I’m not surprised that you are lost FF, How the atmosphere and hydrosphere respond to forcing from a stronger GH effect is physics, one of the biggest problems climate modellers face is coupling the atmosphere and hydrosphere.

That’s childs play compared to forecasting world economic growth which is determined by; politics and just about everything else in the human world, technology, resources, climate, population growth, and God knows what else.

Doesn’t each additional factor square the complexity of the problem? And can you tell me how you meaningfully calculate the growth from technological innovations when you have no idea what those innovations could be?

If you look at the IPCC projections you will see that the economists don’t actually make any predictions as to the economic or even population growth they expect over the coming century, rather they rely on a range of possible scenarios. as a result most of the uncertainty about the IPCC climate projections are a product of these economic uncertainties rather than the physics, which is comparitively simple.

Ultimately the proof is in the pudding, over and over again we have seen economic forecasts for only short periods into the future derailed, whereas the climate warming forecasts made over 25 years ago that relied on the CO2 builtup that’s been observed are still looking good.

Are you interested in taking up the bet FF?

and Phil U said…
i mean..treasury can’t even get twelve-month predictions right..!

Andrew & Phil,

I am amazed at both of your distrust in econometric projections as you stated above but your’re both so fond of the IPCC projections. Doesn’t it occurr to both of you that they’re almost similar type of maths (algorithms) that economists , engineers, physicists, climate scientists are using? I get it that both of you don’t realise that the econometric models that are developed & used by economists use the same matrix decomposition as those models used by climate scientists, nuclear physicists, control & electrical engineers and so forth.

So, you think that matrix decomposition computation in climate numerical modeling is more accurate (since the projections are for decades ahead), then the same matrix decomposition that are used in econometric modeling where the output is projected for decades ahead? I am lost at why you accept one model but reject the other , even they’re both based on the same fundamental algebraic computations.

Phil U,
Did you go to see the live readings by the psychics from Sensing Murder Shows, when they toured your town? They’re currently touring NZ at the moment. These psychics are vultures & leechers since they prey on people who are gullible, such as you. Currency traders including John Key are NOT vultures or leechers, since they don’t prey on gullible people.

Climate change may or may not be correct – I would veer towards it having a certain amount of truth. But as far as I can see the things that will REALLY make a difference to emissions are also GOOD for the economy.

Agriculture emits a lot of methane and nitrous oxide – I am conducting research in this area. We can reduce it somewhat, and should find more methods of reducing it in future. But as we are dealing with natural processes that are already very efficient there is a limit to how much we can reduce these emissions.

Transport however is based on internal combustion engines which are only about 20% efficient. By substituting more efficient transport methods – trains & boats instead of long-distance trucks, electric cars and buses for short-distance commuting etc – we can make enormous reductions in emissions. At the same time we reduce our use of imported oil, saving money and helping the economy. We are also more self-sufficient, which would be very useful if there was a war.

(By the way, hybrid cars are NOT the solution, they don’t save that much fuel and are very expensive. True electric vehicles are much more promising.)

The electricity must come from somewhere. NZ won’t accept nuclear power, I won’t even bother proposing that. We are already overly reliant on hydro and have power shortages when there is a drought, we should be supplementing this with alternative generation methods. Wind is great, but cannot be turned on and off at will. Wave power should be more reliable if developed. New solar technology is very promising. Geothermal power may be the most promising for NZ. But the main disadvantage with some of these is that they are subject to the fluctuations of nature. You need some elements of the grid that you can turn on and off, so our coal stations will still be useful for peak demand into the future.

The fact is that it is far more efficient to generate electricity using coal to run an electric car, than to run a petrol car. This is because a coal fired power station is much more efficient than an internal combustion engine. If we could move towards electric transportation, even if powered by coal, we would massively reduce emissions. We would also reduce costs (less imported oil) and increase self-sufficiency (we have tonnes of coal). The coal will just be exported to China anyway and burnt there if we don’t use it.

The other major area of emissions that is ignored by government and Kyoto is imports. We import loads of plastic junk that just gets thrown away (eg. cheap plastic toys, cheap tools that just break). This is produced in highly unsustainable ways in countries with minimal environmental regulations, who have not signed Kyoto. And every company that moves away from NZ (eg. Fisher & Paykel) exacerbates this problem. If we could reduce imports, and replace them by local manufacturing and longer maintenance of products, we would greatly reduce global emissions. We would also support local businesses and improve the economy no end. But in terms of the Kyoto calculations we would not have reduced emissions at all, which shows Kyoto has little basis in reality.

If we focus on the right things, we can reduce emissions and improve the economy at the same time. We may not be able to become completely carbon neutral, but can make realistic reductions. We may not be able to do this within the framework of Kyoto however.

The purpose is not more revenue but a change in tax regime.

