It occurs to me to wonder whether this error in the GISS-E2-R ocean mixing parameterisation, which gave rise to AMOC instability in the Pliocene simulation, might possibly account for the model’s behaviour in LU run 1. It looks to me as if something goes seriously wrong with the AMOC in the middle of the 20th century in that run, with no subsequent recovery evident.
But let’s make wealth-destroying policy based on this!
It’s sad how so many people who (ironically) accuse me of being a “climate denier” or a “science denier” are so profoundly ignorant of how science actually works.
[Bumped]
[Update a while later]
An analysis from Judith Curry and Nic Lewis on the latest climate crap from Mann et al:
As I see it, this paper is a giant exercise in circular reasoning:
Assume that the global surface temperature estimates are accurate; ignore the differences with the satellite atmospheric temperatures
Assume that the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble can be used to accurately portray probabilities
Assume that the CMIP5 models adequately simulate internal variability
Assume that external forcing data is sufficiently certain
Assume that the climate models are correct in explaining essentially 100% of the recent warming from CO2
In order for Mann et al.’s analysis to work, you have to buy each of these 5 assumptions; each of these is questionable to varying degrees.
I couldn’t give a heads up, because they only want people on the approved list to call in, but I was the speaker for today’s FISO talk. The audio and PDF are up now.
Counting calories is mindless, and generally useless, if not actually counterproductive. The calorie counts on fast food menus are pretty much meaningless.
So maybe Apollo went too far too soon and set an impossible target against which everything since has been measured. It wasn’t about primarily about exploration, although that did happen, and it certainly wasn’t about sustainability, but it has cast a long shadow over what has come since.
Am I committing some sort of heresy by saying these things? Well, all I can say is that the people who made Apollo happen are still my heroes. I still get a lump in my throat when I think what they did, the risks they took and the certainty they had in their belief that it was worth it. Armstrong himself has now left us, his surviving fellow moonwalkers are now old men – still active, still advocating the next big step, but a vivid reminder of the time that has passed since Apollo.
I guess my conclusion is that the further we get from those days, the more anomalous Apollo appears – an amazing adventure that will stand out as future generations look back on the twentieth century, but not something that can be repeated. We live in a different world now.
Yes. We need to stop trying to do Apollo to Mars. It isn’t going to happen, and moreover, it shouldn’t.
Orion’s budget these days is about $1 billion per year, with a total cost expected to reach $17 billion by the time the fourth capsule is built and launched in 2023, for a project first proposed in 2004.
In other words, it will take NASA and Lockheed Martin almost 20 years to build four capsules for the cost of $17 billion. That is absurd. Compare it to commercial space: The entire budget for all the commercial crew contracts, including both cargo contracts and the manned contract, is about half that, and will produce four different vehicles, all of which will be built and flying by 2019 at the latest. And in the case of Dragon and Cygnus, more than a dozen capsules have already flown.
Is there no one in Washington with the brain power to read these numbers and come to a rational decision about SLS/Orion? It costs too much and isn’t getting us into space. Moreover, at its pace and cost it isn’t doing anything to help the American aerospace industry. Better for Congress to put money into other things, or save it entirely and reduce the deficit and thus not waste it on this pork barrel garbage.
It’s not about building a capsule, or going to Mars. Or even beyond earth orbit.