WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

[weller2]

If you look at gasoline, for example, that’s not true.

Actually, adjusted for inflation, the price of gasoline is about what it was in 1918. A little less, actually. Since then, it has been pretty much between $2.00 and $4.00/gallon again, adjusted for inflation. When we think about what things cost to buy or produce, we always need to consider what inflation does to them.

The data tells a different story:



It’s rather interesting that crude was at (inflation-adjusted) $20/bbl for 100 years, which would hint at it being the equilibrium price. The price has then shot up during the first oil crisis, and never really returned to the equilibrium level – which strongly suggests that the market is now production limited, not consumption limited.

NB it’s possible that you are saying the truth, as gasoline might have actually gotten cheaper w.r.t. crude due to advances in processing. However, the primal energy source is crude, not gasoline – conversely, it’s the inflation-adjusted price of crude that matters.

There have been ups and downs, but development of petroleum resources in the U.S. might cause one of the “down” moves, again, adjusted for inflation. And that’s despite OPEC.

As you can see in the following graph, world production of crude has stayed flat since 2004, and all the increase in production in production comes from US shale:



The problem is, production from US shale is predicted to stop growing in 2016:

The two major forecasting agencies, Washington’s EIA and Paris’ IEA, are both more pessimistic than is generally known for they both foresee US shale oil production leveling off as soon as 2016. The reason for this is that drillers will simply run out of new places to drill and frack new wells. While new techniques of extracting more oil from a well are possible, there is need to look closely at the costs of these techniques vs. the potential payoff.

There’s also another alarming indicator, if youignore such predictions. As the US shale is supposedly profitable, then you should see increased profits of the energy companies. However, it seems that they are taking debt instead:



What it looks like is that US shale oil is being subsidized with credit – i.e. due to large upfront investment required, it is being sold below cost. This will work as long as energy companies can roll over debts by opening new wells – however, the amount of new wells is finite.

Also, last month the Rockefeller family sold its shares in the oil business. Their official line is that it’s because they want to go “green”, but the truth is probably that their analysts are competent enough to see what is going on.

Yes, we still have a lot of oil, but it’s $200/bbl oil.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The petroleum companies are not doing very well right now because gas is so plentiful that the price is declining. That’s why the Rockefellers are dumping out of energy stocks; not a very belated concern for the environment on their part. If you look at the “pure” gas plays on the market, like CHK, they’re taking the worst pounding.

eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9190us3m.htm

 

[Ridgerunner]

Shale oil and gas producers have, arguably, saved America’s industrial future and global strategic position. They are not doing quite so well for their investors.
Consider the share price of the most innovative exploration and production companies in the northeastern US, our new Texas. Range Resources’ shares have declined by 18 per cent this year, Cabot Oil and Gas is off by 17 per cent, and Chesapeake is down nearly 7 per cent. One would think developing a nation-saving set of miracle technologies would pay better.
The E&P’s collective problem is that they are victims of their own success in producing more oil and gas for fewer dollars than almost anyone would have thought possible.

ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c3828aae-4573-11e4-ab86-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3FIwc87pO

The article goes on to say that impediments to pipeline construction are also a problem. Most of the shale resources require new pipelines to get the product to market.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s rather interesting that crude was at (inflation-adjusted) $20/bbl for 100 years, which would hint at it being the equilibrium price. The price has then shot up during the first oil crisis, and never really returned to the equilibrium level – which strongly suggests that the market is now production limited, not consumption limited.

NB it’s possible that you are saying the truth, as gasoline might have actually gotten cheaper w.r.t. crude due to advances in processing. However, the primal energy source is crude, not gasoline – conversely, it’s the inflation-adjusted price of crude that matters.

It’s ironic that most of the shale oil is of a type that is best suited for European refineries, while U.S. refineries are best suited for the type of oil produced in North America. The answer is pipelines, of course, but $100 million donated to the Democrat party says “no”.

The real instability in oil prices (well down presently from their highs) began with OPEC. To the extent governments interfere in markets, that’s the sort of thing one expects.

The cost of producing a barrel of oil in the U.S. is from $65-$80/barrel, depending on where it’s produced. In the Middle East it’s far less. In Saudi Arabia, it ranges between $2/barrel to about $7/barrel. altprofits.com/ref/tukda/tag/oil_production_cost.html

So, the “cost of production” is not the same thing as the “price”. “Price” is determined by what the OPEC producers can exact for it worldwide.

