Yup, freezing fog where I am. But there's also a capacity auction this week.. But without some revision in our policy, there'll also be a lag before any new, useful capacity comes online. And currently it's not really economic to build CCGT or OCGT gas if it's only going to be used for stand-by power.

Such is politics..

I agree, developing renewables does make sense so long as you factor in the fact that no renewable technology currently available can be used for base load generation and that the national grid can't take anymore wind.

Doubt there is a vast pool of oil under the UK but there is a couple of hundred years worth of coal under the UK but we can't use that due to the climate change act.

I don't know.

But the history of the Earths atmosphere over geological time show that it started off very similar to Venus....ie 98% CO2 at around 90 bar pressure.

This reduced over time as the advent of life gradually sucked out the gas and converted it into carboniferous rocks, Limestone, coal and the likes.

CO2 levels have been reducing linearly over time and present day levels are the lowest they have ever been in terms of the geological timescale.

They are probably at the lowest they can go without extinguishing life, I seem to remember 0.02% being the level at which plants really start to die off.

If we are to believe that the current minuscule rise in CO2 due to human activity really is to blame for global warming, then the above facts give a much more worrying inconvenient truth, the SUn has been getting hotter linearly over the same period and the Earth has run out of the stuff that is used to regulate global temperatures.

Not sure why you think a rise from 270 to 400 is "minuscule" and I've certainly no idea how you tie in the hotter sun with your facts above. Perhaps if you develop a coherent argument we can show where your misconceptions lie.

But when the atmosphere had much more CO2 it was long before humans appeared and it was hotter and sea levels were far higher, lots of highly populated land masses and agricultural land would be sea.

I sense a theme that is likely to be continued...


And before the Hadean eon, with global temperatures of around 230C, the Earth was a ball of molten rock. I don't think you would have enjoyed either of those options very much.


Well, no, they haven't been "reducing linearly over time", they aren't the lowest they have ever been, and trying to smudge out the variations in CO2 which are closely correlated to climatic changes throughout the Earth's history by appealing to "the geological timescale" is a conjuring trick so inept that nobody is going to fall for it. Well, the Eel might.


Those are levels seen only during glacial periods. You may have noticed that we are not currently in a glacial period. The pre-industrial CO2 level was around 280 ppmv, and that was about the level that had persisted throughout the Holocene, during which all of human civilisation evolved. It didn't seem to be a problem then, and we won't in any case see those levels again for thousands of years.


There is nothing "minuscule" about a >40% rise over pre-industrial levels. And we are not "running out" of CO2 - the mechanism by which this will happen in the distant future (a billion years or so hence) is via the silicate weathering thermostat. It will be a toss-up between whatever life remains on the surface being burned to a crisp, and photosynthesis ceasing to be viable.

So your concerns are hopelessly misplaced. Warming now is the problem. Too much CO2 in the atmosphere is the cause.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...ge2/07_1.shtml

Climate science says CO2 was very much higher millions of years ago and its reducing, either the sun is getting hotter or the climate science is wrong.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebit...ngesrev7.shtml

How did plants exist at all with CO2 that high, the temperature should have killed them?

Instead of just quoting verbatim other peoples opinions, trying using your own brain to figure out the logic behind that.

Good luck with that. But such is politics. See also-

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/05/co2-good-or-bad/

The money angle is still related to CO2's impact on temperature. As that looks to be low, then higher CO2 levels may be a net benefit. But pointing that out is unpopular with the reality deniers. CO2 is bad! Build more renewables.

On which point-

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.word...ction-results/

The headline figure is that 52.4GW of capacity has been bought for £22.50/KW/Year.

This equates to an overall cost of £1179 million, all to be added to electricity bills.In addition, 6.5GW of capacity for 2020/21 was purchased in the 2014 and 2015 auctions, at a cost of £125 million.

But not much of that appears to be new capacity.. So supply margins still seem tight.

or you are just talking rubbish for bizarre political ends. CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere was around 270 parts per million by volume (ppmv) just over 100 years ago, it's now over 400. It's increasing and has been for decades. It's increasing because humans are burning stuff.


