Guest post by David Middleton

This morning, I received another email from the American Association for the Advancement of Science…

We cannot overstate this: Under the current administration, the future of scientific inquiry and discovery in the U.S. is in serious jeopardy.

You can do something important right now to protect our progress and our planet: become an AAAS member.

Organizations that have propelled us forward — NIH, NOAA, and the EPA, just to name a few — are facing major funding cuts. President Trump has begun the process of pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, putting us in the company of only two other nations to reject this planet-saving agreement.

As scientists, engineers, teachers, students, and science advocates, we must join forces and oppose this administration’s dire proposals for science. We must continue to educate and keep pressure on elected officials to make evidence- and research-based decisions that protect our planet and help all of humankind to progress.

Join today, and you’ll get a free “I Am a Force for Science” water bottle as a thank you.

Thanks in advance for your membership,

Michael Savelli
Chief Information & Engagement Officer
American Association for the Advancement of Science

*Offer valid from May 31, 2017 to June 30, 2017, for new individual members only. There is a limit of one water bottle per membership order. Please allow up to four weeks for domestic delivery and up to five weeks for international delivery. The AAAS water bottle is provided as is without any guarantees or warranty and cannot be exchanged or returned. In association with the product, AAAS makes no warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

I agree!  “Let’s hold them accountable”!

Let’s hold them accountable for the epic failure of their climate models

IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) model vs. HadCRUT4.

“Climate models versus climate reality.”  http://ift.tt/1SgYhT2

“95% of Climate Models Agree: The Observations Must be Wrong.”  http://ift.tt/1f1MDUi

The climate models have never demonstrated any predictive skill.

And the models aren’t getting better. Even when they start the model run in 2006, the observed temperatures consistently track at or below the low end 5-95% range.  Observed temperatures only approach the model mean (P50) in 2006, 2015 and 2016.

The ensemble consists of 138 model runs using a range of representative concentration pathways (RCP), from a worst case scenario RCP 8.5, often referred to as “business as usual,” to varying grades of mitigation scenarios (RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 6.0).

Figure 22. Figure 21 with individual model runs displayed.

SOURCE

When we drill wells, we run probability distributions to estimate the oil and gas reserves we will add if the well is successful.  The model inputs consist of a range of estimates of reservoir thickness, area and petrophysical characteristics.  The model output consists of a probability distribution from P10 to P90.

• P10 = Maximum Case.  There is a 10% probability that the well will produce at least this much oil and/or gas.
• P50 = Mean Case.  There is a 50% probability that the well will produce at least this much oil and/or gas.  Probable reserves are >P50.
• P90 = Minimum Case.  There is a 90% probability that the well will produce at least this much oil and/or gas.  Proved reserves are P90.

Over time, a drilling program should track near P50.  If your drilling results track close to P10 or P90, your model input is seriously flawed.

If the CMIP5 model ensemble had predictive skill, the observations should track around P50, half the runs should predict more warming and half less than is actually observed. During the predictive run of the model, HadCRUT4.5 has not *tracked* anywhere near P50…

Figure 23. Figure 21 zoomed in on model run period with probability distributions annotated.

I “eyeballed” the instrumental observations to estimate a probability distribution of predictive run of the model.

Prediction Run Approximate Distribution

2006 P60 (60% of the models predicted a warmer temperature)
2007 P75
2008 P95
2009 P80
2010 P70
2011-2013 >P95
2014 P90
2015-2016 P55

Note that during the 1998-99 El Niño, the observations spiked above P05 (less than 5% of the models predicted this). During the 2015-16 El Niño, HadCRUT only spiked to P55.  El Niño events are not P50 conditions. Strong El Niño and La Niña events should spike toward the P05 and P95 boundaries.

The temperature observations are clearly tracking much closer to strong mitigation scenarios rather than RCP 8.5, the bogus “business as usual” scenario.

