Recent comments

  • My Prius experience   2 days 11 hours ago

    Not where I live, we only get a couple of weeks of snowfall in a year. It could be related to having more rainfall though, if driving in the rain is causing the problem. I don't think it could be humidity-related though (summers are much more humid).

  • My Prius experience   2 days 22 hours ago

    Just out of curiosity, could the MPG reduction during the winter be related to the presence of ice and snow? It is true that people drive more slowly in such weather (or should!). but it also requires more time to cover the same distance and detours are often more unpredictable. Snow and ice can also accumulate on the car and add more weight.

  • My Prius experience   1 week 3 days ago

    Or, maybe something with the car aging or getting out-of-tune.

    Aging batteries causing the engine to run a bit more frequently than when they were new, perhaps?

  • Currying confusion   1 week 4 days ago

    She also believes that overall sensitivity is probably low, and specifically assert that a Charney sensitivity well below 2C is plausible.

    In a recent thread at Kloor's I pointed out that recent deep-time paleo work strongly argued against this, and her response was to point me to a recent review paper (Hegerl co-auth) she said agreed with her. I looked and... no, it didn't. This kind of sloppiness is very hard to excuse.

  • Kloor's five strikes   1 week 5 days ago

    I had occasion to visit the Curry-Schmidt manufactured controversy and came to the conclusion that both Curry and Kloor had fallen victim to a phenomenon I encountered when I first innocently started searching for more information and trying to learn. I was fascinated but appalled as I spent hours chasing down every fallacious link presented by the misinformationalists. It took at lot of time and energy, and all of my sketchy education, reading things like the Duae Quartunciae (sp?) rebuttal of Monckton, and realizing that the senate site in question was Inhofe/Morano's creature, finding that Fred Seitz was bought and paid for, and the like. It all sounded so plausible, and with a little wishful thinking I could easily have bought into it.

    KK appears also to have gained a wide audience with his technique. It's sad that it inflates fake skeptic positions at a time when they need to be deflated.

    I am so grateful to Arthur Smith and all those who take the time and trouble to deconstruct what is going on. All those whose lay status prevents them from evaluating the science are stuck with gut feeling, a lot of reading, and watching what is going on in the real world. I think an honest layperson with normal education, which despite my deficit in that department is less than I have, can figure out that things are awry by looking at world weather over time and talking to older people, farmers, gardeners, and the like. Of course our recent season is a wakeup call, but there will be other years like those after 1998 and people will rub their eyes and pretend it was all a tempest in a teacup.

    Back to Collide-a-Scape, it appeared that there was a considerable fan club that was deaf to any entreaty involving facts. My personal reaction to Dr. Curry was based on her comments on RC before any of this blew up - it looked like a clear case of fluffing, fudging, and failing to back down to me.

    Interestingly, the thing that gave me the most respect for Dr. Curry was Dr. Schmidt's description of her qualifications and goals, and also above the praise for her work before she ran off the rails and began to suggest that we all depend on our info from places like CA and WUWT.

    I watch tactics, since that is something I can understand, and this business of attacking comment editing on various website and making outrageous claims about it is on the rise. It's very successful because it's hard to disprove.

    I'm grateful to Tenney Naumer whose post of your article on ethics finally brought me to this site.

  • Currying confusion   1 week 6 days ago

    This

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/increasing-Antarctic-Southern-sea-ice.htm

    has a mention of the 1992 Manabe et.al. work that indicated that Antarctic sea ice barely changed even under 2XCO2.

  • Kloor's five strikes   1 week 6 days ago

    Contrary to Keith's guess, this post took me almost no work - less than a quarter of the time spent on the recent Prius post, for instance (which involved a bit of data entry). I had 4 of the 5 on this list in my head from the start when I commented on his blog regarding the latest instance. if I'd thought to spend more time I would have found a better Romm example, and perhaps would have improved wording to shorten the article a bit. But Keith's right about one thing - the time was wasted if I thought it would change him at all. Luckily my only real purpose was to vent. And now I'm done, enjoying a great vacation and have no intention of spending further time on this!]

  • My Prius experience   1 week 6 days ago

    Heh, my sister just bought one because her company moved her office from about 10 miles away to a gruesome 35 mile one way commute in stop 'n go traffic (I had a slightly longer version of the same commute, end point a few miles farther up the same boulevard). One of the reasons she got the Prius instead of the competitors was because she could fit her stand up bass in the thing. Talk about rear legroom! Overall, Toyota has done a great job of packaging the car.

