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Comments 23901 to 23950:

23901. william5331 at 06:44 AM on 30 June 2016
       Alpine soils storing up to a third less carbon as summers warm
       

       The fact that the soils of the world still contain 3 times as much carbon as the atmosphere, despite year of chemical agriculture which has sent soil carbon into the atmosphere at a rapid rate is a cause for hope.  Techniques such as no till agriculture put carbon back into the soil and if widely adopted, would start to suck carbon from the atmosphere.  You will be aware that the atmospheric carbon goes up 8ppm and down 6ppm each year indicating how powerful natural processes are.  If we were truly to recruit this and other natural processes, I bet we could start to reduce atmospheric carbon at a surprisingly fast rate.  (of course this must go along with a cessation of using fossil fuels).  Other measures would include spreading beavers throughout all our catchments, ceasing to catch any whales, (see Monbiot's TED talk), increasing forest plantations, incorporating the wood into long lasting structures, burning the waste wood to the charcoal stage for energy and incorporating the charcoal into our soils and so forth.  Nature would like to be our friend if we would just work with her.  If not, she will reap us.

23902. Glenn Tamblyn at 06:19 AM on 30 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Mikw Hillis
       
       From an earlier comment you made "The ozone band at 9.6 is not relevant because there is no O3 in the troposphere".
       
       Not true. Ozone measured at Mauna Loa for example fluctuates around 40 ppb. Tropospheric ozone is formed via photochemical reactions with a number of largely man-made atmospheric pollutants. See here.
       
       If I plug a figure of 40 ppb forTropospheric Ozone into the Modtran calculator at U Chicago, and contrast that with 0 ppb, using a US Standard Atmosphere, the difference is 0.565 W/m². Not in the same league as the forcing from doubling CO2 of 3.7 W/m² but still not trivial -15%

23903. Glenn Tamblyn at 05:42 AM on 30 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Mike Hillis
       
       IR Radiation outside 6-30 micron is still around 15% of total Radiance. Not that trivial. See here for the calculation.

       Total Radiance for a temperature of 288K, emissivity of 1 is 124.178 W/m²/sr

       Band Radiance between 6 & 30 is 105.277 W/m2/sr

       So outside that band is 18.9 W/m2/sr

23904. Jim Eager at 02:57 AM on 30 June 2016
       After 6 years of working on climate at Harvard, I implore it to show the courage to divest
       

       I tink it's kind of rude to not put the guest author's name at top of the article, don't you?

23905. alea at 02:10 AM on 30 June 2016
       Trump and global warming: Americans are failing risk management
       

       Nice article, but I think you need to be a bit careful with your risk management analogies, specifically the one about car seat belts. After seat belts were made compulsory in the UK there was a drop in driver KSI numbers, however there was an increase in pedestrian and cyclist KSI (KSI = killed or seriously injured). This is an example of the law of unintended consequences, drivers wearing seat belts felt an increased level of safety behind the wheel of a car, and as a result engaged in more risky driving (the consequences of which are externalised on vulnerable road users). This type of behaviour is commonly referred too as risk compensation.

23906. MA Rodger at 01:36 AM on 30 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Mike Hillis @195,

       It will be most interesting to see some charts that demonstrate that "upwelling radiation below 6 and above 30, for the purposes of a discussion about the Earth's greenhouse effect and the absorbtion of IR by its atmosphere, is trivial," especially given that chart you linked to @173 (in this thread about Venus) that also shows the "trivial" effect of doubling trace gas CO2.

23907. Tom Curtis at 00:22 AM on 30 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Haze @16:

       "Social media is passing round a stat that only 36 per cent of 18-24 year olds voted. Given that this age group was the most likely to vote Remain, this would imply that if turnout had matched that of higher age groups, Remain coudld have triumphed.

       However, it's not quite as simple as that - this is not real turnout data, and we will in fact never know exactly what proportion of each age group voted. Some quick background: at General Elections, representatives from political parties stand outside polling stations asking for your voting ID number, and collate this information country-wide to figure out who voted (and guess how, based on canvassing data). However, they tend not to at one-off votes, such as referendums, and didn't on Thursday."

       (My emphasis, source)

       So, the "facts" about youth turnout are in fact a statistical inference, and probably with a significant margin of error.  

       That being said, young voters turnouted in much lower numbers than old voters.  It does not follow from that that '"The young" now complaining that "the old" are ruining their future couldn't be bothered to vote'.  More probably, the majority of the young voters who are now complaining felt strongly enough about the issue to be among the young that voted.  Those young have just cause to complain against their fellow young who did not vote, as well as against the elderly who, though unlikely to experience the long term impact, voted against the wishes of those who will. 

23908. Mike Hillis at 00:21 AM on 30 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Upwelling radiation below 6 and above 30, for the purposes of a discussion about the Earth's greenhouse effect and the absorbtion of IR by its atmosphere, is trivial.

       Also, the technologically defined end of the IR spectrum is around 350 um because waves around that length act less like photons and more and more like waves, according to Ian Glass p 27 of "Handbook of Infrared Astronomy"

       "350 um is the wavelength where radio technologies such as superheterodyne receivers tend to be used rather than the optical-style infrared approach, and the radiation starts to be thought of as waves rather than photons"

       I admit to thinking as an IR astronomer because most of my work in the field has been at Mauna Kea, which is high above much of Earth's water vapor, so I automatically didn't consider the difference when talking about the Q-band (17 - 24 micron) absorbing properties of the atmopshere at sea level, where much of the transmittance is brought down to a 20 or 40 %, while it remains a roughly flat 50% transmittance at Mauna Kea up to about 28. I will scan some charts now for the next post.

