort of tobacco style cabal to forstall the truth getting out. There
are many, many scientists who have gone on record to say that the
scientific basis for report of the IPCC is deeply flawed. It does the work
or reputation of real environmentalists no good at all to be associated
with paranoid conspiracy theories divorced from reality.
James Acker
Tim Worstall
> "Titan Point" <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote in
> news:pan.2003.11.03....@myrealbox.com:
>
> > On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 03:42:42 +0000, Jim Norton wrote:
>
> >>>The editors of NATURE should speak up and provide some
> >>>discosure of the review history of Mann et al.
> >>
> >> Why?
> >>
> > Why? Because if the Mann Hockey Stick proves to be false, it could
> > take the credibility of climate science, the IPCC, the reputations of
> > not a few scientists and politicians and the public trust of science
> > generally, with it.
> >
> > These are not trivial issues any more.
>
> I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the public
> trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a scientific
> paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not unique.
Indeed. Which is really part of the point in this whole fuss. Which
group are correct I'm not competent to say over this hockey stick
thing. But public confidence in science would be best bolstered by
someone, somewhere, actually reperforming the Mann calcualtions with
whatever data it was that he did use, without the missing Excel
columns and all the rest. It's the only way that varied GW denialists
will be denied the option to reject the whole warming hypothesis.
And of course, if Mann turns out to have miscalcualted, then such GW
denialists will be able to gloat.
But at least we will know the truth, and be able to base our future
actions on such truths.
Just like father told you all those years ago : if you make a mistake,
own up , apologise and try to do better next time.
Tim Worstall
Thomas Palm
news:825e2890.03110...@posting.google.com:
> Thomas Palm <Thoma...@chello.removethis.se> wrote in message
>> I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the
>> public trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a
>> scientific paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not
>> unique.
>
> Indeed. Which is really part of the point in this whole fuss. Which
> group are correct I'm not competent to say over this hockey stick
> thing.
The fact that the Mann curve has survived for several years and been more
or less reproduced by other researchers making independent studies using
somewhat different proxies, while several flaws has been found within
days in the M&M paper give a fairly clear hint which one to trust.
> But public confidence in science would be best bolstered by
> someone, somewhere, actually reperforming the Mann calcualtions with
> whatever data it was that he did use, without the missing Excel
> columns and all the rest.
What makes you think no one has? If someone did it as an excercise to
learn the mechanics of this types of calculations he isn't going to have
it published. Only if you get a different result is it news, which biases
the reporting.
> It's the only way that varied GW denialists
> will be denied the option to reject the whole warming hypothesis.
The "warming hypothesis" doesn't rest on the paper by Mann. It is just
one small piece in a big puzzle, and if you remove that piece the grand
picture will still be the same. It wasn't Mann who showed that CO2 will
cause warming. The denialist will continue to deny in any case.
> Just like father told you all those years ago : if you make a mistake,
> own up , apologise and try to do better next time.
So what are the odds that all the people who have gloated over the
alledged errors of Mann in the public press will own up and apologize if
it turns out Mann was right all along?
David Ball
Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
Mann's work using independent means. This is really an issue of making
a mountain out of a molehill. Here's what should have happened:
1. Mann et al publish their findings in Nature.
2. M&M do a rebuttal IN NATURE, first letting the original
authors know that this is what is being done.
3. Mann et al are offered the opportunity IN NATURE to rebut
M&M
What shouldn't have happened was that a hatchet-job, using
part of Mann et al's data should appear in a third-rate journal. What
shouldn't have happened is that such an article should have appeared
without the knowledge of the original authors and without access to
the complete dataset. What shouldn't have happened is that such an
article should have appeared in a journal with highly questionable
peer-review practices. What shouldn't have happened is that a
third-rate media should have taken up the cause of M&M and treated it
like the discovery of fire when nothing could be farther from the
truth.
Science is self-correcting, by design. It doesn't require the
use of partial datasets, obfuscation and spin.
James Acker
James Acker
: On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 08:06:14 +0000, Thomas Palm wrote:
:> "Titan Point" <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote in
:> news:pan.2003.11.03....@myrealbox.com:
:>
:>> On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 17:29:16 +0000, Thomas Palm wrote:
:>
:>>> I'm sure there will be some people willing to try to tear down the
:>>> public trust in science to prove a point, but in reality having a
:>>> scientific paper, even a high impact one, turn out to be wrong is not
:>>> unique. Things like that happen, but most of the time the hyenas are
:>>> not as ready to leap into the battle. For example, Spencer and
:>>> Christy has been forced to revise their algorithm to calculate
:>>> temparature trends from MSU-data several time. Where were those
:>>> people then? Did people lose trust in science?
:>>
:>> False analogy. The adjustments were of the order of hundredths of a
:>> degree.
:>
:> The adjustments were enough to shift a cooling trend to one that was
:> warming enough to be consistent with the ground record, even if S&C still
:> get a lower result than everyone else who has looked at the same data.
: Nonsense. The cooling trend of the total atmosphere was re-confirmed. The
: MSU was re-calibrated with radio -sonde and other measurements and found
: to be highly accurate. The ground measurements are the ones that are
: deeply flawed, but strangely they tell you what you want to hear so you
: don't bother to question them.
What, pray tell, do you mean by "total atmosphere"? Are
you integrating the troposphere (which is warming), the mesophere, and
the stratosphere (which is cooling)?
How you can sit there and claim that there is a cooling
trend in the troposphere when Spencer and Christy's own data show that
it's warming is beyond me. But when you use unclear language,
you just foster confusion.
[deletions]
: For the record, the satellite record is too short to establish a
: meaningful climatic trend BUT it is long enough to point out the anomalous
: warming seen in the surface record to be a systematic error cause by urban
: heat islands.
For the record, the urban heat island effect has been quantified,
accounted for, and removed from the instrumental temperature record.
Stop regurgitating the pap that the Idsiots are dishing out. They're
wrong.
[deletions]
: It is a delusion to claim that the fossil fuel industry is engaged in
: some sort of tobacco style cabal to forstall the truth getting out. There
: are many, many scientists who have gone on record to say that the
: scientific basis for report of the IPCC is deeply flawed. It does the work
: or reputation of real environmentalists no good at all to be associated
: with paranoid conspiracy theories divorced from reality.
Read:
http://www.nrdc.org/media/docs/020403.pdf
Quoting from a FAXed message sent to the White House from
Arthur Randol, ExxonMobil senior environmental advisor:
"1. The IPCC is on schedule to issue, in late September 2001,
its Third Assessment Report (TAR), composed of three working group reports
on the science, impacts, and mitigation of climate change and a Synthesis
Report. The IPCC is headed by Robert Watson, an American who is also the
chief science person at the World Bank (Director, Environment Dept.) Watson
was hand picked by Al Gore and served in the Clinton/Gore White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy. His tenure at the IPCC ends with
the completion of the TAR. However, he could be extened at an IPCC session
this year or next.
During the Hague meeting in November, Watson presented a sneak
preview of the Third Assessment Report with the following caveat: "None
of the conclusions in this report are taken from the TAR, but are consistent
with the draft conclusions, which are subject to change until final
government approval and acceptance early next year." His statement belied
his real intent, which was to get media coverage of his views before
there was a chance for the process to challenge his personal agenda.
Issue: Can Watson be replaced at the request of the U.S.?"
At the end of this memo, there are several recommendations. Here
they are.
"1. Restructure the U.S. attendance at upcoming IPCC meetings to assure
none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities.
a. Appoint Dr. John Christy, University of Alabama-Huntsville, Lead Author,
Working Group 1) as science lead for the balance of the IPCC process.
Phone #. This replaces Bierbaum and McCracken.
b. Appoint Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT (Lead Author-Working Group 1) as a
co-lead to conduct an immediate review of the comments on the Working
Group reports (I, II, and III) and to review the US comments to be
submitted (II, III).
c. Detail Dr. Joe Friday, National Research Council Board on Atmospheric
Sciences and Climate (coordinate the "Research Pathways for the Next
Decade" report that the Clinton Admin tried to buy) to work with Christy/
Lindzen.
d. Detail someone from the State Dept. to work under the direction
of Christy/Lindzen for the "consensus negotiations". This replaces
Moitke."
Requests 2 and 3 recommend delays to the IPCC releases so that US
inputs could be reassessed and that Watson could not release a draft
of the Synthesis Report. Request 4 recommended having Harlen Watson
of the House Science Committee available to work with the team.
Delusion? Why would ExxonMobil want to make sure that two of
the most noted global warming scientific skeptics in the United States
were the main voices of the U.S. IPCC team?
Jim Acker
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Jim Acker
jac...@gl.umbc.edu
"Since we are assured that an all-wise Creator has observed the
most exact proportions, of number, weight, and measure, in the
make of all things, the most likely way therefore, to get any
insight into the nature of those parts of the creation, which
come within our observation, must in all reason be to number,
weigh, and measure." - Stephen Hales
Roger Coppock
>
> Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
> Mann's work using independent means.
YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal about
5-year-old issues isn't going to overturn all Paleoclimatology
published in the last decade. I am surprised that it even created
a ripple.
> Science is self-correcting, by design. It doesn't require the
> use of partial datasets, obfuscation and spin.
Fossil foolery, however, never corrects its mistakes, only designs
to prevent remedial greenhouse action, and almost always uses partial
"Cherry Picked" data to tell half-truths, obfuscate and spin.
--
"One who joyfully guards his mind
And fears his own confusion
Can not fall.
He has found his way to peace."
-- Buddha, in the "Pali Dhammapada,"
~5th century BCE
-.-. --.- Roger Coppock (rcop...@adnc.com)
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----
Steve Schulin
David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote, in part:
>
> Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
> Mann's work using independent means. This is really an issue of making
> a mountain out of a molehill. Here's what should have happened:
>
> 1. Mann et al publish their findings in Nature.
> 2. M&M do a rebuttal IN NATURE, first letting the original
> authors know that this is what is being done.
McIntyre set out to understand what Mann et al. did. During the course
of his replication effort, he described various aspects of his progress
to a discussion list. At one point, the editor of E&E encouraged
McIntyre in his research and expressed hope that he'd formalize his
findings in a scholarly article. The notion that he should have offered
the paper to Nature, instead of offering it to the journal whose editor
actually took the time to be interested in the research, seems pretty
silly to me, bub. McIntyre did tell Mann that he was attempting to
replicate Mann et al 1998.
> 3. Mann et al are offered the opportunity IN NATURE to rebut
> M&M
Mann discouraged any further contact by McIntyre. He's free to respond
if and when and where he wants. Fortunately for him and us, McIntyre and
McKitrick were quite explicit in detailing their methodology, so he can
fully recreate what they did. That's science, Mr. Ball.
>
> What shouldn't have happened was that a hatchet-job, using
> part of Mann et al's data ...
If Mann et al. were replicable, maybe the replicators could have
succeeded. Tell me, Mr. Ball, has anyone to this day identified why Mann
et al. apparently chose to drop the first two years off the chin04
series?
> ... should appear in a third-rate journal. ...
In this case, using standard of replicability, Energy & Environment sure
appears to rate much higher than Nature. But you're surely free to use
whatever standard you choose.
> ... What
> shouldn't have happened is that such an article should have appeared
> without the knowledge of the original authors and without access to
> the complete dataset. ...
Mann was aware that McIntyre was attempting to replicate his work. Mann
arranged for McIntyre to be provided with the complete dataset. McIntyre
sent the dataset txt file back asking that Mann verify it. Mann quite
specifically discouraged any further inquiry from McIntyre. There is
much which can be learned from McIntyre & McKitrick's paper, even amidst
the difficulties related to Mann et al's failed attempt to compile an
accurate file containing their data.
> ... What shouldn't have happened is that such an
> article should have appeared in a journal with highly questionable
> peer-review practices. ...
No harm in asking questions. But you sure are good at appearing to say
something substantive when in fact you're just blathering.
> ... What shouldn't have happened is that a
> third-rate media should have taken up the cause of M&M and treated it
> like the discovery of fire when nothing could be farther from the
> truth.
Lot's of things are further from the truth. For example, the uncritical
plastering of Mann et al's hockey stick shaped curve into Fig. 1 of the
WG1 TAR Summary for Policymakers.
> Science is self-correcting, by design. It doesn't require the
> use of partial datasets, obfuscation and spin.
Who before M&M noted Mann et al's truncating of the chin04 series? Did
Mann et al 1998 mention they did this? No. Did they explain why they did
it? No. Did they include the original untruncated version of the chin04
series in their newly announced ftp site? Yes (and they also included
the untruncated version, too). I'm interested in hearing the story
behind this. I don't understand why you supposed men-of-science find it
of less interest than your limp insults.
Steve Schulin
Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
> David Ball wrote:
> >
> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
> > Mann's work using independent means.
>
> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
theory is going down.
> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
And the McIntyre and McKitrick paper did indeed go through peer review.
That Mann et al 1998 was unreplicable is a failing of Nature's peer
review process, not E&E's.
> ... about
> 5-year-old issues isn't going to overturn all Paleoclimatology
> published in the last decade. I am surprised that it even created
> a ripple.
Maybe you can find any indication that, or explanation of why, Mann et
al 1998 drop the first two values of the chin04 series. This, and many
other interesting findings, are reported by M&M.
>
>
> > Science is self-correcting, by design. It doesn't require the
> > use of partial datasets, obfuscation and spin.
>
> Fossil foolery, however, never corrects its mistakes, only designs
> to prevent remedial greenhouse action, and almost always uses partial
> "Cherry Picked" data to tell half-truths, obfuscate and spin.
Some of the biggest Kyoto backers have been oil companies. Enron was on
your side,babe -- they were in resonance with your message. When I need
gas I fill up at Exxon because they haven't sold out to you alarmist
global governance types.
David Ball
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
> Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
>
>> David Ball wrote:
>> >
>> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
>> > Mann's work using independent means.
>>
>> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
>> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
>> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
>
>Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
>theory is going down.
Time for all you trolls to find another issue. This one is
dead and starting to smell.
>
>> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
>
>I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
>Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
LOL. No, troll, it is dressed up to appear that way. It's
funny that CR went ballistic when S&B's latest "effort" appeared,
despite gross flaws in the science. Nary a word from E&E about their
"paper". I'm not surprised.
>And the McIntyre and McKitrick paper did indeed go through peer review.
>That Mann et al 1998 was unreplicable is a failing of Nature's peer
>review process, not E&E's.
Only to a troll like you. People who respect the peer-review
process have another view of it. Stop trolling, Perfesser. You waste
everyone's time and make yourself look foolish in the process.
David Ball
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>In article <1cpfqv05u6h2iq9mk...@4ax.com>,
> David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote, in part:
>>
>> Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
>> Mann's work using independent means. This is really an issue of making
>> a mountain out of a molehill. Here's what should have happened:
>>
>> 1. Mann et al publish their findings in Nature.
>> 2. M&M do a rebuttal IN NATURE, first letting the original
>> authors know that this is what is being done.
>
>McIntyre set out to understand what Mann et al. did.
Funny, but they didn't do a very good job of it. They might
have started with using the real data, not the selective subset they
chose. Not surprising that they'd come up with the wrong answer when
you use the wrong data.
>During the course
>of his replication effort, he described various aspects of his progress
>to a discussion list. At one point, the editor of E&E encouraged
>McIntyre in his research and expressed hope that he'd formalize his
>findings in a scholarly article.
In E&E? I know you're not kidding, but that's too funny.
>The notion that he should have offered
>the paper to Nature, instead of offering it to the journal whose editor
>actually took the time to be interested in the research, seems pretty
>silly to me, bub. McIntyre did tell Mann that he was attempting to
>replicate Mann et al 1998.
Trolling again, I see. I'm not surprised, Perfesser.
>
>> 3. Mann et al are offered the opportunity IN NATURE to rebut
>> M&M
>
>Mann discouraged any further contact by McIntyre.
LOL. I don't blame him a bit. Honest scholarship should always
be supported. Bad science, started with an agenda should not.
>He's free to respond
>if and when and where he wants. Fortunately for him and us, McIntyre and
>McKitrick were quite explicit in detailing their methodology, so he can
>fully recreate what they did. That's science, Mr. Ball.
LOL. No, I'm afraid it's not, Troll, but then you've never let
science get in the way of a good lie.
>
>>
>> What shouldn't have happened was that a hatchet-job, using
>> part of Mann et al's data ...
>
>If Mann et al. were replicable, maybe the replicators could have
>succeeded. Tell me, Mr. Ball, has anyone to this day identified why Mann
>et al. apparently chose to drop the first two years off the chin04
>series?
LOL. How, Troll, do you replicate something without the
required data?
>
>> ... should appear in a third-rate journal. ...
>
>In this case, using standard of replicability, Energy & Environment sure
>appears to rate much higher than Nature. But you're surely free to use
>whatever standard you choose.
Only to a troll like you. Of course, you still think the
Idso's are on the up and up, so I'm not surprised you'd find E&E to
your liking.
>
>> ... What
>> shouldn't have happened is that such an article should have appeared
>> without the knowledge of the original authors and without access to
>> the complete dataset. ...
>
>Mann was aware that McIntyre was attempting to replicate his work. Mann
>arranged for McIntyre to be provided with the complete dataset. McIntyre
>sent the dataset txt file back asking that Mann verify it. Mann quite
>specifically discouraged any further inquiry from McIntyre. There is
>much which can be learned from McIntyre & McKitrick's paper, even amidst
>the difficulties related to Mann et al's failed attempt to compile an
>accurate file containing their data.
I notice you haven't addressed the multiple studies, that used
independent analysis that arrived at the same conclusions as Mann.
>
>> ... What shouldn't have happened is that such an
>> article should have appeared in a journal with highly questionable
>> peer-review practices. ...
>
>No harm in asking questions. But you sure are good at appearing to say
>something substantive when in fact you're just blathering.
Feel free to go back on your medication any time, Troll.
>
>> ... What shouldn't have happened is that a
>> third-rate media should have taken up the cause of M&M and treated it
>> like the discovery of fire when nothing could be farther from the
>> truth.
>
>Lot's of things are further from the truth. For example, the uncritical
>plastering of Mann et al's hockey stick shaped curve into Fig. 1 of the
>WG1 TAR Summary for Policymakers.
You mean the one supported by the multiple independent
studies? Yes, I can see why that would be a problem for you. Like I
said, Troll, you've got zero credibility. Time to crawl back under
your rock.
Jim Norton
>5-year-old issues isn't going to overturn all Paleoclimatology
>published in the last decade. I am surprised that it even created
>a ripple.
You forget that the fossile fools will latch onto anything to "disprove" global
warming. Even if the authors withdraw the paper the damage has already been
done. By that time TechCentralStation and the rest will be promoting the next
great "debunking".
============================
Roger Coppock
>
> Some of the biggest Kyoto backers have been oil companies.
Documentation supporting this statement, please!
> Enron was on
> your side,babe -- they were in resonance with your message.
Documentation supporting this statement, please!
Tim Worstall
> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:31:49 -0500, Steve Schulin
> <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>
> >In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
> > Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
> >
> >> David Ball wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
> >> > Mann's work using independent means.
> >>
> >> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
> >> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
> >> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
> >
> >Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
> >theory is going down.
>
> Time for all you trolls to find another issue. This one is
> dead and starting to smell.
>
> >
> >> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
> >
> >I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
> >Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
>
> LOL. No, troll, it is dressed up to appear that way. It's
> funny that CR went ballistic when S&B's latest "effort" appeared,
> despite gross flaws in the science. Nary a word from E&E about their
> "paper". I'm not surprised.
I think you are being unkind to E & E here.
Do you remember the Castles and Henderson criticism of the economic
models of the SRES and IPCC ? Yes, published in E & E . And do you
recall the IPCC response ( not a formal one, but various lead authors
did say that it reflected their views ) ? And where was that published
? In E&E, in the same issue as the C & H paper.
I regard that as an excellent example of the " point, counterpoint"
style of debate, something that we could do with more of.
