All posts for the month August, 2012

Lewandowsky et al 2012 – Data Analysis part 1

Katabasis offered in the comments at Jo Nova’s blog to provide the raw data for the paper

“NASA faked the moon landing  — Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax:

An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science”

  Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press) Psychological Science

I took Katabasis up on the offer. Here are some preliminary results.

Please see DR_UK’s comment below

The CONSENSCO2 question was

Out of 100 climate scientists how many do you think believe that human CO2 emissions cause climate change?

In other words is it a questions about what you believe about what others believe. The comparison should be with the results of the four questions on the respondent’s own beliefs in Climate Science to be found on Page 27 of the paper. The results I hope to post up later today. The sample skew is the similar. 75% of the respondents have strong beliefs in climate science, 14% have weak beliefs and just 11% – 125 respondents – reject the science. I will post later on the revised tables. 

Q. Was the sample size sufficient?

Lewandowsky et al 2012 say

We report a survey (N > 1100) of climate blog users to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science.

However they do not state the proportion of respondents on which they based the results – that is those who reject the science. The data summarizes the climate results as “Consensus C02” on a scale of 0 to 100. That is 0 is complete rejection through to 100 as complete acceptance. The CONSENSCO2 question was

Out of 100 climate scientists how many do you think believe that human CO2 emissions cause climate change?

I divided the results into 5 bands to see the skew.


Fully 86% of responses largely accept the C02 consensus respondents believe that the vast majority of climate scientists believe that human CO2 emissions  and just 3% (32) strongly reject it. believe that a the vast majority are concealing the truth or lying.

This is not surprising, as the survey was only published on militant alarmist blogs such as SKEPTICALSCIENCE, TAMINO and DELTOID. Jo Nova has so far contacted 24 “skeptic” blogs, not one of whom says they received a request to publish the link to the survey.

Some of the raw results

Some quick pivot tables against the results.

Moon Landings


Comment: “Alarmists” are just as much conspiracy theorists as “Skeptics”

JFK Assassination


Comment: Not much difference here either between “Alarmists” and “Skeptics”

Martin Luther King Assassination


Comment: Not much difference here either between “Alarmists” and “Skeptics”

Diana “Assassination”


Comment: A slight much difference here between “Alarmists” and “Skeptics” – by 5 or 6 skeptic responses.

9/11 Conspiracies


Comment: Not much difference here either between “Alarmists” and “Skeptics”

Pearl Harbour Conspiracies


Comment: Not much difference here either between “Alarmists” and “Skeptics”

SARS Conspiracies


Comment: Not much difference here either between “Alarmists” and “Skeptics”

Preliminary Conclusion

Readers the climate alarmist blogs are full of weird conspiracy theories. Where people that frequent these blogs rate themselves on acceptance of the CO2 Consensus makes little difference to this conclusion. Given that these blogs exist to discourage any views but their own, it is not surprising that their readership:-

  1. Share a similar, unbalanced, way of evaluating evidence to the blogs authors.
  2. Are predominantly in agreement with the views promoted.
by manicbeancounter on 31/08/2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Censorship
Tagged , ,

Posted by manicbeancounter on 31/08/2012

https://manicbeancounter.com/2012/08/31/lewandowsky-et-al-2012-data-analysis-part-1/

RWE Atlantic Array to gain GBP169m in Windfall Profits

I have worked in management accounts in manufacturing industry for over 25 years. In that time I have learnt that audit controls are imposed to stop the potential for fraud, by eliminating any scope for fraud. In Britain climate change arena, conflicts of interest are huge, but not considered important. This is an example of why truly independent oversight is required.

In July there was ministerial sign-off of a proposed to change the Renewables Obligation (RO) with respect to offshore wind power. Assuming that this proposal is enacted and the Atlantic Array gets the green light, I calculate will give a £169m (US$262m) windfall profit to the scheme in the first ten years of operation.

The numbers behind this are eye-watering.

The revenue from a wind farm is from selling the electricity produced to the grid. This is currently 4.7p per kwh. I will assume that this will remain constant for until 2025. This might be a heroic assumption given that under current policies Britain will be producing far less electricity than demanded, but it is beside the point of this posting. What is relevant is the subsidy from electricity bills. The RO currently gives renewables a subsidy of £41.38 per megawatt hour. This is the rate for onshore wind. However, to encourage offshore wind power, this currently attracts a factor of 2.0 times the standard rate. In 2009 this was planned to reduce to 1.5 times the standard rate from 2014*. The new proposals are to give a more gradual and delayed decrease to 1.9 in 2015/16 and 1.8 in 2016/17. I have assumed that this will continue until the 1.5 level is reached.

In Germany the average output from the wind farms is just 16.3%. However, Britain is somewhat more exposed, especially the Bristol Channel. It is reasonable to assume to that average output will be 25% of capacity. Then I have assumed that RWE will choose to build the maximum proposed capacity of 1390MW. The lower end is 1000MW.

Calculations over a 10 year period are



The difference will mean an extra £168,572,951 windfall for RWE.

There is however a potential flaw in my analysis. If the Renewables Obligation works like the solar panels for houses, then the rate is fixed at the time of application. In other words, a scheme coming on stream in 2015 would now attract 2.0 ROC, instead of 1.5 for every year for 10 years.