       For all intents and purposes, transmittance in the N band on Mauna Kea is 100% or darn close to it. The reason we moved, first to Antarctica and then to Hubble, is due to the need to see things in the opaque bands, not because of any improvement in seeing in the N band, or even the Q band, really.

23909. chriskoz at 00:10 AM on 30 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Haze@16,

       The FT "facts" you're refering to are behind paywall; maybe you should refer to another, more accessible source.

       But what you're quoting, supports one of the OP premisses that Brexit campain was based on distorted facts or political myths propagated by Farage/Johnson. Those with degrees/prof jobs were able to see through the lies disseminated and opposed them. Those without were not able to judge the lies as such. They fell victims of the misinformation campaign. Only now they do realise their mistake, hence we have"bregret" now.

       The similarities between brexit instigators' campaign and FF interest misinformation campaign about climate science is so obvious that such correlation cannot be ignored.

       Also, the generation gap between leave/remain voters cannot be ignored. Despite other commenters arguing that the gap is not really there because most yonger voters did not care, those who did care should be treated as a statistical sample of a general population trend. And again, the similarities to intergenerational ethics of climate change is very obvious.

       That des not mean those who voted "leave" are climate science deniers. Such claim would be wrong, OP does not make such a claim. It can only be noted that strong correlation suggests similar mechanisms may be at play. In case of brexit, it can be called "denial of political reality".

       I don't find the OP analysis biased. Those who do, likely do not understand what bias is.

23910. michael sweet at 23:55 PM on 29 June 2016
       Climate's changed before
       

       Doodad,

       Pesticides are invariably a tempory fix that have numerous bad side effect.  I am old enough to remember when doctors gave children penicillin for sore throats and the sore throat went away immediately.  Now penicillin no longer works against most sore throats and stronger drugs are required.  Resistance to Roudup is already (after less than 20 years of widespread use) causing problems in farms using large amounts of herbicides.  There are only a limited amount of pesticides available, after resistance develops to all of them they will no longer work.  After less than 60 years of widespread use resistance to all antibacterials has developed.  In another 60 years these drugs will be even less effective.  Claiming that new pesticides will be developed to solve our AGW caused problems is simply false.

23911. Haze at 19:28 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       I live in Australia and am currently on holiday in UK/Europe and am following Brexit avidly

       Some facts  "The young" now complaining that "the old"  are ruining their future couldn't be bothered to vote.  64% of those eligible to vote didn't so essentially 2 in 3 of "the young"  were not interested.  In contrast 74% of "the  old" or 3 out of 4 did vote.

       The strongest association between voting Remain rather than Leave was possession of a degree followed by having a "professional" job.  These associations were less marked in Scotland.  The strongest association between voting Leave rather than Remain was not having a passport.

       There  is a petition currently with more than 4 million signatures calling for a second referendum.  Hopefully the UK will not leave, it doesn't have to if Article 50 is not invoked, but I think that is not very likely.  

23912. scaddenp at 14:46 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       "The economic elite do best out of free trade and are somwhat isolated from negative impacts of immigration in rough neighbourhoods."

       This is undoubtedly your perception, and definitely a perception supporting Trump is US, but I think reality is rather more complicated (eg changes in productivity, job profiles etc). If you are going to cut yourself off from your major market, I sure cant see how that is going to help poorer neighbourhoods. Do you seriously expect unemployment to go down after exit???

23913. Tom Curtis at 13:45 PM on 29 June 2016
       Climate's changed before
       

       Doodad @529, the global ecology may well take a hit from global warming, but it is likely to take bigger hits from over fishing, over logging, over population and free trade (with the consequent invading species).  Regardless of all of these, it will survive in one form or another, and likely fully recover within 5 million years (ie, approx 0.1% of the age of the Earth).

       Humans, on the other hands are not so lucky.  We are likely to take major hits from global warming, and the direct impact on warm blooded animals of high body mass will hit us very hard, as will the impacts of disease and on our crops of the flourishing of small creatures and cold blooded creatures.  Warm animals of high body mass make up an unusually large proportion of our non plant food sources (with the exception of fish, nearly all of it), and provide us significant services besides.  Small warm blooded creatures and cold blooded creatures make up an unusually large portion of our disease vectors and predators on our crops.  The distinction is not particularly important ecologically, but for us it is vital.

23914. Tom Curtis at 13:36 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       nigelj @12, when you have what was essentially a 50/50 vote, it is false to claim that "the public ... were not seeing progress".  Clearly 50% of the public were seeing enough "progress" (towards what exactly) to be relatively content with the situation.  So, being accurate, some sections of the public found the presence of a significant minority of the people their nation colonized and exploited for hundreds of years making a life in Britain.  Some other sections of the public were confused by what was meant by the terms "sovereignty" and "democracy" such that they described belonging voluntarilly to a treaty organization as a loss of sovereignty (so much so that they could regain their "independence"), or the presence of a committee of elected officials as making the EU "undemocratic" (while apparently the House of Lords does not make Brittain "undemocratic").

23915. Glenn Tamblyn at 13:31 PM on 29 June 2016
       Climate's changed before
       

       Doodad
       
       Here are a few animals that definitely aren't cold blooded that might be of passing relevance to human well being. 1.4 billion cattle and domestic buffalo, 1.9 billion sheep and goats, 1 billion pigs. And 7.4 billion homo sapiens.
       
       Humans and our domestic animals make up around 95% of the mass of larger land animals. Climate change will effect many aspects of the world. But its impact on us is the primary concern!

23916. Tom Curtis at 13:29 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       nigelj @6:

       "Firstly the young are idealistic, and the old more realistic."