The red hachured trapezoid indicates that HadCRUT4.5 will continue to track between less than P100 and P50. This is indicative of a miserable failure of the models and a pretty good clue that the models need be adjusted downward.

In any other field of science CAGW would be a long-discarded falsified hypothesis.

[From: The Good, the Bad and the Null Hypothesis]

Let’s hold them accountable for their unwillingness to accept a realistic climate sensitivity

Relentlessly shrinking climate sensitivity estimates

Remember how all the news stories keep telling us the evidence is growing and getting stronger than ever “against the skeptics”?

David Stockwell has done a beautiful graph of the value of climate sensitivity estimates that of recent climate research that Steven McIntyre discussed in detail.

The trend looks pretty clear. Reality is gradually going to force itself on the erroneous models.

Indications are that around 20202030 climate sensitivity will hit zero. ;- )

[…]

JoNova

“Let’s hold them accountable” for fraudulently clinging to high climate sensitivities, when all of the recent observation-based evidence indicates that it is quite low.

Since 2011, at lleast 14 studies published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature provide strong evidence that the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—how much the earth’s average surface temperature will rise under a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration—lies near the low end of the IPCC estimates (Figure 5). This recent research includes investigations of the earth’s thermal response to changes in climate forcings that have taken place over the past century, millennium, and over glacial periods.

Figure 5. Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) estimates from new research beginning in 2011 (colored), compared with the assessed range given in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and the collection of climate models used in the IPCC AR5. The “likely” (greater than a 66% likelihood of occurrence) range in the IPCC Assessment is indicated by the gray bar. The arrows indicate the 5 to 95 percent confidence bounds for each estimate along with the best estimate (median of each probability density function; or the mean of multiple estimates; colored vertical line). Ring et al. (2012) present four estimates of the climate sensitivity and the red box encompasses those estimates. The right-hand side of the IPCC AR5 range is actually the 90% upper bound (the IPCC does not actually state the value for the upper 95 percent confidence bound of their estimate). Spencer and Braswell (2013) produce a single ECS value best-matched to ocean heat content observations and internal radiative forcing. http://ift.tt/1SgYhT2

Several of these research findings were published subsequent to the 2013 release of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), and thus were not included in that Assessment. Others were considered in the IPCC AR5, and still others were ignored. And while the IPCC AR5 did reflect some influence on these new low ECS estimates—by expanding its “likely” range of ECS estimates downward to include 1.5°C (the low end was 2.0°C in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) and omitting a “best estimate” value (which had previously been given as 3.0°C in the 2007 report)—it still doggedly held on to its high end “likely” estimate of 4.5°C. This was a disservice to the latest science, but was a necessary step to preserve the IPCC’s reliance on climate projections made by models with an ECS averaging 3.2°C and ranging from 2.1°C to 4.7°C—the same models recently evaluated by Christy and in our AGU presentation. Had the IPCC fully embraced an ECS near 2.0°C—that which the recent literature suggests—it would have had to throw out much of the rest of the report.

Climate models versus climate reality

“Let’s hold them accountable” for fraudulently describing RCP 8.5 as a “business as usual” scenario.

(1) AN INTRODUCTION TO SCENARIOS ABOUT OUR FUTURE

In AR5 four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) describe scenarios for future emissions, concentrations, and land-use, ending with radiative forcing levels of 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 W/m² by 2100. Strong mitigation policies result in a low forcing level (RCP2.6). Two medium stabilization scenarios lead to intermediate outcomes: (RCP4.5, RCP6.0).

RCP8.5 gets the most attention. It assumes the fastest population growth (a doubling of Earth’s population to 12 billion), the lowest rate of technology development, slow GDP growth, a massive increase in world poverty, plus high energy use and emissions. For more about the RCPs see “The representative concentration pathways: an overview” by Detlef P. van Vuuren et al, Climatic Change, Nov 2011.

