Category Archives: evidence

Boston, are you ready?

Yeah, how about warming up the seas a bit more by building pipelines, buying into more explosive methane (*), and encouraging fracked gas people to export? What could it hurt? There are many alternatives, most sketched here on this blog. … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bollocks, Boston, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, disingenuity, ecology, evidence, false advertising, floods, Florida, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, global warming, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, MA, Massachusetts, methane, mitigation, natural gas, NOAA, nor'easters, physics, pipelines, prediction, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, utility company death spiral | 1 Comment

This Earth Day: The Data

(Amendments on 25the April 2016.) Sorry, folks, it’s It’s not just El Niño. El Niño’s have gotten bigger over the years. (Click on image for a larger picture. Use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) (Click on image … Continue reading →

Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, Dan Satterfield, ecology, El Nina, El Nino, ENSO, environment, evidence, Exxon, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, ignorance, James Hansen, John Cook, La Nina, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, organizational failures, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, selfishness, Spaceship Earth, statistics, sustainability, Texaco, the problem of evil, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists, WAIS, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon | Leave a comment

“Number density, not mixing ratio”, from Eli

From this post: There is a cute little number called Loschmidt, the number of molecules in a cubic meter of air at 1 atm and 0° C, 2.6867774(47) x 1025 molecules/m3 … Eli Rabett provides a neat way to see … Continue reading →

Posted in astrophysics, Boltzmann, carbon dioxide, chemistry, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, Eli Rabett, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, Loschmidt, meteorology, methane, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, science, theoretical physics, thermodynamics | Leave a comment

“Things going fast”: Summary of a class on climate disruption taught by Professor Ricky Rood

Dr Ricky Rood is a professor at the University of Michigan, both a meteorologist and climate scientist, and a regular contributor to the climate and weather blogs at Weather Underground. In a post from April 6th (titled “No Way to … Continue reading →

Posted in AMETSOC, Antarctica, Arctic, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, environment, evidence, fossil fuels, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, liberal climate deniers, MA, marine biology, Massachusetts, meteorology, methane, MIchael Mann, natural gas, New England, physics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, Ricky Rood, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon | 1 Comment

Gavin Simpson updates his temperature analysis

See the very interesting discussion at his blog, From the bottom of the heap. It would be nice to see some information theoretic measures on these results, though.

Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, astrophysics, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, carbon dioxide, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, ecology, environment, evidence, Gavin Simpson, Generalize Additive Models, geophysics, global warming, HadCRUT4, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, Kalman filter, maths, meteorology, numerical analysis, R, rationality, reasonableness, splines, time series | Leave a comment

“This solar future is inevitable — the key question is how long it will take” (David Roberts, of VOX)

Here it is: solar photovoltaic (PV) power is eventually going to dominate global energy. The question is not if, but when. Maybe it will happen radically faster than anyone expects — say, by 2050. Or maybe it won’t be until … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, citizenship, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, evidence, exponential growth, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, planning, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, the green century, Tony Seba, zero carbon | 1 Comment

On generating close to point of consumption

I’ve written about Sankey diagrams before, and Professor Kevin Anderson appeals to them to promote demand reduction as a powerful pathway to reducing Carbon emissions. But the overheads associated with transmission and distribution affect large scale generation of solar and … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Cape Wind, citizenship, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, Egbert van Nes, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, local generation, maths, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, sustainability, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 2 Comments

That two degree limit is closer than it appears

The UNFCCC’s COP21 concluded goals which aimed for limiting global warming to C, and certainly keeping it below C, both measured with respect to pre-industrial temperatures. Bad news. According to the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research (“NCAR”), in … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, chaos, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, complex systems, COP21, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, critical slowing down, differential equations, Eaarth, ecology, environment, evidence, exponential growth, extended supply chains, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geoengineering, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, James Hansen, meteorology, mitigation, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, temporal myopia, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Wally Broecker, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Techno Utopias

Professor Kevin Anderson on Techno Utopias. The Paris “COP21” agreement is/was not only expecting miracles, it was counting on them. Y’think climate disruption causes ecosystem disruption: Try geoengineering. Well the answer was simple. If we choose to continue our love … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, complex systems, consumption, COP21, corporate supply chains, denial, disingenuity, economics, environment, ethics, evidence, exponential growth, extended supply chains, FEMA, finance, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, glaciers, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, icesheets, ignorance, IPCC, James Hansen, Kevin Anderson, Lenny Smith, liberal climate deniers, living shorelines, MA, meteorology, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, physics, planning, population biology, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, regime shifts, Sankey diagram, science, sea level rise, selfishness, silly tech devices, Techno Utopias, the right to know, the value of financial assets | 1 Comment