       It is the paradox of pragmatism (or realism) that it is impossible to be pragmatic without being idealistic.  That is because to be pragmatic is to be able to shape a course of action that will obtain an objective.  If you have no ideals, you therefore have no objective and cannot be pragmatic in achieving the objectives which you do not have.  Because people do not realize this, most of what passes as pragmatism falls under two rubrics; either simply taking the path of least resistence; or of pursuing ideals you do not care to talk about (presumably because acknowleging them as your ideals will reflect poorly on you).

       Because of this, never trust a self declared pragmatist that cannot or will not tell you the ideal they are making compromises in order to get closer to.

       Because of the paradox of pragmatism, I distrust nigelj's claim.  While it is true that the young often are unaware of the need to make compromises to obtain close to ideal ends, it is also true that the elderly have often abandoned any hope of obtaining near to ideal ends, are are just taking the path of least resistance.  They are not so much "realists" as "cynics".

       More importantly, nigelj's dictum looks like a simple way to evade the fact that the young and the old may have been pursuing different ideals.  The old, it would appear, have been pursuing a narrow, jingoistic ideal while the young have been pursuing an open, humanistic ideal.  Nigelj, I think, is merely trying to rubbish the ideals of youth because in his heart he knows that they ideals behind the "leave" campaign look very much less than ideal in comparison.

23917. nigelj at 13:22 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Scaddenp, fair enough to some extent. However there were a lot of lies or distortions on both sides of the debate. The costs of leaving were exaggerated, the negative impacts of immigration exaggerated, the costs of bureaucracy exaggerated.

       
       I'm just  trying to see both sides of the argument.

       
       I think overall Britain will be slightly worse off economically longer term, and leaving was maybe not a great idea, but the fact is the EU has problems of various sorts, and the public had "had enough" and were not seeing progress, more a grid lock situation. The economic elite do best out of free trade and are somwhat isolated from negative impacts of immigration in rough neighbourhoods. The same sorts of problems are being milked by Trump in America. The point is if things aren't fixed by sensible, middle ground policies, something breaks eventually in spectacular fashion.

       
       As to loss of sovereignty, all free trade agreements involve that to some extent, so Britain aren't escaping anything. Im not sure whats worse, loss of sovereignty to the EU bureaucracy, or to corporations as in the TPPA!

23918. scaddenp at 13:01 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Thanks Tom. I thought they had recinded that when they withdrew from EEA but I see that still applies. Looks like a Swiss have a very complex relationship with EU but principle of no-benefits without accepting the obligations applies. If you want free access to the market, you have to accept a free labour market as well which only makes sense.

23919. Tom Curtis at 12:20 PM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       scaddenp @9, the Swiss trade agreements with the EU guarantees the free movement of persons, so again that is not an acceptable model for the "Leave" campaigners.

23920. scaddenp at 11:25 AM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Elmwood - not really my problem; just stunned really. Not directly related to climate change but from where I sit on the other side of world, it looks like the following similarities:

       • people willing to be lied to if it fits what they hope is true.
       • unwillingness to check arguments
       • blatant willingness to try and have advantages of a policy without the obligations
       • and the probability having to listen in misery while a younger generation asks how people could be so stupid.

       "norway and swizerland are not in the EU either."  Your point? Neither seems to me to  share much in way of economic fundamentals with UK. Norway is member of EEA which guarantees free movement of people (ie labour force) as well as goods and services. Cant see Brexiteers who are screaming for say Polish workers out, being keen to sign for that.

23921. Tom Curtis at 11:20 AM on 29 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Mike Hillis @190 [snip].

       Highlights:

       1)   "the section from 8 to 13 is between 95% and 100% transparent"

       Ignoring the impact of ozone, it is true that the zone between 8 and 13 microns absorbs typically less than 10% of upwelling radiation from the surface as shown in the following diagram:

       

       But radiation  can be not only absorbed, but also scattered; and once absorption and scattering are included it is definitely not the case that the window is 95-100% transparent:

       

       The degree of scattering varies by location, but for tropical regions, and not including scattering by salt or dust, transmittance falls to a mean value of about 0.4 (calculated from Modtran tropical clear sky).  The effect of the back scatter plus reemittance are clearly seen in the Nauru downwelling radiation spectrum @187 above.  In contrast, for very cold, or very high regions (hence with very little H2O) scattering and absorption falls to near zero in that window.  Given that these only account for a small percentage of the Earth's surface, however, a transmittance even in the window of 0.8 is optimistic.

       2)   "the section from 17 to 100 is largely transparent (let's say around 50% on average"

       Not even close.  In fact so far from the truth it is difficult to distinguish from bald face lying:

       

       The best that can be said for Mike Hillis claim is that he is mistaking emission from H2O in the atmosphere for emission from the surface.  The former results in radiation in those wavelengths of about 50% of the surface expected radiation - but that is only because it is radiated from a higher, and colder location by H2O.  That, of course, means radiation in those wavelengths generate a greenhouse effect.

       3)  "If glass were 50% transparent you'd call it tinted"

       Possibly, but the original claim was "the atmosphere is almost 100% transparent or largely transparent to a majority of upwelling wavelengths of IR" and a glass that is 50% absorbing is not "largely transparent".  Hillis claim re tinted glass is a transparent attempt to shift the goal posts.

       4)  "Note his lack of the word "upwelling" and his representing that I was talking about the entire IR spectrum from 700 nanometers to 1 mm, almost all of which is utterly not radiated by Earth"

       Possibly more to the point, note the way Hillis avoids discussing the fact that I discusses to wavelength ranges, ie, the full IR spectrum and the more restricted range observed by IR satellites.  That is because it was ambiguous what HIllis means by "upwelling".

