http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43936296/ns/business-autos/

White House, automakers reach deal on mileage


The new standard would require auto manufacturers to raise passenger car mileage by 5 percent annually from 2017 through 2025. Light trucks would need to improve fuel efficiency 3.5 percent a year from 2017 to 2021, then by 5 percent through 2025 Proponents contend the move will sharply reduce the nation’s dependence on imported oil while also reducing the risk of climate change.

 

Climate models get energy balance wrong, make too hot forecasts of global warming

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (July 26, 2011) — Data from NASA’s Terra satellite shows that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”

The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

The previously unexplained differences between model-based forecasts of rapid global warming and meteorological data showing a slower rate of warming have been the source of often contentious debate and controversy for more than two decades.

In research published this week in the journal “Remote Sensing” http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf, Spencer and UA Huntsville’s Dr. Danny Braswell compared what a half dozen climate models say the atmosphere should do to satellite data showing what the atmosphere actually did during the 18 months before and after warming events between 2000 and 2011.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

Not only does the atmosphere release more energy than previously thought, it starts releasing it earlier in a warming cycle. The models forecast that the climate should continue to absorb solar energy until a warming event peaks. Instead, the satellite data shows the climate system starting to shed energy more than three months before the typical warming event reaches its peak.

“At the peak, satellites show energy being lost while climate models show energy still being gained,” Spencer said.

This is the first time scientists have looked at radiative balances during the months before and after these transient temperature peaks.

Applied to long-term climate change, the research might indicate that the climate is less sensitive to warming due to increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere than climate modelers have theorized. A major underpinning of global warming theory is that the slight warming caused by enhanced greenhouse gases should change cloud cover in ways that cause additional warming, which would be a positive feedback cycle.

Instead, the natural ebb and flow of clouds, solar radiation, heat rising from the oceans and a myriad of other factors added to the different time lags in which they impact the atmosphere might make it impossible to isolate or accurately identify which piece of Earth’s changing climate is feedback from manmade greenhouse gases.

“There are simply too many variables to reliably gauge the right number for that,” Spencer said. “The main finding from this research is that there is no solution to the problem of measuring atmospheric feedback, due mostly to our inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in our observations.”

For this experiment, the UA Huntsville team used surface temperature data gathered by the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Great Britain. The radiant energy data was collected by the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.

The six climate models were chosen from those used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The UA Huntsville team used the three models programmed using the greatest sensitivity to radiative forcing and the three that programmed in the least sensitivity

 

plus new studies on cloud cover and a separate one from India on cosmic radiation and clouds.

i noticed that at first most of the car companies were against teh new. i understand they even had ad campaigns against it ready to go. but after a couple of meetings the new mpg standard was moved down a gallon and ahalf from what the President initially was calling for. Im sure that s not all the companies got in return

One report I heard mentioned Mazda specifically as being on board with the new standards. I bet that means that they have been promised that idle stop will be figured in to testing calculations for the new standard as it will help Mazda show a greater improvement across the board once their SISS gets in all their US piston vehicles

 

i was thinking about posting about this too but Gavin Schmidts reaction to this study and reports on the study is priceles

and

sooooo he admits there are problems with the models AND that the satellite data is "imperfect". i thought we were all told we had to believe the models and the sat data?

 

As I was reading the previous few posts, I couldn't help but think of the earth like a brake rotor.

It has peaks and valleys of temperature. But it doesn't wait till after it's peaked it's heat to start shedding heat. Any increase in heat over 'status quo' results in an increase in heat release. Sure, you can add heat to it faster than it can shed that heat, but there is still immediate heat release as soon as the heat increases over ambient, however fractionally small, increasing as the heat increases.

The model explanation the is saying that heat only starts shedding after the peak makes it sound more like a pressurized air line. It will continue to gain pressure until it ruptures, and then start losing pressure.

 

I just saw this on NBC, talking about like

"OH IT WILL BE ABLE TO SAVE PEOPLE'S GAS BY 8000 dollars and save US Government 2 Trillion" ...

I was like yeahhhhh

it will not save me crap when the car cost will cost another couple if not tens of thousand more dollars per car.

 

Hush. You are thinking.


That isn't an approved option.

 

Good stuff

Paul.

 

They called it 'settled science'. No further debate need transpire. The ignoramuses must be exposed as such and be silenced.

Perhaps some powerful and influential people might have an agenda?

Paul.

 

I just heard that news. I think they're trying to get it in 35 miles per gallon or more.

 

When gas are $4/gallon. 35 mpg sounds pretty appealing

 

People think that 30+ mpg is great and is an improvement... they are saving money on gas.

Economics 101... supply and demand. And this is what it comes down to.



Cars are getting more efficient. This means they need less gas. This means oil companies sell less and now they need more money.

Now they raise the price and create bullshit excuses on why we as a planet is dying (resources).People buy the overprices gas and dont feel bad about it because they are getting 35+ to the gallon.

The difference is made up.

 

On the surface, I would agree with you.

However it's not really a secret that the world as a whole is using more petroleum than it used to. Not just gas. Add oil, plastics, etc...


Petroleum is used everywhere, not just in gas. And cars are more efficient, but there are also a lot more of them

 

Does this go for sports cars as well?
Because I can't picture a sports car getting the same gas mileage as a Prius...

 

Uhm... Economics aside, which are overly simple and complex at the same time i'd like to divert the problem to the "science".

Increasing ethanol and mileage at the same time, by that proposed rates, looks unfeasable.
What will happen?

 

That's why it's Corporate Average Fuel Economy.

The average fuel economy of the collective total number of cars that they sell has to hit a certain mark.

For example, using today's cars, say the target is 30mpg. The Mazda2's average mileage is 32mpg. The RX-8's is 19mpg (remember, published numbers is what matters, not the real-world mileage).

So if Mazda was only selling Mazda2s and RX-8s, they would need to sell 10 Mazda2s for every RX-8 to get to an average of 30.8mpg. If they only sold 9 Mazda2s for every RX-8, then their average would be 27.9mpg.

Most companies will have no severe problems achieving the targeted goals, since most own at least 1 brand with cars that either are, or easily could be, extremely efficient. The exotic ones will have the most trouble, Aston Martin, Ferrari, etc... Not all though, like Bugatti won't have much of a problem, since they are owned by WV, and all those Golfs and Rabbits offset each Veyron without much trouble.