On such evidence I am convinced that as and when someone does write a
detailed paper on where M&M are wrong, it will be E & E that publishes
it. All the stats and evidence to do so are up there on the web :
Anyone who wants to get their name up in lights just needs to trawl
through it. And cynic that I am I would regard the non appearance of
such a paper ( rather than side comments such as " the Excel
spreadsheet was wrong " which seem to close to " the dog ate my
homework " ) as an indication that M& M were actually on to something.
As to the point that other papers and work show that Mann's answer,
that there has been recent global warming greater than historical
levels, well, so what? We all know that science and maths don't work
that way. Somewhere around second grade your maths teacher starts to
tell you that you cannot just put down the answer : you have to show
your workings, and it is the correct application of the right methods
which will gain you marks. In terms of scientific reliability,whether
Mann has the right answer or not is irrelevant. If his methods are
flawed, then so is the conclusion.
So, the important question, to my mind, becomes, are M&M correct in
their critique of Mann's workings ? If not, then I await the paper (
and for those who doubt that I might change my view when the facts
change, have a look back in this NG to see my reactions to the first
view of the C&H paper, and how that changes when the IPCC response is
published ) that shows where. And if Mann is wrong in his methods ?
Then the truth of GW will just have to be supported by those papers
which are in themselves supportable. After all, if it really is true,
then there should be a plethora of them, and showing that one paper
amongst many used questionable methods should not bring the whole
edifice crumbling down.
Tim Worstall
Thomas Palm
news:steve.schulin-720...@comcast.ash.giganews.com:
> In article <1cpfqv05u6h2iq9mk...@4ax.com>,
> David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote, in part:
>>
>> Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
>> Mann's work using independent means. This is really an issue of
>> making a mountain out of a molehill. Here's what should have
>> happened:
>>
>> 1. Mann et al publish their findings in Nature.
>> 2. M&M do a rebuttal IN NATURE, first letting the original
>> authors know that this is what is being done.
>
> McIntyre set out to understand what Mann et al. did. During the course
> of his replication effort, he described various aspects of his
> progress to a discussion list. At one point, the editor of E&E
> encouraged McIntyre in his research and expressed hope that he'd
> formalize his findings in a scholarly article. The notion that he
> should have offered the paper to Nature, instead of offering it to the
> journal whose editor actually took the time to be interested in the
> research, seems pretty silly to me, bub.
So the article was actually solicited by the editor of E&E. That may
explain how it got through the review process, in case there was any for
this paper, apparently E&E has somewhat fuzzy rules in that respect.
> McIntyre did tell Mann that he was attempting to
> replicate Mann et al 1998.
>
>> 3. Mann et al are offered the opportunity IN NATURE to rebut
>> M&M
>
> Mann discouraged any further contact by McIntyre. He's free to respond
> if and when and where he wants. Fortunately for him and us, McIntyre
> and McKitrick were quite explicit in detailing their methodology, so
> he can fully recreate what they did. That's science, Mr. Ball.
So, has anyone been able to reproduce M&M yet? If they gave so many
details certainly someone should be able to do that.
As for Mann limiting his help, well when somone not a climate scientists
started to ask questions he probably didn't take it all that seriously
and scientists do have limited time.
This has an amusing parallel of which Steve is well aware. I asked him
for a copy of some article by Jelbring he apparently had, since he
didn't want to forward it himself he gave me Jelbring's address instead.
So, I sent him a letter asking for a copy of his article from E&E. I got
the response that since I had stated that a accepted the majortiy view
that ACC is real I was a "believer" and probably not competent to
understand his work. Jelbring claimed the E&E copy policy was so hard he
couldn't send me a copy of the manuscript of his "revolutionary"
article, only some political analysis he had written about the situation
for Kyoto in Russia. (as if that was of any interest) To make matters
more absurd he started sending his replies to my private letters into
the climatesceptics mail group. What they made of getting half a
conversation I don't know. I tried getting a short reply in, but I don't
know if I've succeeded since only members can post directly, Jelbring
didn't want to send it and the moderator of the list hasn't replied to
my letter.
>> ... should appear in a third-rate journal. ...
>
> In this case, using standard of replicability, Energy & Environment
> sure appears to rate much higher than Nature. But you're surely free
> to use whatever standard you choose.
How can you say that when no one has replicated M&M?
>> ... What shouldn't have happened is that a
>> third-rate media should have taken up the cause of M&M and treated it
>> like the discovery of fire when nothing could be farther from the
>> truth.
>
> Lot's of things are further from the truth. For example, the
> uncritical plastering of Mann et al's hockey stick shaped curve into
> Fig. 1 of the WG1 TAR Summary for Policymakers.
That's how science is handled. If it was so trivial to refute Mann how
come not one of all the people who have derided the "hockey stick" has
done so before now? Did they all assume it was correct while at the same
time pretending they though it was a lie, or were they just to ignorant
or lazy even to try to check the science? Or, maybe some of them
actually did, except they found Mann had done a correct job and decided
not to write about that finding. Should, against my expectation, it turn
out that Mann have done any serious errors, this will reflect badly on
the quality of the climate sceptics too, you know.
David Ball
>David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<cfpgqv0g8850mcr6a...@4ax.com>...
>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:31:49 -0500, Steve Schulin
>> <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
>> > Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> David Ball wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
>> >> > Mann's work using independent means.
>> >>
>> >> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
>> >> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
>> >> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
>> >
>> >Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
>> >theory is going down.
>>
>> Time for all you trolls to find another issue. This one is
>> dead and starting to smell.
>>
>> >
>> >> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
>> >
>> >I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
>> >Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
>>
>> LOL. No, troll, it is dressed up to appear that way. It's
>> funny that CR went ballistic when S&B's latest "effort" appeared,
>> despite gross flaws in the science. Nary a word from E&E about their
>> "paper". I'm not surprised.
>
>
>I think you are being unkind to E & E here.
No, I'm being factual here. If you cannot get your message out
in a conventional way through a highly respected journal what you do
is create a new journal, relax the standards substantially then let
any and all publish "their" science. That's what E&E is doing.
>Do you remember the Castles and Henderson criticism of the economic
>models of the SRES and IPCC ? Yes, published in E & E . And do you
>recall the IPCC response ( not a formal one, but various lead authors
>did say that it reflected their views ) ? And where was that published
>? In E&E, in the same issue as the C & H paper.
>I regard that as an excellent example of the " point, counterpoint"
>style of debate, something that we could do with more of.
>On such evidence I am convinced that as and when someone does write a
>detailed paper on where M&M are wrong, it will be E & E that publishes
>it. All the stats and evidence to do so are up there on the web :
>Anyone who wants to get their name up in lights just needs to trawl
>through it. And cynic that I am I would regard the non appearance of
>such a paper ( rather than side comments such as " the Excel
>spreadsheet was wrong " which seem to close to " the dog ate my
>homework " ) as an indication that M& M were actually on to something.
And the web is a huge problem, because while it offers a
source for vast quantities of information, much of that information is
wrong. All one needs to do is look at the Idso's abuse of the USHCN
data to see that. What you do is take good data, do a thoroughly
piss-poor analysis on it - knowingly violating basic standards of
analysis - then announce your "findings" on the web. It looks like the
real thing, and the people doing it are experts, so they can dress it
up to look really good. To an uninformed public, it appears to be the
real thing when nothing could be farther from the truth,
>
>As to the point that other papers and work show that Mann's answer,
>that there has been recent global warming greater than historical
>levels, well, so what? We all know that science and maths don't work
>that way. Somewhere around second grade your maths teacher starts to
>tell you that you cannot just put down the answer : you have to show
>your workings, and it is the correct application of the right methods
>which will gain you marks. In terms of scientific reliability,whether
>Mann has the right answer or not is irrelevant. If his methods are
>flawed, then so is the conclusion.
LOL. Try again. That is EXACTLY how science works. If I come
up with an answer 10 different ways, the chances are pretty good that
it is the right answer.
BTW, how exactly do you arrive at the same conclusions when
you don't have all the data? You can show all the workings you want,
but you shouldn't be surprised to arrive at a different answer. In
addition, if you do find a different answer, it might be courteous to
contact the author and say, "Uh, is there a problem here?"
>
>So, the important question, to my mind, becomes, are M&M correct in
>their critique of Mann's workings ?
Gee, did you read Mann et al's rebuttal? Perhaps you should.
Lloyd Parker
Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
> Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
>
>> David Ball wrote:
>> >
>> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
>> > Mann's work using independent means.
>>
>> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
>> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
>> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
>
>Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
>theory is going down.
>
>> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
>
>I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
>Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
Yeah, like Buckley's National Review is.
w...@bas.ac.uk
>wrote in message news:<cfpgqv0g8850mcr6a...@4ax.com>...
>> On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:31:49 -0500, Steve Schulin
>> >I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
>> >Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
It would be nice if it published it policy on peer review.
>I think you are being unkind to E & E here.
>Do you remember the Castles and Henderson criticism of the economic
>models of the SRES and IPCC ? Yes, published in E & E . And do you
>recall the IPCC response ( not a formal one, but various lead authors
>did say that it reflected their views ) ?
Indeed - it wasn't an IPCC response. It would be better if you stopped
calling it one.
> And where was that published
>? In E&E, in the same issue as the C & H paper.
It was. OTOH the C+H paper had been widely touted around the world
for quite a while *before* it was published: for example, the economist
published a page sympathetic to the C+H paper, but before the response
was published, and they ignored the response.
>I regard that as an excellent example of the " point, counterpoint"
>style of debate, something that we could do with more of.
Why would we want more of it? C+H was nonsense, and got rebutted.
M&M looks likely to go the same way - time will tell. Its odd that
E+E didn't offer sight of the paper to Mann et al before publication.
>And cynic that I am I would regard the non appearance of
>such a paper ( rather than side comments such as " the Excel
>spreadsheet was wrong " which seem to close to " the dog ate my
>homework " ) as an indication that M& M were actually on to something.
Have you read Mann's, and others, reply yet?
-W.
--
William M Connolley | w...@bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/
Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | Disclaimer: I speak for myself
I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file & help me spread!
James Acker
: In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
: Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
:> David Ball wrote:
:> >
:> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
:> > Mann's work using independent means.
:>
:> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
:> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
:> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
: Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
: theory is going down.
:> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
: I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
: Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
: And the McIntyre and McKitrick paper did indeed go through peer review.
: That Mann et al 1998 was unreplicable is a failing of Nature's peer
: review process, not E&E's.
"Unreplicable" is a farce. On a different thread currently
active, I provided a link to a plot of several different studies which
are _independent analyses_ that support Mann et al.'s results. While
you found the time to reply to Ian St. John in short order, you for
some reason didn't have the time to reply to me. And you've posted
other comments, such as this one here.
On that other thread, I asked some direct questions. May
I politely inquire as to whether you intend to answer them, or are
you just hoping that I'll forget about it?
Bottom line: the accuracy of Mann et al.'s results is strongly
supported by several other published research papers which describe
investigations by different groups. This support also as marked
indication that Mickey-Mick's E&E paper is not tenable in any
significant manner. Actually, the tempest-in-a-teapot it is creating
may serve to show how good Mann's research is, rather than how
poor it is -- because it is highlighting the salient fact that Mann's
research IS NOT THE ONLY WORK THAT SHOWS SIMILAR CLIMATE PATTERNS
OVER THE LAST MILLENIUM.
Try to spin that, Mr. Schulin.
[remainder deleted]
Frank Altschuler
"Roger Coppock" <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote in message
news:3FA87229...@adnc.com...
> Steve Schulin wrote:
> >
> > Some of the biggest Kyoto backers have been oil companies.
>
> Documentation supporting this statement, please!
>
BP calls for ratification of Kyoto Protocol
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s410744.htm
> > Enron was on
> > your side,babe -- they were in resonance with your message.
>
> Documentation supporting this statement, please!
>
Why Enron Wants Global Warming by Patrick J. Michaels
http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-06-02.html
Why Enron Loved Kyoto, And the EU Shouldn't
O'Keefe Op-Ed In The Wall Street Journal
http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,03143.cfm
Thomas Palm
k.1...@newssvr23.news.prodigy.com:
>> > Enron was on
>> > your side,babe -- they were in resonance with your message.
>>
>> Documentation supporting this statement, please!
>>
>
> Why Enron Wants Global Warming by Patrick J. Michaels
> http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-06-02.html
Interesting article, apart from all the conspiracy stuff about how
contrarians become unfairly attacked. It does support my view that a carbon
tax is a much simpler way to limit CO2 emissions than tradable emission
permits. Then Enron wouldn't have any trading to earn money from.
It's not the Kyoto treaty that says you have to use tradable permits to
limit emissions within countries, that's just a fad among people who are
infatuated with the idea that a "market" must be better than a tax.
Steve Schulin
James Acker <jac...@linux3.gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
> In sci.environment Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
> : In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
> : Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
>
> :> David Ball wrote:
> :> >
> :> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
> :> > Mann's work using independent means.
> :>
> :> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
> :> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
> :> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
>
> : Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
> : theory is going down.
>
> :> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
>
> : I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
> : Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
> : And the McIntyre and McKitrick paper did indeed go through peer review.
> : That Mann et al 1998 was unreplicable is a failing of Nature's peer
> : review process, not E&E's.
>
> "Unreplicable" is a farce. ...
To publish unreplicable paper like Nature did and call it science is a
sorry matter. To rely on unreplicable paper like IPCC did is another
sorry matter. Farce is not too strong a word. Your notion -- that
support from independent methods is a substitute for replicability -- is
a subject on which I'm happy to disagee with you.
> ... On a different thread currently
> active, I provided a link to a plot of several different studies which
> are _independent analyses_ that support Mann et al.'s results. While
> you found the time to reply to Ian St. John in short order, you for
> some reason didn't have the time to reply to me. And you've posted
> other comments, such as this one here.
If you really want quicker response, you might try making your posts
more pithy. And BTW, just for future reference, if you persist in these
incredibly bogus notions about replicability not being important, I
reserve the right to ignore you.
>
> On that other thread, I asked some direct questions. May
> I politely inquire as to whether you intend to answer them, or are
> you just hoping that I'll forget about it?
Wasn't that just within the last 24 hours? How come you're so impatient
with me, yet you seem to think it just dandy that IPCC let that frickin
hockey stick sit for 9 months in the public eye as Fig. 1 in the WG1 TAR
Summary for Policymakers without a whit of inkling of the contrary info
contained in the body of the TAR.
>
> Bottom line: the accuracy of Mann et al.'s results is strongly
> supported by several other published research papers which describe
> investigations by different groups. This support also as marked
> indication that Mickey-Mick's E&E paper is not tenable in any
> significant manner. Actually, the tempest-in-a-teapot it is creating
> may serve to show how good Mann's research is, rather than how
> poor it is -- because it is highlighting the salient fact that Mann's
> research IS NOT THE ONLY WORK THAT SHOWS SIMILAR CLIMATE PATTERNS
> OVER THE LAST MILLENIUM.
>
> Try to spin that, Mr. Schulin.
I won't be disappointed if Mann has great answers to such questions as
* why does Mann et al 1998 claim to include analysis of fran003,
ital015, ital015x, spai026 and spai047? The authors clearly intended to
include them, at least at one time, because they are included in the
list of datasets analyzed. But, even though the compiled datafile Mann
et al provided M&M was quite faulty, M&M were able to identify, by going
to the original data archives, all 112 series (I might be off by one on
this -- maybe they identified all but one). These five were not amongst
the 112. For you Mann apologists out there, plese note that these five
are also not included in the recently announced, but long extant, ftp
directory. So if you believe him that all the data used in the analysis
is there, you might want to know what these five were apparently dropped
from the analysis.
* why does Mann et al 1998 dropp the first two years from the dataset
known as chin04? The original researcher included these in the time
series.
* why hasn't Mann et al 1998 disclosed the rosters of principal
components?
James Acker
: James Acker <jac...@linux3.gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
:> In sci.environment Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
:> : In article <3FA8342F...@adnc.com>,
:> : Roger Coppock <rcop...@adnc.com> wrote:
:>
:> :> David Ball wrote:
:> :> >
:> :> > Except that you forget about the OTHER studies that confirm
:> :> > Mann's work using independent means.
:> :>
:> :> YES! THERE IS A WHOLE BODY OF LITERATURE OUT THERE THAT DOES CONFIRM
:> :> MANN et all. The NOAA has put some of the papers on line. Please
:> :> see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
:>
:> : Time for all you alarmists to hedge your bets. The Mann-made warming
:> : theory is going down.
:>
:> :> This single MM paper published in a non-peer reviewed journal ...
:>
:> : I know it's futile to confront you with facts when you get like this,
:> : Roger, but the fact is Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed journal.
:> : And the McIntyre and McKitrick paper did indeed go through peer review.
:> : That Mann et al 1998 was unreplicable is a failing of Nature's peer
:> : review process, not E&E's.
:>
:> "Unreplicable" is a farce. ...
: To publish unreplicable paper like Nature did and call it science is a
: sorry matter. To rely on unreplicable paper like IPCC did is another
: sorry matter. Farce is not too strong a word. Your notion -- that
: support from independent methods is a substitute for replicability -- is
: a subject on which I'm happy to disagee with you.
We don't know that it's "unreplicable". You're basing that
opinion on the Mickey-Mick paper, which is probably wrong, because they
either 1) analyzed an incorrect data set, 2) improperly formulated a
new multiproxy data set which produced spurious results, or 3) did
both of those things.
I am reasonably confident that Mann could show anyone who
has the requisite statistical analysis capability how to do what he
did, and produce the same results that he did. Until demonstrated
otherwise by competent researchers (judged by where they publish)
without an agenda (also judged by where they choose to publish)
I'll retain that confidence.
:> ... On a different thread currently
:> active, I provided a link to a plot of several different studies which
:> are _independent analyses_ that support Mann et al.'s results. While
:> you found the time to reply to Ian St. John in short order, you for
:> some reason didn't have the time to reply to me. And you've posted
:> other comments, such as this one here.
: If you really want quicker response, you might try making your posts
: more pithy. And BTW, just for future reference, if you persist in these
: incredibly bogus notions about replicability not being important, I
: reserve the right to ignore you.
See above. As for pithy, your responses to my simple questions
on the other thread could hardly be characterized as that. You
could have said "Yes" or "No" in one case, "higher" or "lower" in
the other. Instead, you bring up new references that don't have
much bearing on the main points of discussion (example: Diaz
et al.)
:> On that other thread, I asked some direct questions. May
:> I politely inquire as to whether you intend to answer them, or are
:> you just hoping that I'll forget about it?
: Wasn't that just within the last 24 hours? How come you're so impatient
: with me, yet you seem to think it just dandy that IPCC let that frickin
I asked when you might respond, since you were so quick to
respond to others. I'd give you a month, as long as I had an idea
you were thinking about it.
: hockey stick sit for 9 months in the public eye as Fig. 1 in the WG1 TAR
: Summary for Policymakers without a whit of inkling of the contrary info
: contained in the body of the TAR.
"Contrary" I think in the eye of a particular beholder (you).
:> Bottom line: the accuracy of Mann et al.'s results is strongly
These questions, while perhaps interesting, do not have a
notable bearing on the fact stated above and reiterated here:
"Mann's research IS NOT THE ONLY WORK THAT SHOWS SIMILAR
CLIMATE PATTERNS OVER THE LAST MILLENIUM."
... which, ahem, the IPCC stated,
... and which you basically confirmed in your pithy evaluation
statement on the other thread.
Let me make a quick aside: Einstein's Theory of Relativity
included the remarkable implication that gravity bent light. That
idea seemed totally outlandish until it was confirmed by the
famous observation of occultation timings during a total eclipse.
That was called corroboration. Corroboration lends credence to
the original work of a researcher. Mann et al.'s work has been
independently corroborated. And that's good science. It is
doubtful that modifications to the data Mann et al. employed
in their analysis will have a major effect on the conclusions of
their analysis or the conclusions of the researchers that provide
independent corroboration -- something that the skeptics, despite
their efforts to discredit Mann, probably already realize. But
their aims are not scientific, they are trying to influence public
opinion and knowledge of the issue. Through the assistance of
poorly-informed editorial writers such as Iain Murray, Tim Patterson,
and ? Carter from Australia, they have probably accomplished
what they set out to do.