 

[sps49]

The data tells a different story:

http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/...s-prices-inflation-adjusted.jpg?00cfb7http://

Yes, they do tell a different story…

 

[lynnvinc]

http://www.thenation.com/sites/defa...incapitoloil_infographic_final_2-791x1024.jpg

• U.S. fossil fuel subsidies per year: $10 billion to $52 billion
• Health costs from local pollution due to fossil fuels per year: $120 billion
• Costs from health, property, and crop harms from yearly U.S. fossil fuel emissions contributing to AGW (with CO2 lasting 100s, even 1000s of years in the atmosphere): off-the-charts, plus annihilation of people and extinction of many species over the ensuing years, decades, centuries and millennia.

 

[estesbob]

http://www.thenation.com/sites/defa...incapitoloil_infographic_final_2-791x1024.jpg

• U.S. fossil fuel subsidies per year: $10 billion to $52 billion
• Health costs from local pollution due to fossil fuels per year: $120 billion
• Costs from health, property, and crop harms from yearly U.S. fossil fuel emissions contributing to AGW (with CO2 lasting 100s, even 1000s of years in the atmosphere): off-the-charts, plus annihilation of people and extinction of many species over the ensuing years, decades, centuries and millennia.

What subdidies are those?

 

[lynnvinc]

Source: WSJ subscription required
Respost: no subscription

In answer to the OP, here’s what happened to global warming – it went into the oceans (which store 90% of the warming).

New study just out today shows that the increasing heat content of Southern Hemisphere oceans had been underestimated:

“Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming”
Paul J. Durack, Peter J. Gleckler, Felix W. Landerer, & Karl E. Taylor
Nature Climate Change, Published online 05 October 2014
nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2389.html

ABSTRACT: The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming. Using satellite altimetry observations and a large suite of climate models, we conclude that observed estimates of 0–700 dbar global ocean warming since 1970 are likely biased low. This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions. We find that the partitioning of northern and southern hemispheric simulated sea surface height changes are consistent with precise altimeter observations, whereas the hemispheric partitioning of simulated upper-ocean warming is inconsistent with observed in-situ-based ocean heat content estimates. Relying on the close correspondence between hemispheric-scale ocean heat content and steric changes, we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results. These adjustments yield large increases (2.2–7.1 × 1022 J 35 yr−1) to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.

 

[vz71]

In answer to the OP, here’s what happened to global warming – it went into the oceans (which store 90% of the warming).

New study just out today shows that the increasing heat content of Southern Hemisphere oceans had been underestimated:

“Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming”
Paul J. Durack, Peter J. Gleckler, Felix W. Landerer, & Karl E. Taylor
Nature Climate Change, Published online 05 October 2014
nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2389.htmlABSTRACT: The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming. Using satellite altimetry observations and a large suite of climate models, we conclude that observed estimates of 0–700 dbar global ocean warming since 1970 are likely biased low. This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions. We find that the partitioning of northern and southern hemispheric simulated sea surface height changes are consistent with precise altimeter observations, whereas the hemispheric partitioning of simulated upper-ocean warming is inconsistent with observed in-situ-based ocean heat content estimates. Relying on the close correspondence between hemispheric-scale ocean heat content and steric changes, we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results. These adjustments yield large increases (2.2–7.1 × 1022 J 35 yr−1) to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.

Reason 53 that global warming didn’t happen.

I find one statement here very telling:

we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results.

So, we have bad data, and we can see it because the sampling from back in the 70’s is bad. Which really means we cannot trust data from that time period.
So the answer is to change the numbers to suit what we want to happen (make it match the models).

I am no scholar, but it seems to me they discovered they cannot trust data from a specific time period, so they are simply making it up.

 

[Ender]

ABSTRACT: The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming.

Did they include an explanation of why the phenomenon of ocean warming was able to stop all atmospheric warming for (just) the last 18 years or a mechanism for how the oceans are able to warm even though the atmosphere isn’t? That is, how is the atmosphere able to pass all of the “greenhouse-gas-attributed” warming on to the ocean without any warming itself?

Greenhouse gases are supposed to be warming the atmosphere, instead we find that it is the ocean that is warming. Shouldn’t we take this to be saying something about the original assumption about greenhouse gases?

Ender

 

[estesbob]

In answer to the OP, here’s what happened to global warming – it went into the oceans (which store 90% of the warming).

