[Vision2020] Union of Concerned Scientists: "SuperFreakonomics" Mischaracterizes Climate Science

[Ted Moffett]

At the website below from the Union of Concerned Scientists is an analysis
of many of the errors in climate science, or anthropogenic warming
mitigation strategies, in "Superfreakonomics:"

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/book-superfreakonomics.html

At the bottom of this post read an excerpt on "global cooling myths."

I would add that the astronomically based Milankovitch cycles (
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.php ) impact on ice age
formation might be gradually cooling the climate, but at this point in time
the impact is negligible.  Nonetheless, there is significant evidence that
based on natural variables alone, Earth's climate should be tending to
cool.  Read the scientific presentation on climate
science/global warming from the Woods Hole Research Center:

http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/index.htm.

>From this presentation:

• We know -- from thermometer records in the atmosphere and the oceans, and
from ice cores, bore holes, tree rings, corals, pollens, sediments, and more
-- that Earth’s climate is now changing at a pace far outside the range of
expected natural variation, and in the opposite direction from what the
known, natural, cyclic influences on climate would otherwise be causing at
this time.
• We should be cooling, but we are warming up: by ~0.8 C in Tavg in the last
125 years, more over the continents, several times that over the continents
at high latitudes.
• On a worldwide average, the 12 warmest years of the last 125 have all
occurred since 1990, 20 of the 21 warmest since 1980.   The last 50 years
appear to have been the warmest half century in 6000 years.

----------

Union of Concerned Scientists on errors in "Superfreakonomics:"