Jim Acker
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Jim Acker
jac...@gl.umbc.edu
A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere,
Or a cataclysmic earthquake, I'd accept with some despair.
But no, you sent us Congress! Good God, sir, was that fair?
--- John Adams, "Piddle, Twiddle, and Resolve", from the
musical "1776"
Nigel Persaud
MBH have said nothing about why they truncated the Central England and
Central Europe data. They say that they sent the wrong data to M&M but
the same data is up at Mann's website. They haven't responded about
using obsolete data. They haven't explained why they used Paris,
France data for a North American site. I guess they don't want to talk
about that very much. But I don't see why M&M are so wrong for
pointing this out. Surely it's up to MBH to explain their data errors.
Trashing M&M doesn't seem like much of an answer.
Tim Worstall
w...@bas.ac.uk
>> Have you read Mann's, and others, reply yet?
>Got a link ?
You'll find links to it, and a surprising amount of other interesting
stuff, at quark soup:
(if you go there, don't omit to read the stuff about Landscheidt)
in particular (under tuesday 4th):
http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/Mann/EEReply.html
where you'll find a link to Manns reply (pdf). To quote from
Dr. Tim Osborn, Professor Keith Briffa and Professor Phil Jones on
that page:
"Unfortunately neither MM03 nor the journal in which it was published
took the necessary step of investigating (with Mann, Bradley or Hughes
whether the difference between MM03
results and MBH98 could be explained simply by some error or set of
errors in MM03's use of the data or in their implementation of the
MBH98 method. This should have been an essential
step to take in a case such as this where the difference in results
is so large and important. Especialy when the MM03 results, regarding
a warm 15th century, were also at odds with the
many other reconstructions that have been published, not just at odds
with MBH98. Simple errors should first be ruled out prior to publication.
Mann, Bradley and Hughes have now made a preliminary investigation into
the reasons for the different results, and have already identified a
number of likely errors, which may turn out to
be the cause of the different results.
Objective readers, with a desire to get to the "truth" of this issue,
would do well not to jump to premature conclusions and at least allow
these respected, experienced, and invariably careful
researchers the courtesy of a considered response, after they have had
time to study the so-called audit in detail."
Titan Point
Yup.
>
> How you can sit there and claim that there is a cooling
> trend in the troposphere when Spencer and Christy's own data show that
> it's warming is beyond me. But when you use unclear language, you just
> foster confusion.
Since I didn't just say "the troposphere" but "the atmosphere" I think the
confusion is yours.
>
> [deletions]
>
> : For the record, the satellite record is too short to establish a
> : meaningful climatic trend BUT it is long enough to point out the
> : anomalous warming seen in the surface record to be a systematic error
> : cause by urban heat islands.
>
> For the record, the urban heat island effect has been quantified,
> accounted for, and removed from the instrumental temperature record.
> Stop regurgitating the pap that the Idsiots are dishing out. They're
> wrong.
Except that it hasn't. The Urban Heat Island effect can be anywhere from
0.1 degree to 8 degrees and depends on the topology of the site, the
composition and albedo of surrounding buildings, the proximity of traffic,
air conditioning and other man-made effects, as well as wind speed and
direction, daytime anomalies like sun-traps and so on.
Its a systematic error which is an order of magnitude greater than the
temperature variation you are trying to measure. Signal processing won't
do it.
Why? Because the IPCC team was stacked with eco-alarmists some of whom
were appointed by Al Gore, an eco-alarmist. They were aware that Watson
was trying to steamroller his eco-alarmist agenda by releasing a parallel
report which pretended to have the same conclusions as the IPCC (but
without all the tedious research and peer review done first).
As they say:
> His
> statement belied his real intent, which was to get media coverage of his
> views before there was a chance for the process to challenge his
> personal agenda.
Do we dare say that ExxonMobil was engaged in a conspiracy when Watson was
not?
James Acker
: On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:15:14 +0000, James Acker wrote:
:> Titan Point <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
[deletions for brevity]
:> : Nonsense. The cooling trend of the total atmosphere was re-confirmed.
:> : The MSU was re-calibrated with radio -sonde and other measurements and
:> : found to be highly accurate. The ground measurements are the ones that
:> : are deeply flawed, but strangely they tell you what you want to hear
:> : so you don't bother to question them.
:>
:> What, pray tell, do you mean by "total atmosphere"? Are you integrating
:> the troposphere (which is warming), the mesophere, and the stratosphere
:> (which is cooling)?
: Yup.
OH. Well, since we know that the stratosphere is cooling off
due to a combination of ozone depletion and radiation loss due to
increased GHG trapping of warmth in the troposphere, then this is...
specious?
:> How you can sit there and claim that there is a cooling
:> trend in the troposphere when Spencer and Christy's own data show that
:> it's warming is beyond me. But when you use unclear language, you just
:> foster confusion.
: Since I didn't just say "the troposphere" but "the atmosphere" I think the
: confusion is yours.
I'm glad we cleared that up.
:> [deletions]
:>
:> : For the record, the satellite record is too short to establish a
:> : meaningful climatic trend BUT it is long enough to point out the
:> : anomalous warming seen in the surface record to be a systematic error
:> : cause by urban heat islands.
:>
:> For the record, the urban heat island effect has been quantified,
:> accounted for, and removed from the instrumental temperature record.
:> Stop regurgitating the pap that the Idsiots are dishing out. They're
:> wrong.
: Except that it hasn't. The Urban Heat Island effect can be anywhere from
: 0.1 degree to 8 degrees and depends on the topology of the site, the
: composition and albedo of surrounding buildings, the proximity of traffic,
: air conditioning and other man-made effects, as well as wind speed and
: direction, daytime anomalies like sun-traps and so on.
: Its a systematic error which is an order of magnitude greater than the
: temperature variation you are trying to measure. Signal processing won't
: do it.
References, please, supporting the statement that "signal
processing won't do it" regarding the elimination of urban heat effects
from long-term surface temperature records.
:> : It is a delusion to claim that the fossil fuel industry is engaged in
:> : some sort of tobacco style cabal to forstall the truth getting out.
:> : There are many, many scientists who have gone on record to say that
:> : the scientific basis for report of the IPCC is deeply flawed. It does
:> : the work or reputation of real environmentalists no good at all to be
:> : associated with paranoid conspiracy theories divorced from reality.
:>
:> Read:
:> http://www.nrdc.org/media/docs/020403.pdf
[deletion of text excerpted from letter]
:> Delusion? Why would ExxonMobil want to make sure that two of
:> the most noted global warming scientific skeptics in the United States
:> were the main voices of the U.S. IPCC team?
:>
:> Jim Acker
: Why? Because the IPCC team was stacked with eco-alarmists some of whom
: were appointed by Al Gore, an eco-alarmist. They were aware that Watson
: was trying to steamroller his eco-alarmist agenda by releasing a parallel
: report which pretended to have the same conclusions as the IPCC (but
: without all the tedious research and peer review done first).
Let's go back and review what you said.
"It is a delusion to claim that the fossil fuel industry is engaged in
some sort of tobacco style cabal to forstall the truth getting out.
Go back and review what the tobacco industry did. They sought
out "expert" testimony from friendly doctors to inform the media that
the link between cancer and smoking wasn't proven. They continually
sought to cast doubt on the studies that showed such a link, claiming
that the statistics were uncertain or that the study protocols were
flawed. They attacked the doctors making the linkage studies as having
an anti-big business, anti-tobacco industry "agenda". They produced
their own studies purporting to show that there was no definitive link
between cancer and smoking.
All of those have parallels right now with what the energy
industry is doing or has done with regard to global warming, particularly
finding "friendly" experts to promote a "no-danger-here" message.
Let's make a few modifications to what you just wrote above:
"They were aware that "Dr. Knowitall"
was trying to steamroller his cancer-alarmist agenda by releasing a parallel
report which pretended to have the same conclusions as the FDA (but
without all the tedious research and peer review done first)."
Hmpf.
: As they say:
:> His
:> statement belied his real intent, which was to get media coverage of his
:> views before there was a chance for the process to challenge his
:> personal agenda.
: Do we dare say that ExxonMobil was engaged in a conspiracy when Watson was
: not?
Watson's statements were in the public record; what he said
before the TAR was released could be compared to the TAR when it was
released. ExxonMobil's memo would not have seen the light of day if
NRDC hadn't dug it out of the White House files.
w...@bas.ac.uk
>Titan Point <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>: On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:15:14 +0000, James Acker wrote:
>:> Titan Point <titanpoi...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>:> : Nonsense. The cooling trend of the total atmosphere was re-confirmed.
>:>
>:> What, pray tell, do you mean by "total atmosphere"? Are you integrating
>:> the troposphere (which is warming), the mesophere, and the stratosphere
>:> (which is cooling)?
>: Yup.
> OH. Well, since we know that the stratosphere is cooling off
>due to a combination of ozone depletion and radiation loss due to
>increased GHG trapping of warmth in the troposphere, then this is...
>specious?
And if Titan is stupid enough to include the mesosphere, then the only
possible answer is "don't know". Unless you mass-weight, in which case
it disappears.
>: Except that it hasn't. The Urban Heat Island effect can be anywhere from
>: 0.1 degree to 8 degrees...
Actually the UHI can be, and very frequently is, negative (Peterson,
J Climate, 2003).
Steve Schulin
pers...@yahoo.com (Nigel Persaud) wrote:
Very well put.
Steve Schulin
James Acker <jac...@linux3.gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
> on the other thread could hardly be characterized as that. ...
Nor do I feel rebuffed if you don't hop to.
> ... You
> could have said "Yes" or "No" in one case, "higher" or "lower" in
> the other. Instead, you bring up new references that don't have
> much bearing on the main points of discussion (example: Diaz
> et al.)
I'm glad you mention that. I notice I made a mistake in referring to
Diaz et al. I was thinking of Hughes and Diaz, whom I recently cited and
quoted on the same point.
>
> :> On that other thread, I asked some direct questions. May
> :> I politely inquire as to whether you intend to answer them, or are
> :> you just hoping that I'll forget about it?
>
> : Wasn't that just within the last 24 hours? How come you're so impatient
> : with me, yet you seem to think it just dandy that IPCC let that frickin
>
> I asked when you might respond, since you were so quick to
> respond to others. I'd give you a month, as long as I had an idea
> you were thinking about it.
>
> : hockey stick sit for 9 months in the public eye as Fig. 1 in the WG1 TAR
> : Summary for Policymakers without a whit of inkling of the contrary info
> : contained in the body of the TAR.
>
> "Contrary" I think in the eye of a particular beholder (you).
I must admit, I've not seen anyone else mention that the body of the TAR
explicitly notes that our understanding of glacial retreat is quite
inconsistent with the picture painted by that Fig. 1. But I haven't read
most of the literature, so I wouldn't be surprised if the issue is
pointed out elsewhere.
The dozen or so constructions and simulations are being misrepresented
as a bouquet with a card saying "The science is settled".
>
> ... which, ahem, the IPCC stated,
>
> ... and which you basically confirmed in your pithy evaluation
> statement on the other thread.
Please don't lump me with those who find much comfort that one
assumption-laden work product looks similar to others.
> Let me make a quick aside: Einstein's Theory of Relativity
> included the remarkable implication that gravity bent light. That
> idea seemed totally outlandish until it was confirmed by the
> famous observation of occultation timings during a total eclipse.
> That was called corroboration. Corroboration lends credence to
> the original work of a researcher. Mann et al.'s work has been
> independently corroborated. ...
I fully agree with one part of your aside -- predictive success is an
important criteria in identifying when a hypothesis or theory needs to
be reworked. I don't find the kind of corroboration you cite for Mann et
al to be in the same league as, say, the predictive success of Theodore
Landscheidt's simple solar eruption model.
> ... And that's good science. ...
Some is probably good. Some is surely trash. Mann et al and Esper et al
can't both be right about approach to tree ring analysis, for example.
> ... It is
> doubtful that modifications to the data Mann et al. employed
> in their analysis will have a major effect on the conclusions of
> their analysis ...
If Mann et al 1998 were replicable, we might know already whether you
are correct.
> ... or the conclusions of the researchers that provide
> independent corroboration -- something that the skeptics, despite
> their efforts to discredit Mann, probably already realize. But
> their aims are not scientific, they are trying to influence public
> opinion and knowledge of the issue. Through the assistance of
> poorly-informed editorial writers such as Iain Murray, Tim Patterson,
> and ? Carter from Australia, they have probably accomplished
> what they set out to do.
On his own dime, McIntyre set out to understand what Mann et al. did.
We'll never know what would have happened if Mann et al. hadn't sent the
bolluxed data file to him. But they did, and that prompted him to look
extensively into the source data. He's corresponded with some of the
researchers who created the source data, including encouraging some to
place their time series in the international paleoclimate archives. The
attacks on him, including yours here, have been baseless.
Steve Schulin
> >models of the SRES and IPCC ? Yes, published in E & E . And do you
> >recall the IPCC response ( not a formal one, but various lead authors
> >did say that it reflected their views ) ?
>
> Indeed - it wasn't an IPCC response. It would be better if you stopped
> calling it one.
>
> > And where was that published
> >? In E&E, in the same issue as the C & H paper.
>
> It was. OTOH the C+H paper had been widely touted around the world
> for quite a while *before* it was published: for example, the economist
> published a page sympathetic to the C+H paper, but before the response
> was published, and they ignored the response.
>
> >I regard that as an excellent example of the " point, counterpoint"
> >style of debate, something that we could do with more of.
>
> Why would we want more of it? C+H was nonsense, and got rebutted.
An article in the current issue of The Economist is quite critical of
the response of the IPCC apologists:
A lack-of-progress report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
YOU might think that a policy issue which puts at stake hundreds of
billions of dollars' worth of global output would arouse at least the
casual interest of the world's economics and finance ministries. You
would be wrong. Global warming and the actions contemplated to
mitigate it could well involve costs of that order. Assessing the
possible scale of future greenhouse-gas emissions, and hence of
man-made global warming, involves economic forecasts and economic
calculations. Those forecasts and calculations will in turn provide
the basis for policy on the issue. Yet governments have been content
to leave these questions to a body—the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC)—which appears to lack the necessary expertise.
The result is all too likely to be bad policy, at potentially heavy
cost to the world economy.
In our Economics focus of February 15th this year, we drew attention
to (and posted on our website) telling criticisms of the IPCC's work
made by two independent commentators, Ian Castles, a former head of
Australia's Bureau of Statistics, and David Henderson, formerly the
chief economist of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and now visiting professor at Westminster Business
School. Their criticisms of the IPCC were wide-ranging, but focused on
the panel's forecasts of greenhouse-gas emissions. The method
employed, the critics argued, had given an upward bias to the
projections.
The IPCC's procedure relied, first, on measuring gaps between incomes
in poor countries and incomes in rich countries, and, second, on
supposing that those gaps would be substantially narrowed, or entirely
closed, by the end of this century. Contrary to standard practice, the
IPCC measured the initial gaps using market-based exchange rates
rather than rates adjusted for differences in purchasing power. This
error makes the initial income gaps seem far larger than they really
are, so the subsequent catching-up is correspondingly faster. The
developing-country growth rates yielded by this method are
historically implausible, to put it mildly. The emissions forecasts
based on those implausibly high growth rates are accordingly unsound.
The Castles-Henderson critique was subsequently published in the
journal Energy and Environment (volume 14, number 2-3). A response by
15 authors associated with the IPCC purporting to defend the panel's
projections was published in the same issue. It accused the two
critics of bias, bad faith, peddling "deplorable misinformation" and
neglecting what the 15 regard as proper procedure. Alas, it fails to
answer the case Mr Castles and Mr Henderson had laid out—namely, that
the IPCC's low-case scenarios are patently not low-case scenarios, and
that the panel has therefore failed to give a true account of the
range of possibilities. If anything, as the two critics argue in an
article in the subsequent issue of Energy and Environment, the reply
of the 15 authors gives new grounds for concern. This week the IPCC is
preparing to embark on its next global-warming "assessment review"—and
if the tone of its reply to the critics is any guide, it is intent on
business as usual.
It is true, as the IPCC says in its defence, that the panel presents a
range of scenarios. But, as we pointed out before, even the scenarios
that give the lowest cumulative emissions assume that incomes in the
developing countries will increase at a much faster rate over the
course of the century than they have ever done before. Disaggregated
projections published by the IPCC say that—even in the lowest-emission
scenarios—growth in poor countries will be so fast that by the end of
the century Americans will be poorer on average than South Africans,
Algerians, Argentines, Libyans, Turks and North Koreans. Mr Castles
and Mr Henderson can hardly be alone in finding that odd.
Tunnel vision
The fact that the IPCC mobilised as many as 15 authors to supply its
response is interesting. The panel's watchword is strength in numbers
(lacking though it may be in strength at numbers). The exercise
criticised by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson involved 53 authors, plus 89
expert reviewers and many others besides. Can so many experts get it
wrong? The experts themselves may doubt it, but the answer is yes. The
problem is that this horde of authorities is drawn from a narrow
professional milieu. Economic and statistical expertise is not among
their strengths. Making matters worse, the panel's approach lays great
emphasis on peer review of submissions. When the peers in question are
drawn from a restricted professional domain—whereas the issues under
consideration make demands upon a wide range of professional
skills—peer review is not a way to assure the highest standards of
work by exposing research to scepticism. It is just the opposite: a
kind of intellectual restrictive practice, which allows flawed or
downright shoddy work to acquire a standing it does not deserve.
Part of the remedy proposed by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson in their
new article is to get officials from finance and economics ministries
into the long-range emissions-forecasting business. The Australian
Treasury is now starting to take an active interest in IPCC-related
issues, and a letter to the British Treasury drawing attention to
Castles-Henderson (evidently it failed to notice unassisted) has just
received a positive, if long delayed, response. More must be done, and
soon. Work on a question of this sort would sit well with Mr
Henderson's former employer, the OECD. The organisation's economic
policy committee—a panel of top economic officials from national
ministries—will next week install Gregory Mankiw, head of America's
Council of Economic Advisers, as its new chairman. If Mr Mankiw is
asking himself what new work that body ought to take on under his
leadership, he need look no further than the dangerous economic
incompetence of the IPCC.
Source: The Economist, "Hot potato revisited", Nov 6, 2003, from the
print edition -- http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2189568
David Ball
Schulin) wrote:
>w...@bas.ac.uk wrote, in part, in message
>news:<3fa9...@news.nwl.ac.uk>...
>> Tim Worstall <t...@2xtreme.net> wrote:
>> >Do you remember the Castles and Henderson criticism of the economic
>> >models of the SRES and IPCC ? Yes, published in E & E . And do you
>> >recall the IPCC response ( not a formal one, but various lead authors
>> >did say that it reflected their views ) ?
>>
>> Indeed - it wasn't an IPCC response. It would be better if you stopped
>> calling it one.
>>
>> > And where was that published
>> >? In E&E, in the same issue as the C & H paper.
>>
>> It was. OTOH the C+H paper had been widely touted around the world
>> for quite a while *before* it was published: for example, the economist
>> published a page sympathetic to the C+H paper, but before the response
>> was published, and they ignored the response.
>>
>> >I regard that as an excellent example of the " point, counterpoint"
>> >style of debate, something that we could do with more of.
>>
>> Why would we want more of it? C+H was nonsense, and got rebutted.
>
>An article in the current issue of The Economist is quite critical of
>the response of the IPCC apologists:
And we should give a tinker's damn about an op-ed piece in The
Economist because...
w...@bas.ac.uk
>An article in the current issue of The Economist is quite critical of
>the response of the IPCC apologists:
Thanks for posting this, I shall enjoy reading my copy at home.
This goes some way towards answering my criticism that the Economist
ignored the rebuttall of C+H. But notice that the Economist is again
writing from the C+H side: they published in favour of the original
C+H, and ignored the reply until C+H had replied to the reply. Not
exactly good faith, or good reporting.
BTW, though, I agree that there is no particular reason why IPCC
should be doing the emissions scenarios. Perhaps those lazy chaps at
the Economist should get off their backsides and produce some
themselves.
