Maggie's Farm

"Tesla will power its Gigafactory with a 70-megawatt solar farm." Problem solved.

What makes you think otherwise?

Sam L: Lack of trust in Tesla.

Turns out that Tesla actually makes electric cars, and their Gigafactory has already started production, and while it is quite possible they could fail, the factual existence of the Gigafactory is stronger evidence than "Is not!"

A little dated. Once the Gigafactory is fully operational, it will employ 6500 people, with thousands more jobs generated locally. Solar City is expected to employ an additional thousand people as well.

GoneWithTheWind: The problem is the same. In the process of making PV panels; the mining, refining, forming the PV cellls, manufacturing the panels, transportation, installation and maintenance uses more energy than the panels can ever produce!

That is incorrect. Energy payback for solar is 1 to 4 years, with a working lifespan of about 30 years.

The Distributist: "...on the sun." Finished that sentence for ya

"Energy payback for solar is 1 to 4 years, with a working lifespan of about 30 years ... 'on the sun'."

Have no idea what you are trying to say.

Joe Luke: Just because you quote things doesn't make any of what you say true.

Quite so, which is why we reference the scientific evidence.

Joe Luke: Global cooling/ warming/ climate change has never been proven to be caused by US, despite the continuous rhetoric.

You might start with Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, London, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 1896.

GoneWithTheWind: That computation is based on the post subsidy costs.

Your claim concerned energy costs, not monetary costs. You may want to acknowledge your previous error before discussing your new claim.

GoneWithTheWind: Also the life span might be 30 years but the PV cell loses 2%-3% of it's power producing capacity each year.

Photovoltaic degradation is generally less than 1% per year, and new technologies will be cheaper and more reliable. See Jordan et al., Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates, Progress in Photovoltaics 2016.

GoneWithTheWind: "energy costs! monetary costs!"

This was your claim: "In the process of making PV panels; the mining, refining, forming the PV cellls, manufacturing the panels, transportation, installation and maintenance uses more energy than the panels can ever produce!"

That claim was false.

GoneWithTheWind: I got my first PV cells in 1955 and have been a big fan of PV ever sense and have watched the press releases these 60 plus years about PV and the one thing they have always said and continue to say is that a technological breakthrough is right around the corner. They continue to disappoint.

Modern photovoltaics are far less expensive and far more efficient than those made in 1955.

Photovoltaic price and efficiency over time

Price and cumulative production of photovoltaic

The research paper is being misrepresented. What the researchers found is that models match observations when accounting for differences between projected post-2000 forcings and actual post-2000 forcings.

Also, the claim that there has been a hiatus in global warming is false. From the same lead author, see Santer et al., Tropospheric Warming Over The Past Two Decades, Nature Scientific Reports 2017.

indyjonesouthere: bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-great-global-warming-swindle.html

Can you provide a scientific citation rather than a polemic?

indyjonesouthere: Go to the indicated website and watch....

What you mean is that you can't provide a scientific citation rather than a polemic.

indyjonesouthere: that can't be too hard

There's no transcript, so replying would require transcription.

indyjonesouthere: The data says that CO2 follows temperature by 800 years and that's part of their climate model

CO2, like many feedback mechanisms, is both a cause and effect. Warm oceans hold less CO2 than cool oceans, so warming will cause an increase in atmospheric CO2 which causes more warming. Cool oceans hold more CO2 than warm oceans, so cooling will cause a decrease in atmospheric CO2 which causes more cooling. A positive feedback.

This is supported by studies of past ice ages. You have to account for the ice albedo effect, as well as CO2 forcing, to explain Earth's climate history.

indyjonesouthere: It also includes sunspot activity ( in the model as well as cloud cover and cosmic rays)

Solar activity is an input to climate models. If the sun were to unexpectedly dim, climate models could predict what would happen to Earth's climate, but they don't predict the event itself. Similarly, if there were an increase in volcanic activity, climate models could predict what would happen to Earth's climate, but they don't predict the event itself.


There is some talk that the sun will be entering a minimum. But even if so, the signal from the drop in solar activity is several times lower than the signal from greenhouse warming.

indyjonesouthere: Now who was churning out all that co2 800 years ago?

Atmospheric CO2 has been relatively stable for thousands of years, until the Industrial Age.

indyjonesouthere: Yep it was the sun and we were not even here to see that sun churning out todays co2.

Um, no.

indyjonesouthere: CO2 does NOT create temperature change but instead temperature changes create changes in CO2 in the air.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth's surface would be a chilly≈ -18°C rather than the balmy ≈+15°C that it is. You can determine this from first principles by calculating the graybody temperature of the Earth.

drowningpuppies: The models were wrong and did not predict or match observations/reality until "adjustments" were made after the fact.

That's not what the paper found, so the paper is being misrepresented.

The amount of forcings are external to the model itself. If there is a volcanic eruption which cooled the climate that doesn’t mean the model was wrong. That would be like saying Newton’s model of motion is wrong because the wind velocity acting on the missile was higher than expected. To test the model, you input the corrected wind velocity and see if the model matches what happened.

drowningpuppies: Why would anyone think their models will be any better at predicting in the future?

Climate models don't predict volcanoes, but they can predict climatic effects if a volcano erupts. Volcanic activity is an input to the model.

If there is a volcanic eruption which cooled the climate that doesn’t mean the model was wrong. That would be like saying Newton’s model of motion is wrong because the wind velocity acting on the missile was higher than expected. To test the model, you input the corrected wind velocity and see if the model matches what happened.

drowningpuppies: But y'all keep repeating your non-argument and trying to move the goalpost.

No. The goalposts are exactly where they have been. The original post misrepresented the finding of Santer et al.

drowningpuppies: re was no "pause" or "hiatus" in global warming for the last 15 years or so, are lying now or were they lying then?

There has been no stop of global warming. However, observed warming has been slower than expected. Some of this is due to observational limitations. Some is due to internal variability. And as this paper showed, some is due to differences in post-2000 forcings.

drowningpuppies: Nope. It's fudging the numbers

Which numbers are those? Please be specific.

drowningpuppies: might want check on Karl et.al (2015) adjustments of sea surface temperatures.

And what precisely do you find wrong with Karl 2015? Has there been a research paper which calls Karl 2015 into question?

drowningpuppies: Fudging the numbers

specific, clearly defined or identified.

You could say the same thing about any set of numbers with equal specificity; your personal budget, your homework, your age. You have to address the numbers in the particular scientific paper in order to be specific.

drowningpuppies: More fudging here

McKitrick: "This example proves nothing about K15, of course, except that small changes in assumptions about how to deal with uncertainties in the data can have a large effect on the final results."

Sounds more like a problem of an attempt to tease a trend out of tenuous data, not a matter of fudging.

McKitrick: "Are the new K15 adjustments correct? Obviously it is not for me to say this is something that needs to be debated by specialists in the field."

Even your own citation doesn't say the results are wrong, only that they should be looked at by other scientists more closely.

And scientists have, indeed, looked at the evidence closely, reinforcing Karl 2015's original findings. See Hausfather et al., Assessing recent warming using instrumentally homogeneous sea surface temperature records, Science Advances 2017.

Please see below.

drowningpuppies: http://us.blastingnews.com/news/2017/01/despite-new-study-global-warming-pause-still-going-strong-001372293.html

That's funny.

"but land temps still show a global warming pause" which links to a story about satellite measurements of the troposphere. The article is wrong in the very first sentence.

You might consider citing an actual scientific paper rather than an open source news blog. More important, have you ever considered your own views skeptically, rather than looking for articles that agree with you no matter how removed from actual scientific research?