RCP8.5 assumes a nightmarish world even before climate impacts, resulting from substantial changes to long-standing trends. It provides AR5 with an essential worst case scenario necessary for conservative planning.

Unfortunately scientists often inaccurately describe RCP8.5 as the baseline scenario — a future without policy action: “a relatively conservative business as usual case with low income, high population and high energy demand due to only modest improvements in energy intensity” from “RCP 8.5: A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions” by Keywan Riahi et al in Climate Change, November 2011, This is a material misrepresentation of RCP8.5. Scientists then use RCP8.5 to construct horrific visions of the future. They seldom mention its unlikely assumptions.

A closer look at scenario RCP8.5

RCP 8.5 clearly has little or no basis in reality, much less represent a “business as usual” scenario.

Let’s hold them accountable for their willful disregard of economics

President Trump’s “secret weapon” is the discount rate…

How Climate Rules Might Fade Away

Obama used an arcane number to craft his regulations. Trump could use it to undo them.

by Matthew Philips , Mark Drajem , and Jennifer A Dlouhy
December 15, 2016, 3:30 AM CST

In February 2009, a month after Barack Obama took office, two academics sat across from each other in the White House mess hall. Over a club sandwich, Michael Greenstone, a White House economist, and Cass Sunstein, Obama’s top regulatory officer, decided that the executive branch needed to figure out how to estimate the economic damage from climate change. With the recession in full swing, they were rightly skeptical about the chances that Congress would pass a nationwide cap-and-trade bill. Greenstone and Sunstein knew they needed a Plan B: a way to regulate carbon emissions without going through Congress.

Over the next year, a team of economists, scientists, and lawyers from across the federal government convened to come up with a dollar amount for the economic cost of carbon emissions. Whatever value they hit upon would be used to determine the scope of regulations aimed at reducing the damage from climate change. The bigger the estimate, the more costly the rules meant to address it could be. After a year of modeling different scenarios, the team came up with a central estimate of $21 per metric ton, which is to say that by their calculations, every ton of carbon emitted into the atmosphere imposed $21 of economic cost. It has since been raised to around $40 a ton.

This calculation, known as the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC), serves as the linchpin for much of the climate-related rules imposed by the White House over the past eight years. From capping the carbon emissions of power plants to cutting down on the amount of electricity used by the digital clock on a microwave, the SCC has given the Obama administration the legal justification to argue that the benefits these rules provide to society outweigh the costs they impose on industry.

It turns out that the same calculation used to justify so much of Obama’s climate agenda could be used by President-elect Donald Trump to undo a significant portion of it. As Trump nominates people who favor fossil fuels and oppose climate regulation to top positions in his cabinet, including Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency and former Texas Governor Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy, it seems clear that one of his primary objectives will be to dismantle much of Obama’s climate and clean energy legacy. He already appears to be focusing on the SCC.

[…]

The SCC models rely on a “discount rate” to state the harm from global warming in today’s dollars. The higher the discount rate, the lower the estimate of harm. That’s because the costs incurred by burning carbon lie mostly in the distant future, while the benefits (heat, electricity, etc.) are enjoyed today. A high discount rate shrinks the estimates of future costs but doesn’t affect present-day benefits. The team put together by Greenstone and Sunstein used a discount rate of 3 percent to come up with its central estimate of $21 a ton for damage inflicted by carbon. But changing that discount just slightly produces big swings in the overall cost of carbon, turning a number that’s pushing broad changes in everything from appliances to coal leasing decisions into one that would have little or no impact on policy.

According to a 2013 government update on the SCC, by applying a discount rate of 5 percent, the cost of carbon in 2020 comes out to $12 a ton; using a 2.5 percent rate, it’s $65. A 7 percent discount rate, which has been used by the EPA for other regulatory analysis, could actually lead to a negative carbon cost, which would seem to imply that carbon emissions are beneficial. “Once you start to dig into how the numbers are constructed, I cannot fathom how anyone could think it has any basis in reality,” says Daniel Simmons, vice president for policy at the American Energy Alliance and a member of the Trump transition team focusing on the Energy Department. “Depending on what the discount rate is, you go from a large number to a negative number, with some very reasonable assumptions.”

