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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Like Ed, I like to post new stuff here, that I'm doing for my own interest anyway. Upthread I posted my own recalculation of an idea from Tamino -- placing 2014 global temperatures in perspective by comparing them with a trend line from the late 20th century, 1970 to 1999. The record high NASA temperature falls right on that trend line.
NASA, NOAA and HadCRUT4 indexes all reached high points in 2014, though not beating the second-highest year, 2010, by very much. Today another temperature index, by Cowtan and Way -- arguably the best in that it combines global coverage with the most recent sea surface data -- updated through December 2014 as well. CW actually give several different indexes, along with their uncertainties. Particularly interesting is their hybrid index which uses satellite data to infill the large geographical gaps of HadCRUT4.
Anyway, the Cowtan & Way hybrid index does not set a new record; 2010 remains slightly higher. Out of curiosity I tried Tamino's "It's the Trend, Stupid" analysis on these data too, with results graphed below. Here 2014 (despite not setting a record) comes in substantially above the 1979-1999 trend.
The solid line below depicts a trend (least squares regression line) based on 1979-1999 data only. The dashed line simply extends this same trend out to 2014. Turns out the 2014 mean temp anomaly lies above the late-20th century trend.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2015 - 12:07pm PT
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Works for me, although I will now have to look up the character Simplicio to more fully understand.
^An excellent illustration of this thread's dominant theme.^
I'm actually curious about your response EdwardT, can you help me understand what it means.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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EdwardT wrote: "Gasoline is a relatively inelastic product, meaning changes in prices have little influence on demand."
That article is quite misleading.
Little influence in total fuel demand ONLY in the Short Term.
It plots nominal price which is completely invalid, should have used constant dollars.
Secondly, for a better look at the situation, it should have also measured behavior that clearly does have an immediate reaction, such as the trend in purchase of higher mpg vehicles, which did start to go up after the last gas price spikes (although $4 per gallon is still way too low.)
One of the basic issues with elasticity plots is that there is short term effect and long term effect. Gasoline is not broccoli, where consumers can immediately switch to a substitute behavior.
Of course it takes a long time to change behavior away from lots of car miles per person. It takes 15 years to change out much of the fleet of vehicles. It takes decades to begin to reverse sprawl. Over the last 65 years, Americans have become quite conditioned to the expectation that gasoline will be cheap in the long run, so high prices for only a year or two does not change that expectation.
USA: 1100 kg/year oil equiv road fuel consumption per capita
Germany: 223 kg/year per capita
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.ROD.SGAS.PC/countries/all?display=default
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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That article is quite misleading.
The graphic shows miles traveled(VMT) rising steadily, while price climbed from $1/gal. to $3/gal. VMT remained steady, while price rose above $4.gal.
Seems straightforward.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Did you read anything of what I posted?
Also, VMT is not the same as
kg/year oil equiv road fuel consumption per capita
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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sketchy explanation......
Funny that.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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USA: 1100 kg/year oil equiv road fuel consumption per capita
Germany: 223 kg/year per capita
And all of Germany would fit comfortably within one state, Texas.
The TVM chart does closely track economic activity. The curve flattens out around 2008.
But then the warmist alarmist approach is to sharply restrict all productive economic activity by what ever means available.
Poverty is good for the planet in their view.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2015 - 01:24pm PT
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But then the warmist alarmist approach is to sharply restrict all productive economic activity by what ever means available.
Pop quiz: Is the above statement true or false?
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Splater,
I did read what you said. It seemed like you were bending over backwards to refute the article I posted.
My article was a response to your previous post, where you highlighted a six month change in prices. You stated "When the price changes less, people's reaction and change in practices will also be more consistent."
The article I linked showed little elasticity over a ten year period, when price/gal. increased over 200 percent (140 percent in real dollars). During that period of rapidly rising gas prices, average fuel efficiency of all passenger vehicles remained constant.
Is the article quite misleading? Or do you just dislike it's conclusions?
Is the EIA a credible organization?
* Edited at 2:22 PM
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Had a bit of precip here in the lee side of the sierra today. Is more to come? Check out the headlined forecast in the following link.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2015 - 02:01pm PT
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I hope that forecast is right, the poor oaks around here are dropping like the maple leafs.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I sure hope you're right, Rick. When the Fresno Fog lifts, I see way too much rock and way too little snow in the Sierra for February 2nd.
John
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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EdwardT and TGT,
the EIA article really is not asking or answering the pertinent questions, which are:
--If fuel prices doubled soon (in constant dollars) and stayed consistently high for 20 years, what would the effect be?