Different plants, no humans. If you'd like to put that option to a referendum maybe...

We know the sun is getting hotter. It gets about 1% hotter every 100 million years, and that (coupled with the logarithmic forcing response to increased CO2) is why much higher CO2 levels in the very remote past would have been needed to sustain even present day temperatures. But none of this is in dispute, at least amongst mainstream climate scientists.

What is baffling is why you think it is in any way relevant to Earth's recent history, and why it leads you to claim that CO2 is decreasing, when in fact the undisputed evidence (even amongst crackpots who think it doesn't matter!) is that it is increasing - and very rapidly indeed in the context of your favoured "geological timescales", as is the Earth's temperature.


It would help if you mentioned in passing which bit of the 4.6 billion years of Earth's history you had in mind. Previously you alluded obliquely to the Hadean eon, in which case the answer is simple: there weren't any plants.

But when plants did exist, and CO2 was very high: a) they were different plants (there's this thing called evolution), and b) I've already mentioned the logarithmic forcing of CO2 and the lower solar luminosity. How hot do you think it was?


You lack a sense of irony.

It doesn't look to be low to anyone who isn't a crackpot or a conspiracy loon. Then again, you think that "CO2 prevents warming during the day", so your beliefs in this matter are known to be a tad... unreliable.

And your explanation for the divergence between model predictions and reality is...?


And once again, you believe that CO2 is uniquely able to determine direction and that it somehow can't affect any incoming IR.. Or quantify any effect.

But back to politics and not wasting money. NASA may get budget cuts and a renewed focus on space. Poor Dr Schmidt is not happy, but then there may not be much of a market for a used climate 'scientist'.

That's the divergence you made up in your head, presumably.


No, Eel. That's just you lying again, as science deniers are compelled to do. Have you managed to find even one other crackpot who agrees with you that "CO2 prevents warming during the day"? Being that uniquely wrong must be quite a lonely experience, when you can't even call upon the type of people who infest the comments section of Anthony Watts' website for moral support!


And how unsurprising that you should revel in the influx of science-denying buffoons in the forthcoming Trump administration.

You lack a sense of reverence, you need to take the science data and produce a logical conclusion.

I am glad at least you now agree with me, the suns output is increasing at the same rate the CO2 levels have been decreasing.

In other words, the plants have been regulating the Earths temperature over the lifetime of the Earth.

If a minor local variation from 0.03 to 0.04% CO2 is able to produce such a massive change in the climate then we are truly fooked because it means that now there is no regulation left, the CO2 has all but run out, the plants can't take any more out without starving themselves.

He didn't say that, the science doesn't say that, only you say that.

No, lots of things help regulate the earths temp.

major

global

You are just assembling random words together.

CO2 is one of the things that controls temp on earth. Increase it by 50% to levels never seen by man and temps will rise to levels never seen by man.

I already have. As has almost every scientist who has studied the subject.


Of course I don't agree with you, because that is a statement completely devoid of truth. For a start, the timescale over which solar luminosity is increasing is vastly greater than the timescale over which CO2 levels are changing, and CO2 levels are currently rising, not falling!


There are various thermostat mechanisms which work by altering CO2 levels, operating over a wide range of timescales - but none of them are going to save us from the consequences of injecting vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in such a short period of time.


Your claim that CO2 has "all but run out" is based on your bizarre misunderstanding of the Earth's history, and has no basis in reality. Your belief that the variation is "minor" is simply wrong, as is your belief that it is "local" (unless you think we can also influence the CO2 on other planets!). Your doubt that it can affect the climate as science says it does is an argument from personal incredulity, and can be safely ignored.

You even contradict yourself: on the one hand you claim the increase in CO2 caused by us is "a minor variation", but on the other hand it is apparently essential to leave it alone to stop plants starving themselves!

As an aside, I suspect that - like the Eel - you haven't really understood the logarithmic nature of the temperature response to changes in CO2. I suspect that you also haven't understood that there are natural sources and sinks of CO2, which "conspired" to keep CO2 levels fairly constant throughout the pre-industrial Holocene.