*Repeat tired global cooling myths*

First, the chapter rehashes 1970s global cooling myths (pages 165 and 166).
In fact, the 1970s "cooling scare<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11643>"
is largely an invention of the opponents of addressing climate change. Only
a few news organizations reported on a handful of scientific papers
regarding cooling in the 1970s. What was going on? Scientists noted that
sulfur-dioxide production and other particulates that reflect sunlight were
on the rise, outstripping the effect of heat-trapping gases such as carbon
dioxide and methane. Over time, industry reduced emissions of these cooling
pollutants, which also cause acid rain. Meanwhile, fossil fuel emissions and
deforestation have exploded, leading to an over-abundance of warming gases
in our atmosphere. The scientific research on global warming is orders of
magnitude larger and more robust than the science underpinning a handful of
cooling articles in the 1970s.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 11/8/09, donald edwards <donaledwards at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting to say the least.  I saw a piece about Freakonomics on 20/20
> (the tv show) a few years ago then recently saw another promoting
> Superfreakonomics.  It's easy to dismiss their findings as entertainment
> value only; such as, how deaths decrease when there are no available
> hospitals, but you point out that there is completely false information in
> them.  The hospital issue is skewed because their data is only taken from an
> example from Canada during a healthcare worker strike.  It would be obvious
> that for a short period during a strike there would be no recorded deaths in
> the affected hopsitals.
>
> I see my post from some time ago where you answered my question about
> whether a large solar field would reflect enough light to counter the loss
> of polar ice; thus helping to cool the Earth until the ice returned.  I
> hadn't seen your reply concerning that till just now and I guess it would be
> obvious that solar panels absorb light and heat so they wouldn't really have
> reflective properties.  I had been pondering then that they are kind of
> shiny and usually covered in glass so they might help to bounce back some
> heat.
>
> Hopefully the work on increasing efficiency of solar panels to 80% or
> better by absorbing something like 7 layers of the light spectrum in a
> sandwiched nano-tech inspired panel that has the same surface area as
> existing single spectrum panels will be coming soon.  This would seem like a
> technology worth investng in before wasting all the energy required to
> convert to so called "Clean Coal" being touted lately.
>
> Thank you for your studies and keeping us informed.
>
> Don
>
> p.s. I hope you didn't take my nuttin' bout nuttin' comment as passive
> aggressive sarcasm.  It's meant as a humble expression.  I am just a
> layperson without so much as a college degree in anything so I have
> said this phrase for some time here and elsewhere when arguing issues.  I
> learn way more than I contribute on the Viz and wanted to repeat this fact
> since discovering the following paragraph on the AmericanHumanist.org site
> when I was recently asked what they promote.
>
> From:
> http://americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/What_is_Humanism
>
> "Another aspect of the Secular Humanist tradition is skepticism.
> Skepticism's historical exemplar is Socrates. Why Socrates? Because after
> all this time he still stands alone among all the famous saints and sages
> from antiquity to the present. Every religion has its sage. Judaism has
> Moses, Zoroastrianism has Zarathustra, Buddhism has the Buddha, Christianity
> has Jesus, Islam has Mohammad, Mormonism has Joseph Smith, and Bahai has
> Baha-u-lah. Every one of these individuals claimed to know the absolute
> truth. It is Socrates, alone among famous sages, who claimed to know *
> nothing*. Each devised a set of rules or laws, save Socrates. Instead,
> Socrates gave us a method—a method of questioning the rules of others, of
> cross-examination. And Socrates didn't die for truth, he died for rights and
> the rule of law. For these reasons Socrates is the quintessential skeptical
> humanist. He stands as a symbol, both of Greek rationalism and the humanist
> tradition that grew out of it. And no equally recognized saint or sage has
> joined his company since his death."
>
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> > 1. Realclimate.org: Albedo of Solar Panels: Popular Book
> > "Superfreakonomics" Fails Basic Math on this Issue (Ted Moffett)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 15:38:38 -0800
> > From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [Vision2020] Realclimate.org: Albedo of Solar Panels: Popular
> > Book "Superfreakonomics" Fails Basic Math on this Issue
> > To: donald edwards <donaledwards at hotmail.com>
> > Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
> > Message-ID:
> > <d03f69e0911081538w1d853687m4528e29930f296f at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> >
> > I am returning to a previous question posed on Vision2020, regarding the
> > albedo effect of solar panels... I wrote on 4/08/09 that I would have to
> > research the question to attempt an answer.
> >
> > Recently on Realclimate.org this issue received a detailed analysis, in
> > response to data (astonishingly misleading) presented in the popular
> > science/statistical analysis book, authored in part by Steven Levitt,
> > "Superfreakonomics." Apparently this book presents egregious distortions
> > of basic math regarding the albedo impact of massive solar panel
> deployment:
> >
> >
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-steve-levitt/#more-1488
> >
> > An open letter to Steve Levitt
> > Filed under:
> >
> > - Communicating
> > Climate<
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/communicating-climate/
> >
> > - Reporting on
> > climate<
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/communicating-climate/reporting-on-climate/
> >
> >
> > ? raypierre @ 29 October 2009
> >
> > Dear Mr. Levitt,
> >
> > The problem of global warming is so big that solving it will require
> > creative thinking from many disciplines. Economists have much to
> contribute
> > to this effort, particularly with regard to the question of how various
> > means of putting a price on carbon emissions may alter human behavior.
> Some
> > of the lines of thinking in your first book, *Freakonomics*, could well
> have
> > had a bearing on this issue, if brought to bear on the carbon emissions
> > problem. I have very much enjoyed and benefited from the growing
> > collaborations between Geosciences and the Economics department here at
> the
> > University of Chicago, and had hoped someday to have the pleasure of
> making
> > your acquaintance. It is more in disappointment than anger that I am
> writing
> > to you now.
> >
> > I am addressing this to you rather than your journalist-coauthor because
> one
> > has become all too accustomed to tendentious screeds from media
> > personalities (think Glenn Beck) with a reckless disregard for the truth.
> > However, if it has come to pass that we can?t expect the William B. Ogden
> > Distinguished Service Professor (and Clark Medalist to boot) at a
> top-rated
> > department of a respected university to think clearly and honestly with
> > numbers, we are indeed in a sad way.
> >
> > By now there have been many detailed dissections of everything that is
> wrong
> > with the treatment of climate in *Superfreakonomics* , but what has been
> > lost amidst all that extensive discussion is how *really simple* it would
> > have been to get this stuff right. The problem wasn?t necessarily that
> you
> > talked to the wrong experts or talked to too few of them. The problem was
> > that you failed to do the most elementary thinking needed to see if what
> > they were saying (or what you thought they were saying) in fact made any
> > sense. If you were stupid, it wouldn?t be so bad to have messed up such
> > elementary reasoning, but I don?t by any means think you are stupid. That
> > makes the failure to do the thinking all the more disappointing. I will
> take
> > Nathan Myhrvold?s claim about solar cells, which you quoted prominently
> in
> > your book, as an example.
> >
> >
> > As quoted by you, Mr. Myhrvold claimed, in effect, that it was pointless
> to
> > try to solve global warming by building solar cells, because they are
> black
> > and absorb all the solar energy that hits them, but convert only some 12%
> to
> > electricity while radiating the rest as heat, warming the planet. Now,
> maybe
> > you were dazzled by Mr Myhrvold?s brilliance, but don?t we try to teach
> our
> > students to think for themselves? Let?s go through the arithmetic step by
> > step and see how it comes out. It?s not hard.
> >
> > Let?s do the thought experiment of building a solar array to generate the
> > entire world?s present electricity consumption, and see what the extra
> > absorption of sunlight by the array does to climate. First we need to
> find
> > the electricity consumption. Just do a Google search on ?World
> electricity
> > consumption? and here you are:
> >
> > [image: GoogleElec]<
> http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/GoogleElec1.png>
> >
> > Now, that?s the total electric energy consumed during the year, and you
> can
> > turn that into the rate of energy consumption (measured in Watts, just
> like
> > the world was one big light bulb) by dividing kilowatt hours by the
> number
> > of hours in a year, and multiplying by 1000 to convert kilowatts into
> watts.
> > The answer is two trillion Watts, in round numbers. How much area of
> solar
> > cells do you need to generate this? On average, about 200 Watts falls on
> > each square meter of Earth?s surface, but you might preferentially put
> your
> > cells in sunnier, clearer places, so let?s call it 250 Watts per square
> > meter. With a 15% efficiency, which is middling for present technology