I don't know enough economics to argue this. TW, who appears to
know more, was initially convinced by the "ipcc" response. I'd
be interested in his reaction to this. It looks to me somewhat as
though the economist, whilst purporting to do a review of
the situation, is being feed text from the C+H re-reply.
-W.
>A lack-of-progress report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
>Change
>YOU might think that a policy issue which puts at stake hundreds of
>billions of dollars' worth of global output would arouse at least the
>casual interest of the world's economics and finance ministries. You
>would be wrong. Global warming and the actions contemplated to
>mitigate it could well involve costs of that order. Assessing the
>possible scale of future greenhouse-gas emissions, and hence of
>man-made global warming, involves economic forecasts and economic
>calculations. Those forecasts and calculations will in turn provide
>the basis for policy on the issue. Yet governments have been content
>to leave these questions to a body葉he Intergovernmental Panel on
>Climate Change (IPCC)謡hich appears to lack the necessary expertise.
>answer the case Mr Castles and Mr Henderson had laid out溶amely, that
>the IPCC's low-case scenarios are patently not low-case scenarios, and
>that the panel has therefore failed to give a true account of the
>range of possibilities. If anything, as the two critics argue in an
>article in the subsequent issue of Energy and Environment, the reply
>of the 15 authors gives new grounds for concern. This week the IPCC is
>preparing to embark on its next global-warming "assessment review"預nd
>if the tone of its reply to the critics is any guide, it is intent on
>business as usual.
>It is true, as the IPCC says in its defence, that the panel presents a
>range of scenarios. But, as we pointed out before, even the scenarios
>that give the lowest cumulative emissions assume that incomes in the
>developing countries will increase at a much faster rate over the
>course of the century than they have ever done before. Disaggregated
>projections published by the IPCC say that容ven in the lowest-emission
>scenarios揚rowth in poor countries will be so fast that by the end of
>the century Americans will be poorer on average than South Africans,
>Algerians, Argentines, Libyans, Turks and North Koreans. Mr Castles
>and Mr Henderson can hardly be alone in finding that odd.
>Tunnel vision
>The fact that the IPCC mobilised as many as 15 authors to supply its
>response is interesting. The panel's watchword is strength in numbers
>(lacking though it may be in strength at numbers). The exercise
>criticised by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson involved 53 authors, plus 89
>expert reviewers and many others besides. Can so many experts get it
>wrong? The experts themselves may doubt it, but the answer is yes. The
>problem is that this horde of authorities is drawn from a narrow
>professional milieu. Economic and statistical expertise is not among
>their strengths. Making matters worse, the panel's approach lays great
>emphasis on peer review of submissions. When the peers in question are
>drawn from a restricted professional domain謡hereas the issues under
>consideration make demands upon a wide range of professional
>skills用eer review is not a way to assure the highest standards of
>work by exposing research to scepticism. It is just the opposite: a
>kind of intellectual restrictive practice, which allows flawed or
>downright shoddy work to acquire a standing it does not deserve.
>Part of the remedy proposed by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson in their
>new article is to get officials from finance and economics ministries
>into the long-range emissions-forecasting business. The Australian
>Treasury is now starting to take an active interest in IPCC-related
>issues, and a letter to the British Treasury drawing attention to
>Castles-Henderson (evidently it failed to notice unassisted) has just
>received a positive, if long delayed, response. More must be done, and
>soon. Work on a question of this sort would sit well with Mr
>Henderson's former employer, the OECD. The organisation's economic
>policy committee預 panel of top economic officials from national
>ministries謡ill next week install Gregory Mankiw, head of America's
>Council of Economic Advisers, as its new chairman. If Mr Mankiw is
>asking himself what new work that body ought to take on under his
>leadership, he need look no further than the dangerous economic
>incompetence of the IPCC.
>Source: The Economist, "Hot potato revisited", Nov 6, 2003, from the
>print edition -- http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2189568
--
Steve Schulin
David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote:
Who's the "we" in your question?
David Ball
LOL. Typical Schulin. Answer a direct question with a
question.
Steve Schulin
David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote:
I was truly curious. My answer could significantly differ depending on
who's the "we" you're asking me about. Under normal circumstances, I'd
probably asssume that such a "we" from you would include the person I
had replied to. But in this case, given the quite obvious answer as it
relates to him, I figured I wouldn't immediately jump to the public
conclusion that your comment was inane. That's why I haven't answered
your question yet. Why haven't you answered mine?
Very truly,
David Ball
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
LOL. Steve, why should anyone on a science newsgroup care what
the contents of an op-ed piece in The Economist are? What's next, Car
& Track? Are you planning on excerpting from Playboy - which you no
doubt subscribe to for the articles...
Steve Schulin
David Ball <wra...@mb.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> the contents of an op-ed piece in The Economist are? ...
Anyone who was interested in Connelley's comment (which you continue to
quote above) -- that The Economist "ignored the response" to C&H --
could reasonably be expected to "give a tinker's damn about an op-ed
piece in The Economist".
> ... What's next, Car
> & Track? Are you planning on excerpting from Playboy - which you no
> doubt subscribe to for the articles...
*** FROM: GREAT SCI.ENVIRONMENT MEMORIES (WHICH WERE SNIPPED BY BALL AT
FIRST OPPORTUNITY) ***
<Ball> Fact: there are no alarmists. ...
<Schulin> Of course there are alarmists. And you have been amongst their
ranks, fully in concert. "I AM an alarmist", Paul Ehrlich told Playboy
in 1970, "because I'm very goddamned alarmed." He was most alarmed at
the time about what he called the population bomb. But his sentiments
seem quite consistent with yours when you express "the horror of what
we've done" or somesuch, and the "fiddling while Rome burns" imagery
you've presented, or the really slick comparison you've made between
issuance of tornado warnings and climate projections.
Very truly,
Frank Altschuler
....if wildly improbable estimates regarding the likely growth of industrial
activity in the third world form the basis of the IPCC's policy
recommendations, they can be even more safely ignored.
It's more of an economics question than anything else and the editors of the
Economist are actually, get this, involved in economics.
Ian St. John
<w...@bas.ac.uk> wrote in message news:3fab...@news.nwl.ac.uk...
<snip>
> BTW, though, I agree that there is no particular reason why IPCC
> should be doing the emissions scenarios. Perhaps those lazy chaps at
> the Economist should get off their backsides and produce some
> themselves.
Actually there is. The IPCC was charged not only with establishing what the
science says but also to provide a 'policy guide' which necessarily had to
deal with future risks. I am of the very considered opinion that the
'separation of church and state' should be accompanied by the 'separation of
science and state', with science completely independent of government and
vice versa. That means the end of the DQA as no politician can say what is
'good science'. It is an invitation to the re-emergence of 'eugenics' and
'Lysenkoism' equivalents based on popularity and culture.
The separation should be for the same reasons. Just as you cannot argue with
religious beliefs, not matter what your politics, you cannot argue with
scientific facts.
The IPCC should, perhaps, have been split into two groups. One to
investigate the science and the other to investigate the risks and advise on
policy.
w...@bas.ac.uk
><w...@bas.ac.uk> wrote in message news:3fab...@news.nwl.ac.uk...
>> BTW, though, I agree that there is no particular reason why IPCC
>> should be doing the emissions scenarios. Perhaps those lazy chaps at
>> the Economist should get off their backsides and produce some
>> themselves.
>Actually there is. The IPCC was charged not only with establishing what the
>science says but also to provide a 'policy guide' which necessarily had to
>deal with future risks. I am of the very considered opinion that the
>'separation of church and state' should be accompanied by the 'separation of
>science and state', with science completely independent of government and
>vice versa.
Well, I agree on the separation, but I don't see why IPCC should be
doing the forecasting of future CO2 etc emissions (in fact it is
sort of separate since its done in the SRES process but I've never paid
much attention to that).
>The IPCC should, perhaps, have been split into two groups. One to
>investigate the science and the other to investigate the risks and advise on
>policy.
It is split into 3 wg: scientific basis; impacts-adaption-vulnerability;
mitigation.
-W.
David Ball
<steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >I was truly curious. My answer could significantly differ depending on
>> >who's the "we" you're asking me about. Under normal circumstances, I'd
>> >probably asssume that such a "we" from you would include the person I
>> >had replied to. But in this case, given the quite obvious answer as it
>> >relates to him, I figured I wouldn't immediately jump to the public
>> >conclusion that your comment was inane. That's why I haven't answered
>> >your question yet. Why haven't you answered mine?
>> >
>> LOL. Steve, why should anyone on a science newsgroup care what
>> the contents of an op-ed piece in The Economist are? ...
>
>Anyone who was interested in Connelley's comment (which you continue to
>quote above) -- that The Economist "ignored the response" to C&H --
>could reasonably be expected to "give a tinker's damn about an op-ed
>piece in The Economist".
The problem with the op-ed pieces you post Steve is that there
is absolutely no reason anyone should tell the truth in them. So we
see an endless repetition of the falsehoods by Michaels etc. Show the
science, Steve. That's where the truth lies. The op-ed pages are a
waste of time.
James Acker
: James Acker <jac...@linux3.gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
[deletions]
:> :> On that other thread, I asked some direct questions. May
:> :> I politely inquire as to whether you intend to answer them, or are
:> :> you just hoping that I'll forget about it?
:>
:> : Wasn't that just within the last 24 hours? How come you're so impatient
:> : with me, yet you seem to think it just dandy that IPCC let that frickin
:>
:> I asked when you might respond, since you were so quick to
:> respond to others. I'd give you a month, as long as I had an idea
:> you were thinking about it.
:>
:> : hockey stick sit for 9 months in the public eye as Fig. 1 in the WG1 TAR
:> : Summary for Policymakers without a whit of inkling of the contrary info
:> : contained in the body of the TAR.
:>
:> "Contrary" I think in the eye of a particular beholder (you).
: I must admit, I've not seen anyone else mention that the body of the TAR
: explicitly notes that our understanding of glacial retreat is quite
: inconsistent with the picture painted by that Fig. 1. But I haven't read
: most of the literature, so I wouldn't be surprised if the issue is
: pointed out elsewhere.
Please provide the URL of the Web page with that figure so
that I can try to figure out what you're talking about, and the
"body of the TAR" section that is apparently in contrast with whatever
is shown in the figure.
:> :> Bottom line: the accuracy of Mann et al.'s results is strongly
:> :> supported by several other published research papers which describe
:> :> investigations by different groups. This support also as marked
:> :> indication that Mickey-Mick's E&E paper is not tenable in any
:> :> significant manner. Actually, the tempest-in-a-teapot it is creating
:> :> may serve to show how good Mann's research is, rather than how
:> :> poor it is -- because it is highlighting the salient fact that Mann's
:> :> research IS NOT THE ONLY WORK THAT SHOWS SIMILAR CLIMATE PATTERNS
:> :> OVER THE LAST MILLENIUM.
:> :>
:> :> Try to spin that, Mr. Schulin.
:>
:> : I won't be disappointed if Mann has great answers to such questions as
[questions deleted; available in earlier posts on this thread]
:> These questions, while perhaps interesting, do not have a
:> notable bearing on the fact stated above and reiterated here:
:>
:> "Mann's research IS NOT THE ONLY WORK THAT SHOWS SIMILAR
:> CLIMATE PATTERNS OVER THE LAST MILLENIUM."
: The dozen or so constructions and simulations are being misrepresented
: as a bouquet with a card saying "The science is settled".
By who? I certainly wouldn't go that far, and I think it
would be awful if everybody quit doing research on this subject before
2008 (the next IPCC report year). I think the data available now
shows that 1000-1400 was moderately warm, 1400-1800 was significantly
colder (especially "around" Europe), and there has been a marked
warming since then. If more and better data become available to change
that general story, then great. I have doubts that it will happen,
but it would still be great.
:> ... which, ahem, the IPCC stated,
:>
:> ... and which you basically confirmed in your pithy evaluation
:> statement on the other thread.
: Please don't lump me with those who find much comfort that one
: assumption-laden work product looks similar to others.
How might you do it differently? How could a non-assumption-
laden temperature reconstruction for the past 1000 years be accomplished?
(Maybe get a time machine, go back 1000 years, establish several
temperature stations that will last for 1000 years without attendance,
go back to the present, collect the results. First question: how
did you keep your thermometer calibrated for 1000 years.
I don't see any NSF funding forthcoming for that proposal.
:> Let me make a quick aside: Einstein's Theory of Relativity
:> included the remarkable implication that gravity bent light. That
:> idea seemed totally outlandish until it was confirmed by the
:> famous observation of occultation timings during a total eclipse.
:> That was called corroboration. Corroboration lends credence to
:> the original work of a researcher. Mann et al.'s work has been
:> independently corroborated. ...
: I fully agree with one part of your aside -- predictive success is an
: important criteria in identifying when a hypothesis or theory needs to
: be reworked. I don't find the kind of corroboration you cite for Mann et
: al to be in the same league as, say, the predictive success of Theodore
: Landscheidt's simple solar eruption model.
No comments on Landscheidt. The way that predictive success
works for a "past history" would be that if a new type of data can be
consulted, it would be predicted to show the same general patterns as
the data already analyzed. I believe Mann has attempted to do this
with borehole data, for example. (A colleague at a place I used to
work, Ike Winograd, used Devil's Hole carbonate deposition to cast
doubt on the Milankovitch climate forcing hypothesis; and Carl Wunsch's
recent paper seems to support that, which could really throw some of
the proverbs in the paleoclimate bible out the window.)
This is an active field of study. Let's see if somebody
comes up with a new way to look at temperatures over the past 1000
years.
:> ... And that's good science. ...
: Some is probably good. Some is surely trash. Mann et al and Esper et al
: can't both be right about approach to tree ring analysis, for example.
I don't know. Mann doesn't do tree ring analysis directly;
he takes the results from other researchers. Does Esper do his own
tree ring analyses? And why can't different types of methodologies
be applied to the same raw data?
:> ... It is
:> doubtful that modifications to the data Mann et al. employed
:> in their analysis will have a major effect on the conclusions of
:> their analysis ...
: If Mann et al 1998 were replicable, we might know already whether you
: are correct.
It has not been shown that Mann 1998 (or subsequent) is
not replicable. A flawed paper has made an assertion to that effect.
Be cautious of the length of the plank on which you tread.
:> ... or the conclusions of the researchers that provide
:> independent corroboration -- something that the skeptics, despite
:> their efforts to discredit Mann, probably already realize. But
:> their aims are not scientific, they are trying to influence public
:> opinion and knowledge of the issue. Through the assistance of
:> poorly-informed editorial writers such as Iain Murray, Tim Patterson,
:> and ? Carter from Australia, they have probably accomplished
:> what they set out to do.
: On his own dime, McIntyre set out to understand what Mann et al. did.
: We'll never know what would have happened if Mann et al. hadn't sent the
: bolluxed data file to him. But they did, and that prompted him to look
: extensively into the source data. He's corresponded with some of the
: researchers who created the source data, including encouraging some to
: place their time series in the international paleoclimate archives. The
: attacks on him, including yours here, have been baseless.
I've pretty much based anything that I've said about Mickey-
Mick's paper on the main Mann et al. response first accessed via
"Quark Soup". In that response, the reconstruction of the data using
described errors that Mickey-Mick apparently made provides an
anomalous data plot quite similar to that published by Mickey-Mick.
So as I noted before, it doesn't appear that they just analyzed a
bolluxed (bolixed?) data file. If they acquired the data independently,
and tried to analyze it (which is what I think they said they did), they appear to have made some mistakes.
Vito De Lucia
Steve Schulin wrote:
> An article in the current issue of The Economist is quite critical of
> the response of the IPCC apologists:
<article snipped>
I take this opportunity to re-focus on IPCC response to C+H E&E paper,
available at
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/TNT/WEB/Publications/ipcc-sres-revisited/ipcc-sres-revisited.pdf
I will excerpt below from IPCC's response. The first Economist's claim
is that
"Contrary to standard practice, the IPCC measured the initial gaps using
market-based exchange rates rather than rates adjusted for differences
in purchasing power. This error makes the initial income gaps seem far
larger than they really are, so the subsequent catching-up is
correspondingly faster. The developing-country growth rates yielded by
this method are historically implausible, to put it mildly. The
emissions forecasts based on those implausibly high growth rates are
accordingly unsound."
From the IPCC response:
"The process of formulating SRES scenarios involved measuring future
economic development in terms of GDP both in terms of MER and PPP. On
8–10 January 2003, Mr. Castles was informed explicitly about this fact.
Both measurements of GDP are provided in the underlying report and in
particular in Appendix VII for all MESSAGE scenarios (see also in SRES,
2000: Figure 3-1; Section 3.3.1, Box 3-1, Figure 3-12, and Table 4-19).
The writing team decided not to report both measures of GDP throughout
the SRES report in order not to generate confusion about growth rates
and other scenario indicators that include GDP especially in comparison
with the literature that almost exclusively reports GDP in MER, and
which the SRES writing team had the mandate to review."
PPP is standard practice for "static" comparisons, while using PPP
(instead of MER, to be preferred) for long-term growth scenarios "would
also be inconsistent with the vast majority of the scenario literature,
the state of art of models available for economic projections, as well
as the state of art of models available to develop long-term emissions
scenarios.".
Moreover,
"According to Nordhaus and Boyer (2000: 43) there are three reasons for
using MER in economic models rather than PPP: First, historical output
data at MER are more readily available than at PPP exchange rates;
second, in the context of optimizing regional consumption paths,
internal prices should be used rather than the world average price
level; and third, international trade in energy and possibly carbon
(in the future) take place at MER."
Furthermore, The Economist claims that "It is true, as the IPCC says in
its defence, that the panel presents a range of scenarios. But, as we
pointed out before, even the scenarios that give the lowest cumulative
emissions assume that incomes in the developing countries will increase
at a much faster rate over the course of the century than they have ever
done before."
Wrong. See below in the excerpt for the details, but when MER is turned
into PPP, growth rates rest well within historical ranges.
"3. SRES AND LONG-HISTORICAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
One of the most pervasive complaints, especially in Mr. Castles’
contributions to this issue, concerns the economic growth in developing
regions of the world. The claim is made repeatedly that SRES scenarios
overstate what Mr. Castles and Mr. Henderson consider to be appropriate
development trajectories. Before addressing this critique on
the supposedly “too high” economic growth assumptions for developing
countries in the SRES scenarios it is useful to recall both the very
concept of scenarios as well as the terms of reference under which the
SRES scenarios were developed."
then,
"[...]the objective is not to “predict” what will, but rather what could
happen under a sequence of (sometimes extreme) events. Scenarios are
therefore mind experiments to assess possible consequences of a series
of “what if… then” developments. Appropriate evaluation criteria are
internal consistency, reproducibility and plausibility of scenario
“logic” rather than “likelihood” or conformity with a priori
expectations of “most likely” chain of events under any particular
temporal (e.g., before or after the “Asian financial crisis”) or
geographical (e.g., OECD) bias.
Scenarios are therefore neither predictions, nor forecasts."
And more...
"The per capita GDP developments and growth rates clearly show that Mr.
Castles’ assertions about exaggerated growth in SRES scenarios are not
correct when expressed in terms of PPP (see also his letter to Dr.
Pachauri dated 6 August 2002, posted on Lavoisier Group
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/). For example, the Table in
the Appendix hereto clearly shows that income per capita differences are
8.6 to 1 (between ASIA and OECD90) in 1990 when measured in PPP and 38.2
to 1 when IPCC SRES Revisited: A Response 193 measured in terms of MER
(SRES, 2000: 197).
Both measures are correct.
Highlighting the difference between them as an error is again curious,
as it does not have a substantive effect on the results such as the
emissions paths. The ratio of 8.6 to 1 corresponds well to Mr. Castles’
assertion that it should be 10 to 1 for the two regions when “properly
measured”.