If my analysis is correct, the difference will mean an extra £684,633,697 windfall for RWE over a 10 year period. That is $1.07 bn dollars. This from (the largest) of a number of similar projects.

by manicbeancounter on 28/08/2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Atlantic Array, Climate Change Analysis, Climate Change Economics
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by manicbeancounter on 28/08/2012

https://manicbeancounter.com/2012/08/28/rwe-atlantic-array-to-gain-gbp169m-in-windfall-profits/

Stop the blighting of Lundy & North Devon by RWE’s Atlantic Array

Please act to help stop a major act of vandalism to the British Coastline. Visit the Slay the Array site by 31st of August to find out how to help.

I have just returned from a holiday in North Devon, including a day trip to Lundy Island. Here I learnt about a mega wind farm proposed for the Bristol Channel by energy giant RWE. This is an area of outstanding coastal beauty, attracting millions of tourists annually to the area.

Proposed are 188 to 278 turbines, of either 180 or 220 metres (590 or 722 feet) in height, located as near as 13km (8 miles) from Lundy and 14km (9 miles) from the North Devon Coast.

Compare this with the second highest point on Lundy. The small building in the photograph is Tibbetts, 128 metres (420 feet) above sea level.


Or compare in height to some London skyscrapers.

Tower 42 (formerly the Natwest Tower) is 183m

The Gherkin (30 St Mary’s Axe) is 180m

One Canada Square, Canary Wharf is 235m

In Manchester, the tallest building is the Beetham Tower at just 169m tall, whilst the older Blackpool Tower, that dominates the resort’s skyline, is a mere 158 metres.


Another comparison is to the Skegness wind farm. Here there are just 57 134 metre-high turbines located 5km from shore. It has blighted the outlook from the beach level at Skegness. This picture I took at Easter of this year, on a very grey day. Better pictures are available here. The pictures do not fully recreate the visual impact, as the eye is drawn to the turning blades – or in the case of Skegness the difference between those blades that were turning, and the large number which were not.

Yet Skegness is a declining resort, not noted for its scenery. It does not have high cliffs from which to look out at a distant coastline. There is no equivalent of Butter Hill at Countisbury or the cliff tops of Lundy where you can survey the coastline of Wales. Should this Atlantic Bristol Channel Array go ahead, the eye will be drawn instead to the turning mega turbines, as the scenery.

by manicbeancounter on 12/08/2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change Economics
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by manicbeancounter on 12/08/2012

https://manicbeancounter.com/2012/08/12/stop-the-blighting-of-lundy-north-devon-by-rwes-atlantic-array/

The Bias of Climatology – Pulling Recent Strands Together

David Evans has provided a succinct explanation of why climate scientists’ theories, ignore some fundamental data. The views that feedbacks amplify the effects of CO2 (see Evans’s diagram below) is due to a highly selective reading of the data in a number of different ways.


Now we need to pull the recent strands together.

On actual temperature history we are getting evermore examples of data manipulation, whether on US temperatures (A Watts), Australian Temperatures (See Jo Nova), or the GISSTEMP global surface temperatures (Steven Goddard).

On past temperature history, we have the famous hockey stick graphs, starting with Mann et al in 1998 and culminating in the recent Gergis et al Australasian temperature reconstruction. All need a combination of one, or a few, very poor data sets that are promoted to prominence by statistical techniques unique to climatologists, and ignoring better quality data sets.

Something else needs to be added to the mix to obtain the high role for feedbacks – climate modelling. If recent temperature trends are exaggerated AND past temperature fluctuations smoothed out, then running a model that tries to look at relative influence of natural and anthropogenic factors on temperature will massively over-estimate the anthropogenic over the natural influences.

But go the other way. Look at the more accurate satellite data for recent temperatures and the temperature rises do not track the CO2 rises nearly so well. Go back to the raw data from the thermometers (adjusting properly for UHI), along with homogenization techniques developed by professional statisticians and the C20th warming deflates.

Then take the widest range of proxy records over a long period (even leave in the lowest quality ones) and suddenly the picture looks very different.

Then look at the role of feedbacks from a number of different perspectives, like Sherwood Idso, (possibly further corroborated by Esper et al 2012) and the real picture becomes clearer. Global average temperatures have increased in the last 200 years. Not quite as much in recent years as the temperature records maintain, but are now significantly higher than in during the 17th century. Furthermore, there is circumstantial evidence that a part of this increase (even up to 0.4 Celsius if non-C02 GHGs are included) has been due to the human greenhouse gas emissions. But this is a curiosity for a few academics to ponder, whilst the thrust of the research effort is put into improving the accuracy and integrity of the data.

Defence of the Consensus

The response of mainstream climatology (and with it a vast array of hangers-on) is not to improve the standards and moderate their wilder comments. Instead it has been to shut down debate by attacking the opponents. Australia has the unfortunate achievement to be home to two of the vilest the proponents of this assault on dissent. Prof Stephan Lewandowsky’s latest instalment is publishing a survey which associates climate skeptics with the worst of the conspiracy theorists. John Cook, a climatologist, ignores expert etymologists to justify calling his site skepticalscience.com

Climatology does not rank as a true science, as it has long since abandoned the search for challenging questions and improvements in quality of answers. Rather than explain the anomalies and meet the challenge of alternative explanations, climatology protects itself by employing intellectual bully-boys.

by manicbeancounter on 03/08/2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Censorship, Climate Change Analysis, Science & Non-science, Skeptical Science, Spin (Propaganda), Uncategorized

Posted by manicbeancounter on 03/08/2012

https://manicbeancounter.com/2012/08/03/the-bias-of-climatology-pulling-recent-strands-together/