> the
> > area you need is
> > 2 trillion Watts/(.15 X 250. Watts per square meter)
> >
> > or 53,333 square kilometers. That?s a square 231 kilometers on a side, or
> > about the size of a single cell of a typical general circulation model
> grid
> > box. If we put it on the globe, it looks like this:
> >
> > [image: Globe] <http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/Globe.png>
> >
> > So already you should be beginning to suspect that this is a pretty
> trivial
> > part of the Earth?s surface, and maybe unlikely to have much of an effect
> on
> > the overall absorbed sunlight. In fact, it?s only 0.01% of the Earth?s
> > surface. The numbers I used to do this calculation can all be found in
> > Wikipedia, or even in a good paperbound World Almanac.
> >
> > But we should go further, and look at the actual amount of extra solar
> > energy absorbed. As many reviewers of *Superfreakonomics* have noted,
> solar
> > cells aren?t actually black, but that?s not the main issue. For the sake
> of
> > argument, let?s just assume they absorb all the sunlight that falls on
> them.
> > In my business, we call that ?zero albedo? (i.e. zero reflectivity). As
> many
> > commentators also noted, the albedo of real solar cells is no lower than
> > materials like roofs that they are often placed on, so that solar cells
> > don?t necessarily increase absorbed solar energy at all. Let?s ignore
> that,
> > though. After all, you might want to put your solar cells in the desert,
> and
> > you might try to cool the planet by painting your roof white. The albedo
> of
> > desert sand can also be found easily by doing a Google search on ?Albedo
> > Sahara Desert,? for example. Here?s what you get:
> >
> > [image: GoogleSand]<
> http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/GoogleSand1.png>
> >
> > So, let?s say that sand has a 50% albedo. That means that each square
> meter
> > of black solar cell absorbs an extra 125 Watts that otherwise would have
> > been reflected by the sand (i.e. 50% of the 250 Watts per square meter of
> > sunlight). Multiplying by the area of solar cell, we get 6.66 trillion
> > Watts.
> >
> > That 6.66 trillion Watts is the ?waste heat? that is a byproduct of
> > generating electricity by using solar cells. All means of generating
> > electricity involve waste heat, and fossil fuels are not an exception. A
> > typical coal-fired power plant only is around 33% efficient, so you would
> > need to release 6 trillion Watts of heat to burn the coal to make our 2
> > trillion Watts of electricity. That makes the waste heat of solar cells
> vs.
> > coal basically a wash, and we could stop right there, but let?s continue
> our
> > exercise in thinking with numbers anyway.
> >
> > Wherever it comes from, waste heat is not usually taken into account in
> > global climate calculations for the simple reason that it is utterly
> trivial
> > in comparison to the heat trapped by the carbon dioxide that is released
> > when you burn fossil fuels to supply energy. For example, that 6 trillion
> > Watts of waste heat from coal burning would amount to only 0.012 Watts
> per
> > square meter of the Earth?s surface. Without even thinking very hard, you
> > can realize that this is a tiny number compared to the heat-trapping
> effect
> > of CO2. As a general point of reference, the extra heat trapped by CO2 at
> > the point where you?ve burned enough coal to double the atmospheric CO2
> > concentration is about 4 Watts per square meter of the Earth?s surface ?
> > over 300 times the effect of the waste heat.
> >
> > The ?4 Watts per square meter? statistic gives us an easy point of
> reference
> > because it is available from any number of easily accessible sources,
> such
> > as the IPCC Technical Summary or David Archer?s basic textbook that came
> out
> > of our ?Global Warming for Poets? core course. Another simple way to
> grasp
> > the insignificance of the waste heat effect is to turn it into a
> temperature
> > change using the standard climate sensitivity of 1 degree C of warming
> for
> > each 2 Watts per square meter of heat added to the energy budget of the
> > planet (this sensitivity factor also being readily available from sources
> > like the ones I just pointed out). That gives us a warming of 0.006
> degrees
> > C for the waste heat from coal burning, and much less for the incremental
> > heat from switching to solar cells. It doesn?t take a lot of thinking to
> > realize that this is a trivial number compared to the magnitude of
> warming
> > expected from a doubling of CO2.
> >
> > With just a little more calculation, it?s possible to do a more precise
> and
> > informative comparison. For coal-fired generation,each kilowatt-hour
> > produced results in emissions of about a quarter kilogram of carbon into
> the
> > atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. For our 16.83 trillion
> > kilowatt-hours of electricity produced each year, we then would emit 4.2
> > trillion kilograms of carbon, i.e. 4.2 gigatonnes *each year*. Unlike