The same is the case in characterizing future changes in per capita
incomes. For example, in A1 scenarios per capita income in ASIA
increases by a factor of 143.8 between 1990 and 2100 when measured in
MER (as Mr. Castles correctly observes), but only by a factor of 37.8
when measured in terms of PPP. This corresponds to an annual average
growth rate of 3.3 percent, which is well in line with historical
experience. The equivalent numbers for the B1 scenario are a factor per
capita income growth of 71.6 in terms of MER (as he correctly observes)
and a factor of 18.8 in terms of PPP with a corresponding annual growth
rate of 2.7 percent. This illustrates that, contrary to the claims of
Mr. Castles and Mr. Henderson, the SRES writing team was very well aware
of the implications of using PPP as an alternative measure and that far
from being “technically unsound”, the SRES report describes the economic
development scenarios comprehensively and multidimensionally."
thanks
ciao
Vito
----------------------------------------
Searching for the hermit in vain
I asked a boy beneath the pines.
He said, "The master's gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere in the mounts,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown."
Chia Tao (777-841)
---------------------------------------
Steve Schulin
James Acker <jac...@linux2.gl.umbc.edu> wrote, in part:
> Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
> : James Acker wrote:
> :> Steve Schulin wrote:
> :> : James Acker wrote:
>
> :> :> On that other thread, I asked some direct questions. May
> :> :> I politely inquire as to whether you intend to answer them, or are
> :> :> you just hoping that I'll forget about it?
> :>
> :> : Wasn't that just within the last 24 hours? How come you're so impatient
> :> : with me, yet you seem to think it just dandy that IPCC let that frickin
> :>
> :> I asked when you might respond, since you were so quick to
> :> respond to others. I'd give you a month, as long as I had an idea
> :> you were thinking about it.
> :>
> :> : hockey stick sit for 9 months in the public eye as Fig. 1 in the WG1 TAR
> :> : Summary for Policymakers without a whit of inkling of the contrary info
> :> : contained in the body of the TAR.
> :>
> :> "Contrary" I think in the eye of a particular beholder (you).
>
> : I must admit, I've not seen anyone else mention that the body of the TAR
> : explicitly notes that our understanding of glacial retreat is quite
> : inconsistent with the picture painted by that Fig. 1. But I haven't read
> : most of the literature, so I wouldn't be surprised if the issue is
> : pointed out elsewhere.
>
> Please provide the URL of the Web page with that figure so
> that I can try to figure out what you're talking about, and the
> "body of the TAR" section that is apparently in contrast with whatever
> is shown in the figure.
> ...
You want the URL for "Fig 1 in the WG1 TAR Summary for Policymakers"?
I'm sure you can find it just fine. As for the section in the body of
the TAR, I'll be happy to provide the quote I'm referring to, and wish
you all the best in whatever followup you care to perform on your own:
"...the timing of the onset of glacier retreat implies that a
significant global warming is likely to have started not later than the
mid-19th century. This conflicts with the Jones et al. (2001) global
land instrumental temperature data (Figure 2.1), and the combined
hemispheric and global land and marine data (Figure 2.7), where clear
warming is not seen until the beginning of the 20th century. This
conclusion also conflicts with some (but not all) of the
palaeo-temperature reconstructions in Figure 2.21, Section 2.3 , where
clear warming, e.g., in the Mann et al. (1999) Northern Hemisphere
series, starts at about the same time as in the Jones et al. (2001)
data. These discrepancies are currently unexplained."
Steve Schulin
> Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
> : James Acker <jac...@linux3.gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
>
> :> ... the skeptics, ... their efforts to discredit Mann, ...
> :> their aims are not scientific, they are trying to influence public
> :> opinion and knowledge of the issue. Through the assistance of
> :> poorly-informed editorial writers such as Iain Murray, Tim Patterson,
> :> and ? Carter from Australia, they have probably accomplished
> :> what they set out to do.
>
> : On his own dime, McIntyre set out to understand what Mann et al. did.
> : We'll never know what would have happened if Mann et al. hadn't sent the
> : bolluxed data file to him. But they did, and that prompted him to look
> : extensively into the source data. He's corresponded with some of the
> : researchers who created the source data, including encouraging some to
> : place their time series in the international paleoclimate archives. The
> : attacks on him, including yours here, have been baseless.
>
> I've pretty much based anything that I've said about Mickey-
> Mick's paper on the main Mann et al. response first accessed via
> "Quark Soup". ...
I recognize the similarity between your baseless claim about "what they
set out to do" and what not, with the Mann email comment reported at
Quark Soup about political motives or somesuch. Like a stone wall, you
advocate-scientists/scientist-advocates stand, sputtering out of
ignorance one moment and implementing your personal answers to
Schneider's dilemma the next.
> ... In that response, the reconstruction of the data using
> described errors that Mickey-Mick apparently made provides an
> anomalous data plot quite similar to that published by Mickey-Mick.
> So as I noted before, it doesn't appear that they just analyzed a
> bolluxed (bolixed?) data file. ...
Thanks. I see that bolixed, or my new personal favorite "ballocks", is
the proper way to spell that term. Of all the things to "ball up"...
> ... If they acquired the data independently,
> and tried to analyze it (which is what I think they said they did), they
> appear to have made some mistakes.
Fortunately, M&M appear to have described exactly what they did. Mann et
al need not rely on speculation, as they do in the very interesting
piece you cite, a piece I've come to refer to as the hasty SOS article
-- "Save Our (hockey) Stick".
Nigel Persaud
> > and tried to analyze it (which is what I think they said they did), they
> > appear to have made some mistakes.
>
> Fortunately, M&M appear to have described exactly what they did. Mann et
> al need not rely on speculation, as they do in the very interesting
> piece you cite, a piece I've come to refer to as the hasty SOS article
> -- "Save Our (hockey) Stick".
It is peculiar that such instant belief is given to Mann's claim that
M&M failed to notice wrong data sent by Mann's team and inadvertently
used it. There's no evidence to support Mann's claim, which seems to
have been fabricated.
M&M specifically noticed these errors, which is proven by their paper.
The collation errors identified by M&M are in the collation up at
Mann's web site. They do not exist in the M&M re-collated dataset
website, which M&M have put up for comparison. Can one characterize
Mann's comments as anything other than a flat-out lie?
Tim Worstall
> >w...@bas.ac.uk wrote, in part, in message
>
> >> Why would we want more of it? C+H was nonsense, and got rebutted.
>
> >An article in the current issue of The Economist is quite critical of
> >the response of the IPCC apologists:
>
> Thanks for posting this, I shall enjoy reading my copy at home.
>
> This goes some way towards answering my criticism that the Economist
> ignored the rebuttall of C+H. But notice that the Economist is again
> writing from the C+H side: they published in favour of the original
> C+H, and ignored the reply until C+H had replied to the reply. Not
> exactly good faith, or good reporting.
>
> BTW, though, I agree that there is no particular reason why IPCC
> should be doing the emissions scenarios. Perhaps those lazy chaps at
> the Economist should get off their backsides and produce some
> themselves.
>
> I don't know enough economics to argue this. TW, who appears to
> know more, was initially convinced by the "ipcc" response. I'd
> be interested in his reaction to this.
My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is split. I haven't seen the
reply to the reply, so no comments on that.
At the heart of the C&H original paper were a whole series of
complaints, which can be boiled down to :
1) Use of MER giving absurd answers. The " IPCC response " ( for want
of a better phrase ) seems to me to refute this fine. As it does the
C&H idea that growth rates are too high, unless I've missed something.
2) The economic projections contain a number of absurdities. Such as
N Korea being richer than the US in 2100. Yes, I know this is because
regional growth rates were assumed , rather than country by country :
but that simply isn't good enough when we are talking about the
hundreds of billions of $ implicated in whatever decisions we do take
: to ignore, mitigate or adjust. I think both C&H and the Economist
have made their point, and are being fair to point up these what,
mistakes? failures ? sloppy methods ?
An example of why I think it important from my own experience. When
reading the C&H paper, I checked their assertions about SRES
projections. As soon as I saw that ( insert list from Economist
article here ) countries were presumed to be richer than the US in
2100, I just laughed, rejected the SRES figures as absurd and so was
convinced that the IPCC were fatheads. I agree that that was an error
by me : but what does it really say about the economic assumptions
behind the SRES when they happily publish such things ? Things that
anyone economically literate ( which I do claim to be, if not an
economist ) will immediately reject as intrinsically absurd ? It's
almost as if no one so economically literate proof read anything, for
if someone did, surely they would have said " Guys, look, this is
nuts. We're going to get laughed out of the room if we try to tell
people that this is our best guess forecast ".
( and yes, I know all about scenarios and so on. Just figures of
speech above ).
3) Something that's very clear in the C&H paper, and mentioned again
in this weeks Economist, but not really addressed by the IPCC
response. That perhaps those organisations that deal with
international statistics all the time really are the right guys to be
making statistical projections of the international future. I
particularly like the idea that OECD should do it. I think that would
be a good idea, and so support that part of the C&H paper. There's
also another thing : right from the start C&H have been saying, in the
paper as well as various articles, that what they really want is a
rigorous appraisal of the statitical and economic methods used in
SRES, as these have such a huge impact on IPCC and thus KP. And that
some of the methods used in SRES are faulty ( which they are, although
not perhaps not the major one about exchange rates ) and so should be
changed before the fourth revision, just coming up. This last I regard
as completely unobjectionable, and would hope that everyone would
support it.
There is one final item . The SRES and thus the IPCC, claim in their
scenarios to have considered all likely paths ( excluding those that
contain mitigation efforts ).
C&H, The Economist and I ( with myself obviously being tail end
Charlie on this in terms of importance ) all agree.
I think that much lower emissions figures are not only possible, but
likely. Over the next couple of days I'll try and cull some figures
out of the net on what I mean. My views are not just cornucopian, or
Simonesque, or that "Technology will save us " although I'm broadly in
agreement with all three views. In the day job I work with specialised
materials, rare earths and the like. We're seeing an explosion of
interest in some of them as a result of the new power technologies
coming along : fuel cells for one, a widely reported breakthrough in
solar cells ( and another one which I suggested and hope to hear back
the results of soon : if true, quite revolutionary ) . And one, which
is out of the labs and in production, which will make obsolete the
common light bulb in 5 - 7 years time.
Now, it is possible that the explosive mixture of science, technology
and engineering is only happening in that little part of the economy
that I directly see. That seems to me to put far too much weight on my
own importance. So I feel that the SRES projections are simply too
gloomy about the speed at which technological change is happening. And
thus that B1T Message is not the limit to possible outcomes.
Tim Worstall
It looks to me somewhat as
> though the economist, whilst purporting to do a review of
> the situation, is being feed text from the C+H re-reply.
>
> -W.
>
> >A lack-of-progress report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
> >Change
>
> >YOU might think that a policy issue which puts at stake hundreds of
> >billions of dollars' worth of global output would arouse at least the
> >casual interest of the world's economics and finance ministries. You
> >would be wrong. Global warming and the actions contemplated to
> >mitigate it could well involve costs of that order. Assessing the
> >possible scale of future greenhouse-gas emissions, and hence of
> >man-made global warming, involves economic forecasts and economic
> >calculations. Those forecasts and calculations will in turn provide
> >the basis for policy on the issue. Yet governments have been content
> >to leave these questions to a body?the Intergovernmental Panel on
> >Climate Change (IPCC)?which appears to lack the necessary expertise.
> >answer the case Mr Castles and Mr Henderson had laid out?namely, that
> >the IPCC's low-case scenarios are patently not low-case scenarios, and
> >that the panel has therefore failed to give a true account of the
> >range of possibilities. If anything, as the two critics argue in an
> >article in the subsequent issue of Energy and Environment, the reply
> >of the 15 authors gives new grounds for concern. This week the IPCC is
> >preparing to embark on its next global-warming "assessment review"?and
> >if the tone of its reply to the critics is any guide, it is intent on
> >business as usual.
>
> >It is true, as the IPCC says in its defence, that the panel presents a
> >range of scenarios. But, as we pointed out before, even the scenarios
> >that give the lowest cumulative emissions assume that incomes in the
> >developing countries will increase at a much faster rate over the
> >course of the century than they have ever done before. Disaggregated
> >projections published by the IPCC say that?even in the lowest-emission
> >scenarios?growth in poor countries will be so fast that by the end of
> >the century Americans will be poorer on average than South Africans,
> >Algerians, Argentines, Libyans, Turks and North Koreans. Mr Castles
> >and Mr Henderson can hardly be alone in finding that odd.
>
> >Tunnel vision
>
> >The fact that the IPCC mobilised as many as 15 authors to supply its
> >response is interesting. The panel's watchword is strength in numbers
> >(lacking though it may be in strength at numbers). The exercise
> >criticised by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson involved 53 authors, plus 89
> >expert reviewers and many others besides. Can so many experts get it
> >wrong? The experts themselves may doubt it, but the answer is yes. The
> >problem is that this horde of authorities is drawn from a narrow
> >professional milieu. Economic and statistical expertise is not among
> >their strengths. Making matters worse, the panel's approach lays great
> >emphasis on peer review of submissions. When the peers in question are
> >drawn from a restricted professional domain?whereas the issues under
> >consideration make demands upon a wide range of professional
> >skills?peer review is not a way to assure the highest standards of
> >work by exposing research to scepticism. It is just the opposite: a
> >kind of intellectual restrictive practice, which allows flawed or
> >downright shoddy work to acquire a standing it does not deserve.
>
> >Part of the remedy proposed by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson in their
> >new article is to get officials from finance and economics ministries
> >into the long-range emissions-forecasting business. The Australian
> >Treasury is now starting to take an active interest in IPCC-related
> >issues, and a letter to the British Treasury drawing attention to
> >Castles-Henderson (evidently it failed to notice unassisted) has just
> >received a positive, if long delayed, response. More must be done, and
> >soon. Work on a question of this sort would sit well with Mr
> >Henderson's former employer, the OECD. The organisation's economic
> >policy committee?a panel of top economic officials from national
> >ministries?will next week install Gregory Mankiw, head of America's
w...@bas.ac.uk
>w...@bas.ac.uk wrote in message news:<3fab...@news.nwl.ac.uk>...
>N Korea being richer than the US in 2100. Yes, I know this is because
>regional growth rates were assumed , rather than country by country :
>but that simply isn't good enough when we are talking about the
>hundreds of billions of $ implicated in whatever decisions we do take
>: to ignore, mitigate or adjust.
If thats in there, I agree it seems odd. OTOH, is it important? Ie, has
anyone shown this makes any great difference to the final CO2 figures?
>That perhaps those organisations that deal with
>international statistics all the time really are the right guys to be
>making statistical projections of the international future.
I agree. So perhaps these people could get off their backsides and
actually do this, rather than throwing mud at the IPCC? (OK, I know,
not really fair. But have C+H managed to put together a projection
they consider realistic? Have the economist?).
>rigorous appraisal of the statitical and economic methods used in
>SRES, as these have such a huge impact on IPCC and thus KP.
But do they?
>Over the next couple of days I'll try and cull some figures
>out of the net on what I mean.
OK, good, will await this.
-W.
Eric Swanson
>
>w...@bas.ac.uk wrote in message news:<3fab...@news.nwl.ac.uk>...
>> Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>> >w...@bas.ac.uk wrote, in part, in message
>>
>> >> Why would we want more of it? C+H was nonsense, and got rebutted.
>>
>> >An article in the current issue of The Economist is quite critical of
>> >the response of the IPCC apologists:
>>
>> Thanks for posting this, I shall enjoy reading my copy at home.
>>
>> BTW, though, I agree that there is no particular reason why IPCC
>> should be doing the emissions scenarios. Perhaps those lazy chaps at
>> the Economist should get off their backsides and produce some
>> themselves.
>
>
>My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is split. I haven't seen the
>reply to the reply, so no comments on that.
>
>
>There is one final item . The SRES and thus the IPCC, claim in their
>scenarios to have considered all likely paths ( excluding those that
>contain mitigation efforts ).
>
>C&H, The Economist and I ( with myself obviously being tail end
>Charlie on this in terms of importance ) all agree.
>I think that much lower emissions figures are not only possible, but
>likely. Over the next couple of days I'll try and cull some figures
>out of the net on what I mean. My views are not just cornucopian, or
>Simonesque, or that "Technology will save us " although I'm broadly in
>agreement with all three views. In the day job I work with specialised
>materials, rare earths and the like. We're seeing an explosion of
>interest in some of them as a result of the new power technologies
>coming along : fuel cells for one, a widely reported breakthrough in
>solar cells ( and another one which I suggested and hope to hear back
>the results of soon : if true, quite revolutionary ) . And one, which
>is out of the labs and in production, which will make obsolete the
>common light bulb in 5 - 7 years time.
The common light bulb is already obsolete, as compact florescent bulbs
are on the market which produce the same light with much less energy.
These bulbs are more expensive, but last longer and use less energy,
such that over their lifetime, using them saves energy and money.
>Now, it is possible that the explosive mixture of science, technology
>and engineering is only happening in that little part of the economy
>that I directly see. That seems to me to put far too much weight on my
>own importance. So I feel that the SRES projections are simply too
>gloomy about the speed at which technological change is happening. And
>thus that B1T Message is not the limit to possible outcomes.
You are correct that there are many possible improvements in energy
production and use which will reduce carbon emissions. Just last week,
the US DOE presented some ideas before the US House Science Committee.
The testimony of Dr. Marylin Brown was particularly enlightening.
See: http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/energy03/nov06/brown.pdf
Also, there were three reports she referenced which may be of interest.
The problems are as much educational and institutional as technological.
Most people in the US seem to live as if the present energy supply will
continue for ever, thus, they don't care about wasting it. As more
people in the rest of the world become consumers of oil and natural gas
as their incomes increase, some day reality will strike and the price
of these fossil fuel will begin to increase in real terms. When that
day arrives, the folks in the US will no longer be able to get away
with their current wasteful habits. They will be forced to choose
alternatives, such as coal, nuclear or renewables.
Trying to estimate the future global emissions of carbon, given the
multiple uncertainties of population growth, economic development,
technological advances and mix of available fuels makes it extremely
difficult to predict the future emissions path of CO2 and other greenhouse
gases. Economics alone can not be used to make such projections, as
economics inherently looks backward, setting values based on experience.
--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Josh Halpern
Eric Swanson wrote:
> t...@2xtreme.net says...
>
>
>>w...@bas.ac.uk wrote in message news:<3fab...@news.nwl.ac.uk>...
>>
>>
>>>Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>w...@bas.ac.uk wrote, in part, in message
>>>>
>[cut]
>
>
>>There is one final item . The SRES and thus the IPCC, claim in their
>>scenarios to have considered all likely paths ( excluding those that
>>contain mitigation efforts )
>>
>>C&H, The Economist and I ( with myself obviously being tail end
>>Charlie on this in terms of importance ) all agree.
>>I think that much lower emissions figures are not only possible, but
>>likely. Over the next couple of days I'll try and cull some figures
>>out of the net on what I mean. My views are not just cornucopian, or
>>Simonesque, or that "Technology will save us " although I'm broadly in
>>agreement with all three views. In the day job I work with specialised
>>materials, rare earths and the like. We're seeing an explosion of
>>interest in some of them as a result of the new power technologies
>>coming along : fuel cells for one, a widely reported breakthrough in
>>solar cells ( and another one which I suggested and hope to hear back
>>the results of soon : if true, quite revolutionary ) . And one, which
>>is out of the labs and in production, which will make obsolete the
>>common light bulb in 5 - 7 years time.
>>
>>
>
>The common light bulb is already obsolete, as compact florescent bulbs
>are on the market which produce the same light with much less energy.
>These bulbs are more expensive, but last longer and use less energy,
>such that over their lifetime, using them saves energy and money.
>
The white LED bulb is even better and now coming on the market for
specialized applications and flashlights. It is a neat trick, use a blue
LED to excite a fluorescent material.
josh halpern
David Ball
Swanson) wrote:
>>
>>C&H, The Economist and I ( with myself obviously being tail end
>>Charlie on this in terms of importance ) all agree.