       The fact is that even at 0.7-0.8 microns,a 288 K black body, and hence also the Earth's surface, radiates energy (as can be checked on Spectral Calc).  It certainly radiates at all wavelengths longer than that.  Ergo, unless an intensity restriction is placed on what is considered to be an "upwelling wavelength", the entire IR spectrum has upwelling radiation from the Earth.  If an intensity limit was intended, it should have been stated.  The failure to prescribe it was Hillis fault, not my own.

       Granted that if such an intensity limit has been stated, that would have cut of the higher and lower wavelengths.  Except for tendentious limits, however, it would not have cut of the 4-20 micron range which I also discussed.

       In all, Hillis [snip]... the faults in his presentation (ie, not being explicit about the wavelengths which he considered, and or explicitly stating a radiance threshold to be considered "upwelling").

       [snip]

       Moderator Response:

       [GT] Insulting tone deleted.
       
       The bitching has gone on long enough, irrespective of any ones views about who is at fault.
       
       Everyone cease and desist immediately.
       
       Any future comments containing any such tone or breaches of the code of conduct will be deleted. Stick to the science!

23922. Elmwood at 10:54 AM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       while i appreciate the young and their concern over the current fate of their country, they will be old one day and can vote to return to the EU. why not just accept the will of the people on this, it's not a black and white issue anyways and i don't see how this is something directly related to climate change. 

       norway and swizerland are not in the EU either. 

23923. scaddenp at 10:38 AM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Or just remembering sunny times and forgetting being the sick man of Europe in 1973? Will immigration actually drop? And how much is the perception that immigrants and EU are responsible for changes that are in fact due to automation. I think Brexiteers have somehow deluded themseleves that they can retain the benefits of membership without any of the obligations. Farage has certainly encouraged this. Good luck persuading Merkel on that. 

        

        

23924. Doodad at 10:34 AM on 29 June 2016
       Climate's changed before
       

       Interesting. When you say warmer climates are benificial to cold blooded animals, you only highlight the animals that everyone dislikes(trying to make it sound aweful?). In case you didn't know not all cold blooded animals are lizards, cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes. Similarly, rats and rodents are not the only small mammals either. You could say, the death of pests is a much larger catastrophy than the prospering of pests. No rodents or rats? What are snakes and eagles going to eat? No bugs or pests? A vast majority of animals rely on bugs as their staple diet. So what if the amount of pests increases? Nature has a magical ability called balancing itself. Too much bugs or pests will cause the thriving of birds and other small animals. Or the advancement of pesticides. 

23925. nigelj at 08:39 AM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Why do the young want to remain, and the old leave?

       Firstly the young are idealistic, and the old more realistic.

       Secondly young people have only ever been part of the EU. Older people remember a longer history when Britain was not in the EU, and managed to do ok, and so see it all differently.

       I don't think leaving the EU is a great idea, but I understand why. A lot of problems have built up and not been addressed, and so people have lashed out at the EU. The benefits of free trade have not trickled down to ordinary people much, and there are worries about high rates of immigration, loss of sovereignty, etc. Its all like an earthquake fault rupturing.

23926. william5331 at 06:39 AM on 29 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       If Brexit does occur and it is not yet a done deal, this doesn't necessarily mean that the UK will abandon Carbon mitigation measures.  Exactly the opposite could be the case.  Only time will tell.  What is sure that a small unit such as the UK can be lighter on its feet than a large unit like the EU.  The devil is in the detail.

       However, ask yourselves what motivated America to so want the UK to stay in the EU that they sent their president over there to make the case.  America sees the UK as a convenient pipe line into the EU for various American interests such as imposing the disastrous trade agreement on the EU which is not a trade agreement at all but a restriction of trade agreement.  She also wants to use the EU against Russia   Look at the history of the USA vis a vis other countries.  She has always destroyed emerging democratic movements wherever she found them, replacing them with pet dictators.  The EU in its present form is a dictatorship by a number of unelected commissioners.

       http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/timeline-usa.html

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] You've been warned before about using this forum as an advertising vehicle for your blog (link snipped).  Please cease.

23927. HK at 04:52 AM on 29 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Mike Hillis @190:
       "....because the section from 8 to 13 is between 95% and 100% transparent...."

       Take a look at the downwelling radiation at Nauru in @187.
       This proves that water vapour can emit radiation between 10 and 13 µm and also between 8 and 9.4 µm. The almost total lack of radiation in Barrow at these wavelengths was caused by an almost total lack of water vapour as the temperature there was lower than -30^oC.

       From the Wikipedia article about Kirchhoff's law:
       "For an arbitrary body emitting and absorbing thermal radiation in thermodynamic equilibrium, the emissivity is equal to the absorptivity."

       Which means that if water vapour can emit at these wavelengths mentioned above, it can also absorb at them, although that absorption is pretty weak compared to other parts of the spectrum.
       Regarding the rest of the relevant part of the spectrum – the chart posted by MA Rodger clearly shows that you are wrong about your "50% transparency" claim.

       Spectral radiance from a 288 K blackbody at some wavelengths, given in W/m²/sr/µm:
       4 µm:     0.438
       10 µm:   8.114 (close to maximum)
       30 µm:   1.143
       50 µm:   0.222
       100 µm: 0.018

       Source: SpectralCalc.com

23928. MA Rodger at 03:36 AM on 29 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Mike Hillis @190,

       Are you saying that when you wrote "the atmosphere is almost 100% transparent or largely transparent to a majority of upwelling wavelengths of IR" @178, you meant to say "the troposphere is almost 100% transparent or largely transparent to a majority of upwelling wavelengths of IR"? [snip].

