Category Archives: bifurcations

“The financial crash and the climate crisis” (The New Yorker Radio Hour)

A great podcast episode. Check out the thoughts of the late Professor Martin Weitzman as well, in “The man who got economists to take climate nightmares seriously“.

Posted in American Statistical Association, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, catastrophe modeling, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate grief, climate justice, climate mitigation, climate nightmares, climate policy, climate zombies, coastal investment risks, flooding, floods, Florida, global warming, global weirding, home resale values, Hyper Anthropocene, objective reality, oceans, Robert Young, Scituate, shorelines, Sir David King, temporal myopia, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, unreason | Leave a comment

on nonlinear dynamics of hordes of people

I spent a bit of last week at a symposium honoring the work of Charney and Lorenz in fluid dynamics. I am no serious student of fluid dynamics. I have a friend, Klaus, an engineer, who is, and makes a … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, biology, Carl Safina, causation, complex systems, dynamic generalized linear models, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecological services, ecology, Emily Shuckburgh, finance, Floris Takens, fluid dynamics, fluid eddies, games of chance, Hyper Anthropocene, investments, Lenny Smith, Lorenz, nonlinear, numerical algorithms, numerical analysis, politics, population biology, population dynamics, prediction markets, Principles of Planetary Climate, public transport, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, sampling networks, sustainability, Timothy Lenton, Yale University Statistics Department, zero carbon, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we'' | 1 Comment

tripleplus ungood: Long run hot climate models are also the most accurate reproducing today and recent past

Patrick Brown and Ken Caldeira dropped a bombshell into the recent (7 Dec 2017) issue of Nature, and the repercussions are echoing around the scientific world. (See, for example, the related article in MIT’s Technology Review.) To be crisp, current … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bifurcations, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate models, critical slowing down, Cult of Carbon, destructive economic development, Global Carbon Project, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Kevin Anderson, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, radiative forcing, Spaceship Earth, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Timothy Lenton, tragedy of the horizon | Leave a comment

Will the Climate `play nice`

An explanation by Dr Jørgen Peder Steffensen, a down-to-earth one, about climate bifurcations. He’s hardly the only scientist that has warned about this. Dr Wally Broecker famously said: The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, dynamical systems, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, Our Children's Trust, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, Wally Broecker | 1 Comment

the Pale Blue Dot, once again

No other perspective matters, however disenfranchised some may feel. For, ignoring that perspective, they will fight Something they cannot beat. Remember, Nature Bats Last.

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, climate change, climate disruption, Donald Trump, dump Trump, environment, Guy McPherson, Hyper Anthropocene | 1 Comment

What’s going on in the ocean off the Northeast United States

Hint: Climate change has somethin’ to do with it. Schematic diagram illustrating the component parts of the AMOC and the 26◦ N observing system. Black arrows represent the Ekman transport (predominantly northward). Red arrows illustrate the circulation of warm waters … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, bifurcations, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, critical slowing down, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, fluid dynamics, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, John Marshall, meteorology, oceanic eddies, oceanography, physics, regime shifts, science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, thermohaline circulation, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | Leave a comment

`Hermine Unique among Storms’

Originally posted on Climate Denial Crock of the Week:
Hermine still developing. Predictions are for it to hold in place off the East Coast for several days, due to a blocking pattern known as a “Rex Block”.  This and many…

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, bifurcations, changepoint detection, climate disruption, coastal communities, Dan Satterfield, ecology, environment, global warming, hurricanes, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorological models, meteorology, nor'easters, oceanic eddies, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, science, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, thermodynamics | Leave a comment

Gustin and companies lack technological and business imagination

Carl Gustin, a consultant to the New England Coalition for Affordable Energy, which “includes many of New England’s major business and industry organizations and labor representatives”, wrote an op-ed in favor of additional natural gas and pipelines for Massachusetts in … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, business, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate disruption, climate economics, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, disruption, distributed generation, economics, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, green tech, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, insurance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, lobbying, local generation, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, methane, microgrids, natural gas, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, regime shifts, regulatory capture, risk, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

Carbon Sinks in Crisis — It Looks Like the World’s Largest Rainforest is Starting to Bleed Greenhouse Gasses

Originally posted on robertscribbler:
Back in 2005, and again in 2010, the vast Amazon rainforest, which has been aptly described as the world’s lungs, briefly lost its ability to take in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its drought-stressed trees were not growing…

Posted in bifurcations, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate disruption, disruption, dynamical systems, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, Lévy flights, Lorenz, Minsky moment, model-free forecasting, physics, population biology, population dynamics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, random walk processes, Ray Pierrehumbert, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, risk, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists | 2 Comments