Panto time! Oh yes it has. If you assume the logarithmic nature of warming, how much fossil fuel would we need to burn to get the next doubling of CO2 levels? And where might it be?

But back to 'science'-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37902773

The world's largest cold energy storage plant is being commissioned at a site near Manchester.

..The 5MW plant near Manchester can power up to 5,000 homes for around three hours.

And back to politics.. how much electricity can each home use, and what's the cost?

(and back to engineering... Stirling engines..)

Come, climate models don't have a particularlly good track record when it comes tp prediction.

You seem to have got the wrong idea about the logarithmic effect.

Indeed the temperature change is logarithmic in the face of a linear increase in CO2 levels. However, the forcing effect gets weaker as time goes by, not stronger.

We have already seen the strongest forcing effect on temperature from our CO2 emissions. What was the 20th century rise 0.7C?

Now we are told that this weakening forcing effect is going to push temperatures up much faster in the 21st century. They initially said about 3,25C for the next doubling.

In what universe does a declining cause produce an increasing effect?




Maggie

Why would any assumptions about the logarithmic nature of warming be needed to work out how much fossil fuel we would need to burn to double CO2 levels?

Further confirmation - as if any were needed - that you know nothing at all about logarithms, or science.


You've presumably been reading the same crackpot websites relied upon by the Eel.

What an odd answer, I disagree with you and you acccuse me of crackpotery.
All I said was I've yet to see a climate model that has given an accurate prediction of climate.
Perhaps you could give me a link to some.

Perhaps first you could give me a link to some whose predictions you regard as badly flawed.

No, that would be you, as usual.


What does time have to do with it? The forcing is a function of CO2 concentration, and the increase in that forcing has a logarithmic relationship with the concentration, as I previously stated.


"They" (as in, mainstream science) still say that (the median figure has been ~3C per doubling for as long as I can recall). If you have some viable alternative to mainstream science, it is surely your duty to humanity to get it published.


I suspect one of the many mistakes in your reasoning is your inability to understand that there is still committed warming in the pipeline from current levels of CO2, let alone from future increases. But then, your "reasoning" also led you (in a previous thread) to assert that mainstream climate models using data from 400 million years ago would have predicted that today's temperatures should be vastly higher than they in fact are (50 or 60C, IIRC). Needless to say, this was because you had no understanding of even the basic mathematics involved.

Most of it came from the mainsteam media with an ocassional foray to the source data. Things like snow will be novelty by 2015 and the like.

However your reluctance to produce evidence of you claims has been noted

Yes the forcing is getting weaker as each decade goes by. Are you denying that?

The strongest forcing has already taken place, fact, unless we start to sharply increase the rate of our CO2 emissions.

Why should the rate of temperature rise start to accelerate rapidly, as it must if the alarmists forecasts are going to get anywhere near becoming reality?

Oh and your silly ideas about plant evolution and that plants today are substantially genetically different from when they evolved in a CO2 rich environment. No they aren't!

That is why plants, which are in a relatively CO2 starved position at the moment, react with stronger growth when we restore a richer CO2 atmosphere to them.

Your point about how they would do in drought is again arse about. Ignoring the fact that on a largely water based planet a warmer planet is a wetter planet.

With more CO2, plants need less water to thrive. Therefore in those areas of the planet which are marginal for plant growth due to a low amount of available water, they become viable for plants in the face of increased CO2 as they now require less water to grow.

Also your point about seas rising and covering part of our current arable land, that is true. Also true is that other parts of the planet, currently covered by ice or just too cold for plant growth become available and arable on a warmer planet.

The net effect on arable land would be marginal.

Life was far more extensive on the Earth during the time when the fossil fuels were laid down on a largely green Earth. It was 8.0C hotter then!

Things have got cooler and the Earth is therefore less green than it was.



Maggie

But you aren't going to tell me which mainstream media reports, concerning which climate models (an outrageous outlier, perhaps?), and nor are you going to give me a link to the offending "source data"? Thanks.


That didn't come from a climate model. Try again.


Irony noted.