       I also wonder where you base your assertion that the atmosphere (or are we talking 'troposphere' again, although it doesn't matter a jot) is "largely transparent (let's say around 50% on average)" for IR wavelengths between 17 and 100 microns. The graphic below is a reasonably common representation of atmospheric IR absorption and shows rather an absence of transmission all the way up to 70 mocrons. (Elsewhere you can find similar graphics showing this zero transmission continues well beyond 1,000 microns.)

       

       Note also this graphic shows that the level of "upwelling" IR at 4 microns does exceed the level of "upwelling" IR at 100 microns, the latter a wavelength you feel important enough to feature in you analysis. Is there a reason why you are so emphatic that "it doesn't" feature at 4 microns? [snip]. 

       Moderator Response:

       [GT] Hostile tone deleted.
       
       Everyone, time to dial it down and call a halt to the name calling in any form.
       
       Any future posts from anyone guilty of breaches of civility will be deleted.

23929. Mike Hillis at 01:49 AM on 29 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       It doesn't

23930. Mike Hillis at 01:48 AM on 29 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       I said

       "the atmosphere is almost 100% transparent or largely transparent to a majority of upwelling wavelengths of IR"

       Which is true, because the section from 8 to 13 is between 95% and 100% transparent, the section from 17 to 100 is largely transparent (let's say around 50% on average. If glass were 50% transparent you'd call it tinted) leaving only the CO2 band from 13 to 17. (The ozone band at 9.6 is not relevant because there is no O3 in the troposphere unless there was alightning storn or somebody hired ToM Curtis to do the electrical work. 

       Tom quoted me as making

       "the damn fool claim that the majority of IR wavelengths are transparent or largely transparent"

       Note his lack of the word "upwelling" and his representing that I was talking about the entire IR spectrum from 700 nanometers to 1 mm, almost all of which is utterly not radiated by Earth.

       This is the argument style of a BS artist, plain and simple. He knew I said upwelling, but went on to say something utterly different, fully aware of what he was doing.

       (snip) Funny that the moderator said that

       "Tom has shown you in clear error."

       As for the gish gallop of whether Earth radiates 4 microns:

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] The stricken paragraph is argumentative. Please keep the discussion civil. 

       Also, what is the source of the graphic embedded in this comment?

       [RH] Moderation complaint snipped.

23931. woodblock at 23:13 PM on 28 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       I'm 64 and I voted to leave because I firmly believe that the EU is deeply undemocratic. On the other hand I also believe that governments should do more to limit carbon emissions and limit climate change which is why I follow this website. So where do I fit in?

       As I understand it the chart quoted above was taken from a poll before the referendum which was the same poll that predicted a remain vote. It doesn't say what the sample size is or how it was selected. The age range for the actual vote is unknown because the voting is anonymous. To call the chart "How different age groups voted" is wrong.

       Neither campaign covered itself in glory but I would say that when it comes to exaggerated claims then the remain campaign was the worst. 

       It is quite wrong to compare the referendum voting in the UK with belief in climate change in the US.

       Pundits seem to be looking for a single simple reason for the referendum vote but that's a gross over simplification.

       The article seems to be saying that I voted to leave because I'm stupid. I'm not stupid. I may not be wise either but I thought carefully before I voted which is my right. To call it intergenerational theft is insulting. I have three daughters who I love dearly. They all voted remain which is their right but I believe that their future (and mine) would be better outside the EU.

23932. José M. Sousa at 23:05 PM on 28 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       This seems a very biased post concerning Brexit 

       «the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors.»  I consider this utterly ridiculous and untrue!

       Anyway you can´t simply ignore the anxieties of middle and older age people as if they don´t matter. And by the way, the EU isn´t really that interested in fighting climate change. You can´t simply ignore the effects that blind austerity have on the priorities people attach to having a job and fighting climate change. I have a deep concern about climate change but do we think Greeks won´t explore their estimated vast gas reserves if Germany and others keep asfixiating them with harsh austerity?

23933. EmFox at 19:56 PM on 28 June 2016
       Analysis: Is the UK relying on ‘negative emissions’ to meet its climate targets?
       

       Interesting and another important matter that needs dealing with for the sake of meeting climate change challenge. However, as per usual the emphasis is one of dealling with supply-side issues. it bascially keeps with the reformist debate which looks to supply-side technologies and current market mechancisms for climate change mitigation and thereby avoiding challenging matters of consumption and growth. However this post does point out the large problems with this supply-focused agenda but it ialso could do with pointing out how essential it is to also focus on demand-side aspects which are required as this post would appear to offer unvoiced support.

       Unfortunately this is the largely neglected side of dicussion. Politicians who care don't really want to deal with it as they are fearful of the response from the electorate, scientists seem more interested in the higher-tech dicussions of dealing with supply-side and probably hold some bias that human behaviours are hard-wired and unchangeable (for which there is only some very dodgy evidence). Pyschologists also appear to be more concerned with how to win the support of the public for the reformist agenda and with a focus on individuals and not society seem to hold little value for dealing with demand-side.

       However there is plenty of work out there that is gathering momentum from sociologists and human geographers, among others, who recognise human behaviours as not fixed but part of changeable social practices that are embedded in infrastructures, systems of legitimacy and provision which contribute to the normative and affective aspects of how humans relate to them. As a consequence they are highly changeable. I would reccomend for those who wish to explore the demand-side further to, for starters, take a look at work by the Demand Centre under Prof. Elizabeth Shove www.demand.ac.uk/ . It should be blatantly evident for anyone now that climate change mitigation is not merely a technological issue but a social, political and cultural one too.

23934. barry1487 at 12:14 PM on 28 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       For myself, I comment less because most ground is well-trodden.

