Chart of the Day

Celebrating the 33rd anniversary of satellite measurements of global average lower tropospheric temperature, Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama at Huntsville published a chart of the entire data set:


source: Roy Spencer, Ph.D

Over at Reason magazine, Ron Bailey reprints the UAH team's notes on the data:

The end of November 2011 completes 33 years of satellite-based global temperature data, according to John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Globally averaged, Earth’s atmosphere has warmed about 0.45 Celsius (about 0.82° F) during the almost one-third of a century that sensors aboard NOAA and NASA satellites have measured the temperature of oxygen molecules in the air.

This is at the lower end of computer model projections of how much the atmosphere should have warmed due to the effects of extra greenhouse gases since the first Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) went into service in Earth orbit in late November 1978, according to satellite data processed and archived at UAHuntsville’s ESSC.

"While 0.45 degrees C of warming is noticeable in climate terms, it isn’t obvious that it represents an impending disaster," said Christy. "The climate models produce some aspects of the weather reasonably well, but they have yet to demonstrate an ability to confidently predict climate change in upper air temperatures."

The atmosphere has warmed over most of the Earth’s surface during the satellite era. Only portions of the Antarctic, two areas off the southwestern coast of South America, and a small region south of Hawaii have cooled. On average, the South Pole region has cooled by about 0.05 C per decade, or 0.16 C (0.30° F) in 33 years. The globe’s fastest cooling region is in the central Antarctic south of MacKenzie Bay and the Amery Ice Shelf. Temperatures in that region have cooled by an annual average of about 2.36 C (4.25° F).

The warming trend generally increases as you go north. The Southern Hemisphere warmed 0.26 C (0.46° F) in 33 years while the Northern Hemisphere (including the continental U.S.) warmed by an average of 0.65 C (1.17° F).

The greatest warming has been in the Arctic. Temperatures in the atmosphere above the Arctic Ocean warmed by an average of 1.75 C (3.15° F) in 33 years. The fastest warming spot is in the Davis Strait, between the easternmost point on Baffin Island and Greenland. Temperatures there have warmed 2.89 C (about 5.2° F).

While Earth’s climate has warmed in the last 33 years, the climb has been irregular. There was little or no warming for the first 19 years of satellite data. Clear net warming did not occur until the El Niño Pacific Ocean "warming event of the century" in late 1997. Since that upward jump, there has been little or no additional warming.

"Part of the upward trend is due to low temperatures early in the satellite record caused by a pair of major volcanic eruptions," Christy said. "Because those eruptions pull temperatures down in the first part of the record, they tilt the trend upward later in the record."

Christy and other UAHuntsville scientists have calculated the cooling effect caused by the eruptions of Mexico’s El Chichon volcano in 1982 and the Mt. Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991. When that cooling is subtracted, the long-term warming effect is reduced to 0.09 C (0.16° F) per decade, well below computer model estimates of how much global warming should have occurred.

Agreed, though see the later back-and-forth between the WaPo's Andrew Freedman and John Christy's and Roy Spencer's reply.

California High Speed Fail

On the 3rd of January, the California High Speed Rail (HSR) Peer Review Group issued a report that essentially kills HSR in California.   In 2008, Californians authorized $9B bonds for HSR.  However, the measure requires that the Peer Review Group sign off on the feasibility and reasonableness of the plan to build the rail system before the state issues the bonds.  Thus it appears the report will/should effectively kill the project, which is probably a good thing.

The primary criticism the Peer Review report has to offer is that the California HSR plan isn't financially feasible, that private sector involvement should be accelerated, that demand forecasts have not been subject to external and public review, and that they "cannot at this time recommend that the Legislature approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for the project."

This carefully footnoted Peer Review report says basically the same thing that Dr. Vranich (Big HSR Advocate and best-selling author of Supertrains) told the State of California in 2008.  Its worth it to watch his video here.  At that time Dr. Vranich said:

Vranich skewered every aspect of the HSRA’s proposal. He insisted that passenger estimates were wildly inflated—64 percent higher than those developed by the Federal Railroad Administration and by independent studies from the University of California at Berkeley’s Transportation Center, as well as a thorough report by the Reason Foundation...“High speed rail in California may be salvageable after all of this poor work, but someone else must be in charge,” Vranich said. “If the authority is unable to conduct studies that have credibility, how will they ever effectively deliver a mega construction project on time and within budget?” His argument tracks closely with a May 2011 report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which also suggests that the High-Speed Rail Authority be dismantled.

