Entropic Man, forgot to ask about blacksmithing with whale/seal blubber.

if you could stand the stench, would that burn hot enough?

Meanwhile, back at the thread.....

Climate Science's consensus on ECS raises further uncertainty:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/16/climate-scientist-admits-embarrassment-over-future-climate-uncertainty/
It seems that some climate academics are a bit embarrassed that they haven’t been able to pin down climate sensitivity. From EU Horizon Magazine

Climate sensitivity – reducing the uncertainty of uncertainty

by Jon Cartwright

"A study published in January 2018 claims to halve the uncertainty around how much our planet’s temperature will change in response to rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, potentially giving governments more confidence to prepare for the future.

The results suggest that, when it comes to the climate, both the doom-mongers and optimists are wrong. On the other hand, they have prompted a heated debate over how certain you can be about uncertainty."

If ECS is a product of theory, observations beat theory again in Climate Science. Isn't it time the Climate Models were reprogrammed?

Golf Charlie

Without bellows.

Peat is fragile. If you build a peat fire on a forge hearth and blow air into it from a bellows, the turves disintegrate when they get hot.

Coal or charcoal holds together in lumps which allow air to flow between them. That allows them to get over 1000C.

Blubber burns in lamps at a few hundred C, like a candle. It is not the lump of fat that burns, but the vapour evaporating from it. I don't know how you would get a hot enough flame to soften iron. Some kind of blowlamp?

Golf Charlie

Always best to go to the source.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25450

Look particularly at Figures 2 and 3 which show the constraints.

Mar 17, 2018 at 8:55 PM | Entropic man

Fat fires burn a bit hotter than that, but thank you for confirming that any serious smithing would have required imported fuel, as well as imported iron. Settlers on Greenland will have wanted nails, but could have survived without. Blades as tools, and weapons would have been imported too. Greenland could not have been self sufficient as a colony, but a useful safe haven, with resident population, swollen by the summer fishers, whalers and seal bashers.

Mar 17, 2018 at 9:27 PM | Entropic man
If the constraints are right, why are the models wrong? When it comes to Climate Science, Nature is not a reliable source, but if they are reining back on some of the extreme scenarios, that is a start.

If ECS remains just a best guess, as a product of adjusted data, how will they adjust their previous best guesses?

Golf Charlie

Who needs models or experts?

You can do climate sensitivity calculations yourself.

You will remember the forcing equation for CO2:-

∆T is the change in temperature
C is the final CO2 concentration
Co is the initial CO2 concentration
effect of forcing is 3.7W/C

∆T = 5.35 × ln(C/Co) × climate sensitivity/ warming effect of forcing

To calculate climate sensitivity

climate sensitivity = ∆T × warming effect of forcing / 5.35 × ln(C/Co)

Two examples.

Since 1880 temperatures have increased by 1C and CO2 from 280ppm to 407ppm. Ignoring lag you can calculate the lower bound for climate sensitivity.

climate sensitivity = 1 × 3.7 / 5.35 × ln(407/280) = 1.85

The Holocene warmed from 9C to 14C while CO2 rose from 200ppm to 280ppm. If you assume that all the temperature rise is due to CO2 you can calculate a maximum value for climate sensitivity.

climate sensitivity = 5 × 3.7 / 5.35 × ln(280/200) = 10.3

You can cut this a little. 1.2C of that warming is calculated to come from the Milankovich effect, so the warming from CO2 is only 3.8C and the climate sensitivity due to CO2 becomes

climate sensitivity = 3.8 × 3.7 / 5.35 × ln(280/200) = 7.8

That suggests that climate sensitivity is somewhere between 1.85 and 7.8.

You can do climate sensitivity calculations yourself.

Mar 18, 2018 at 12:50 AM | Unregistered Commenter Entropic man

Thank you, but I have measured 20mm of snow in the garden. Dry silver birch burns very easily and quickly, but freshly cut chestnut (a large branch that fell Dec 2017) does release a lot more heat over time.

Climate Science maths is wrong. Greenhouse Gas Theory is wrong. Mann's Hockey Stick is wrong. The IPCC is wrong. Climate Science needs to stop lecturing and criticising any criticism, and concentrate its remaining funds, to resolve its own mistakes.

People are not buying Climate Science anymore, and politicians are realising that people don't want to be taxed and ripped off to pay for it either.

it really is pointless taking the discussion any further.

You got that bit right.

https://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/

For a week this thread maintained a pleasant, constructive, informative and enjoyable discussion about the Viking colony on Greenland. Thank you to those taking part.

Golf Charlie

I have had news for you. It may be counterintuitive, but as the Arctic warms, you will get more snow.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02992-9

Golf Charlie

You might also find the Gulf Stream slowing. This will cool the UK climate to an average more typical of our latitude.

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-ice-sea-greenland-saline.html

Entropic Man, I am happy to review all evidence for climate change, through history geography, archaeology, science, forensics, religion, literature, seafaring, exploration, biographies, biology, geology, soil/sediment analysis, weather event records, agriculture etc etc. They are all subjects that I have some practical experience in.

I find it interesting that evidence for climate change, can be found in all of them, and this was never contested, until Mann fabricated his Hockey Stick, and declared everyone who disagreed with him was wrong.