       Brexit is not, though. It's still too early, AFAICS, to start making calls on what will happen, especially WRT climate policy.

23935. Tom Curtis at 07:54 AM on 28 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Further to my comment @8, it appears that the genuine racists in British society are taking the success of the "Leave" campaign as endorsing their racist views.   I believe that shows my comments to have been on the mark.  Regardless, it is certainly encumbant on those "Leave" voters who are not racists to thoroughly disabuse the racists of their view. 

23936. Tom Curtis at 07:50 AM on 28 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       This is in the way of a comment on moderation, so I apologize to the moderators for the extra work involved but:

       1)  It is a bit stiff being required to remain silent on a topic while Haze is given the benefit of a last (if rather silly) word.  Merely striking through an off topic comment does not remove it from the post, and is not, IMO, an acceptable way to end a off topic discussion.

       2)  When Haze purposely praised the current PM who is in the process of seeking reelection, I avoided discussion of him on the basis that that would be too political.  I find now, however, that his praise is allowed to stand as not being too political while discussion of a former prime minister is struck out as being off topic.  Surely the discussion of a man currently seeking election is more overtly political than that of the man who is long retired.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Normally moderation complaints are offtopic and deleted, but I will let this stand because the situation is unfortunate and I understand your annoyance. However, discussion of Australian politics and merits of PMs is definitely offtopic and tone of conversation was heading south fast. A break has to go in somewhere but I was late to party.

       I will allow a comment offering an alternative forum in which you could both continue to discuss Australian politics.

23937. ianw01 at 07:20 AM on 28 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Unless you are too young to vote.

23938. jipspagoda at 06:34 AM on 28 June 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       From the looks of it, while a larger percentage of younger people voted to remain, far fewer of them turned out to vote.   http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2016/06/24/brexit-demographic-divide-eu-referendum-results/.  You can't complain about the results if you didn't even bother to vote.

23939. Glenn Tamblyn at 19:03 PM on 27 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Haze
       
       Leaving aside the irrelevent Australia dimension, the question of compulsory vs optional voting actually has a relevence to the Brexit question. Young people didn't vote in the same numbers and now are unhappy with the result. If voting had been compulsory, maybe the resut would have been different. Even if not, at least we would have known more clearly that this actually was the will of all the British people.
       
       As to compulsory voting being undemocratic, that seems to be conflating two different ideas as if they are the same thing; democracy, and individual rights. They aren't the same thing.
       
       Democracy is the basic idea of one nobleman male-property-owner male person, one vote. (see how the idea has evolved over time) About the equality of all people. Which in essence is the heart of the traditional concept of the rights of the individual. That all people have equal rights. Note this is not the same as all people have limitless rights.
       
       Then in more recent times Libertarian type thought has construed this as the individual does not have to do many things if they don't want to. Conflating equality of rights with what those rights are. The first is sacrosanct, the seond is a trade off that is the foundation of any society.
       
       In America the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution are collectively referred to as the Bill Of Rights. Other countries implement this in different ways. Something encapsulating what the rights of a citizen are. But what is missing is a comparable idea; A Bill of Responsibilities. Something encapsulating what the obligations of citizens are to the functioning of their society. And what the limits of those obligations are.
       
       Tom Curtis gave a simple example of all driving on the same side of the road. I would suggest that engagement with our society to participate in its good functioning is a citizens responsibility. That doesn't mean everyone should become an MP. But wanting to opt out of engagement with the broader civic society, which not voting is in part, is not on. It is not a breach of some ones rights to compel them to vote. It is an abrogation of their responsibilities if they don't. And some responsibilities actually need to be enforced. As long as that enforcement is totally even handed, I don't see a problem.
       
       Society provides us with most of the things that make life possible and decent; our individual contributions are small compared to that. I don't see it as problematic that we have an obligation to give back in order to make society work.

       Civilisation is the most amazing of human inventions. But it doesn't come for free; there is a price we need to pay to buy a civilisation.

23940. earthquakes at 18:56 PM on 27 June 2016
       Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
       

       earthquake tragedy in china was on 2008. there is volcanoes and earthquake zone in ring of fire. see on information of earthquake prone zones.

23941. Haze at 04:31 AM on 27 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Tom Curtis @12 From what you write it seems that, like many Australians, you may prefer raucous bellowing and "gotcha" moments rather than civilised discussion.  Certainly the Australian press and politicians much prefer discord and aggression to sensible discourse.  As for Howard being a liar, compared with Julia Gillard's performance on the carbon tax  and the current utterly untruthful "Medicscare" being  spriuiked by Bill Shorten, he is a model of moral rectitude. 

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Okay, I appreciate this topic invites politics but this is straying offtopic and well beyond limits of comments policy. Further discussion on Australian politics can go elsewhere.

23942. Paraquat at 01:28 AM on 27 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Hello all, just one more little thing I feel I should say before leaving this topic to rest. I see from some of the replies that I may have inadvertently given the impression that I actually voted in the Brexit referendum. Much as I would have liked to, that was not the case because, among other reasons, I am in the interesting position of being temporarily stateless. I am an expat living in Taiwan, married to a local lady for many years now. Having undergone a lengthy process to become a Taiwanese national, the last required step was to renounce my nationality (Taiwan's naturalization law rejects dual-citizenship). I am awaiting some documents, most importantly a temporary Taiwan ID card, which becomes permanent after one year, at which point I also can also receive a passport, very different from the one I just gave up. During this one-year period, I can't vote or travel outside Taiwan.

       Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up. I didn't vote in the referendum, but did actively support it here in the local expat community, which includes many UK citizens who could (and did) vote. I have no idea if I influenced even a single person to change his/her position, but the discussions were lively enough. I don't know if it wins me any points, but here in Taiwan I qualify as a "migrant" and I'm married to someone of a different race than myself.