[…]

Bloomberg

This is worth repeating:

A 7 percent discount rate, which has been used by the EPA for other regulatory analysis, could actually lead to a negative carbon cost, which would seem to imply that carbon emissions are beneficial.

One of the most common ways of estimating the value of oil and gas revenue and reserves is called “PV10.”

PV10 is the current value of approximated oil and gas revenues in the future, minus anticipated expenses, discounted using a yearly discount rate of 10%. Used primarily in reference to the energy industry, PV10 is helpful in estimating the present value of a corporation’s proven oil and gas reserves.

Read more: PV10 Definition | Investopediahttp://ift.tt/2rQH3lr
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We generally use a 10% discount rate when deciding how to allocate current capital.

A 3% discount rate, as used in the SCC calculation, essentially assumes that the time-value of money is insignificant.  I suppose that since it’s OPM (other people’s money), the government doesn’t view the time-value of money as a particularly relevant thing.

Discounting Away the Social Cost of Carbon: The Fast Lane to Undoing Obama’s Climate Regulations

Let’s hold them accountable for the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on greenschist

Why Do Federal Subsidies Make Renewable Energy So Costly?

James Conca , CONTRIBUTOR
I write about nuclear, energy and the environment

On a total dollar basis, wind has received the greatest amount of federal subsidies. Solar is second. Wind and solar together get more than all other energy sources combined.

However, based on production (subsidies per kWh of electricity produced), solar energy, has gotten over ten times the subsidies of all other forms of energy sources combined, including wind (see figure).

Figure Caption: Subsidies for various energy sources normalized to total energy produced by each source for the years 2010, 2013, 2016 and projected for 2019. Data Source: University of Texas

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the University of Texas, from 2010 through 2013, federal renewable energy subsidies increased by 54%, from $8.6 billion to $13.2 billion, despite the fact that total federal energy subsidies declined by 23%, from $38 billion to $29 billion.

[…]

Forbes

If the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions truly is a primary objective, the only energys source which merits subsidization is nuclear power:

Nuclear power absolutely is the leader of the pack at reducing so-called “greenhouse” gas emissions:

If reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important, nuclear power is the obvious answer.  If reducing greenhouse gas emissions at a reasonable cost is important, natural gas is the obvious answer.  If treading water is important, wind is the obvious answer.  If failure is important, solar is the obvious answer.  So, Mr. Dominguez is generally correct.

“The renewables industry has been playing by competitive market rules that have helped to produce good prices,” Amy Francetic, an Invenergy senior vice president, said in an interview. “This is picking and winners and losers in a way that’s troubling.”

Really?  Ms. Francetic, *government* always picks “winners and losers in a way that’s troubling.”

As far as the renewables industry “playing by competitive market rules that have helped to produce good prices”…

Figure 2. Ms. Francetic, Data is laughing at you.

The most recent U.S. Energy Information Administration report on energy subsidies reveals the following:

Solar and wind power are insignificant sources of energy.

Figure 3a. U.S. Energy production by source 2010 & 2013 (trillion Btu), U.S. Energy Information Administration.(Corrected for error in Geothermal Btu shortly after publication.)

Figure 3b. U.S. primary energy production 1981-2015 (million tonnes of oil equivalent), BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Solar and wind power receive massive Federal subsidies.

Figure 4. Federal subsidies by energy source 2010 and 2013 (million 2013 US dollars), U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The solar and wind subsidies are truly massive in $/Btu.

Figure 5. Subsidies per unit of energy by source ($/mmBtu), U.S. Energy Information Administration. (Corrected for error in Geothermal Btu shortly after publication.)

So… By all means…

LET’S HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE!!!