Lumpy science from Ken Caldeira

On Twitter, people will say most anything if it aligns with their beliefs and their cause. In this case, climate scientist Ken Caldeira gets called out over some claims about coal and CO2 by our own Willis Eschenbach. It looks like a clear-cut case of confirmation bias.

If you burn a lump of coal, the greenhouse effect from the carbon dioxide released from burning that coal will, over its lifetime in the atmosphere, heat the Earth about 100,000 times more than the thermal energy released from burning that coal.https://t.co/YyqbNXyew9

— Ken Caldeira (@KenCaldeira) June 20, 2019

Willis replies:

Sorry, can’t replicate that. I’ve calculated the amount of coal to give 1 ppmv increase in CO2. Annually forcing starts at about 1.3 times the energy from burning. After 1000 years forcing gives ~250-400 times the burning energy. Not 100,000 times.

Where’s my error, anyone?

w. pic.twitter.com/BtJXN3q9Vr

— Willis Eschenbach (@WEschenbach) June 21, 2019