Is it civilised of you to reject the accumulated knowledge of millions, gathered and recorded for a few thousand years for a bent stick?

Mar 18, 2018 at 5:39 PM | Entropic man
Mar 18, 2018 at 7:10 PM | Entropic man

Are these predictions that can be denied in the future when nothing happens, like Mann's Hockey Stick?

If you, or indeed anyone in Climate Science has some evidence to support Mann's Hockey Stick, now would be a good time to produce it. Pointing at Computer Generated Models as proof, is not science, if the Models have failed, even with dodgy dossiers of data and fudge factors.

Mann co-authored Harvey et al 2017. I am happy for that paper to represent everything Mann has ever achieved.

Even the usual crew disagree among themselves about what the Gulf-stream may or may not do. They don't know, but at least are not brazen enough to claim that they do know, in this instance.

Either way, the UK will not cool to the average for our latitude, even if the Gulf stream slows to a standstill, because we are simply on the Eastern edge of a large ocean with prevailing Westerlies. The Gulf-stream myth is, in fact, put in context quite often by those employed in the trade. See, for example, Climate mythology: The Gulf Stream, European climate and Abrupt Change

The Gulf stream was really just another publicly well known phenomenon that was quickly latched onto by alarmists as probably a good way to raise alarm, whether there was any basis for the alarm or not. ("Or not" being the correct answer, as usual)

michael hart, no one is forcing the Gulf Stream to go anywhere, or even leave the Gulf of Mexico. It just does. Is it a push over the Atlantic, or an attraction?

If Climate Science could explain why it varies north and south now, their claims of imminent disaster would not be another travesty of Trenberthian proportions.

Michael Hart

Donegal in NW Ireland has an annual average temperature of 9.1C.

The American equivalent, on a western coast at the same latitude is Prince Rupert in British Columbia. Their average temperature is 6.9C.

2.2C is the difference the Gulf Stream makes.

If we are going to discuss the Gulf Stream some homework reading might be useful.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation

"If we are going to discuss the Gulf Stream some homework reading might be useful.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation"
Mar 18, 2018 at 10:21 PM | Entropic man

The first reference in that Wikipedia entry is to this article:
Rahmstorf, S (2003). "The concept of the thermohaline circulation" (PDF). Nature. 421 (6924): 699. Bibcode:2003Natur.421..699R. doi:10.1038/421699a. PMID 12610602.

Rahmsdorf has just been "retired"early, and not before time, possibly because his employers could not defend his science any more. The Wikipedia entry contains very little factual evidence, but emphasises scary consequences, and presumably has been maintained and updated to the Hockey Team's satisfaction.

How does he conclude that Global Warming will interrupts the Gulf Stream, causing the British Isles to cool?

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/18/approaching-grand-solar-minimum-could-cause-global-cooling/

Approaching ‘grand solar minimum’ could cause global cooling

Anthony Watts / 6 hours ago March 18, 2018

"There’s a lot of evidence mounting that solar cycle 25 will usher in a new grand solar minimum. Since about October 2005, when the sun’s magnetic activity went into a sharp fall, solar activity has been markedly lower, with solar cycle 24 being the lowest in over 100 years."

Donegal in NW Ireland has an annual average temperature of 9.1C.
The American equivalent, on a western coast at the same latitude is Prince Rupert in British Columbia. Their average temperature is 6.9C.
2.2C is the difference the Gulf Stream makes.

What a waste of the back of an envelope. Your calculation assumes everything else being equal (which it assuredly is not) and that Donegal's average temperature is controlled by the Gulf Stream. Donegal's average temperature is determined by the percentage of time the area is covered by different types of air (only some of which might be influenced by gulf stream water). I would imagine that in recent days even Donegal has been covered by the Beast from the East air (with zero influence from the Gulf Stream). So unless Donegal and Prince Rupert have exactly the same relationship to the jet stream (which largely controls the direction the weather comes from) your comparison is meaningless.

EM suggest you get up to speed about the heat provision of the Gulf Stream (or lack of)
http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2012/06/what-do-you-mean-the-gulf-stream-doesnt-keep-europe-warm-how-even-scientists-are-afflicted-by-urban-myths/

Supertroll, from your link:

"This is how a scientific urban myth is born: by the time you reach a citation 3 times removed from the supporting observations, a conclusion becomes something ‘everyone knows’ despite very few people ever being exposed to the evidence it was based on. “I’m telling you, this paper told that paper that this other paper has compelling evidence for this! Compelling! Well no, I haven’t actually read it myself…” "

Climate Science cannot prove how or when it was decided that manmade CO2 is the Earth's Temperature Control Knob, so Trump can refer to Climate Science as being based on Urban Myths, until Climate Science can prove otherwise.

Supertroll

Logical fallacy.

The existence of an oscillation due the the presence the Rockies does not preclude the warming of the prevailing SW winds in the UK due to the Gulf Stream/AMOC.

Your reference is not much help. No numbers are included and the original American Scientist article is no longer available. I followed up on Seager's work and found very little. He never quantified it properly and, like many such fringe ideas, it disappeared into obscurity.

Try
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1256/qj.01.128