Comments on: Joseph Romm (Climate Progress): Costs of "Strong Climate Action" Negligible–(But does he understate IPCC's cost estimate by 95%?)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:04:26 +0000

Okay, here’s some math.

The forcing from 450 ppm CO2 over the preindustrial level of about 280 ppm would be:

5.35 x ln(450/280) Watts per meter squared

or about 2.5 Watts per meter squared. The combined forcing from all anthropogenic greenhouse gases according to the AR4 was 1.66 (CO2) + .48 (Methane (not counting stratospheric water vapor effects)) + .16 (N2O) + .34 (Halocarbons) = 2.64 Watts per meter squared. Thus, we are already past 450 ppm CO2 equivalent (IPCC AR4 figures are for the period 1750-2000, and right now it is 2009, so the forcing has grown).

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:53:15 +0000

As I understand it Bob, we are already at about 450 ppm CO2 equivalent. I’d have to check, but I’m pretty sure of this.

By: Bob Murphy

Bob Murphy — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:46:36 +0000

Andrew, can you elaborate? If what you’re saying is true, that’s incredible, but I’m not following you.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:55:36 +0000

I Romm is using CO2 equivalent he must be implying actually removing more CO2 than we are emitting NOW. That’s absurd.

By: John Droz

John Droz — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:02:37 +0000

Bob:

That’s a good cautionary comment.

I guess it’s too much to ask for these people to use standardized units. (Maybe they don’t because there would be less obfuscation if they did?)

I’ll look into CO2 distinction when I get some time.

By: Bob Murphy

Bob Murphy — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:14:03 +0000

John,

Well, we have to be careful. The figure in my blog post refers to concentrations of CO2-eq GHGs. So the figure for just CO2 is lower (Romm talks about this in his post). If Hansen’s trigger point refers to just CO2, then Romm might not be contradicting him, whereas if it refers to all GHGs (expressed in CO2-eq) then yes, there is a big discrepancy.

By: John Droz

John Droz — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:58:55 +0000

Andrew, et.al.:

I’m not a climatologist but it seems to me that the effect of Romm’s “concession” is that he is conceding that the Global Warming guru (Dr. Hansen) has a 30%-50% error in his predictions.

That appears to be a MAJOR acknowledgement that the accuracy of the entire Global Warming modeling process is subjective and speculative.

Coming from one of Global Warming’s biggest advocates that is no small matter, and (in my opinion) should be publicly exposed.

By: C3H Editor

C3H Editor — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:22:37 +0000

I am glad there are people like you who are willing to wade through the rantings of people like Romm. As a blogger and as a citizen, I’ve basically have tuned out Romm and his ilk due to the CO2 fanaticism and constant shouting of catastrophe. As the vast, vast majority of Americans are not supportive of the global warming hype, nor of increased consumer/taxpayer costs to “manage” climate change, it surely indicates the total ineffectiveness of his approach.

With that said, his rantings and idiocy do need to be challenged constantly and we’re lucky to have MasterResource and its writers doing the necessary Romm poop scooping.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:03:10 +0000

John, it’s Romm’s singular partial concession to reality. His way of seeming “reasonable”.

By: John Droz

John Droz — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:44:20 +0000

I guess I’m missing something else that I’d wish you’d address (and no I’m not going to waste time wading through Romm), but the Hansen/Gore/McKibben level of catastrophe was 350 PPM. Is Romm, in effect, saying that Hansen doesn’t know what he is talking about?