> > energy, carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, and builds up year
> > after year. It is only slowly removed by absorption into the ocean, over
> > hundreds to thousands of years. After a hundred years, 420 gigatonnes
> will
> > have been emitted, and if half that remains in the atmosphere (remember,
> > rough estimates suffice to make the point here) the atmospheric stock of
> CO2
> > carbon will increase by 210 gigatonnes, or 30% of the pre-industrial
> > atmospheric stock of about 700 gigatonnes of carbon. To get the heat
> trapped
> > by CO2 from that amount of increase, we need to reach all the way back
> into
> > middle-school math and use the awesome tool of logarithms; the number is
> > (4 Watts per square meter) X log2(1.3)
> >
> > or 1.5 Watts per square meter. In other words, by the time a hundred
> years
> > have passed, the heat trapped each year from the CO2 emitted by using
> coal
> > instead of solar energy to produce electricity is *125 times* the effect
> of
> > the fossil fuel waste heat. And remember that the *incremental* waste
> heat
> > from switching to solar cells is even smaller than the fossil fuel waste
> > heat. What?s more, because each passing year sees more CO2 accumulate in
> the
> > atmosphere, the heat trapping by CO2 *continues to go up*, while the
> effect
> > of the waste heat from the fossil fuels or solar cells needed to produce
> a
> > given amount of electricity stays fixed. Another way of putting it is
> that
> > the climate effect from the waste heat produced by any kind of power
> plant
> > is a one-off thing that you incur when you build the plant, whereas the
> > warming effect of the CO2 produced by fossil fuel plants continues to
> > accumulate year after year. The warming effect of the CO2 is a legacy
> that
> > will continue for many centuries after the coal has run out and the ruins
> of
> > the power plant are moldering away.
> >
> > Note that you don?t actually have to wait a hundred years to see the
> benefit
> > of switching to solar cells. The same arithmetic shows that even at the
> end
> > of the very first year of operation, the CO2 emissions prevented by the
> > solar array would have trapped 0.017 Watts per square meter if released
> into
> > the atmosphere. So, at the end of the first year you already come out
> ahead
> > *even if you neglect the waste heat that would have been emitted by
> burning
> > fossil fuels instead*.
> >
> > So, the bottom line here is that the heat-trapping effect of CO2 is the
> > 800-pound gorilla in climate change. In comparison, waste heat is a
> trivial
> > contribution to global warming whether the waste heat comes from solar
> cells
> > or from fossil fuels. Moreover, the *incremental* waste heat from
> switching
> > from coal to solar is an even more trivial number, even if you allow for
> > some improvement in the efficiency of coal-fired power plants and ignore
> any
> > possible improvements in the efficiency of solar cells. So:
> trivial,trivial
> > trivial. Simple, isn?t it?
> >
> > By the way, the issue of whether waste heat is an important factor in
> global
> > warming is one of the questions most commonly asked by students who are
> > first learning about energy budgets and climate change. So, there are no
> > shortage of places where you can learn about this sort of thing. For
> > example, a simple Google search on the words ?Global Warming Waste Heat?
> > turns up several pages of accurate references explaining the issue in
> > elementary terms for beginners. Including this article from Wikipedia:
> >
> > [image: WasteHeatWiki]<
> http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/WasteHeatWiki.png>
> >
> > A more substantive (though in the end almost equally trivial) issue is
> the
> > carbon emitted in the course of manufacturing solar cells, but that is
> not
> > the matter at hand here. The point here is that *really simple
> arithmetic*,
> > which you could not be bothered to do, would have been enough to tell you
> > that the claim that the blackness of solar cells makes solar energy
> > pointless is complete and utter nonsense. I don?t think you would have
> > accepted such laziness and sloppiness in a term paper from one of your
> > students, so why do you accept it from yourself? What does the failure to
> do
> > such basic thinking with numbers say about the extent to which anything
> you
> > write can be trusted? How do you think it reflects on the profession of
> > economics when a member of that profession ? somebody who that profession
> > seems to esteem highly ? publicly and noisily shows that he cannot be
> > bothered to do simple arithmetic and elementary background reading? Not
> even
> > for a subject of such paramount importance as global warming.
> >
> > And it?s not as if the ?black solar cell? gaffe was the only bit of
> academic
> > malpractice in your book: among other things, the presentation of aerosol
> > geoengineering as a harmless and cheap quick fix for global warming
> ignored