New study just out today shows that the increasing heat content of Southern Hemisphere oceans had been underestimated:

“Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming”
Paul J. Durack, Peter J. Gleckler, Felix W. Landerer, & Karl E. Taylor
Nature Climate Change, Published online 05 October 2014
nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2389.html

ABSTRACT: The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming. Using satellite altimetry observations and a large suite of climate models, we conclude that observed estimates of 0–700 dbar global ocean warming since 1970 are likely biased low. This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions. We find that the partitioning of northern and southern hemispheric simulated sea surface height changes are consistent with precise altimeter observations, whereas the hemispheric partitioning of simulated upper-ocean warming is inconsistent with observed in-situ-based ocean heat content estimates. Relying on the close correspondence between hemispheric-scale ocean heat content and steric changes, we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results. These adjustments yield large increases (2.2–7.1 × 1022 J 35 yr−1) to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.

When we were being told 20 years ago that unless drastic measures were taken immediately the world would suffer cataclysmic consequences not one single scientist added the caveato that perhaps the warming would go in the oceans instead. In short they were wrong, terribly wrong . It is becoming increasingly obvious that the basic premise, that a rise in CO2 inevitably leads to rise in temperature, is wrong

 

[lynnvinc]

Reason 53 that global warming didn’t happen in the atmosphere for the past 17 years, but is expected to resume even in the atmosphere shortly.

 

[RGCheek]

Did they include an explanation of why the phenomenon of ocean warming was able to stop all atmospheric warming for (just) the last 18 years or a mechanism for how the oceans are able to warm even though the atmosphere isn’t? That is, how is the atmosphere able to pass all of the “greenhouse-gas-attributed” warming on to the ocean without any warming itself?

Greenhouse gases are supposed to be warming the atmosphere, instead we find that it is the ocean that is warming. Shouldn’t we take this to be saying something about the original assumption about greenhouse gases?

Ender

Analogous to our planet would be a greenhouse with a large tank of water in it. As the greenhouse would go through its cycles of warming up with the morning sun and cooling with its decline in the evening, the water tank would be a trailing effect. While the greenhouse warmed, the tank would continue to get colder, giving off heat absent direct sunlight. As the greenhouse got warm enough to add heat to the tank the uppermost air would begin to cool some though much slower than the air around it.

As the air in the greenhouse cooled with the suns setting, the tank would become the warmest body in the greenhouse and would remain so until the sun rose again to repeat the cycle.

That the oceans might be warming or warmer than the atmosphere would only seem to support the idea that our planet is cooling, not heating as water temperature would be expected to be a trailing indicator.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Originally Posted by vz71 View Post
Reason 53 that global warming didn’t happen in the atmosphere for the past 17 years, but is expected to resume even in the atmosphere shortly.

Here is a scientist (with a track record of getting it right) who disagrees …

cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/climate-scientist-who-got-it-right-predicts-20-more-years-global

 

[lynnvinc]

Did they include an explanation of why the phenomenon of ocean warming was able to stop all atmospheric warming for (just) the last 18 years or a mechanism for how the oceans are able to warm even though the atmosphere isn’t? That is, how is the atmosphere able to pass all of the “greenhouse-gas-attributed” warming on to the ocean without any warming itself?

Greenhouse gases are supposed to be warming the atmosphere, instead we find that it is the ocean that is warming. Shouldn’t we take this to be saying something about the original assumption about greenhouse gases?

Ender

Actually the GHGs warm mainly the ocean – 90% of the warming is stored in the oceans, only 2% in the atmosphere, and the rest in the land. The reason that they’ve been using atmospheric temps as a “proxy” for the planetary energy budget (which would include all aspects of the warming from various sources) is because they have better data going back well over a century. Ocean temps have only been measured better since mid-20th century, and not nearly as well for the S. Hemisphere (which the study claims to rectify).

Even without this study that just came out, the oceans have shown continual warming since the 70s (no 17 year hiatus for the oceans, as for the atmosphere). See image (without including data from this new study):

Climate Change | US EPA

Comprehensive information from U.S. EPA on issues of climate change, global warming, including climate change science, greenhouse gas emissions data, frequently asked questions, climate change impacts and adaptation, what EPA is doing, and what you can do.

www.epa.gov

The study only says that ocean warming, which has been continuous (no hiatus), was greater than they’ve been conservatively estimating.

 

[estesbob]

Actually the GHGs warm mainly the ocean – 90% of the warming is stored in the oceans, only 2% in the atmosphere, and the rest in the land. The reason that they’ve been using atmospheric temps as a “proxy” for the planetary energy budget (which would include all aspects of the warming from various sources) is because they have better data going back well over a century. Ocean temps have only been measured better since mid-20th century, and not nearly as well for the S. Hemisphere (which the study claims to rectify).