They come from studies of gas bubbles in ice. Can be dated pretty accurately, and measured very precisely. As the atmosphere is considered “well-mixed” (ie pretty much the same everywhere), it doesn’t much matter where you measure (although it has to be said that collecting gases on an ice cap is much better than, say, directly over a marsh). You might care to read IPCC AR4, WG1 report, Chapter 2. It includes a good summary on GHG gases, their sources and sinks. Current methane levels are unprecedented in at least the last 650k years.

The stabilisation in atmospheric methane levels (not going up or down much) is not terribly well understood, but could be related to the draining of natural wetland, amongst other things. But there is considerable concern about methane outgassing from permafrost as it melts, and methane hydrates bubbling off the sea floor as the ocean warms, so we shouldn’t complacent.

Owen: And if there is no problem to solve (which I suspect) then further enriching our soil is a “no regrets” policy

Oh, I think you rather more than “suspect” there’s no real problem, or why else did you lend your name to the recent call for a Royal Commission of Enquiry, which explicitly states:

“We are all of the view that CO2 in the atmosphere is a benefit not a threat to humans, and there is no need to launch a massive assault on our lifestyle, industry and prosperity to solve a non problem.

That’s a pretty explicit denial of any problem, wouldn’t you say?

Owen: Maybe I can suggest you attend a remedial reading or remedial comprehension course..
You’re no slouch with the ad homs yourself, though I wouldn’t classify my original question as an ad hom.
I think it’s a legitimate matter of public interest to know who’s funding your trip to this “conference”. After all, you and your organisation seek to influence public policy in New Zealand, and to know that you have been provided a platform by one of the US’s most active right wing climate denial think tanks helps to provide useful context for the things you advocate. It is interesting to note that real scientific conferences generally don’t pay airfares for those presenting papers.

A further question: Does the Heartland Institute also fund the International Climate Science Coalition, which has many of the same members as the NZ CSC, and whose secretariat seems to be NZ-based, with Terry Dunleavy as a director and Bryan Leyland as Secretary? I note you are on the “Policy Advisory Board”.

But government, and others, seem to assume that when you replace a pine forest with pasture you go from X tonnes of carbon sequestration to zero tonnes.

Nobody “assumes” that – it’s in the Kyoto rules. They state that when you chop down a forest you have to treat the sequestered carbon as lost back to the atmosphere. There are good reasons why that isn’t (completely) true, and it’s an active area for negotiation in post-Kyoto talks. Soil sequestration of carbon is a very interesting area of current research – in particular the use of bio-char to directly add carbon to soils – good for fertility and for locking up carbon.

But of course that’s irrelevant, because you explicitly deny the existence of any problem.

Good luck in New York. I doubt you’ll find your arguments challenged much…

Re conversion to grass. The more interesting issues for me are not so much the amount of sequestration but the side bits..

1. If growing topsoil is a CO2 good, then the annual loss to wind erosion (in particular) becomes an even worse disaster than we thought.

2. And if introducing dairying to the drier parts of the country is very good economics, what are the downsides to irrigation and stream pollution?

3. And if no till cultivation is a monster CO2 good, when does Monsanto get its Nobel Prize?

4. Forty/fifty years ago, old Pat Borthwich used to introduce various so called weeds and perennials to his pastures to give his livestock variety of diet and added health. His reasoning (as an old Pom) was that the introduced Pom livestock had this as part of their heritage. You only had to eat his genuine old English strawberries and tomatoes to know he was on to something.

Be that as it may, Pat was one of those people who instinctively knew that the hugely modified landscape and practices lacked diversity, and that included the *taste* of things.. whether animal, vegetable or fruit. I have a feeling that his old ideas would fit right in with a carbon conscious world, if only because his ideas were balanced.

JC

But government, and others, seem to assume that when you replace a pine forest with pasture you go from X tonnes of carbon sequestration to zero tonnes.

All I am saying is that the end result is not zero and that the pasture cycle is annual and forever, and there is some evidence that over the long term the pasture is superior.

But I don’t know. And nor does anyone else. And yet we are talking of finding landowners for turning forest into pasture. What if we should be paying them?

Dyson also mentions something interesting to me and thats more roots and thinner tops to trees as a result of more CO2. Depending on how increased root competition stacks up, that could mean higher stockings (and thus yields) can be carried in the forests.
It’s also promising for agroforestry (less shading), but beware of an increased lateral spread of roots with pines.

JC

“Hi Owen,
a) Atmospheric methane levels have risen from 715ppb 200 years ago to 1770+ppb today. The increase comes from a few different human sources – pastoral farming is one of them.”