If the legislature fails to issue the next $3B in bonds, the California High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) just may close, and all the directors will lose their cushy jobs.  Roelof-Van-Ark the Chief Executive Officer makes $375,000.   So, in their defense, the California HSRA stated that following the recommendations of the peer review means California loses matching funds from the Feds, and that it is a "narrow, inaccurate and superficial assessment of the HSR program, it does a disservice to policy-makers who must confront these decisions." (Emphasis in original.)  Basically they said they stand by their numbers, reject the findings of the Peer Review, and that it isn't important to have funding sources for the $75 Billion that isn't funded.

I read the business plan, and I agree with the peer review findings.  You can read them both and make your own assessment as well.  I'll provide some of my findings here.

NOfP has covered the High Speed Rail (HSR) issue for the last several years.  HSR is a favorite project for politicians, and especially President Obama.  Not only does HSR and other public rail transport projects shift jobs from the public transportation sector to the government, and creating massive government bureaucracies in the process, it allows government to also redistribute wealth from taxpayers to HSR contractors, and to provide subsidies to the middle class and wealthy that ride the trains.  In short, HSR and other public transport put more power in the hands of the government, and provide less freedom of choice for the citizen. High Speed Rail is High Speed Fail:

Though a centerpiece of President Obama's recent stimulus plans, even the WaPo editors label high-speed rail "a lost cause."

Most proposed new passenger rail systems would require massive subsidies. Florida turned back Federal funding for fears of the necessary state spending. Wisconsin rejected high-speed rail funding, asking instead for reduced Federal monies to improve existing train service. California's high-speed rail -- mandated by a 2008 state ballot measure -- will bankrupt the state.

Most recently, Carl wrote that President Obama’s administration is providing $3B to fund California’s High Speed Rail initiative, even though CA is building the first section of rail not in an urban or even suburban area, but in the middle of the richest farmland in America -- where nobody actually lives.  This, despite the anticipated program cost tripling in the last three years.  As the LATimes puts it: "The bullet trains from Anaheim and Los Angeles to San Francisco will not cost $34 billion as originally estimated... but closer to $100 billion. Critics say the agency's new $98.5-billion estimate is low, and the authority admits it might go as high as $117.6 billion."

 In 2008, California voted authority to borrow up to $9 Billion to cover part of the capitalization costs of a high speed rail to connect San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco.  This initiative was sold to the voters through unsupported claims of costs and ridership made by the the California High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA).

Ridership:  At that time, the California HSRA predicted the system would have ridership in 2030 of 117M passenger trips. The 117M riders of a California rail system was absurd (and the HSRA knew it). The current annual ridership of the nations intercity rail system -- Amtrak -- is only 28.7M per year, nationwide, and Interstate 5, which stretches from Tijuana to Canada (including San Diego to LA through Sacramento and to Oregon and the main connector between LA and SF) has an annual passenger count of only 26M. So, does any reasonable person think rail travel between those cities is going to suddenly be a multiple of existing rail or road travel?  Let me add that the current Los Angeles to San Francisco air traffic is only 2.7M passengers per year. 

Capital Construction Cost: This year, the California HRSA changed its plan, creating Phase 1 to serve between LA and SFO, with service to Sacramento and San Diego and extend the lines by 1/3rd would be added later.  This smaller system, they admitted, would cost a lot more than the full system, at least $100B, which is more than triple what they forecast only three years ago for a much larger system.

The thing about both ridership and capital construction estimates is they are almost always wrong.  In the most comprehensive study of large scale transportation projects, a strategic misrepresentation bias underestimates costs by 50-100%, and overestimates ridership (and thus revenue) by 50-100%.  The report states:

[F]orecasters and planners deliberately and strategically overestimate benefits and underestimate costs in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not the competition’s, that gain approval and funding. Strategic misrepresentation can be traced to political and organizational pressures, for instance competition for scarce funds or jockeying for position, and to lack of incentive alignment.