23943. Tom Curtis at 01:06 AM on 27 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       HK @188, thanks for the correction.

23944. Tom Curtis at 00:34 AM on 27 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Haze @10, you might as well say that making it compulsory to drive on the left hand side of the road is "anti democratic" as say that compulsory voting it anti democratic.  Because ballots are secret, all that compulsory voting can compell is that you place a ballot paper into the ballot box.  You cannot be required by law to mark an "x", or fill order of preference, or whatever is the method of registering a vote in the jurisdiction, for such a requirement is incompatible with a secret ballot.  So, all that follows from compulsory voting is that nearly the whole voting public vote; and as they are in the voting booth already, the vast majority of them register a valid vote.  In consequence, it becomes impossible to do as is done in the US, ie, to ignore the concerns of a large constituency because by  doing so you sufficiently discourage their interest in voting so that they can be effectively ignored.  If you try it, you end with a parliament increasingly dominated by minor parties who take up the views of those you wished to exclude.

       As to Cameron being a gentleman - I do not value the trait highly.  Gentlemen have been slavers, rapists, murderers and thieves, and their "good breeding" and "good manners" was neither here nor their on the fact that they were villains.  Howard, you you applaud, was happy to lie repeatedly to the Australian people, and when found out, equally happy to have underlings fall on their swords to protect his position.  A gentleman, he may have been, but he was a liar and without honour.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Offtopic and beyond pale.

23945. One Planet Only Forever at 23:49 PM on 26 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Paraquat@1,
       "... politics makes strange bedfellows."

       I would encourage you to better understand how that applies to the supporters of Brexit who only narrowly won the vote.

       Plenty of information is available regarding the type of people appealed to by the promoters of "Leave", including the June 19th episode of the "Last Week Tonight" show that John Oliver hosts on HBO.

       There is no doubt that misleading claim making by promoters of "Leave" was designed to appeal to "..."racists, xenophobes, rednecks, rightwingers, morons"...". The Libertarian UKIP website states it is a non-racist group and yet it has many representatives who clearly make racist comments and its leader has defended racist zenophobic moronic comments made by official representatives of the party. And there is also no doubt that those appeals to such damaging ultimately unsustainable attitudes mainly succeeded. Very few "racists, xenophobes, rednecks, rightwingers, morons" would be expected to vote Remain.

       So although there may be some selective rational reasons for voting Leave, the failure of many voters to understand the totality of the issue when making the decision and basing their decision on the desire to see global humanity advance to a lasting better future for everyone would clearly lead to future failure of any "democracy" including one simply following the definition by Abraham Lincoln.

       It is pretty clear that for humanity to have a future it is essential that only attitudes and actions that can be proven to most likely advance humanity to a lasting better future for all, with all things related to the item being evaluated being rationally considerately responsibly considered, can be allowed to compete for popularity and profitability.
       Without what I have suggested the results of a vote in a "democracy" can easily be seen to be a narrow victory for an unholy marriage of well-meaning voters with "racists, xenophobes, rednecks, rightwingers, morons".

       However, I guess the result of the success of such a cobbled together voting block would be decent as long as those well-meaning voters that chose to be bedfellows with a collective of unsavory characters can effectively eliminate any further influence or success from the "racists, xenophobes, rednecks, rightwingers, morons" in their unacceptable pursuits (beyond getting their votes of support to be part of winning a vote). However it is clear from history that the leaders of pushes to win by appealing to single issue inconsiderate irrational, irresponsible personal desires continue to need to feed that damaging voter base.

       My closing point is that the leader of the Libertarian UKIP group pushing for Leave declared in May that a 52-48 win by Remain would only be the start of a further push for a new vote. That may have been a reason for the foolish decision by the current leaders of Britain to fail to require a clear majority of eligible voters to be the measure of a 'win'. The current PM is rightly resigning his position. But the likes of Boris Johnson who clearly failed to win the majority of votes in the city he used to be Mayor of should also resign, not be considered the likely replacement for PM. And that Libertarian group leader should also clearly not be considered to be a suitable candidate for national leadership.

        

23946. HK at 23:29 PM on 26 June 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Tom @187:
       We are pretty much in agreement, but I want to point out a small error in your last post.
       In your calculation of the window radiation (8-13 µm) you seem to have compared the band radiance with the radiant emittance. Note that the unit of the former is W/m²/sr, while the latter is W/m², without the steradians at the end.

       The correct comparison would be band radiance and radiance (the second row in the right column of the Blackbody Calculator). That increases the window fraction of the radiation from 9.9 to 31.2 %. Your conclusion is of course still true, as 68.8 % of the radiation comes from outside the window region, most of it strongly absorbed by the atmosphere, and there is also some absorption within the window itself, mainly by water vapour and ozone.

       BTW, I was a little puzzled by the dip near 15 µm in Barrow, until I realised that it probably is the result of a temperature inversion. That part of the spectrum is so strongly absorbed by CO₂ that the lower few metres of air is able to block the radiation from the warmer air higher up.

       Spectroscopy can obviously tell us a lot about the conditions in an atmosphere. No wonder it’s the most important tool in astrophysics!