What makes me nervous

With regard to my comment at hypergeometric | July 13, 2016 at 3:50 pm on Tamino’s blog, someone challenged me on my assertion “Believe me, the +3C-+4C worlds are not places we want to go!” there. I have replied at … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bifurcations, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, complex systems, differential equations, dynamical systems, Eaarth, ecology, environment, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorology, methane, natural gas, oceanography, Principles of Planetary Climate, Ray Pierrehumbert, science, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization | 1 Comment

Germany’s Energiewende aims to make baseload power obsolete

In a December 2015 article in Forbes, William Pentland seeks to answer the question “What is so revolutionary about Germany’s Energiewende?” Mr Pentland begins: Germany’s energy revolution has become the perennial punching bag of American energy policy. In particular, American … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, bifurcations, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, Ecology Action, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, Epcot, feed-in tariff, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, local generation, marginal energy sources, mesh models, microgrids, optimization, planning, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

All I do is complain, complain …

I was reviewing a presentation given as part of a short course in the machine learning genre today, and happened across the following two bullets, under the heading “Strictly Stationary Processes”: Predicting a time series is possible if and only … Continue reading

Posted in bifurcations, chaos, citizen science, convergent cross-mapping, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, engineering, Floris Takens, generalized linear models, geophysics, George Sughihara, ignorance, Lenny Smith, Lorenz, mathematics, maths, meteorology, prediction, probability, rationality, reasonableness, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search, stochastics, Takens embedding theorem, the right to know, time series | 1 Comment

Wind and Solar are Cheaper than Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Right Now

… and that’s based upon levelized cost of energy, without subsidies! See a summary of Lazard’s report, the key chart below: (Click on image to see a larger version. Click on your browser’s Back button to return to blog.) the … Continue reading

Posted in bifurcations, Cape Wind, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, EIA, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, methane, microgrids, natural gas, nuclear power, open data, pipelines, politics, prediction, public utility commissions, PUCs, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, temporal myopia, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power | Leave a comment

Southern Oscillation (SOI) correlated with Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR)

To the climate community this is nothing at all new, but I spotted these time series today and thought they would make a nice exhibit on how something people have direct control over, greenhouse gas emissions, affect a “teleconnection mechanism” … Continue reading

Posted in AMETSOC, bifurcations, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, Dan Satterfield, differential equations, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ENSO, environment, forecasting, generalized linear models, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, IPCC, Mathematica, mathematics, maths, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, numerical software, oceanography, open data, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, state-space models, thermodynamics, time series | Leave a comment

“More benefits for everybody”

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-day-after-how-solar-can-thrive-in-the-post-net-metering-era/408357/

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, ethics, forecasting, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, mesh models, meteorology, microgrids, mitigation, optimization, planning, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, taxes, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

On Changing Things

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. That’s from Buckminster Fuller, a fellow Unitarian.

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Cauchy distribution, clean disruption, climate disruption, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, Disney, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, Epcot, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, physical materialism, planning, rationality, reasonableness, Spaceship Earth, stochastic algorithms | Leave a comment

The Art and Science of Stefan Rahmstorf

Updated, 21st September 2015 I particularly like the last scene from TDAT. James Hansen and Makiko Sato have an update titled “Predictions Implicit in ‘Ice Melt’ Paper and Global Implications”. WHOI has studied the Irminger Sea and continues the study … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, art, bifurcations, carbon dioxide, Cauchy distribution, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, destructive economic development, disingenuity, ecology, economics, education, environment, ethics, Exxon, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, humanism, Hyper Anthropocene, icesheets, IPCC, James Hansen, mathematics, maths, physical materialism, physics, rationality, reasonableness, science, sea level rise, statistics, sustainability, the right to know | Leave a comment

Foul concerns (UPDATE: 14th September 2015)

Updated, 14th September 2015 I submitted a Letter to the Editor of The Westwood Press last week, one which was published in Friday’s paper edition. It did not/has not yet made it online. It was in response to an article … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, Boston, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, EIA, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, methane, microgrids, mitigation, natural gas, pipelines, planning, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, sustainability, temporal myopia, Tony Seba, Westwood, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Bob Inglis: “Energy optimists. Climate realists.”

Kudos. http://climateeye.republicen.org/ http://blog.republicen.org/ http://republicen.org/areyouen/ http://republicen.org/the-solution-element/ http://republicen.org/the-solution-element/realist-guide/ I’m not, by their definition anyway, a conservative. In fact, I’m pretty apolitical these days although I will do things like demonstrate. But it’s completely clear to me this problem isn’t going to get … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, atheism, bifurcations, Bill Nye, bridge to nowhere, capricious gods, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, compassion, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, ecology, economics, education, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, ethics, finance, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, humanism, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, new forms of scientific peer review, NOAA, oceanography, physical materialism, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, sociology, statistics, sustainability, Tea Party, UU Humanists | 1 Comment

Questions About El Nino Answered – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere

Source: Questions About El Nino Answered – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere

Posted in bifurcations, capricious gods, chance, climate change, Dan Satterfield, ensembles, ENSO, games of chance, maths, meteorology, NOAA, nor'easters, oceanography, precipitation, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, spatial statistics | Leave a comment

Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance (from SCAR report)

This is from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (“SCAR”) Annual Report 2014-2015, Bulletin No. 191, August 2015. Ice Sheet Mass Balance The floating ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic Ice Sheet restrain the grounded icesheet flow. Thinning of an ice … Continue reading

Posted in Antarctica, Anthropocene, bifurcations, carbon dioxide, Cauchy distribution, climate, climate change, climate disruption, environment, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, oceanography, physics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, sustainability, WHOI | Leave a comment

“Mother Nature is not sitting idle”

This is an extension of Eli Rabett’s earlier piece. Eli Rabett offers a sobering post. (Click image for larger picture.) That’s from Solomon, Plattner, Knutti, and Friedlingstein, PNAS, 2009, “Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions”.

Posted in Anthropocene, atheism, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, capricious gods, carbon dioxide | Leave a comment

“The Bayesian Second Law of Thermodynamics” (Sean Carroll, and collaborators)

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/08/11/the-bayesian-second-law-of-thermodynamics/ See also.

Posted in approximate Bayesian computation, Bayesian, bifurcations, Boltzmann, capricious gods, dynamical systems, ensembles, games of chance, Gibbs Sampling, information theoretic statistics, Josiah Willard Gibbs, mathematics, maths, physics, probability, rationality, reasonableness, science, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, thermodynamics, Wordpress | Leave a comment

Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change (from grist.org)

“Utilities are shielded by a force field of tedium.” “Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities.” Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change“, a compact introduction, from grist.org. And there’s an additional … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, conservation, consumption, corruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disingenuity, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, education, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, ethics, exponential growth, finance, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, mathematics, maths, meteorology, methane, microgrids, natural gas, optimization, physics, pipelines, politics, prediction, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, solar power, statistics, sustainability, taxes, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

California solar users already affecting per-residence rates of non-solar utility customers

Lead article in the San Francisco Chronicle today addresses how non-solar customers of Pacific Gas & Electric are already carrying a larger burden of the network costs for that utility, costs which are reflected in their rates. This is the … Continue reading

Posted in bifurcations, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, differential equations, dynamical systems, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, environment, exponential growth, finance, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, maths, microgrids, natural gas, pipelines, politics, rationality, reasonableness, solar power, statistics, temporal myopia, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment

The United States Clean Power Plan … It’s time.

“There is such a thing as being too late.”

Posted in Anthropocene, astrophysics, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, ecology, economics, energy, engineering, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, meteorology, oceanography, physics, politics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, statistics, sustainability, Tamino, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, UNFCCC, UU Humanists, Westwood, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

Hansen et al.

Originally posted on Open Mind:
A new paper by Hansen et al., Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous is currently under review…

Posted in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, astrophysics, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, Cauchy distribution, chance, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate zombies, COP21, denial, differential equations, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, floods, forecasting, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, James Hansen, mathematics, maths, meteorology, nor'easters, oceanography, physics, politics, probability, rationality, reasonableness, science, sea level rise, statistics, Student t distribution, Tamino, temporal myopia, the right to know, transparency, UNFCCC, zero carbon | Leave a comment

CO2 experiment: fooling with Earth

Professor Richard D Schwartz wrote, in 2012, a nice article succinctly summarizing the scientific basis for climate change and global warming. Called “An astrophysicist looks at global warming”, he pithily summarized: “Greenhouse gas” warming occurs because the collisional de-excitation time … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, astrophysics, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, chance, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, ignorance, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, science education, temporal myopia, the right to know | Leave a comment

Professor James Hansen responds and explains:

The recent paper by Hansen, Soto, and others has caused a stir, as I suspect it was intended to do so. I posted about this paper earlier. Now Professor Hansen has responded to the critics of his team’s work and … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, arXiv, astrophysics, bifurcations, biology, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, COP21, denial, disingenuity, dynamical systems, ecology, education, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, maths, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, new forms of scientific peer review, NOAA, oceanography, open source scientific software, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, probability, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, sea level rise, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, WAIS, zero carbon | 1 Comment

Tea Party member Debbie Dooley on solar power (from The Guardian)

I support solar energy because of my Tea Party beliefs — not despite them (From Debbie Dooley, in an article at The Guardian, one of the 22 founding members of the Tea Party.) I am a lifelong conservative and, also, … Continue reading

Posted in bifurcations, carbon dioxide, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, economics, efficiency, energy, ethics, finance, fossil fuels, global warming, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, maths, microgrids, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar power, statistics, Tea Party, time series, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbon | Leave a comment