Even without this study that just came out, the oceans have shown continual warming since the 70s (no 17 year hiatus for the oceans, as for the atmosphere). See image (without including data from this new study):

Climate Change | US EPA

The study only says that ocean warming, which has been continuous (no hiatus), was greater than they’ve been conservatively estimating.

Problem is we have no long range accurate records of ocean temperatures. Studies like the ones you cite admit they have to estimate the temperatures for vast portions of the oceans once they get back more than a couple of decades. The truth is were told unequivocally that rising co2 would result in rising ATMOSPHERIC temperatures. Having been so very, very wrong about this pardon me if I am skeptical at their newest rationalization as to why they right even though they were wrong

 

[Ridgerunner]

Actually the GHGs warm mainly the ocean – 90% of the warming is stored in the oceans, only 2% in the atmosphere, and the rest in the land. The reason that they’ve been using atmospheric temps as a “proxy” for the planetary energy budget (which would include all aspects of the warming from various sources) is because they have better data going back well over a century. Ocean temps have only been measured better since mid-20th century, and not nearly as well for the S. Hemisphere (which the study claims to rectify).

Even without this study that just came out, the oceans have shown continual warming since the 70s (no 17 year hiatus for the oceans, as for the atmosphere). See image (without including data from this new study):

Climate Change | US EPA

The study only says that ocean warming, which has been continuous (no hiatus), was greater than they’ve been conservatively estimating.

it takes very little time for ocean temperatures to affect atmospheric temperatures. The reverse is not true. To whatever extent there is ocean warming going on, it could still be recovery from the heat losses sustained during the Little Ice Age.

Significant scientific groups, most notably in Russia and India, but seemingly gaining more adherents, are more concerned about global cooling than warming and, indeed, the harm from the first would be much greater than from that of the second.

forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here/

 

[Ender]

Analogous to our planet would be a greenhouse with a large tank of water in it. As the greenhouse would go through its cycles of warming up with the morning sun and cooling with its decline in the evening, the water tank would be a trailing effect. While the greenhouse warmed, the tank would continue to get colder, giving off heat absent direct sunlight. As the greenhouse got warm enough to add heat to the tank the uppermost air would begin to cool some though much slower than the air around it.

As the air in the greenhouse cooled with the suns setting, the tank would become the warmest body in the greenhouse and would remain so until the sun rose again to repeat the cycle.

That the oceans might be warming or warmer than the atmosphere would only seem to support the idea that our planet is cooling, not heating as water temperature would be expected to be a trailing indicator.

The problem with the assertion that global warming is caused by additional atmospheric CO2 is explaining how the oceans have warmed while the atmosphere has not. The underlying premise for AGW is warming in the atmosphere, because that is where the CO2 is. It is all well and good to show the oceans have been warming but what is the mechanism whereby the oceans warm and the atmosphere does not? That is, how is the excess atmospheric heat exchanged with the oceans when there is no excess heat to transfer?

Ender

 

[Ender]

Actually the GHGs warm mainly the ocean – 90% of the warming is stored in the oceans, only 2% in the atmosphere, and the rest in the land.

How does CO2 in the atmosphere warm the oceans without warming the atmosphere?

Ender

 

[lynnvinc]

Analogous to our planet would be a greenhouse with a large tank of water in it. As the greenhouse would go through its cycles of warming up with the morning sun and cooling with its decline in the evening, the water tank would be a trailing effect. While the greenhouse warmed, the tank would continue to get colder, giving off heat absent direct sunlight. As the greenhouse got warm enough to add heat to the tank the uppermost air would begin to cool some though much slower than the air around it.

As the air in the greenhouse cooled with the suns setting, the tank would become the warmest body in the greenhouse and would remain so until the sun rose again to repeat the cycle.

That the oceans might be warming or warmer than the atmosphere would only seem to support the idea that our planet is cooling, not heating as water temperature would be expected to be a trailing indicator.

That’s a good analogy (and there are passive solar home systems that use that principle to absorb heat during the day and keep it snug at night – like some passive solar homes use dark tiles on concrete to absorb heat during the day…so it’s also a good idea for actual greenhouses to keep them warmer with a longer growing season).

However, in this case I think due to ocean current overturning or some such mechanism the oceans took that warmed sea surface water (which would have warmed the atmosphere) to some lower depths where it could not warm the atmosphere as much…and thus the 17 or 18 year hiatus in atmospheric warming, while the oceans on the whole continued to warm.

I consider “kitchen physics” in this case. How the water in a big pot on the stove gets very hot first on the bottom, but if one stirs it, the heat disperses throughout the pot, rending the bottom water less cooler and the top water warmer.