    About your mileage. You would be surprised about the differences in rolling resistance of tires. If you got tires which have good winter traction -- M+S rated -- they will have higher rolling resistance. I believe that Toyota had some special OEM tires with very low rolling resistance designed for the Prius, so this could well be the reason for the decreased mileage.

    Me, I'm kind of a leadfoot and I like the feel of G's when I put my boot into it. That and sharp cornering performance. My favorite car for this was my heavily modified Mazda Miata. 0-60 was around 6 seconds and it would pull close to 1g in the corners. Fun, fun, fun, and I still got around 25mpg in mixed driving, over 30 on the highway. Moving to a place with snow on the ground for close to 6 months of the year (last year it was October to May, a long winter by anyone's definition) moved me to sell my baby and just use the Subaru. It sill gets 25mpg in mixed driving with my leadfoot and 33 -35 on the highway. I hope Suby has a hybrid by the time my current one dies, but that is years in the future.

  • Kloor's five strikes   1 week 6 days ago

    Well, Keith does have a delusion he clings to rather obsessively, which is that a blog that not only allows but encourages free commentary by the very sort of flying monkey that depresses you whenever one comments on your blog, Tom, can somehow play a constructive role in resolving conflict in the "climate debate." There are lots of things wrong with that idea, among them that much of the "debate" isn't about science at all but simply reflects the broader "culture war" (David Brin's phrase when he pointed out this problem, notwithstanding that Keith seemed unable to understand it).

  • My Prius experience   1 week 6 days ago

    Arthur,

    I have an Excel spreadsheet but I haven't entered the data from the pen-and-paper record that I keep in my car for about a year. Let me get it up-to-date and then I'll send it to you.

  • My Prius experience   1 week 6 days ago

    Hey, I didn't know you had one too! Ownership seems to be infectious - my father and sister have bought Prius's, as well as at least one brother-in-law. The roomy interior really is impressive - people refer to it as a "small" car, and I think the pre-2004 or so models were smaller, but mine has plenty of room for pretty much anything I want to carry (well, except my whole family doesn't fit, but that's true of almost every vehicle - it's tougher than you might expect to get a rental guaranteed to carry six plus luggage).

    So do you have any graphs of your Prius data? I'd be happy to post here!

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 3 hours ago

    KLOOR is the one who is obsessive in comparison to Romm? LOL!

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 3 hours ago

    I've elaborated on Arthur's critique here:

    http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/08/20/the-brushback/

  • Improving home energy efficiency: removing recessed lighting fixtures   2 weeks 8 hours ago

    Great post, I've been looking for something to help me with my old lighting setup in my grandma's old house.

    I'm also considering putting down underfloor heating - would you be able to do a walkthrough for that? ^_^ Also what supplier would you recommend? I was considering Floor Heating Online... What do you think?

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 8 hours ago

    I might add that whenever I see M. Tobis accused of being a hot-head, or Wm. Connolley accused of overstating the AGW problem, I know I'm dealing with someone who hasn't been given a program for tonight's opera.

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 8 hours ago

    Let me join the chorus of approbation - but add that this is part of a general trend of a general type of blogs/venues. Collide-a-Scape is right in the middle of them.

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 11 hours ago

    Thanks for doing this, Arthur.
    (And thanks Lou for "friction generator" terminology)

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 12 hours ago

    kkloor writes:

    Here's the thing Arthur: it's really hard to take this seriously when you open this way:
    Keith Kloor is a free-lance writer who reportedly now teaches journalism at NYU; during 2008-2009 he was on some sort of fellowship in Colorado.

    The rest of your post is supposedly some sort of detailed deconstruction of my supposed pattern of deception. You obviously put a lot of work in it. So why couldn't you be bothered to actually check out that I do teach at NYU--and have since the mid 2000s (see the upcoming Fall semester page for undergraduate course listings, look under "Advanced Reporting") and that I was on a journalism fellowship during the 2008/2009 academic year at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism. All you have to do is read the About page at my blog to learn this stuff, btw.

    Why is it hard to take the criticisms seriously because of that opening? Arthur reported accurately, the facts seem to be in order- you essentially are agreeing with him.

    I understand how nitpicking might give you the opportunity to avoid the substance of his post, but at least find some nits to pick!

  • My Prius experience   2 weeks 13 hours ago

    I love the way the car trains you to get higher MPG.

  • My Prius experience   2 weeks 14 hours ago

    Arthur,

    I've had my Prius since June of 2004 and have also kept track. Here in Rochester, the seasonal cycle in the MPG is even more pronounced. It may be due to more than just the heater...I think the engine also has to run a certain amount to warm up in order to satisfy the stringent SULEV (or whatever it is) emissions standard. And, I have heard it suggested that the batteries are less efficient in the cold and even claims that the increased air density & resulting drag makes a difference.