(Hmmm... do you think that $375,000 salary paid the California High Speed Rail Authority CEO is an incentive alignment or misalignment?) 

So the costs are probably higher than $100B, and the revenue will not be enough to cover operating expenses.  Set that aside for a moment.  Recognize this:  For $100B we could fully subsidize air travel between Los Angeles and the Bay Area for the next 300 years.  A ticket from LAX to SFO costs about $100. So, for 100 billion dollars, you could buy one billion Air Fare tickets.  At 2.7M passengers a year, that $100B would last over 350 years.  Even at 10M passengers a year, it would last 100 years. 

How about this -- rather than spend $100B on rail service, lets just spend $27B on subsidized air service for everyone for the next 100 years, and invest the other $63B in bonds.  Preferably something conservative and profitable, like railroad freight bonds. Then we’d still have our $63B plus interest in another hundred years.

By that time, another technology (like gravity trains) will probably replace road and rail and air travel.  With transportation technology roughly doubling speed every generation (horse to rail to auto to propeller to jet...) who can say what technology will be available in 30 years?   It does not make sense to me to invest for 100 billion dollars in an infrastructure that could be obsolete before it is built, with a California HSR Authority that has no credibility.   It could be like another bridge to nowhere,  but just in the middle of nowhere.

Compare & Contrast

Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2011:

U.S. stands by California bullet train project despite critics

'We are not going to flinch' on support, an official says at a House committee meeting. The opposition alleges political corruption in the granting of federal funds for the Central Valley segment.
The Obama administration vowed Thursday at a House committee meeting in Washington that it would not back down from its support of California's bullet train project despite attacks from critics who alleged it is tainted by political corruption.

"We are not going to flinch on that support," said Joseph Szabo, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration.

Szabo said that his agency had committed itself to provide $3.3 billion for a construction start next year in the Central Valley and that federal law prohibits any change of mind about where to begin building the first segment of the state's high-speed rail system.

"The worst thing we could do is make obligations to folks and start to renege on our word," Szabo told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Szabo was grilled repeatedly about why the project was starting in the least populated region the route traverses, an area one East Coast politician asserted had "more cows and crops than people." Szabo said it was the state's application that determined where the money would be spent.

But that characterization of the decision-making process was sharply disputed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), whose district would be served by the rail line. Nunes led a charge of Republican criticism of the effort and claims that it would create tens of thousands of jobs.

"It is clear that high-speed rail is not about jobs," Nunes said. "It is about corruption, public deception and bureaucratic experimentation."

Wall Street Journal, December 24, 2011:

China to Slash Railway Spending

Chinese authorities are cutting spending on railway construction for 2012, the latest signal the world's No. 2 economy is de-emphasizing one of its most expensive programs after a year of problems highlighted by a deadly high-speed collision.

Under the new plan, spending for 2012 construction will drop 42%, from more than 700 billion yuan ($110 billion) earmarked in 2010--an investment level that initially had been expected to be maintained for a number of years, until the death of 40 people in the July crash prompted a reassessment.

Now that the Obama Administration finally should be copying China, it's not (except in Detroit). As Walter Russell Mead says:

Those of us who remember the short lived but intense Sushi Lobby, the Americans who thought the US needed to imitate the brilliant success of Japanese state capitalism back in those halcyon days of the 1980s when the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo were estimated to cost more than the entire state of California, will be waiting to hear how the Panda pundits explain the high speed rail meltdown.

"Tom Friedman, please call your office."

(via reader Warren)

QOTD

Iain Murray and James Bennett in the Wall Street Journal (alternative link here):

French President Nicolas Sarkozy helpfully summed up the results of this month's [December's] summit. He told Le Monde that there are now two Europes, one that "wants more solidarity between its members and regulation, the other attached solely to the logic of the single market." The Europe of regulation wants to press forward with deeper integration, stringent budget rules and a transition away from nation-state democracy.