>>I think that much lower emissions figures are not only possible, but
>>likely. Over the next couple of days I'll try and cull some figures
>>out of the net on what I mean. My views are not just cornucopian, or
>>Simonesque, or that "Technology will save us " although I'm broadly in
>>agreement with all three views. In the day job I work with specialised
>>materials, rare earths and the like. We're seeing an explosion of
>>interest in some of them as a result of the new power technologies
>>coming along : fuel cells for one, a widely reported breakthrough in
>>solar cells ( and another one which I suggested and hope to hear back
>>the results of soon : if true, quite revolutionary ) . And one, which
>>is out of the labs and in production, which will make obsolete the
>>common light bulb in 5 - 7 years time.
>
>The common light bulb is already obsolete, as compact florescent bulbs
>are on the market which produce the same light with much less energy.
>These bulbs are more expensive, but last longer and use less energy,
>such that over their lifetime, using them saves energy and money.
Except that they are expensive and unwieldy, not designed for
use in current light fixtures, at least not the ones I've seen. So
along with the cost of purchasing them, you must needs change many of
the fixtures in your home. Not all that expensive unless you have
Tiffany lamps and the like, but a cost nonetheless.
Tim Worstall
Indeed, that's using gallium Nitride ( GaN ) which is the technology
that I call slightly clumsy ( I think that's what I called it anyway
). Next generation , or perhaps the one after that, should be Scandium
Nitride ( ScN ), which emits across the visible spectrum. Not all that
amazing, as scandium iodide is added to metal halide bulbs currently,
to give " sunlight " .
And what do I do for part of my living ? Sell scandium. Boy are we
looking forward to this :-)
Tim Worstall
>
> josh halpern
Ian St. John
"Tim Worstall" <t...@2xtreme.net> wrote in message
news:825e2890.03110...@posting.google.com...
> Josh Halpern <j.ha...@incoming.verizon.net> wrote in message
news:<icjrb.26690$p9.1...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>...
> And what do I do for part of my living ? Sell scandium. Boy are we
> looking forward to this :-)
No doubt, but I have to ask if it is feasible. As I understand it there is
oinly ONE scandium ore deposit and that is in Russia. While each bulb would
use only a little, how price sensitive would the supply be, given both the
limited source and it's location in a single country, hungry for foreign
currency?
Josh Halpern
Tim Worstall wrote:
>Josh Halpern <j.ha...@incoming.verizon.net> wrote
>
>
>>Eric Swanson wrote:
>>
>>
SNIP./...
>>The white LED bulb is even better and now coming on the market for
>>specialized applications and flashlights. It is a neat trick, use a blue
>>LED to excite a fluorescent material.
>>
>>
>
>Indeed, that's using gallium Nitride ( GaN ) which is the technology
>that I call slightly clumsy ( I think that's what I called it anyway.
>
Since I grow the stuff, I will disagree. If you don't like phosphors,
you must
hate fluorescents.
> Next generation , or perhaps the one after that, should be Scandium
>Nitride ( ScN ), which emits across the visible spectrum. Not all that
>amazing, as scandium iodide is added to metal halide bulbs currently,
>to give " sunlight " .
>And what do I do for part of my living ? Sell scandium. Boy are we
>looking forward to this :-)
>
>
josh halpern
Eric Swanson
You might look again. The latest ones are about the same size as the basic
100 w incandescent bulb. The new ones screw into the usual light sockets.
Not like the ones on the market 8 or 10 years back. They are rather fragile,
but, so is the basic bulb design. A little shock and the filament can break
in those, without damage to the glass.
They aren't cheap, although I did manage to buy a bunch when the local Lowe's
moved to a new location. They retail for around $10 each and are warranted for
10 years. They produce the same light as a 100 watt bulb, but use only 25
watts. Say you use one for 4 hours a day, 365 days per year. One gets the
same light for a savings of 109 kwh/year, which amounts to a dollar savings
(locally) of $9.25, compared to the incandescent ones. The economics says the
rate of return is 100% a year. Wouldn't any logical, sane person gladly make
such an investment? Apparently not, or else they would all have been bought
before I showed up at the moving sale......
David Ball
Swanson) wrote:
Thanks for the heads-up. I haven't looked in a while.
Juan Herberto
a buck US), draw 11 watts, throw about a 40 w bulb equivalent, & work
quite nicely in the modest Tiffany lamp that graces my home... ^..^
Got Problems?
Get RIDOVEM
Tim Worstall
> Tim Worstall wrote:
>
> >Josh Halpern <j.ha...@incoming.verizon.net> wrote
> >
> >
> >>Eric Swanson wrote:
> >>
> >>
> SNIP./...
>
> >>The white LED bulb is even better and now coming on the market for
> >>specialized applications and flashlights. It is a neat trick, use a blue
> >>LED to excite a fluorescent material.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Indeed, that's using gallium Nitride ( GaN ) which is the technology
> >that I call slightly clumsy ( I think that's what I called it anyway.
> >
> Since I grow the stuff, I will disagree. If you don't like phosphors,
> you must
> hate fluorescents.
>
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22444.html
Tim Worstall
Tim Worstall
Scandium is an odd one all right. There is no large scale production
anywhere in the world. There was a mine in the Ukraine ( Zhivty Vody )
but this was more a creature of stockmarket manipulation than an
actual producer. I've sold scandium oxide to the promoters who then
claimed it came from the mine. There was a large scale plant in
Kazakhstan ( at Aktau ) but this has been closed since 1992. There's
some Soviet era stocks still floating around. There's a few Chinese
rare earth producers who get it as the last stage of their extraction
procedure.
But there's no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. We just need
the technology to concentrate them, another application of the idea
that humans create resources by inventing technology.
We've had out technology tested by some Canadian Mining Engineers, a
subsidiary of SGS. It works, no problem. It was interesting to get a
report from last summers conference on scandium mineralogy and find
that the general conclusion about future supplies was via the same
general process we have been working on for 2 years.
And large scale industrial production would bring the price way down
as well....a usual effect of such changes.
Tim Worstall
Ian St. John
So we are dependent on small mines and low level ores. My point was just
that. Increase demand by a few magnitudes and you will get a megaprice.
> But there's no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. We just need
> the technology to concentrate them, another application of the idea
> that humans create resources by inventing technology.
Translation:" "Not a problem. We have technology. Technology is magic. No, I
don't have a solution but I can't be bothered looking since I know that it
will be solved by magic. "
> We've had out technology tested by some Canadian Mining Engineers, a
> subsidiary of SGS. It works, no problem. It was interesting to get a
> report from last summers conference on scandium mineralogy and find
> that the general conclusion about future supplies was via the same
> general process we have been working on for 2 years.
So, you have processess that help lower the cost of extraction as the
quality of the ore deposites drops. The usual. It always seems to be a
balance based on what people will pay, so that the drive to extract from
lower quality ores at lower prices just balances the lower quality of the
ores to maintain the price.
> And large scale industrial production would bring the price way down
> as well....a usual effect of such changes.
High demand equals high prices in areas of scarcity. It is not like the
'economies of scale'. If the 'economies of scale' worked for rare resources,
the price of diamonds would drop to the point that we're burning them for
fuel... Economies of scale do NOT work for rare resources, only common ones.
>
> Tim Worstall
Thomas Palm
> So we are dependent on small mines and low level ores. My point was
> just that. Increase demand by a few magnitudes and you will get a
> megaprice.
If you only need trace amounts of scandium for each lamp that may affect
the final price very little.
>> But there's no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. We just need
>> the technology to concentrate them, another application of the idea
>> that humans create resources by inventing technology.
>
> Translation:" "Not a problem. We have technology. Technology is magic.
> No, I don't have a solution but I can't be bothered looking since I
> know that it will be solved by magic. "
Even if the problem is solvable one also has to consider how long time it
will take to solve it. When Kroll in 1946 invented a way of producing
titanium metal he assumed it would just be a stopgap method used for a
few years since it was so expensive, but only recently was a new method
invented and it still isn't in commercial use as far as I know (which
means there may still be large problems with it). As a result titanium
has been used little despite its very nice properties and high abundance
in the crust.
> High demand equals high prices in areas of scarcity. It is not like
> the 'economies of scale'. If the 'economies of scale' worked for rare
> resources, the price of diamonds would drop to the point that we're
> burning them for fuel... Economies of scale do NOT work for rare
> resources, only common ones.
While you are right in principle, diamonds are a bad example. There a
near monopoly in supply has created an artificial shortage and boosted
prices. Besides, you can make artificial diamonds nowadays, so in this
case technology has been a solution for most applications of diamonds.
Ian St. John
"Thomas Palm" <Thoma...@chello.removethis.se> wrote in message
news:Xns942FB59BA62F9T...@212.83.64.229...
> "Ian St. John" <ist...@noemail.ca> wrote in
> news:qQOrb.855$IK2....@news20.bellglobal.com:
>
> > So we are dependent on small mines and low level ores. My point was
> > just that. Increase demand by a few magnitudes and you will get a
> > megaprice.
>
> If you only need trace amounts of scandium for each lamp that may affect
> the final price very little.
Until you start replacing a few billion lamps. Note: I was not talking about
the price of the lamps, so much as the price of scandium.
>
> >> But there's no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. We just need
> >> the technology to concentrate them, another application of the idea
> >> that humans create resources by inventing technology.
> >
> > Translation:" "Not a problem. We have technology. Technology is magic.
> > No, I don't have a solution but I can't be bothered looking since I
> > know that it will be solved by magic. "
>
> Even if the problem is solvable one also has to consider how long time it
> will take to solve it. When Kroll in 1946 invented a way of producing
> titanium metal he assumed it would just be a stopgap method used for a
> few years since it was so expensive, but only recently was a new method
> invented and it still isn't in commercial use as far as I know (which
> means there may still be large problems with it). As a result titanium
> has been used little despite its very nice properties and high abundance
> in the crust.
You mean the direct reduction from the oxide? That should really make a
change in the future, especially with weight and price sensitive items.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v407/n6802/abs/407361a0_r.html
>
> > High demand equals high prices in areas of scarcity. It is not like
> > the 'economies of scale'. If the 'economies of scale' worked for rare
> > resources, the price of diamonds would drop to the point that we're
> > burning them for fuel... Economies of scale do NOT work for rare
> > resources, only common ones.
>
> While you are right in principle, diamonds are a bad example. There a
> near monopoly in supply has created an artificial shortage and boosted
> prices. Besides, you can make artificial diamonds nowadays, so in this
> case technology has been a solution for most applications of diamonds.
I was illustrating the principle, not giving a lecture in good analogies. If
you want to pay me, I might take more care, but otherwise I'll just use the
simplest, fastest and easiest example I can find.
You will not that they complain about the 'high price' of scandium.
http://www.home.no/al-sc/
The deposits in Russia seem almost exhausted. On the other hand, there seems
to be a new deposit found in NSW, Australia.
http://www.ameslab.gov/RIC/March99News.html#Australian%20Scandium%20Deposit
Australian Scandium Deposit
A new nickel/cobalt source located just southwest of Port Macquarie on the
central coast of New South Wales, Australia is reported to also be a major
scandium deposit. The discovery of the resource was made by the exploration
and mining company, Jervois Mining NL. The deposit was discovered by
geophysical survey techniques and drilling the host rock which is made up of
laterites underlain by parent serpentinite rocks. The scandium was
unexpectedly discovered when a routine analysis was ordered on drill samples
to see if any valuable metals were present.
The deposit is reported to contain 12.4 million mt of ore at 1.53% Ni
equivalent, which translates into 80,000 mt Ni, 11,000 mt Co, and 500 mt Sc.
The discovery led the prospectors to drill additional holes at nearby
Houston-Michael North, which indicated that there were several scandium-rich
intersections which inferred an additional 40 mt of Sc, making the grade 76
g/mt of ore.
Jervois plans to mine 50-60 mt/yr of Sc during a projected 20-year life of
the mine. The company hopes to produce its scandium to satisfy the future
demand for Sc-Al alloys and Sc-containing aluminum welding wire. Jervois
Mining NL can be contacted via e-mail: jer...@bigpond.com; Tel: 3 9670
3766; Fax: 3 9670 3691.
---------------------------------------------
1200 metric tons over 20 years seems like a lot, until you compare it to
gold where it would make a half a years world output.
And what happens after this deposit runs out? This wasn't a 'magic
technology' cure. It was the simple discovery of a new deposit.
Vito De Lucia
Tim Worstall wrote:
<snip>
> 1) Use of MER giving absurd answers. The " IPCC response " ( for want
> of a better phrase ) seems to me to refute this fine. As it does the
> C&H idea that growth rates are too high, unless I've missed something.
Fine.
> 2) The economic projections contain a number of absurdities. Such as
> N Korea being richer than the US in 2100. Yes, I know this is because
> regional growth rates were assumed , rather than country by country :
> but that simply isn't good enough when we are talking about the
> hundreds of billions of $ implicated in whatever decisions we do take
> : to ignore, mitigate or adjust. I think both C&H and the Economist
> have made their point, and are being fair to point up these what,
> mistakes? failures ? sloppy methods ?
I don't think it is either one of those (mistakes etc). I think you are
focussing on the fact that the outcome in question is very unlikely,
rather than placing it within the overall SRES context and aim. Again,
the exercise was not one of forecasting, but of producing an envelope of
possibilities, even by forcing certain assumptions.
It is clearly stated in the SRES that "Two of the SRES scenario
families, A1 and B1, explicitly explore alternative pathways to
gradually close existing income gaps."
(http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/014.htm#anc3)
One would have to look deep into the input assumptions to see how it is
unlikely, don't you think? As long as it is internally consistent, I see
no problem with that. And, again, the point is not forecasting, but
exploring.
I would have no problems with SRES being performed or reviewed by OECD,
or the WB or any other such organization. In fact, I think it'd be good.
On the other hand, what's wrong with independent modelers or modeling
teams? And, the process was an open one, modelers and modeling teams
were invited to participate openly.
And we are talking not about forecasts, but about scenarios. They are
built purposefully to present a range, not ran to see what is the most
likely state of the world in 2100.
No matter how many times you say you keep that in mind, it still seems
to me that your objections are based on the likelihoods (or lack
thereof) of the outcomes :-)
>
> There is one final item . The SRES and thus the IPCC, claim in their
> scenarios to have considered all likely paths ( excluding those that
> contain mitigation efforts ).
>
> C&H, The Economist and I ( with myself obviously being tail end
> Charlie on this in terms of importance ) all agree.
> I think that much lower emissions figures are not only possible, but
> likely.
Possible, for sure I'd guess. Likely, don't know, perhaps, even probably
but again, you make it a question of likelihood. Off the mark, if you
ask me.
I feel compelled to quote again this bit from IPCC response to C+H:
"[...]the objective is not to “predict” what will, but rather what could
happen under a sequence of (sometimes extreme) events. Scenarios are
therefore mind experiments to assess possible consequences of a series
of “what if… then” developments. Appropriate evaluation criteria are
internal consistency, reproducibility and plausibility of scenario
“logic” rather than “likelihood” or conformity with a priori
expectations of “most likely” chain of events under any particular
temporal (e.g., before or after the “Asian financial crisis”) or
geographical (e.g., OECD) bias.
Scenarios are therefore neither predictions, nor forecasts."
<snipped the rest>
thanks
ciao
Vito
--
Alastair McDonald
"Vito De Lucia" <luciv@nospam_online.no> wrote in message
news:3FB01EA0.4040106@nospam_online.no...
Snip ..
> > 2) The economic projections contain a number of absurdities. Such as
> > N Korea being richer than the US in 2100. Yes, I know this is because
> > regional growth rates were assumed , rather than country by country :
> > but that simply isn't good enough when we are talking about the
> > hundreds of billions of $ implicated in whatever decisions we do take
> > : to ignore, mitigate or adjust. I think both C&H and the Economist
> > have made their point, and are being fair to point up these what,
> > mistakes? failures ? sloppy methods ?
>
> I don't think it is either one of those (mistakes etc). I think you are
> focussing on the fact that the outcome in question is very unlikely,
> rather than placing it within the overall SRES context and aim. Again,
> the exercise was not one of forecasting, but of producing an envelope of
> possibilities, even by forcing certain assumptions.
No, he is picking on one point which goes against the trend. It is like
claiming that because the temperature in Chicago is lower than usual,
then global warming is not happening. N Korea is one of the smallest
countries in economic league tables, Because the IPCC got its
prediction of its future wrong is irrelevant. The changes to the Chinese
economy will swamp any effect from N. Korea!
HTH,
Cheers, Alastair.
Tim Worstall
You really do like to mix it with the wrong people, don't you ? Not
satisfied with pontificating on economic ideas you half understand,
you then try and pronounce on scandium extraction in an argument with
the person who actually deals, on a day to day basis, with half the
world's trade in scandium. Jeez, talk about making it hard for
yourself.
>
> > But there's no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. We just need
> > the technology to concentrate them, another application of the idea
> > that humans create resources by inventing technology.
>
> Translation:" "Not a problem. We have technology. Technology is magic. No, I
> don't have a solution but I can't be bothered looking since I know that it
> will be solved by magic. "
Stop blathering Ian. What I actually said, as below, is that we've
actually gone out there, read the literature, done some experiments
and found a new technology of extraction. And tested it. And what I
didn't say is that we are now in the process of funding the full scale
factory.
And no, it doesn't depend on an ore, or a deposit. We'll be processing
the waste stream from another industrial process : one that's been
going on for the past 80 years and will do for the foreseeable future.
What else ? Oh yes, the concentration is around 100 ppm in the waste
stream. But that's OK, it's profitable to extract . Just as Simon
says, there's no real restriction on mineral resources other than the
actual number of atoms on the planet : because we can, if we need to,
extract from ( near ) basic rock.
>
> > We've had out technology tested by some Canadian Mining Engineers, a
> > subsidiary of SGS. It works, no problem. It was interesting to get a
> > report from last summers conference on scandium mineralogy and find
> > that the general conclusion about future supplies was via the same
> > general process we have been working on for 2 years.
>
> So, you have processess that help lower the cost of extraction as the
> quality of the ore deposites drops. The usual. It always seems to be a
> balance based on what people will pay, so that the drive to extract from
> lower quality ores at lower prices just balances the lower quality of the
> ores to maintain the price.
As above, we're sidestepping the entire deposit / ore process. We're
going out and cleaning up someone else's waste, and in the process
extracting what we want. Just like Gallium is from Bayer Process
residues, Germanium is from zinc residues, and can be from coal fired
power plants, and bauxite can be from fly ash : if it wasn't cheaper
to simply dig it out of the ground.
>
> > And large scale industrial production would bring the price way down
> > as well....a usual effect of such changes.
>
> High demand equals high prices in areas of scarcity. It is not like the
> 'economies of scale'. If the 'economies of scale' worked for rare resources,
> the price of diamonds would drop to the point that we're burning them for
> fuel... Economies of scale do NOT work for rare resources, only common ones.
Sigh. There is no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. There is a
shortage of factories to concentrate them. Presently extraction
methods are small scale , almost lab bench affairs. Build a larger
factory, using industrial rather than lab bench processes : what do
you get ? Economies of scale. Volume produced goes up, price goes
down. Simple really. Our plant will halve the cost of scandium.
I've added a few pieces from your other post :
"You will not that they complain about the 'high price' of scandium.
http://www.home.no/al-sc/"
Indeed they do complain. And if you had looked around that site, under
scandium providers, you would have found me. And an email that I sent
to Jostein, the guy who runs the site, all the way back in 1995.
And as above, I received a report from a conference on scandium
mineralogy. And who gave me that report ? That same Jostein who runs
the web site you just quoted at me. And who was I discussing
extraction , pricing and financing witha couple of weeks ago : I
think you can guess by now.
Please,can you just get this into your head. This is a subject I
really know about. It's not only what I do for a living, it's also
something where I am the, not an , expert.
Your comments on Jervois are amusing. They're not going to open that
mine. The Ni and Co deposit is too small to be worth opening up. And
the Sc values are not large enough to make it so. There are other
similar deposits in Australia, Syerston and Black Rock amongst them.
They won't open either for the same reason.
But even more amusing is that there are large mining companies working
similar ores : the so called Australian Nickel Laterites. And why is
there a flood of people working this ore now ? Because someone
invented a new method of acid leaching a few years ago, which turned
these Ni and Co containing rocks from just that, rock, into a resource
which can be mined. Which is just mine and Simon's point. The
invention of a new technology can create new resources.