> > a great deal of accessible and readily available material on the severe
> > risks involved, as Gavin
> > noted<
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
> >in
> > his recent post. The fault here is not that you dared to advocate
> > geoengineering as a solution. There is a broad spectrum of opinion among
> > scientists about the amount of aerosol geoengineering research that is
> > justified, but very few scientists think of it as anything but a
> desperate
> > last-ditch attempt, or at best a strategy to be used in extreme
> moderation
> > as part of a basket of strategies dominated by emissions reductions. You
> > owed it to your readers to present a fair picture of the consequences of
> > geoengineering, but chose not to do so.
> >
> > May I suggest that if you should happen to need some friendly help next
> time
> > you take on the topic of climate change, or would like to have a chat
> about
> > why aerosol geoengineering might not be a cure-all, or just need a
> critical
> > but informed opponent to bounce ideas off of, you don?t have to go very
> far.
> > For example?
> >
> > [image: GoogleMap]<
> http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/GoogleMap1.png>
> >
> > But given the way *Superfreakonomics* mangled Ken Caldeira?s rather
> nuanced
> > views on geoengineering, let?s keep it off the record, eh?
> >
> > Your colleague,
> >
> > Raymond T. Pierrehumbert
> > Louis Block Professor in the Geophysical Sciences
> > The University of Chicago
> > Comments (pop-up) (578) <http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=1488
> >
> > -------------------------------------
> > On 4/8/09, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > I would have to research this issue to attempt an answer. I am not sure
> of
> > > the albedo of the areas you describe that might be covered with
> solarpanels, nor what the
> > > albedo of large areas of solar panels is in comparison.
> > >
> > > There are proposals to block solar energy via huge numbers of
> > > micro-mirrors in space or sulfur compounds injected into the upper
> > > atmosphere, to mimic the cooling effects of volcanoes. If the Earth had
> > > numerous volcanoes, or a one or two very powerful ones, exploding, this
> > > would cool the climate temporarily. If a large asteroid hits, which
> > > currently is beyond human technology to stop, though in the future
> humans
> > > may have space technology waiting to deflect them, we will have global
> > > warming that is unimaginable at first (or so some experts say due to
> heated
> > > debris that would spread over the globe from the explosive impact),
> then a
> > > global winter due to sunlight being blocked. Don't worry, be happy!
> "Dust
> > > in the wind..." as the Kansas song goes...
> > >
> > > As to the methane hydrate in permafrost, also in areas in the oceans
> and
> > > some lakes, that warming could destabilize, if the process of methane
> > > releases from these deposits accelerates in a feedback mechanism due to
> a
> > > warming climate... Let's not go there. Consider that methane hydrates
> > > contain double or more of the carbon contained in all traditional
> fossil
> > > fuels: oil, coal, natural gas. There are efforts to exploit methane
> > > hydrates as an energy source, which is potentially huge.
> > >
> > > One of the primary theories as to a main cause of the Paleocene-Eocene
> > > Thermal Maximum, about 55-56 million years ago, when temperatures in
> the
> > > oceans and the atmosphere were up to 8 degrees C. warmer than now, and
> there
> > > were no polar ice caps, is a methane pulse from methane hydrate
> releases.
> > > You can read about this at the website below, though I found errors in
> the
> > > text compared to the graphs. Note the first graph shows an increase in
> > > methane to about 16000 ppbv, while the text claims the graph shows an
> > > increase to 1600 ppvb. An error in editing, I suppose? Or do I have
> this
> > > wrong?
> > >
> > > http://www.falw.vu/~renh/methane-pulse.html
> > >
> > > Ted Moffett
> > >
> > > On 4/7/09, donald edwards <donaledwards at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Ted, would you be in a position to ponder a guess as to what effect at
> > >> countering the lost reflective properties of the melted ice by
> covering half
> > >> the states of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California in reflective solar
> > >> panels would have; besides the obvious power gains.
> > >>
> > >> I mean, would it make a difference in stopping the current melting by
> > >> reflecting more heat back into space than is possible without any ice
> to
> > >> mirror it off rather than the current system of accelerated melting by
> cause
> > >> and effect? Wouldn't this also help avoid the already started
> cotastrophe
> > >> of the melting permafrost releasing methane?
> > >>
> > >> Just wondered about this before. Thanks,
> > >>
> > >> Don
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
>
>
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