The problem is that no one asked the peoples of Europe whether they wanted this. Nationalism is on the rise. Budget rules have been flagrantly ignored in the past, and the Franco-German plan does nothing to deal with the euro's structural problems, which make southern European countries grossly uncompetitive.

It is obvious to most outsiders that the euro zone's problems remain. The rating agencies have been unimpressed, and downgrades of most euro-zone members and their banks are now more likely than ever.

Agreed--twice.

Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2011

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has assembled the 50 Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2011, including:

49) Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers -- ThinkProgress Headline

45) Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? -- Joy Behar

42) The Republican Party is saying that the President of the United States has bosses, that the union bosses this President around, the unions boss him around. Does that sound to you like they are trying to consciously or subconsciously deliver the racist message that, of course, of course a black man can’t be the real boss? -- Lawrence O’Donnell

40) We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money. -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu on banning incandescent lightbulbs

24) What happened after 9/11 -- and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not -- was deeply shameful. [The] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neo-cons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons . . .The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it. -- Paul Krugman

21) The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln. -- Barack Obama

Read the whole thing.

Dumbest Statements of 2011

The Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein lists 'um, in two parts. Number one deserves particular notoriety:

1) James R. Clapper Jr., a retired Air Force Lt. General, became Obama's Director of National Intelligence in mid 2010.

2) On February 10, 2011, Clapper testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

3) Clapper's written statement was unobjectionable. However, responding to concerns about Egypt from Representative Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Clapper explained (video at link):

The term 'Muslim Brotherhood'. . .is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.

4) According to Lorenzo Vidino writing in XII Middle East Quarterly, 25-34, at 25 & n.1 (Winter 2005), the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

5) A Council on Foreign Relations "Backgrounder" issued seven days before the hearing tagged the Brotherhood with "a history of violence."

6) The day after the hearing, Clapper's office tried to back away from his "secular" designation, which the New York Post's Peter Brookes headlined "Clapper's crass Bro'hood bungle."

7) Remind me again what Democrats were saying about failures in Bush's intelligence community?

Happy New Years!

UPDATE: below


Enjoy! The fact that the corn ethanol subsidy just expired (after a mere 33 years) is a sign 2012 will be better than last year, I hope.

Except for Barack Obama; the WaPo's Jennifer Rubin calls 2011 the President's "annus horribilis." Still, our Chief Executive managed to golf at least 32 times last year; a full 90 trips to the links during his term. Which won't reverse lefty derision of George W. Bush as the golfing President.

MORE:

Editorial in the January 2nd Washington Post:

There may not have been a party in Times Square to celebrate, but two of the most wasteful subsidies ever to clutter the Internal Revenue Code went out with the old year. Congress declined to renew either the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for corn-based ethanol or the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, so both expired Dec. 31.

Taxpayers will no longer have shell out roughly $6 billion per year for a program that badly distorted the global grain market, artificially raised the cost of agricultural land and did almost nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A federal law requiring the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol for fuel by 2022 still props up the industry, but the tax credit’s expiration is a victory for common sense just the same.

Meanwhile, a lesser-known but equally dubious energy tax break also expired when the year ended Saturday: the credit that gave electric-car owners up to $1,000 to defray the cost of installing a 220-volt charging device in their homes -- or up to $30,000 to install one in a commercial location. As a means of reducing carbon emissions, electric cars and plug-in hybrid electrics are no more cost-effective than ethanol. What’s more, only upper-income consumers can afford to buy an electric vehicle (EV); so the charger subsidy is a giveaway to the well-to-do.

The same goes for the $7,500 tax credit that the government offers purchasers of electric vehicles, a subsidy that, alas, did not expire at year’s end. The Obama administration says that the credit helps build a market for EVs, which helps create jobs. Given the price of eligible models, like the $100,000 Fisker Karma, that rationale sounds an awful lot like trickle-down economics.

Backers of the charger tax credit may lobby Congress to renew it when lawmakers tackle the payroll tax extension issue again in the new year. We hope that Congress says no. Not only is it a case study in upward income redistribution, it also would represent a deepening of the taxpayers’ commitment to what looks increasingly like an industry not ready for prime time.