And just in case you were wondering, our new factory will not rely
upon that process.
"And what happens after this deposit runs out? This wasn't a 'magic
technology' cure. It was the simple discovery of a new deposit."
As above, you are simply wrong on this. First came the new technology,
allowing economic extraction of Ni and Co from those ores. Then came
the prospecting, to find deposits of the ores. Because before the
extraction method, they were not assets or reserves. They were rock.
Try to get it into your head will you : because technology advances,
we create new resources. And this means that prices go down. Is copper
cheaper now than it was when we started using it 5,000 years ago ?
Yes. Is iron ? Yes. Is scandium cheaper now than it was 10 years ago ?
And has usage gone up from 10 years ago ? Yes to both.
Tim Worstall
> >
> > Tim Worstall
Tim Worstall
Indeed, and as noted, China's emissions are falling in total.
Tim Worstall
>
> HTH,
>
> Cheers, Alastair.
Tim Worstall
I have a basic logical problem with this idea.
SRES, then IPCC and then KP : We're attempting, in the whole process,
to work out what might happen, to see if there is a danger in what
might happen, and thus to help us make a decision about what we should
do : ignore, adapt or mitigate.
Then, when someone says, " We don't need KP, because the original SRES
does not cover all the possibilities " , we're told that they are
scenarios, not predictions or forecasts.
That looks like a get out to me. Either we base hugely expensive
decisions about public policy on the best guesses we can make about
the future, or we don't. If we're not going to base them on our best
guess, then we have abandoned any pretence at either science or
rationality.
I've tried to explain why I think that the envelope of possibilities
does not include what I think is , if not a best guess, at least a
good one, in another thread. And provided at least one example that
stands up ( technological changes in lighting ).
It may be that I am too cynical : I would hope that the fourth
revision will have a wider set of predictions ( NOT scenarios, for the
reason above ) : and that that wider set will include what I regard as
likely, namely faster than currently assumed technological change. But
I don't think that will happen, as there is too much emotional and
political ego invested in GW and KP for any collaborative venture to
come up with the answer " Well, actually, we've had another look and
there's a 20 % likelihood that it won't happen after all ".
Or even what I take to be the truth : " Carbon emissions drop as
societies become more technologically advanced. The best method of
technological advance yet found is free markets, free trade and
capitalism. The solution to GW is therefore to be found in having more
of these three."
Tim Worstall
Ian St. John
Tim. Your problem seems to be ideological blinders and a reading
comprehension problem but that's just my opinion. Since you feel free to
comment on me, I feel that I owe it to you to help you get over it.
>
> >
> > > But there's no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet. We just need
> > > the technology to concentrate them, another application of the idea
> > > that humans create resources by inventing technology.
> >
> > Translation:" "Not a problem. We have technology. Technology is magic.
No, I
> > don't have a solution but I can't be bothered looking since I know that
it
> > will be solved by magic. "
>
> Stop blathering Ian. What I actually said, as below, is that we've
> actually gone out there, read the literature, done some experiments
> and found a new technology of extraction. And tested it. And what I
> didn't say is that we are now in the process of funding the full scale
> factory.
Right. Hand waving. And not even in production. I do realise that you have
to keep up appearance. Exactly what type of ore does the process work with?
What concentrations are necessary. How much can other elements interfere
with the extraction method? When you get it working, let me know and give
some actual fact and figures. We know how little we can count on your empty
hype.
> And no, it doesn't depend on an ore, or a deposit. We'll be processing
> the waste stream from another industrial process : one that's been
> going on for the past 80 years and will do for the foreseeable future.
So this is actually a new technology with VERY limited application? Since
use of Scandium is estimated at five times production, this may make up for
some of the shortfall. How much?
> What else ? Oh yes, the concentration is around 100 ppm in the waste
> stream. But that's OK, it's profitable to extract . Just as Simon
> says, there's no real restriction on mineral resources other than the
> actual number of atoms on the planet : because we can, if we need to,
> extract from ( near ) basic rock.
And how big is the waste stream. 100 ppm at one liter a minute? 100 ppm at
one liter a day? What?
> >
> > > We've had out technology tested by some Canadian Mining Engineers, a
> > > subsidiary of SGS. It works, no problem. It was interesting to get a
> > > report from last summers conference on scandium mineralogy and find
> > > that the general conclusion about future supplies was via the same
> > > general process we have been working on for 2 years.
> >
> > So, you have processess that help lower the cost of extraction as the
> > quality of the ore deposites drops. The usual. It always seems to be a
> > balance based on what people will pay, so that the drive to extract from
> > lower quality ores at lower prices just balances the lower quality of
the
> > ores to maintain the price.
>
> As above, we're sidestepping the entire deposit / ore process. We're
> going out and cleaning up someone else's waste, and in the process
> extracting what we want.
In other words, you are just switching from one ore body to another. The
waste stream IS an 'ore body' by definition if you are extracting your
metals from it.
> Just like Gallium is from Bayer Process
> residues, Germanium is from zinc residues, and can be from coal fired
> power plants, and bauxite can be from fly ash : if it wasn't cheaper
> to simply dig it out of the ground.
With the additional complication that you are now dependent on the economics
and mineralisation of the original ore to which your waste stream is just an
addendum. They may move to a richer deposit with NO scandium as they
explore. You are not the primary objective.
>
> >
> > > And large scale industrial production would bring the price way down
> > > as well....a usual effect of such changes.
> >
> > High demand equals high prices in areas of scarcity. It is not like the
> > 'economies of scale'. If the 'economies of scale' worked for rare
resources,
> > the price of diamonds would drop to the point that we're burning them
for
> > fuel... Economies of scale do NOT work for rare resources, only common
ones.
>
> Sigh. There is no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet.
When you start to talk about scandium by the atom it tends to indicate that
you aren't talking about ore deposits, or you have flipped your wig
entirely.
> There is a
> shortage of factories to concentrate them. Presently extraction
> methods are small scale , almost lab bench affairs. Build a larger
> factory, using industrial rather than lab bench processes : what do
> you get ? Economies of scale. Volume produced goes up, price goes
> down. Simple really. Our plant will halve the cost of scandium.
What you get is a major investment in equipment for what is apparently a
minor production. I doubt if it will halve the price of scadium as long as
demand so far outstrips supply. And at $US2,000 the market is limited.
>
> I've added a few pieces from your other post :
>
> "You will note that they complain about the 'high price' of scandium.
> http://www.home.no/al-sc/"
>
> Indeed they do complain. And if you had looked around that site, under
> scandium providers, you would have found me. And an email that I sent
> to Jostein, the guy who runs the site, all the way back in 1995.
>
> And as above, I received a report from a conference on scandium
> mineralogy. And who gave me that report ? That same Jostein who runs
> the web site you just quoted at me. And who was I discussing
> extraction , pricing and financing witha couple of weeks ago : I
> think you can guess by now.
>
> Please,can you just get this into your head. This is a subject I
> really know about. It's not only what I do for a living, it's also
> something where I am the, not an , expert.
With about 60% of the market, you are indeed well established. This does not
prevent your future fantasies from being 'fantasies', nor does it decrease
the cost of scandium. Let me know when production is equal to consumpion and
then we can talk about lower prices. But also include the reserve/production
ratios of the major sources. We need economical
>
> Your comments on Jervois are amusing. They're not going to open that
> mine. The Ni and Co deposit is too small to be worth opening up. And
> the Sc values are not large enough to make it so. There are other
> similar deposits in Australia, Syerston and Black Rock amongst them.
> They won't open either for the same reason.
>
> But even more amusing is that there are large mining companies working
> similar ores : the so called Australian Nickel Laterites. And why is
> there a flood of people working this ore now ? Because someone
> invented a new method of acid leaching a few years ago, which turned
> these Ni and Co containing rocks from just that, rock, into a resource
> which can be mined. Which is just mine and Simon's point. The
> invention of a new technology can create new resources.
Acid leaching tends to be difficult to contain ( seem any number of gold
mine failures ) and then you have to break up the rock to leach it. Sounds
like a risky venture if Scandium is the only output. It would be critically
depending on high prices and high demand for scandium. No wonder you keep
talking up the metal. If your drop in price ever materialised, the process
would probably be uneconomical.
>
> And just in case you were wondering, our new factory will not rely
> upon that process.
>
> "And what happens after this deposit runs out? This wasn't a 'magic
> technology' cure. It was the simple discovery of a new deposit."
>
> As above, you are simply wrong on this. First came the new technology,
> allowing economic extraction of Ni and Co from those ores. Then came
> the prospecting, to find deposits of the ores. Because before the
> extraction method, they were not assets or reserves. They were rock.
I gather that you are extracting Ni/Co from the acid leaching and then
Scandium from the waste stream? Makes it hard to estimate the 'cost' of the
Scandium, nor does any number shown say how much scandium is to be produced.
And the extraction method is still experimental? The mining industry is
noted as a risky business but this is getting into the 'venture capital'
high risk operations of junior mining companies looking to make a killing by
taking big gambles.
>
> Try to get it into your head will you : because technology advances,
> we create new resources. And this means that prices go down. Is copper
> cheaper now than it was when we started using it 5,000 years ago ?
Yes, copper is cheaper, mostly because of increases in the resources base
( most American copper is produced in South America ) with some contribution
from technology. The electrowinning process replaces flocculation. A
marginal improvement, NOT a major one.
> Yes. Is iron ? Yes. Is scandium cheaper now than it was 10 years ago ?
> And has usage gone up from 10 years ago ? Yes to both.
And due to expanding the resource base from the regional country to the
global markets. You can always lower prices by expanding the resource base
you draw on, as long as there is still some untapped resources.
>
> Tim Worstall
>
>
>
>
> > >
> > > Tim Worstall
Thomas Palm
> a minor production. I doubt if it will halve the price of scadium as
> long as demand so far outstrips supply. And at $US2,000 the market is
> limited.
To get some numbers here. About how much scandium would be needed in
one of these new lamps? This directly affects how much the customer is
willing to pay for the scandium and how much is needed.
Tim Worstall
Perhaps you should read an entire post before commenting. I answered
these questions in the next paragraph or three.
>
> > And no, it doesn't depend on an ore, or a deposit. We'll be processing
> > the waste stream from another industrial process : one that's been
> > going on for the past 80 years and will do for the foreseeable future.
>
> So this is actually a new technology with VERY limited application? Since
> use of Scandium is estimated at five times production, this may make up for
> some of the shortfall. How much?
Much more than all the shortfall. You want 5 tonnes ? 50 tonnes ? 500
tonnes Sc2O3 ? No problem.
>
> > What else ? Oh yes, the concentration is around 100 ppm in the waste
> > stream. But that's OK, it's profitable to extract . Just as Simon
> > says, there's no real restriction on mineral resources other than the
> > actual number of atoms on the planet : because we can, if we need to,
> > extract from ( near ) basic rock.
>
> And how big is the waste stream. 100 ppm at one liter a minute? 100 ppm at
> one liter a day? What?
8.3 million tonnes a year.
Extraction efficiency 75 %.
Nope, they can't.
You are not the primary objective.
>
> >
> > >
> > > > And large scale industrial production would bring the price way down
> > > > as well....a usual effect of such changes.
> > >
> > > High demand equals high prices in areas of scarcity. It is not like the
> > > 'economies of scale'. If the 'economies of scale' worked for rare
> resources,
> > > the price of diamonds would drop to the point that we're burning them
> for
> > > fuel... Economies of scale do NOT work for rare resources, only common
> ones.
> >
> > Sigh. There is no shortage of scandium atoms on the planet.
>
> When you start to talk about scandium by the atom it tends to indicate that
> you aren't talking about ore deposits, or you have flipped your wig
> entirely.
Ian : that's the whole damn point. There is no shortage of scandium.
There is a shortage of technologies to concentrate it. By inventing a
technology to concentrate it, we have created a resource of usuable
scandium. Get it yet ?
>
> > There is a
> > shortage of factories to concentrate them. Presently extraction
> > methods are small scale , almost lab bench affairs. Build a larger
> > factory, using industrial rather than lab bench processes : what do
> > you get ? Economies of scale. Volume produced goes up, price goes
> > down. Simple really. Our plant will halve the cost of scandium.
>
> What you get is a major investment in equipment for what is apparently a
> minor production. I doubt if it will halve the price of scadium as long as
> demand so far outstrips supply. And at $US2,000 the market is limited.
Current price is $ 750. We will sell at $ 400 or so.
>
> >
> > I've added a few pieces from your other post :
> >
> > "You will note that they complain about the 'high price' of scandium.
> > http://www.home.no/al-sc/"
> >
> > Indeed they do complain. And if you had looked around that site, under
> > scandium providers, you would have found me. And an email that I sent
> > to Jostein, the guy who runs the site, all the way back in 1995.
> >
> > And as above, I received a report from a conference on scandium
> > mineralogy. And who gave me that report ? That same Jostein who runs
> > the web site you just quoted at me. And who was I discussing
> > extraction , pricing and financing witha couple of weeks ago : I
> > think you can guess by now.
> >
> > Please,can you just get this into your head. This is a subject I
> > really know about. It's not only what I do for a living, it's also
> > something where I am the, not an , expert.
>
> With about 60% of the market, you are indeed well established. This does not
> prevent your future fantasies from being 'fantasies', nor does it decrease
> the cost of scandium. Let me know when production is equal to consumpion and
> then we can talk about lower prices. But also include the reserve/production
> ratios of the major sources. We need economical
As above, our process will produce 500 tonnes a year at $ 400 per kg
no problems. Demand's not going to go over that in the foreseeable
future.
> >
> > Your comments on Jervois are amusing. They're not going to open that
> > mine. The Ni and Co deposit is too small to be worth opening up. And
> > the Sc values are not large enough to make it so. There are other
> > similar deposits in Australia, Syerston and Black Rock amongst them.
> > They won't open either for the same reason.
> >
> > But even more amusing is that there are large mining companies working
> > similar ores : the so called Australian Nickel Laterites. And why is
> > there a flood of people working this ore now ? Because someone
> > invented a new method of acid leaching a few years ago, which turned
> > these Ni and Co containing rocks from just that, rock, into a resource
> > which can be mined. Which is just mine and Simon's point. The
> > invention of a new technology can create new resources.
>
> Acid leaching tends to be difficult to contain ( seem any number of gold
> mine failures ) and then you have to break up the rock to leach it. Sounds
> like a risky venture if Scandium is the only output. It would be critically
> depending on high prices and high demand for scandium. No wonder you keep
> talking up the metal. If your drop in price ever materialised, the process
> would probably be uneconomical.
As below, we are not going to use that method or resource.
>
>
> >
> > And just in case you were wondering, our new factory will not rely
> > upon that process.
> >
> > "And what happens after this deposit runs out? This wasn't a 'magic
> > technology' cure. It was the simple discovery of a new deposit."
> >
> > As above, you are simply wrong on this. First came the new technology,
> > allowing economic extraction of Ni and Co from those ores. Then came
> > the prospecting, to find deposits of the ores. Because before the
> > extraction method, they were not assets or reserves. They were rock.
>
> I gather that you are extracting Ni/Co from the acid leaching and then
> Scandium from the waste stream?
Nope. not even close. Others are thinking about it, but we have a
better, cheaper, larger scale method , and thus a better resource.
Makes it hard to estimate the 'cost' of the
> Scandium, nor does any number shown say how much scandium is to be produced.
> And the extraction method is still experimental? The mining industry is
> noted as a risky business but this is getting into the 'venture capital'
> high risk operations of junior mining companies looking to make a killing by
> taking big gambles.
>
> >
> > Try to get it into your head will you : because technology advances,
> > we create new resources. And this means that prices go down. Is copper
> > cheaper now than it was when we started using it 5,000 years ago ?
>
> Yes, copper is cheaper, mostly because of increases in the resources base
> ( most American copper is produced in South America ) with some contribution
> from technology. The electrowinning process replaces flocculation. A
> marginal improvement, NOT a major one.
As in a previous post, the SW Ex process not only made copper cheaper,
but also allowed extraction from a new and different set of ores :
different chemistry you see. So those previously unusable ores were
converted form unintersting rock into a resource that could be
exploited : by having a new technology. Which is, for the umpteenth
time, my whole point.
Tim Worstall
Ian St. John
Best to start out with a rough BOTE estimate of how much could be used. The
world production of Scandium is about 400 kilograms per year. Worldwide
production of LEDs is about 4 billion units per month, so maybe 50 Billion
units per year, assuming a VERY small increase in popularity.
I think that .65 mm square is a good estimate of led area so .4225 sq mm *
50 billion units = 31125 square meters. With Scandium at 2985 KG per cubic
meter, that means 400 kg's world production gives .134 cubic meter of
scandium or a film 4,300 nanometers thich of the pure Sc. Scandiums atomic
weight is 45 while nitrogen is 14, so the scandium nitride might be
something like 5640 nm ( assuming efficient packing, I couldnt find the
density of Scandium nitride..
Near as I can tell, Scandium Nitride in a thin film grown by molecular beam
epitaxy is on the order of 350 nm thick? It is a thin film formed under
strain from the difference in packing that is under study.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22444.html
So this use might 6% of the worlds Scandium production, assuming no increase
in popularity, to replace current led manufacture.
Given that we already use five times the available production this is a bit
irrelevant though.
Ian St. John
"Tim Worstall" <t...@2xtreme.net> wrote in message
news:825e2890.03111...@posting.google.com...
> "Ian St. John" <ist...@noemail.ca> wrote in message
O.K. Tim. If you say so, and so far we have to take your word since you
haven't backup up a single claim. I can hardly argue with your wishful
thinking so I wish you luck. The world would definitely have a place for a
cheap supply of scandium, even if only for alloys of aluminum in car parts,
so don't think my heckling has been about the claims, so far as the
emptiness of any supporting evidence.
Vito De Lucia
Tim Worstall wrote:
<snip>
>>I feel compelled to quote again this bit from IPCC response to C+H:
>>
>>"[...]the objective is not to “predict” what will, but rather what could
>>happen under a sequence of (sometimes extreme) events. Scenarios are
>>therefore mind experiments to assess possible consequences of a series
>>of “what if… then” developments. Appropriate evaluation criteria are
>>internal consistency, reproducibility and plausibility of scenario
>>“logic” rather than “likelihood” or conformity with a priori
>>expectations of “most likely” chain of events under any particular
>>temporal (e.g., before or after the “Asian financial crisis”) or
>>geographical (e.g., OECD) bias.
>>Scenarios are therefore neither predictions, nor forecasts."
>
>
> I have a basic logical problem with this idea.
> SRES, then IPCC and then KP : We're attempting, in the whole process,
> to work out what might happen, to see if there is a danger in what
> might happen, and thus to help us make a decision about what we should
> do : ignore, adapt or mitigate.
Yes?
> Then, when someone says, " We don't need KP, because the original SRES
> does not cover all the possibilities " , we're told that they are
> scenarios, not predictions or forecasts.
Which is true, but the "someone says" thing isn't clear...
> That looks like a get out to me. Either we base hugely expensive
> decisions about public policy on the best guesses we can make about
> the future, or we don't. If we're not going to base them on our best
> guess, then we have abandoned any pretence at either science or
> rationality.
Tim, I think that if you wanted to do a forecast with such a long time
horizon you'd be sorry. On the other hand, scenarios gives you a range
within which you can expect the reality a 100 years hence to fall. That
gives you a basis for an assessment, although with inherent uncertainties.
Of course, tomorrow a guy could come up with a marvelous invention which
makes the whole issue moot, but are you willing to base public policy on
that theoretical possibility?'
> I've tried to explain why I think that the envelope of possibilities
> does not include what I think is , if not a best guess, at least a
> good one, in another thread. And provided at least one example that
> stands up ( technological changes in lighting ).
>
> It may be that I am too cynical : I would hope that the fourth
> revision will have a wider set of predictions ( NOT scenarios, for the
> reason above ) : and that that wider set will include what I regard as
> likely, namely faster than currently assumed technological change. But
> I don't think that will happen, as there is too much emotional and
> political ego invested in GW and KP for any collaborative venture to
> come up with the answer " Well, actually, we've had another look and
> there's a 20 % likelihood that it won't happen after all ".
