Comments on: Climate Scientists Out in the Cold

By: SherryGreens

SherryGreens — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:58:21 +0000

I can’t believe the House of Representatives voted to pass bill HR1. It is unbelievable really; I just don’t understand the logic… These politicians are real people with real children – don’t they worry about their future, don’t they care? They must be completely brainwashed – that is really the only word for it – in order to do this. I don’t UNDERSTAND.

Sadly, the government down there is just “us” against “them”, without any apparent deep consideration of the issues. It is dividing and destroying them, and all we can do is watch. The environmental issue just gets pushed further and further down the agenda, and nothing is accomplished. :(

By: joe

joe — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:42:33 +0000

Another great post Kate. I was funded by CFCAS for a portion of my doctoral research, which basically would have been impossible without their support.

A quick Google Scholar search turns up 1240 articles with “Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science”, presumably cited in the acknowledgments. There are undoubtedly more papers in the pipeline. So lets say we hit 1500 peer-reviewed contributions, and it works out to around $7900/publication. This accounts for equipment, travel, graduate and post-doc salaries, research assistants, publication fees, conferences, and network meetings! I’m not advocating that scientific productivity be framed in terms of economics, but the government can’t really ask a better ROI.

In my mind, the great thing about CFCAS was that the funding structure forged important collaborations within and among Canadian scientists and universities. NSERC funding seems to be geared towards supporting the individual researcher, while grants for large-scale research projects are tough to come by.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:20:21 +0000

Okay…just looked it up. It *is* a meme used to criticize the MET office. I think I understand where you are coming from now. It even made it to this side of the pond at the standard antiscience sites.

Guess I stepped onto that landmine.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:12:43 +0000

The Ville–I’m just quoting the MET office…hence my use of the word “apparently”, as in “apparently enough to power a small town”. I should have put a !? after it to express my puzzlement as it seemed very low to me too. Not knowing a lot about it though I assumed I was wrong and the MET was right. Thanks to you (and Frank) for clarifying.

And my point was simply answering MikeN’s question, about supercomputers which was “Do they draw that much power?”.

Answer: Yes.

Anything else you appear to have read into it is wrong as your subsequent response seems completely non-sequitur to me.

All I can come up with is that you thought I was criticizing the use of large amounts of power for climate work because you’ve run into that meme before from deniers. It happens–we sometime over-react to innocent questions/statements because we’ve seen the same question/statement coming from concern trolls and deniers.

By: Keith Grubb

Keith Grubb — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:33:51 +0000

Ok, Ok, we yanks are a nation of sonnets. You learn something everyday.

By: Martin Vermeer

Martin Vermeer — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:04:54 +0000

Yep, this looks funny. But not uncommon, many people mix up power and energy.

Look here:

http://www.green500.org/lists/2010/11/top/list.php

Yes, I’m pretty sure that the ’1.2 MW per year’ quoted is in fact 1.2 MW of power. 1.2 MWh per year would be no more than 137 watts :-)

By: Timothy Chase

Timothy Chase — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:39:54 +0000

Love, war, a tempest—surely there’s variety;
Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;
A bird’s-eye view, too, of that wild. Society;

A slight glance thrown on men or every station. If you have nought else, here’s at least satiety,
Both in performance and in preparation;
And though these lines should only line port-
manteaus.
Trade will be all the better for these Cantos.

-Canto the Fourteenth, Don JUan, George Gordon Byron

By: The Ville

The Ville — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:31:18 +0000

Having had a look around, it appears that the 1.2 megawatts isn’t for the year. So the consumption would be 1.2 megawatts per hour.

A lot more than a light bulb!
Although about 2 reasonably sized wind turbines would cope with that demand.

There are figures in the top500 super computer list for typical power consumptions.

By: Hank Roberts

Hank Roberts — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:41:22 +0000

“If from great nature’s or our own abyss
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss …
…
Look back o’er ages, ere unto the stake fast
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.
Nothing more true than not to trust your senses;
And yet what are your other evidences?
…
… my Muse by no means deals in fiction:
She gathers a repertory of facts,
Of course with some reserve and slight restriction,
…
For too much truth, at first sight, ne’er attracts;
And were her object only what ‘s call’d glory,
With more ease too she ‘d tell a different story.

Love, war, a tempest—surely there ‘s variety;
Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;
A bird’s-eye view, too, of that wild, Society ….”

Don Juan
by George Gordon Byron
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19895

By: frank -- Decoding SwiftHack

frank -- Decoding SwiftHack — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:02:29 +0000

MikeN:

Hmm, I agree… this needs clarification. (If you ask me, I’ll guess that they meant the supercomputer was running at 1.2 MW over the whole year, which makes the energy usage over an entire year [1.2 MW x number of hours per year], i.e. about 10 GWh.)