    By the way, I recommend also recording the average MPG as computed by the Prius screen each time you fill up. I think this number is actually much more precise than what you get by calculating the MPG yourself (because of the variability in the amount of gas you can get into the tank...which is probably even worse for the Prius than most cars because of that bladder thing in the gas tank). As a result, you should get a much less noisy curve using that number even without having to average over multiple fillups. (The value for the amount of gas used in computing that average MPG is apparently calculated by integrating the amount of time that the fuel injectors fire, which I have read should indeed give very good precision...although its accuracy may be a little off, i.e., there may tend to be a small offset relating to variability in the injectors relative to specs. In my experience, the offset over the long run in comparison to the direct calculational method is that the screen MPG is high by about 1.2 mpg, or ~2.5%. Of course, I don't even know to what accuracy the gas pumps at gas stations can be trusted to.)

    I have also seen a decline in MPG with time; however, mine seems to have been sort of a step function that occurred when last spring/summer my MPG failed to recover nearly as well as it had in previous years. I got new tires that spring, so that's the prime suspect...although I am surprised that the difference is that dramatic (about 5-6 mpg drop in the summer compared to previous summers) and the tires that I got (Uniroyal Tiger Paw) were rated well for rolling resistance. I was also wondering if there was a change in gas formulation, particularly with the use of more ethanol in the mix, that could account for it. Or, maybe something with the car aging or getting out-of-tune. Of course, it is the funny thing about owning a Prius that one finds little sympathy from people when you tell them how your gas mileage sucks because you used to get in the low 50s in the summer and now it is down around 45-47 mpg!

    I agree with you that the Prius is a great car. People are always surprised by the ample rear leg room and the very decent luggage space. And, the hatch is long enough that I can put my bike in (with the seats down, of course) without taking off either of the wheels. A few minor annoyances, as with any car, but I am generally very happy with it.

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 14 hours ago

    Keith Kloor says:

    You know the old saw: you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

    And, that relates to what Arthur said how exactly? You didn't dispute any of the facts that Arthur gave...You just expanded on them a bit. You may not have liked the tone (which may not have been exactly admiring but is, at least in my opinion, not really disparaging) or that Arthur didn't research the details of your fellowship and what you are teaching more completely, but that hardly makes Arthur's facts wrong.

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 20 hours ago

    Did Kloor really just refuse to read the article because the first sentence used the word "reportedly" for something which is indeed true?

    I don't know how to react to that, other than to say 'WTF'?

  • My Prius experience   2 weeks 1 day ago

    Well of course it won't price well compared to another sedan. The hybrid part is expensive.
    For an extra $5800, I'd rather have the minivan.

  • Kloor's five strikes   2 weeks 1 day ago

    Brickbats Prove Worth. . .

    These brickbats are actually a complement to Kloor's contribution to climate reporting.

    quoting Kloor:

    > "So your first sentence is quite lazy and obviously meant to be disparaging. If you can't play fair there, why would I think you're playing fair in the rest of your post?"

    One might suggest *actually reading it*, Kloor, and not swooning after only one sentence. I chuckle because this is exactly one of the of Kloor's faults Smith documents. I remember when Kloor was being accurately accused of lazily using the "he said/she said" narrative -- Kloor, without irony, pleaded that because he got some rude replies from "deniers" *and* "warmists", he really must be on to something! If I wanted Kloor to fall down a manhole, I would put up a "Watch Your Step" sign nearby and criticize his eyesight, then wait a few seconds for the tumble.

    Kloor attracts high quality commentators. I was very impressed with Kloor highlighting Jonathan Gilligan's comment by making it a full post. http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/06/20/ I recommend following Kloor only from second hand reports of the competent.

    I am not surprised Kloor is a journalism teacher - he is a wild bag full of every modern journalistic shortcut combined with self-importance combined with good intentions. He is thus a stereotypical journalism professor. At NYU, if Kloor bumped into Jay Rosen in the halls, both worthies would explode at the speed of light from the interactions of particles and anti-particles. (This is a snarky way of saying Kloor would benefit from critical self-examination.)

    But climate disruption reporting is most definitely enhanced by having Kieth Kloor participate. Proven by the interest displayed here.

  • Currying confusion   2 weeks 2 days ago

    I read somewhere that an early (like 1994 or so) GCM predicted the exact effect we are now seeing in the southern ocean: warming->more snow->more ice. Does anyone have a cite to that? I'd hate to think I'm delusional :-)
    Presumably this recent paper from Curry references the one I think I remember - but I only have the Discover report, not the paper itself.