Comments on: Methane rise continues

By: Siberian seabed methane: first numbers â€” Hot Topic

Siberian seabed methane: first numbers â€” Hot Topic — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:03:27 +0000

[...] of NOAA, who confirmed a couple of weeks ago that recent increases in atmospheric methane were continuing, tells me that the emissions estimates are reasonable, but that the global data is not yet [...]

By: Gareth

Gareth — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:35:23 +0000

I made it clear at the time he released his ludicrous "report" on the NZ temperature record that he would not be welcome here unless and until he issued an apology for attempting to smear NZ scientists. No such apology has been made. I'll have more to say on this later.

By: Rob Taylor

Rob Taylor — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:30:05 +0000

I agree, C3P0, Treadgold’s unjustified attacks on the NZ climate science community appear to arise more from stupidity and ignorance rather than malice.

In the competition to get the most wrong in a single post, he even beats Steve Wrathall – no mean feat…

By: C3P0

C3P0 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:00:01 +0000

Despite what you think of Richard Tredgold his comments posted on this thread are non-confrontational and in-line with the general tone of the blog. I do not see why he should be censored.

By: C3P0

C3P0 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:42:25 +0000

Its a legal document, it should be taken literally.

AR4, ten years, well 1999-2006, so yeah, but anyway,

Changes in methane concentration:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-2-4.html

Changes in hydroxly radical concentration, driver for methane lifetime;

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-3-5.html

By: Gareth

Gareth — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:36:33 +0000

Indeed, Rob. He makes another mistake, because the 7ppb increase is per annum, and likely to be sustained over the last three years – making a 21ppb increase over the period, or 1.2% over the baseline he chooses.

(I’ll have more to say on Treadgold and my comment policy later).

By: nommopilot

nommopilot — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:59:07 +0000

“Just as zero has no units, neither does it possess a trend, so growth and decline are equally meaningless, even if emotionally appealing.”

The only thing meaningless is this statement.

a. Zero certainly has units, the same units as the others on whichever scale it is part of. Are you trying to say 0mm of distance is the same as 0kg of weight?

b. Besides he said near-zero, not zero…

c. A trend is a situation where a measurement deviates from a norm so deviation from many thousands of years of a stable near zero is certainly evidence of a trend. The significance/strength or negation of a trend will be borne out by future measurements.

By: Rob Taylor

Rob Taylor — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:35:36 +0000

“Just as zero has no units, neither does it possess a trend, so growth and decline are equally meaningless, even if emotionally appealing.”

In this schoolboy howler, local deniosaur Richard Treadgold exposes a breathtaking ignorance of the rudiments of measurement. He has confused a VALUE (near zero) with a DIMENSION (ppb / year).

The only physical quantities that do not have units, i.e. are “dimensionless”, are, by definition, those formed by the ratios of quantities that have the same dimensions, e.g. the fine structure constant, alpha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless

As an example, 0 Centigrade is not 0 Fahrenheit or 0 Kelvin. Units matter – just ask NASA, who have lost Mars probes because deacceleration parameters were entered in Imperial units, rather than metric…

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco990930.html

Back to school, Richard!

By: C3P0

C3P0 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:46:06 +0000

Or is it zero feet away? Or zero light years away? Or zero parsecs away?

By: Whoops

Whoops — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:33:22 +0000

“Just as zero has no units”

Eh?

The box was 1m away and I moved it. It is now 0m away.