> Or even what I take to be the truth : " Carbon emissions drop as
> societies become more technologically advanced.
But what drops is *relative* emissions, not absolute, and absolute is
what counts. Technology hasn't kept the pace of economic and population
growth, overall (on this specific point).
>The best method of
> technological advance yet found is free markets, free trade and
> capitalism. The solution to GW is therefore to be found in having more
> of these three."
I think that that is a proposition which has value under conditions, and
that is to actually start realizing how *unfree* (and sometimes outright
rigged) free markets and free trade really are, and how long is the road
which leads to the inclusion of the real (and social) costs of growth
into the balance sheet. Although I think you would agree on this point.
On the other hand, given the extremely long lag times in terms of
feedback, problems which involve long time horizons are not handled very
well by markets.
thanks
ciao
Vito
Tim Worstall
Yes, I do understand the point. I'm just unhappy with it. Somewhere
between the scenarios stage, and the public policy stage ( remember
the comment " The world will warm by between 1.5 and 5.4 o " or
whatever it was ) the nuances of the uncertainty seem to get dropped.
I have no doubt that following certain economic or development paths
could and would lead to greater warming than we would be comfortable
either ignoring or adapting to. And I similarly have no doubt that
other paths would lead to GW being regarded as a minor irrelevance .
As th end result of the whole process is in fact a public policy
recommendation, I feel that the process itself should take more
account of how public policy itself is set : and should make much
stronger recommendations about how those low emissions paths can be
reached.
In effect,rather more of the " Our scenarios show that a high growth
high technology future ( ie B1T Message ) will reduce emissions " in
the public policy part of the whole shebang.
>
> Of course, tomorrow a guy could come up with a marvelous invention which
> makes the whole issue moot, but are you willing to base public policy on
> that theoretical possibility?'
Yes, I am. But that's because I can already see such marvelous
inventions in the labs as a result of what I do for a living. I won't
be around to collect on a bet made about 50 years in the future, but I
would certainly offer 10 : 1 odds that solar will be competetive with
fossil fuel energy for electricity production on the grid by 2050. To
clarify further, at 2 - 3 cents per KW hour at the point of
consumption. Multilayering of GaN and InN as being worked on at
Lawrence Livermore would get close to it. Recent results with ScN look
even more promising.
>
> > I've tried to explain why I think that the envelope of possibilities
> > does not include what I think is , if not a best guess, at least a
> > good one, in another thread. And provided at least one example that
> > stands up ( technological changes in lighting ).
> >
> > It may be that I am too cynical : I would hope that the fourth
> > revision will have a wider set of predictions ( NOT scenarios, for the
> > reason above ) : and that that wider set will include what I regard as
> > likely, namely faster than currently assumed technological change. But
> > I don't think that will happen, as there is too much emotional and
> > political ego invested in GW and KP for any collaborative venture to
> > come up with the answer " Well, actually, we've had another look and
> > there's a 20 % likelihood that it won't happen after all ".
> > Or even what I take to be the truth : " Carbon emissions drop as
> > societies become more technologically advanced.
>
> But what drops is *relative* emissions, not absolute, and absolute is
> what counts. Technology hasn't kept the pace of economic and population
> growth, overall (on this specific point).
Well, not quite true. Over long periods of time, emissions per capita
have dropped as a result of changes in technology. UK emissions are
lower than they were in 1880 per capita. And we are aware that
population growth is stopping : just the last 40 - 50 years of the
demographic shift to go. No, I haven't run the numbers, but the
current best guess ( UN predictions ) is that peak at 8.5 billion,
decline to 5 billion.
>
> >The best method of
> > technological advance yet found is free markets, free trade and
> > capitalism. The solution to GW is therefore to be found in having more
> > of these three."
>
> I think that that is a proposition which has value under conditions, and
> that is to actually start realizing how *unfree* (and sometimes outright
> rigged) free markets and free trade really are, and how long is the road
> which leads to the inclusion of the real (and social) costs of growth
> into the balance sheet. Although I think you would agree on this point.
Certainly that there are outrageous restrictions ontrade and markets
at present, which need to go. One good start would be the abolition of
the EU, but there of course I am betraying a political bias :-)
>
> On the other hand, given the extremely long lag times in terms of
> feedback, problems which involve long time horizons are not handled very
> well by markets.
And nor are long time horizons handled well by Govts ( how many look
beyond the next election ? ) nor planning : One can only plan on the
basis of current technologies. Planning for a century when we cannot,
by definition, know what changes there will be in T .....
Imagine planning for 2003 in 1903 . One would be, as several people
did, worrying about the grazing land required to support all the
horses necessary to power society.
Tim Worstall
w...@bas.ac.uk
>Yes, I do understand the point. I'm just unhappy with it. Somewhere
>between the scenarios stage, and the public policy stage ( remember
>the comment " The world will warm by between 1.5 and 5.4 o " or
>whatever it was ) the nuances of the uncertainty seem to get dropped.
Well, it seems to me that such a large T range contains within itself
evidence of uncertainty.
The WG1 SFP says: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/008.htm
(apologies for formatting):
"Global average temperature and sea level are projected to rise under all IPCC SRES scenarios.
In order to make projections of future climate, models incorporate past, as well as future emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Hence, they include estimates of warming to date and
the commitment to future warming from past emissions.
Temperature
The globally averaged surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C (Figure 5d) over the period 1990 to 2100. These results are for the full range of 35 SRES scenarios,
based on a number of climate models10, 11.
Temperature increases are projected to be greater than those in the SAR, which were about 1.0 to 3.5°C based on the six IS92 scenarios. The higher projected temperatures and the
wider range are due primarily to the lower projected sulphur dioxide emissions in the SRES scenarios relative to the IS92 scenarios.
The projected rate of warming is much larger than the observed changes during the 20th century and is very likely7 to be without precedent during at least the last 10,000 years, based
on palaeoclimate data.
By 2100, the range in the surface temperature response across the group of climate models run with a given scenario is comparable to the range obtained from a single model run with
the different SRES scenarios.
On timescales of a few decades, the current observed rate of warming can be used to constrain the projected response to a given emissions scenario despite uncertainty in climate
sensitivity. This approach suggests that anthropogenic warming is likely7 to lie in the range of 0.1 to 0.2°C per decade over the next few decades under the IS92a scenario, similar to
the corresponding range of projections of the simple model used in Figure 5d.
Based on recent global model simulations, it is very likely7 that nearly all land areas will warm more rapidly than the global average, particularly those at northern high latitudes in the
cold season. Most notable of these is the warming in the northern regions of North America, and northern and central Asia, which exceeds global mean warming in each model by
more than 40%. In contrast, the warming is less than the global mean change in south and southeast Asia in summer and in southern South America in winter.
Recent trends for surface temperature to become more El Niño-like in the tropical Pacific, with the eastern tropical Pacific warming more than the western tropical Pacific, with a
corresponding eastward shift of precipitation, are projected to continue in many models."
Now quite likely the poor dear media tends to drop a lot of the qualifications
and references, but thats no excuse for blaming the IPCC for it.
-W.
--
William M Connolley | w...@bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/
Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | Disclaimer: I speak for myself
I'm a .signature virus! copy me into your .signature file & help me spread!
Tim Worstall
I'm a great deal less worried about what the media do with it than I
am with what idiot politicians will do with it. Our current lords and
masters in the UK for example have created the Climate Change Levy :
not on the face of it, a bad thing, using price pressure on various
forms of power generation to shift production costs in favour of non
emittive methods. And then the insanity : applying it to nuclear.
Tim Worstall
>
> -W.
w...@bas.ac.uk
>Our current lords and
>masters in the UK for example have created the Climate Change Levy :
>not on the face of it, a bad thing, using price pressure on various
>forms of power generation to shift production costs in favour of non
>emittive methods. And then the insanity : applying it to nuclear.
Yes, this is stupid. But so are other features of it, designed to
pretect coal. It should be simply per unit CO2 emitted.
OTOH, nuclear in the UK is bankrupt with or without the levy, even
with enormous write-offs of R+D. One of the virtues of the Thatcher
privitisations was making this obvious to all.
James Acker
Return to the discussion.
In sci.environment Steve Schulin <steve....@nuclear.com> wrote:
: In article <boh3mf$knu$1...@news.umbc.edu>,
: James Acker <jac...@linux2.gl.umbc.edu> wrote, in part:
Deletions.
:> :> : hockey stick sit for 9 months in the public eye as Fig. 1 in the WG1 TAR
:> :> : Summary for Policymakers without a whit of inkling of the contrary info
:> :> : contained in the body of the TAR.
:> :>
:> :> "Contrary" I think in the eye of a particular beholder (you).
:>
:> : I must admit, I've not seen anyone else mention that the body of the TAR
:> : explicitly notes that our understanding of glacial retreat is quite
:> : inconsistent with the picture painted by that Fig. 1. But I haven't read
:> : most of the literature, so I wouldn't be surprised if the issue is
:> : pointed out elsewhere.
:>
:> Please provide the URL of the Web page with that figure so
:> that I can try to figure out what you're talking about, and the
:> "body of the TAR" section that is apparently in contrast with whatever
:> is shown in the figure.
OK, got it. It's the Mann et al. data plot.
: You want the URL for "Fig 1 in the WG1 TAR Summary for Policymakers"?
: I'm sure you can find it just fine. As for the section in the body of
: the TAR, I'll be happy to provide the quote I'm referring to, and wish
: you all the best in whatever followup you care to perform on your own:
: "...the timing of the onset of glacier retreat implies that a
: significant global warming is likely to have started not later than the
: mid-19th century. This conflicts with the Jones et al. (2001) global
: land instrumental temperature data (Figure 2.1), and the combined
: hemispheric and global land and marine data (Figure 2.7),
So we're talking 50 years here.
As you noted, there certainly is not a hard-and-fast rule
that glaciers have to respond immediately to a surface warming
trend, or that retreat is the only way that they're going to
respond. I believe that I recently read an article about or by
Lonnie Thompson discussing recovery of ice core from receding
Andean glaciers, which (relying on memory here) it said that the
main cause of the recession may be a decrease in humidity, rather
than in increase in warmth. The decrease in humidity is tied to
ocean dynamics offshore.
This is the article I was thinking of, but it doesn't have
the part about humidity that I thought it contained.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031107055850.htm
Quick search indicates that I was actually thinking
about a paper discussing the retreat of Kilimanjaro's glaciers.
This one:
http://geowww.uibk.ac.at/glacio/LITERATUR/kaser_hardy_moelg_bradley_subIJC.pdf
So the question that it engenders is whether the decrease
in humidity that initiated and maintained the retreat of the
Kilimanjaro glaciers is at all related to anthropogenic warming.
And there's no answer for that at this time.
: where clear
: warming is not seen until the beginning of the 20th century. This
: conclusion also conflicts with some (but not all) of the
: palaeo-temperature reconstructions in Figure 2.21, Section 2.3 , where
: clear warming, e.g., in the Mann et al. (1999) Northern Hemisphere
: series, starts at about the same time as in the Jones et al. (2001)
: data. These discrepancies are currently unexplained."
Speaking strictly as a layman, I think it's obvious that
glaciers eventually respond to climate change, but the responses of
glaciers in different regions and sub-climates are bound to be
different.
Jim Acker
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Jim Acker
jac...@gl.umbc.edu
"Since we are assured that an all-wise Creator has observed the
most exact proportions, of number, weight, and measure, in the
make of all things, the most likely way therefore, to get any
insight into the nature of those parts of the creation, which
come within our observation, must in all reason be to number,
weigh, and measure." - Stephen Hales
Tim Worstall
> Tim Worstall <t...@2xtreme.net> wrote:
> >Our current lords and
> >masters in the UK for example have created the Climate Change Levy :
> >not on the face of it, a bad thing, using price pressure on various
> >forms of power generation to shift production costs in favour of non
> >emittive methods. And then the insanity : applying it to nuclear.
>
> Yes, this is stupid. But so are other features of it, designed to
> pretect coal. It should be simply per unit CO2 emitted.
>
> OTOH, nuclear in the UK is bankrupt with or without the levy, even
> with enormous write-offs of R+D. One of the virtues of the Thatcher
> privitisations was making this obvious to all.
Indeed. All for economic clarity I am.
Tim Worstall
>
> -W.
Juan Herberto
gov'ts (how many look beyond the next election?).."-
Really, Tim, you're conflating 'governments' & 'politicians'. Why not
consider 'government' as a 'free market' (albeit with external
shielding) of individuals trading 'visions of the future'? If the
structure is democratic, then an educated electorate should be willing
to weigh & value the various outlooks with some degree of perspicacity.
(and, really, a royal family is a charming burden... hardly disfiguring
to a populace with a sense of humor...) ^..^
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Scot Wilcoxon
The "Articles" page shows there now is a 2,000 year graph, published in 2003.
Have any of you been able to duplicate that yet?
Tim Worstall
> (Tim Worstall wrote) .."nor are long time horizons handled well by
> gov'ts (how many look beyond the next election?).."-
> Really, Tim, you're conflating 'governments' & 'politicians'.
that the non elected officials actually decide policy : well, that's
to state that we don't have any form of democracy. A defensible
position to be sure, but not quite what I think you mean.
Why not
> consider 'government' as a 'free market' (albeit with external
> shielding) of individuals trading 'visions of the future'?
What, something along the lines of public choice theory, the work of
Buchanan, say.OK fine by me.
My current example of why such political market places don't work very
well is over emissions reduction in the Uk. We have something called
the climate change levy. It's supposed to be a tax on carbon emissions
from power generation.All the greenies support it, of course, as do
economically literate people who are not enviro whiners, but are still
convinced that there is some truth to GW. Such an emissions tax is one
of the less awful methods of changing behaviour.
I would probably vote for such a scheme myself, if it were possible to
slice and dice the options that far.
However, this levy is also applied to nuclear power. Why ? Becasue the
Labour Party has a history of opposition to nuclear. That again is a
supportable position on its own. But to tax nuclear because of it's
carbon emissions ? Obviously the work of fools and poltroons.
If the
> structure is democratic, then an educated electorate should be willing
> to weigh & value the various outlooks with some degree of perspicacity.
And where do we get one of these perfect electorates ?
More to my popint is that you vote for a package : and you have to
take the rough with the smooth in that package. I think is can be
argued that by reducing the number of items and decisions that are
contained in that package, and increasing the number of such that are
decided issue by issue, one is actually increasing the freedom of the
citizens.
> (and, really, a royal family is a charming burden... hardly disfiguring
> to a populace with a sense of humor...)
Indeed. And we probably earn more as a country from their existence
than we pay them ( and no this isn't about Crown Estates only ).
But there is one damn good reason not to change the system :
President Blair.
Tim Worstall ^..^
>
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Josh Halpern
Tim Worstall wrote:
>rid...@webtv.net (Juan Herberto) wrote i
>
>
SNIOP....
>>consider 'government' as a 'free market' (albeit with external
>>shielding) of individuals trading 'visions of the future'?
>>
>>
>What, something along the lines of public choice theory, the work of
>Buchanan, say.OK fine by me.
>
>My current example of why such political market places don't work very
>well is over emissions reduction in the Uk. We have something called
>the climate change levy. It's supposed to be a tax on carbon emissions
>from power generation.All the greenies support it, of course, as do
>economically literate people who are not enviro whiners, but are still
>convinced that there is some truth to GW. Such an emissions tax is one
>of the less awful methods of changing behaviour.
>
>I would probably vote for such a scheme myself, if it were possible to
>slice and dice the options that far.
>However, this levy is also applied to nuclear power. Why ? Becasue the
>Labour Party has a history of opposition to nuclear. That again is a
>supportable position on its own. But to tax nuclear because of it's
>carbon emissions ? Obviously the work of fools and poltroons.
>
>
>
Are the costs of the entire nuclear fuel cycle covered by charges, or
does the government pick up a substantial portion??
josh halpern
>>RIDOVEM
>>
>>
Juan Herberto
policy: well, that's to state that we don't have any form of
Minister" show, or not?
(ibid) .."something along the lines of public choice theory.." Right.
(Ibid) .."my.. example of why such market places don't work very well is
over emissions reduction in the UK... an emissions tax is one of the
less awful methods of changing behaviour.."
& you don't really object to it per se...
(ibid) .."the levy is applied to nuclear because... Labor (opposes)
nuclear... To tax nuclear because of carbon emissions is the work of
fools & poltroons.." True enough.
(ibid) .."more to my point... you vote for a package.. reducing the..
items.. in that package...(&) increasing the number decided.. issue by
issue.. is increasing the freedom of the citizens.." I agree, Also, the
'education' on these issues should eventually provoke something more
like that 'perfect electorate' you alluded to. It's going to hurt Labour
if they do poltroonish things (although not right away, probably...),
which also 'educates' those elected.
(ibid) .."President Blair.." I see your point! Actually, I'm envious of
that facet of your system that demands the presence of the head of gov't
to defend his practices in a forum, rather than a press conference...
far more germane. ^..^
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Tim Worstall
> (Tim W wrote) .."to state that the non-elected officials actually decide
> policy: well, that's to state that we don't have any form of
> democracy.." hmmm. So, was there a grain of truth to the old "Yes,
> Minister" show, or not?
A great deal : One of the writers was a political aide to Margaret
Thatcher.
>
> (ibid) .."something along the lines of public choice theory.." Right.
>
> (Ibid) .."my.. example of why such market places don't work very well is
> over emissions reduction in the UK... an emissions tax is one of the
> less awful methods of changing behaviour.."
> & you don't really object to it per se...
Not per se no. My objection to carbon taxes is that they have to be
truly international if they are not to simply handicap one particular
economy : the free rider problem if you wish.....and I don't see a
political way to make that happen.
And my objection to permit trading is that the pressure seems to be to
make them national, or at best regional, rather than the most cost
effective form, which would be global trading.
But those are whinges, not fundamental objections.
>
> (ibid) .."the levy is applied to nuclear because... Labor (opposes)
> nuclear... To tax nuclear because of carbon emissions is the work of
> fools & poltroons.." True enough.
>
> (ibid) .."more to my point... you vote for a package.. reducing the..
> items.. in that package...(&) increasing the number decided.. issue by
> issue.. is increasing the freedom of the citizens.." I agree, Also, the
> 'education' on these issues should eventually provoke something more
> like that 'perfect electorate' you alluded to. It's going to hurt Labour
> if they do poltroonish things (although not right away, probably...),
> which also 'educates' those elected.
>
> (ibid) .."President Blair.." I see your point! Actually, I'm envious of
> that facet of your system that demands the presence of the head of gov't
> to defend his practices in a forum, rather than a press conference...
> far more germane. ^..^
>
I'm also rather in favour of dividing those who do " State " things,
like pin on medals, open hospitals, and act as a focus of patriotism
from those who do " political " things, like decide tax rates and run
the country.
A strong executive Presidency can, at times, find it all too easy to
conflate the two : " To be against my political plans is to be
unpatriotic ".
Tim Worstall
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Thomas Palm
news:825e2890.03111...@posting.google.com:
> truly international if they are not to simply handicap one particular
> economy : the free rider problem if you wish.....and I don't see a
> political way to make that happen.
That is doubtful. All countries impose taxes to finance necessary
activities so to argue that carbon taxes hurt an economy you'd have to
prove that they hurt the economy more than any other tax in place.
I am more concerned about the opposite problem: if everyone imposes carbon
taxes will that lead to higher consumer prices or just lower price for
crude oil. In the latter case it may be good for the oil consuming
countries, but it won't reduce emissions.
> And my objection to permit trading is that the pressure seems to be to
> make them national, or at best regional, rather than the most cost
> effective form, which would be global trading.
> But those are whinges, not fundamental objections.
Apart from administrative details carbon taxes or permit trading are
equivalent, at least if you auction out the permits. A system where you
give emission permits away to some companies is inferior to both from an
efficiency viewpoint, although it may be politically attractive.