Did the authors of Superfreakonomics flunk high-school science?

Well, the people at realclimate have failed at objectivity, so what they have to say about anyone or anything is suspect before you even begin to read. If they set out to attack someone, then that person is probably right -or effective at exposing their bias.

What's wrong with community college? You can go there for 1-2 years, and you will be taking the SAME EXACT general education classes than you would be at a four year college for a MUCH cheaper price (like, maybe $2000 at the most!) After you finish the general ed classes, you can then transfer to a four year college, and complete your degree there. It is a VERY smart idea and will save you tens and thousands of dollars! And it's never been a better idea in this economy!

Was this the link you were thinking of?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009...

Very simple math. Interesting read.

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People like Peter J and Randall are why the poster asked for specific areas where Dr. Pierrehumbert made mistakes. Well?

It certainly seems that way. The book - particularly the climate science chapter - is riddled with errors. For example, they claim:

the minor albedo effect means solar panels contribute to global warming

solar panels are only 12% efficient

pumping sulfur into the atmosphere is a viable solution to global warming

pumping sulfur into the atmosphere is a cheap solution to global warming

global warming is a religion

the planet stopped warming

climate scientists were warning of global cooling in the '70s

phasing-out our use of fossil fuels will cripple the economy

Ken Caldeira thinks geoengineering will work without CO2 reduction

There are more (see links below), but those are the big ones.

Freakonomics was a great book, because the authors relied on a decade of their own research. In Superfreakonomics they relied on other peoples' research, and they did a half-assed job of understanding it before writing about it. They should have spent some time understanding climate change before writing a chapter on it.

I do not think that the author spoke about science in his book. The book took the approach that AGW iis real. The authors main point is that geo engineering is a more cost effect way of fighting global warming than carbon taxes or cap and trade.

At best, his calculation would represent an optimistic boundary.

He's basing the calculations on the accumulation of manmade emissions and arguing that natural uptake makes this a pessimistic boundary but it's hardly a simple linear relationship like that. There is the possibility of known and unknown natural mechanisms that will amplify the release of greenhouse gases by much more than is possible by man alone and not in a linear fashion.

We've already seen this with the pine beetles of British Columbia in Canada where a mild winter prevented the seasonal die off from occurring hence there was an unusually high population of pine beetles in the following year resulting in a high mortality of pine trees. Now the CO2 being emitted from the decomposing trees will be the equivalent of five years of Canadian automobile emissions.

Another known mechanism is that as the permafrost thaws due to rising temperatures, methane is released.

We also know that warmer waters hold less dissolved gases, yes there may be some additional uptake of CO2 by the seas but only by displacement of the dissolved oxygen. In general the seas will absorb fewer gases overall and will likely be giving off gases as it warms.

The changing levels in acidity and in oxygen content will lead to change of habitat in the oceans which always results in a die off as life forms attempt to adapt. This means that there will be an increase in decomposing biomass in the oceans resulting in more CO2 being released.

Due to the now lower oxygen levels of the oceans, anaerobic bacteria will likely be the mechanism for such decomposition as it is in the various increasing dead zones of the world resulting in denitrification followed by H2S emissions. H2S is deadly to oxygen breathing life of any form hence at some point will result in more dieoff both at sea and on land. Fossil records have shown that this could happen to an extreme as in the Permian

The magnitude of these "natural" releases triggered by increasing global temperatures eclipse any emissions possible by man. They're known to have happened and were probably the major mechanism for ending the various ice ages.

He's making a common mistake of any scientific forecast (perhaps a flaw that exists in all scientific analyses), he's assuming that he's accurately inventoried all factors and there are known factors that he has not included in his analysis never mind the unknown. He does acknowledge that such analysis need to establish a bound either upper or lower in order to be interpreted but he has presented insufficient and rather casual arguments for it to be a pessimistic bound. His work is good and his math is solid but his premises are incomplete. Of course, it would be difficult and perhaps impossible to be complete with something like global climate but he needs more and better arguments to set the nature of the bounds that he is suggesting.

Superfreakonomics was about counter-intuitive solutions to big problems and the example mentioned was Sulfur Dioxide emissions to cool the world rather than attempt to reduce greenhouse gases. The example was also to exemplify what a think tank group such as Intellectual Ventures could come up with. The IV suggestion was a perforated garden hose suspended by high altitude blimps to distribute SO2 in critical regions such as near the poles to preserve the ice caps. A less onerous and less expensive way of achieving this goal would be to allow airlines to use the less expensive high sulfur jet fuel on selected routes. IV is an interesting think tank but it goes to show that any think tank suffers from a relatively low representation of qualified thinkers, you never know who's going to have the next great idea.

I wrote an undergraduate paper on how to encourage innovation in the corporate environment that blew apart most of the theories employed by such think tanks such as encouraging play with toys and basketball hoops.

Ironically I did spend some time working for a company that embraced such concepts, they would have Legos and Rubiks cubes and puzzles scattered throughout the conference room, they only hired PhD's for technical positions and they required new employees to live in Harvard square for six months to cultivate the corporate culture.

Open discussion forums such as Yahoo Answers could easily eclipse such think tanks if a research group existed to develop some of the concepts generated by the public.

Wouldn't mind being paid to dream though and it was fun to watch people try to guess my thesis during lively debates in the lunch room since I was the only one hired for having saved their technical asses rather than for holding a PhD.

realclimate doesn't exactly have a great track record for accuracy.