--If fuel prices had been as high in USA over the last 65 years as they have been in Germany, Norway, Sweden, France, UK, etc, what would be USA kg/year oil equiv road fuel consumption per capita?
TGT, density only explains some, but not most, of our fuel consumption. And in fact since we subsidize sprawl, they are not independent. Norway, Sweden, France, Australia are not dense, and yet they come no where near our huge fuel use.
Density in people per sq km: USA 34, Norway 15.5, Sweden 21.5, France 116, Germany 226, Rep of Ireland 65.
Here you can see that USA with cheap gas has much higher fuel use compared to various others. (Germany, Australia, Norway, Sweden, France, Ireland)
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.ROD.SGAS.PC/countries/AU-DE-US-NO-SE-FR-IE?display=graph
It is actually a gain to the economy to at least price driving and fuel to cover the existing external costs (not even including the cost of climate change). And if we had a good plan for fossil fuel taxes, the economic cost would be quite small, even if we discount the long run cost of doing nothing.
More on that in my posts from Jan 7.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Somebody is confused about the meaning of per capita.
Somebody is confused about population density and distance.
One other thing to consider that is missing from the German statistic, all of the external fuel costs, both land and sea, that are required to get the same products to the border.
Does a ton of olive oil going from Italy to northern Germany get counted as fuel costs only once it crosses the border while same ton going from California to New York obviously is included in the US total?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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splater,
I agree that the use of fuel per capita depends on price, ceteris paribus. Part of the difficulty in trying to estimate regressions on long-term elasticity of demand for petroleum products in the United States lies in the very competitive nature of the petroleum market, and the consequent lack of many data points that truly differ in long-term petroleum product pricing. This makes for some rather difficult econometric measurement.
Probably the best evidence we have of changes in the domestic market to changes in petroleum prices comes from the 1970's, when we had the Arab Oil Embargo and the Iranian Crisis. Even these, though, imposed non-monetary costs, in the form of long gas lines, rather than a permanent shift in prices. In any case, those events, together with price volatility, have provided sufficient data to demonstrate the expected relationship between price and consumption, long-term.
I question whether we "subsidize sprawl," however. Much of urban economics seems to accept the alleged subsidization as a matter of faith, but with not a lot of empirical evidence (as opposed to theoretical arguments). Trying to figure out "marginal cost" of urban development admittedly requires a lot of assumptions about capacity, but unless something changed since I was in grad school and law school, the allocation of the cost of suburban development has a lot of arbitrariness to it.
John
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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It is actually a gain to the economy to at least price driving and fuel to cover the existing external costs (not even including the cost of climate change). And if we had a good plan for fossil fuel taxes, the economic cost would be quite small, even if we discount the long run cost of doing nothing.
Unfortunately, I doubt anyone in Congress cares.
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Bob Harrington
climber
Bishop, California
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Regarding Roy Spencer's forecast. I hope he's right and we get a lot of precip.
At least part of his forecast is virtually certain to be correct -- "up to ten feet of snow" is what the Sierra gets every day. Usually zero, which which is within the range of "up to ten feet." Maybe that seems nit-picky, but the NWS would not be so sloppy.
Here's the NWS's statement:
A rather significant atmospheric river is forecast to make landfall and impact northern California and far western Nevada Thursday through Sunday. While there are many details to be ironed out, it appears now that significant rains are likely in northeast California, the far northern Sierra, and far northwest Nevada. Further south, near Tahoe and I-80 and into Mono County, there is much less confidence in precipitation amounts due to varying simulations of this series of storms. Even subtle fluctuations in storm track could result in big increases/decreases in how much rain or snow these areas get. Snow levels are likely to be high, 8000+ feet, for most of the storm which will result in minimal benefit to the snowpack but only intermittent travel impacts to the Sierra pass roads. In western Nevada, periodic showers are likely but the main story will be strong gusty winds especially on Thursday and Friday. What is an atmospheric river, you ask? These are long bands of moisture from the tropical Pacific Ocean that can bring significant portions of our wintertime precipitation. These are sometimes also called pineapple express storms.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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First, this threads most prolific poster gets his azz chopped in a meltdown of rambling inchoherent insults.
What are you talking about? The Chief is still here.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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It wasn't Spencer's forecast Bob. It was the Joe's, Bastardi and DAleo at Weather Bell. I hope the snow levels are below 8000', but being its a tropical flow into an already abnornally warm region I fear NWS is right.
I don't think the Chief has ever erased thousands of his posts Gary. Unlike others.
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