Well, Gareth the Earth is not flat – that is to say it is not a perfect non- differiented globe. How many data points do you think gathered the 200 year old set compared to the current sets. Data must be collected from randomly distributed sites and we still have few points in the oceans. Also 200 years ago the mini ice age ended and things began to warm up. Many experts conclude that the major source of atmospheric methane is wetlands (marchgas) and as they warm up they emit more. (Should I be fart-taxed for restoring the wetland on my property?) Termites, ruminants and a host of other sources make their contribution and we barely understand the system at all. But now methane concentrations are falling and the AGW models don ‘t predict that.
So what is your source that says the increase comes from a few human sources? And if so, what human sources are now causing the decrease?

Then Gareth says:
“b) The work on soil carbon fixation is interesting but not conclusive. Managing soils to fix carbon is a part of the solution, but I thought that you were arguing that is no problem to solve?”

Maybe I can suggest you attend a remedial reading or remedial comprehension course. My point (b) read:
(b) complete the soil research which suggests that turning pine forests into pastures actually increases the carbon dioxide sink of the New Zealand land mass over the long term.

Note: I am suggesting we “complete” the research which “suggests” ie it is currently inconclusive. However very recent US research is making the same suggestion. The researchers said that US and EU agriculture is a poor sink because they feed their livestock on annuals while countries like NZ feed their livestock on deeper rooting perennials.
And if there is no problem to solve (which I suspect) then further enriching our soil is a “no regrets” policy and certainly is much to be preferred to reducing the production from our most successful exporting sector because of a mistaken policy.

Then Gareth moves to the ad hominem:

“By the way, as you’ve argued in the past that you’ve never been funded to hold your views on global warming, who’s paying for you to fly out to the Heartland Institute’s “climate conference” in New York at the beginning of next month? Are you receiving speaker fees?”

Gareth,
I suspect you are confusing me with Al Gore who charges hundreds of thousands for his presentations and makes millions out of his propaganda.
The conference organisers have invited me to present a paper and are paying my air fares. No speakers fees, and I pay for my own extra few days on each side of the conference while I visit friends and colleagues.
The conference has many sections and one deals with the impact of downstream policy. I am not presenting a paper on “global warming” but on the rush to justify draconian interventions in the way we live and locate within our cities in the name of reducing carbon footprints. So I shall be presenting evidence which shows that if you want to reduce the carbon footprint of the urban household the present round of planning fads (promoting public transport, urban limits, higher densities,etc) are all totally wrong headed and misplaced.”
Others will be dealing with global warming and climate science and so on.

I am sticking to what is very old knitting. Much of my research into the futility of “shaping urban form” and the like goes back to the early sixties.
The government paid for most of my University Education in NZ and the Harkness foundation paid me to study at Berkeley where I studied transport economics etc under Mel Webber. So you can write to them and complain if you like.

Cheers.

Since then I always know how we are progressing. If it’s cool, it’s the Ice Age on top, and if it’s warm, well, you know.

Andrew W. 7.5 tonnes of C is about right, but it’s the gas CO2 that we do the sums for credits and debits on. Teenage P rad forest sequesters about 20-30 tonnes of CO2 per ha annually.
Also, most people are keeping quiet about our native forests, which may.. or may not be sequestering CO2. We just may need to knock over the lot if we are to preserve the religion.

JC

The most comprehensive recent study is a modelling comparison project involving eight global economic models and three global energy sector models, with particular attention to representing long-run innovation processes (Edenhofer et al, 2006). Nine of these models found that stabilising atmospheric emissions at 450 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide (CO2) (roughly equivalent to 500 ppm CO2 equivalent (CO2e)) would result in gross world product being no more than 1% lower in 2050 than it would be without emission reductions.

You can get the Treasury modelling (the Infometrics report commissioned by Treasury to test sensitivity to higher carbon prices) from the climate change office: (http://www.climatechange.govt.nz/files/general-equilibrium-analysis.pdf)

I really like this guy Tamino, he does the maths by the book, he trys to avoid the spin, if you look at the graphs in the link you can see that the level of ‘noise’ in the data makes a period as short as 9 years of limited use in assessing climate trends, it’s easy to find several such periods suposedly without warming since 1975, but the overall trend is unmistakable.

You interested in a bet along the lines he talks about?

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/#more-569

Adolf, hydro is the answer. We’re good at it. Nuclear is proven, but the damn things take forever to build and cost a fortune. Hydro doesn’t have that problem. It does have some problems with drought, but if you build enough of the things you still have water.

Your comment is interesting. On that basis I am amazed they consent to having X Ray machines and radiotherapy in NZ, but as you say in many respects a simple lot.

However, of course NZ is the country where nuclear power is confused with nuclear arms. It is the place where as an eminent scientist pointed out there are more radioactive emissions from X Ray machines at Auckland hospital than there would be from a nuclear ship visit. But when did the Luddites ever allow truth to get in the way of lies and deception.

I predict that with declining oil resources it will not be too long before the bug container ships are nuclear powered. No doubt NZ will send it’s products to market by sail, after all we would not want to take advantage of progress would we. Witness the way our agricultural research is hindered by the Luddites.