23947. Haze at 23:14 PM on 26 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Tom Curtis@7 You say compulsorty voting in Australia makes it more democratic than the UK.  Surely forcing people to vote is not at all democtratic it is in fact autocracy by the government.  I'm in the UK at he moment and saw the Cameron exit speech.  He came across as a gentleman which cannot be said for any Australian politicians with perhaps the exceptions of Howard and Turnbull.  There has been extensive coverage here of Brexit and the general civility tosward one another by the proponents of each side is an object lesson for  Australia,.. Interestingly in all the hours I have watched and all the articles I have read on the post Brexit referendum there jhas been no mention of climate change.   As far as I, as an outsider, can gather, it is not an issue at all with either the Remain or Leave groups 

23948. MA Rodger at 20:52 PM on 26 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Paraquat @1,

       The evidence suggests there are not enough UK voters in denial over AGW to win a referendum. That is, when asked in a recent survey only 14% disagreed with the statement: “human activity is causing climate change." However. what that evidence does show is that this 14% in denial comprises 10% of Remain voters and 18% of Leave voters. So as you support Brexit and I am very definitely of the opposing view having campaigned to Remain, we can say that you as a Leaver are 80% more likely to be in denial over AGW than I am as a Remainer.

23949. Tom Curtis at 18:13 PM on 26 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       Paraquat @1, the OP in no way said that people voting in favour of BREXIT were deniers, a terminology you introduced to this topic.  It did not even say that BREXIT will result in higher emissions from the UK (or should I say, the soon to be "former UK").  What it does argue is that, depending on how a UK which is no longer a member of the EU structures its relationships with the EU, there will be different sets of risks of increased emissions, and different opportunities for reducing emissions.

       Having said that, many of the leading lights of the BREXIT "leave" campaign are noted AGW deniers.  Given the success of their campaign, it is reasonable to suppose that they will have more influence in future British governments, in which case the UK is likely to lag on its commitments, or even reverse current emissions reductions.

       Further, while I do not think that the majority of people voting to leave were racist, there is no doubt that fear of immigration was a cornerstone of the "leave" campaign.  Given Britain's colonial history, Britain can have no in principle objection to immigration.  If they do, they must acknowledge that they have done a major wrong to such nations as Pakistan, India, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and more especially, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - and make major reparations for that wrong to the indigenous peoples of those nations.

       As I doubt that would be a popular view in Britain, I conclude that the opposition to imigration is Britain is in fact racist.  It represents a view that British immigration to foreign nations is good for the foreigners, but return immigration is a bad thing for the British - a view only sustainable with the view of overwhelming racial superiority that was the ideology of empire.

       I of course, have no reason to believe that you yourself are racist.  You may have voted to leave for reasons having nothing to do with immigration.  You may even have been principled enough to repudiate the racist anti-immigrant rhetoric that was the cornerstone of the 'leave' campaign.  But please do not pretend racism had nothing to do with the schmozzle the British have landed themselves in. 

23950. Tom Curtis at 17:54 PM on 26 June 2016
       Chatham House: Brexit could harm UK climate and energy policy
       

       William @2, the only good, succinct definition of "democracy" is that Abraham Lincoln.  It is government of the people, by the people, for the people.  That is far more than the power to periodically throw out whichever autocratic government currently rules by means of elections, which you reduce democracy to.  Ideally it means electoral laws should be so structured that the representation within parliament matches in proportion the political opinions of the electorate - something that requires either a Hare-Clark system with at least 5 members per electorate, or better Mixed Member Proportional electoral system.  It also requires near full participation by the electorate in each election*.  Systems such as the Westminster system which favour a small number of major parties, particularly if they use a first past the post system, and particularly with low turnouts, as is normally the case in the UK, can be considered as government by less than half of the people at best on most occasions.  To make it worse, the the UK's house of review is almost completely undemocratic.  The UK is, therefore, only imperfectly democratic at best; and significantly less so than, for example, Australia (with compulsory voting, preferential voting, and a far more democratic house of review), or even better, New Zealand with its MMP system.

       I do not know enough to make a precise assessment about the EU.  However, every person with legislative power within the EU is either directly elected from within one or another of the member nations, elected from within a (imperfectly) democratic parliament, or elected by the European Parliament, whose members are directly elected.  It is imperfectly democratic primarilly because the institution with the most control within the EU is indirectly elected by means of the election of national governments by its members (and in which, therefore, European wide issues recieve significantly less scrutiny).  I have seen it stated that the EU is not democratic because the EU parliament cannot initiate legislation, but as the legislation in the Westminster system, with rare exceptions, is initiated by the cabinet rather than the parliament this is not a fundamental issue, especially given that the members of the European Commission are appointed by democratically elected governments, and the President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament.  Overall the EU is imperfectly democratic, just as is the UK and the USA (and Australia and NZ).  It may be possible to make it more democratic, but not without giving the larger nations effectively complete control over EU decisions.

       Finally, it currently is the case that the "incumbents" in the EU can be chucked out be the people of the EU.  Doing so, however, requires chucking out the incumbents not only in the European parliament by direct election, but also the incumbents in the various national governments by direct election in each member state.  What cannot be done is to chuck out the incumbents at all levels of the EU by a direct election in one or two member states only.  No single electorate (ie, member state) of the EU has veto power on government.  That is not a feature that makes the EU less democratic, just as it was no impediment to the democratic nature of the recent referendum that Gibraltar by itself could not overrule the result.

       In sum, you are a person willing to accept an effectively unelected body with a membership based on aristocratic membership, eclesiastical eminence in a single denomination of a single religion, and permanent appointment by governments as a house that can not just review but initiate legislation and veto legislation it does not like as constituting part of a democratic system of government.  Given that your insistence that the EU is not just democratic, but a dictatorship is wholly inconsistent - not to mention slanderous.  There are no doubt ways to improve the EU, and also ways to make it more democratic - but to claim that it is not democratic, and a dictatorship is false on its face.

        

       (* It also requires some form of constitution that requires that government be for the benefit of the people, something certainly lacking in the UK, and the presence of which in the EU seems to be a major irritant for many of those who object to the EU.) 

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