K-Nearest Neighbors: dangerously simple

Yeah, Mathbabe’s got it right: People who use kNN often don’t think about these things. For those who aren’t familiar with this technique, here’s a description from Zhi-Hua Zhou in Ensemble Methods: Foundations and Algorithms (section 1.2.5): “The -nearest neighbor … Continue reading →

Posted in big data, data science, evidence, machine learning | Leave a comment

Life cycle analysis of emissions from various forms of energy converted to electricity

There was a recent discussion regarding the life cycle analysis of various forms of energy, principally to be converted to electricity. Given that everything I know about sustainability and life cycle analysis suggests is it is a very complicated business, … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, anemic data, Anthropocene, biofuels, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, complex systems, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, evidence, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, Life Cycle Assessment, Mark Jacobson, methane, natural gas, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, pipelines, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Tea Party, transparency, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon | 1 Comment

On friction and the duplicity

(Hat tip to Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the Week.) Has Senator Cruz called Dr Carl Mears (video) of Remote Sensing Systems, the maker and interpreter of the sensor Senator Cruz used for his Spencer-Christy-Curry carnival? No. Of … Continue reading →

Posted in AMETSOC, anemic data, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, confirmation bias, corruption, denial, disingenuity, ecology, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, meteorology, model comparison, NCAR, NOAA, obfuscating data, oceanography, physics, rationality, reasonableness, statistics, time series | Leave a comment

Hottest Year on Record

Reposting from Tamino’s blog. And there still are intelligent people out there, including statistician colleagues, who don’t buy the facts of warming. Generally speaking, they have a look at a few time series and get quickly skeptical, failing to realize … Continue reading →

Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Berkeley, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, BLUE, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate zombies, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, kriging, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, Richard Muller, Robert Rohde, science, science education, Tamino, the right to know, time series, University of California Berkeley | Leave a comment

Not too shabby: “What’s warming the world” (Bloomberg Business), and “The siege of Miami” (The New Yorker)

What’s warming the world Infographic allowing the visitor to overlay time series of candidate causes for global warming, and thereby permitting them to draw their own conclusions. And Elizabeth Kolbert’s piece in The New Yorker, brings home the contradictions and … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthropocene, business, climate change, climate data, climate zombies, complex systems, critical slowing down, denial, disingenuity, economics, environment, evidence, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, mitigation, model comparison, time series | Leave a comment

About that “hide the decline” thing …

(Hat tip to Climate Denial Crock of the Week) It’s amazing what you can do when you take words out of context. Watch The Daily Show some time. But that’s entertainment, not governance. Hide the decline? The email doesn’t say … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, climate, climate data, climate disruption, denial, environment, ethics, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, meteorology, oceanography, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, science, temporal myopia | Leave a comment

Climate Conclusions: The American Petroleum Institute (1980)

The following are excerpted from a memorandum quoted by the Inside Climate News team, documenting the minutes of a 29th February 1980 of a task force on climate change at the American Petroleum Institute. Hat tip to Climate Denial Crock … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, American Petroleum Institute, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, denial, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, evidence, Exxon, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorology, natural gas, open data, physics, pipelines, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, selfishness, Standard Oil of California, sustainability, Texaco, the right to know, the value of financial assets | Leave a comment

climate impacts upon corporate supply chains

http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/advisory/consulting/risk/resilience/publications/business-not-as-usual.html https://www.aig.com/Chartis/internet/US/en/TheVulnerabilityofGlobalSupplyChains_tcm3171-663222.pdf http://phys.org/news/2014-02-quantifying-global-chain-due-climate.html http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/06/27/address-climate-risks-supply-chain

Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, chance, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, compassion, COP21, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, economics, evidence, forecasting, games of chance, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, meteorology, optimization, planning, risk, Sankey diagram, science, sustainability | Leave a comment

reblog: “Tiny Data, Approximate Bayesian Computation and the Socks of Karl Broman”

It’s Rasmus Bååth, in a post and video of which I am very fond: http://www.sumsar.net/blog/2014/10/tiny-data-and-the-socks-of-karl-broman/.

Posted in approximate Bayesian computation, Bayesian, Bayesian inversion, empirical likelihood, evidence, likelihood-free, probability, rationality, reasonableness, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search | 1 Comment

On infrared radiation and Earth temperature

Good to review the basics once again. Professors Dave Archer and Ray Pierrehumbert do, in my opinion, some of the best introductions: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature.

Posted in astrophysics, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate models, David Archer, differential equations, diffusion, diffusion processes, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, meteorology, methane, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, Svante Arrhenius | Leave a comment

Courage in Congress

When someone cannot argue on the basis of evidence and logic, a tempting ploy is to discredit their opponent by tarnishing their character. This is, of course, an invalid argument, since it is entirely possible that even one of tarnished … Continue reading →

Posted in Bill Nye, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, corruption, denial, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, global warming, hiatus, ignorance, physics | Leave a comment