I periodically look for used version of books students I’m tutoring are assigned. I’m very careful to not buy those listed at ridiculous prices. From time to time, I see a price that makes my eyes pop.
Are the two versions of “College Physics” by Gentile, Van Heuvelen and Etkina available at prices “from @1,144.34” printed on gold foil?! Do they contain all the answers to the 2017 AP Physics exam? What’s going on?
(Yes. Those are rhetorical and I’m pretty sure the answers are “No”. “No”. And “programming error”.)
For those wondering: you can get the AP version of this text book at a lower price. The publishers price is $213.96. You can also find listings on Amazon for less although I haven’t found any for $5 or less; prices that low are generally easy to find once the new edition is published.
Fortunately none of the students I’m tutoring use this book. It’s just sometimes mentioned as “the” book for the AP. (I doubt if any book is “the” book.)
I thought you might enjoy seeing that heart warming stopping price. Always compare prices on Amazon. Because otherwise…oy!
Meanwhile, the number of comments on previous posts is long. Open Thread.
Sounds like a doctor’s bill to me. Recently, a radiologist tried to charge me $2,000 to read an MRI.
JD
I have no idea what reading an MRI should cost. But that definitely sounds steep.
I suspect we can’t find “MRI reading” on Amazon. . .
JD Ohio,
Have you priced malpractice insurance for a radiologist? I couldn’t find numbers on line. But something like 80% of all radiologists will be sued for malpractice at some point in their career. Besides the cost of insurance, there’s the opportunity cost of preparing for depositions and trial.
Also, was that in a hospital or outpatient clinic? 100% of outpatient clinic radiologists get sued for malpractice.
DeWitt: This article states that only 31% of radiologists were sued once in their lifetime. If the radiologist had told me he would charge me $2,000, I would have gone to someone else, or not had the procedure (It was mostly for peace of mind on my part regarding a minor hip problem.) $2,000 per reading would cover a lot of malpractice for probably 30 minutes of a doctor’s time. http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/practice-management/diagnosis-error-most-common-radiology-malpractice-claim It was in an outpatient clinic.
Also, my second (thankfully divorced) wife was an ultra-sound technician (doctor in China, ultra-sound technician here), and I never heard of any figures remotely like the one you are citing in your comment.
JD
http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/malpractice-report-2015/radiology
I can’t vouch for the reliability of the data, but it was the most recent report that came up on a search for ‘radiologist malpractice insurance’.
Did the radiologist know you were a lawyer?
Dewitt: “Did the radiologist know you were a lawyer?”
….No. Maybe I wish he did. Should add that a month & 1/2 after I had the MRI, I went to see an Orthopedic Surgeon. His office personnel tried to get me to have an X-ray. I refused. I know this request for the X-ray was fraudulent because the doctor never even asked about an X-ray. Doesn’t seem like his office was scared off by potential radiology malpractice claims.
JD
JD Ohio,
According to my link above, the most common reason for a malpractice suit for a radiologist was failure to diagnose or late diagnosis. Your Orthopedic Surgeon doesn’t care if the radiologist who reads the x-ray gets sued, only if he gets sued for failure to diagnose. Running more tests is defensive medicine. Now if something comes up later, he can say you didn’t let him take an x-ray.
I shouldn’t be quite so cynical about this. The primary motivation for most doctors is to help their patients.
Dewitt: In my pretty extensive experience with orthopedic surgeons, they read their own x-rays. Almost certainly the ortho would have read the x-ray taken in his office. (In fact, he also read the MRI and showed me the pertinent features) To me an x-ray (on a hip) a month & 1/2 after an MRI is not defensive medicine because it is not nearly as sensitive as the MRI. Also, the ortho’s office knew that my minor symptoms had not changed in the past month and one-half. My conclusion is that the ortho’s office knew that insurance would probably pay for the worthless X-ray, and it was an easy way to make more money on my visit. If insurance didn’t pay, they would be happy to stick me.
JD
I have seen prices like this quite often. I suspect it is just someone who puts the high price up there on the rare chance that someone MUST HAVE it. Though the sellers here appear to be selling random collections of items.
JD Ohio,
Three worst types of patients ?
A doctor’s wife, a lawyer’s wife and a teacher.
not in that order.
Others may have more suggestions.
Note Insurance should pay for some part of these procedures so doubt you would have been $2000 dollars out of pocket on the MRI.
The cost is not just for the reading, surely but also for the effort in doing it??
Stand to be corrected but it is a complicated bit of machinery, cannot do many a day and employing highly trained technicians hence more expensive than a stock X-ray for example.
Money for jam after the first year.
Still sounds expensive to me too.
Just pointing out that it is not as bad as you appear to be making it.
–
Also the Orthopedic surgeon is quite right and proper to insist on an X-Ray before seeing you despite having an MRI.
On the surface view you put it seems unnecessary but you are wrong in this case.
An X-Ray should always be done first if possible in investigation and should have been ordered by the doctor ordering your MRI [unless you insisted not to do so].
Ground 1 completeness of investigation.
An X-Ray shows different problems up that are not evident on the MRI.
Too close you see, in going in for the detail you miss the forest for the trees.
The alignment of the hip compared to the other side for instance.
Problems in the lumbar spine evident in the X-ray film not mentioned on the Hip MRI. Even say a myeloma deposit, cancer, TB etc.
An X-ray of the hip, knee or ankle can be among the most useless diagnostically of procedures ever invented in the majority of cases of problems in these areas.
Ankle sprains will often do quite well without an X-ray but everyone X-rays them for that 1 in 100 fracture that still does quite well except for that 1 in 10 lawyers case that doesn’t.
Medico legally, as you well know, failure to do them routinely leads to very expensive missed diagnoses and health issues.
So thank your Orthopedic surgeon for being professional and caring and carrying out his job properly, please.
“In my pretty extensive experience with orthopedic surgeons, they read their own x-rays. Almost certainly the ortho would have read the x-ray taken in his office.”
There are a lot of dud radiology reports, You know some very good orthopedic surgeons. Trust them.
Ask some of those about the hip X-Ray, they will all agree it is a good move.
I thought textbooks were going be a huge problem with costs for my daughters as they were when I went to school. However things have changed. The costs haven’t but many students can “find” PDF versions of the textbooks and in many classes the lectures notes are sufficient for the class. In the end their book costs have been much lower then they were when I went to school in 1800’s.
wow, Tom, 1800s. I seem to remember total of about $125/semester in 1960 which was year I bought most books. But some were used. And this was for history, english, physics, calc, latin(qucikly dropped after class turned out to be full of ringers) and ROTC. there must have been something else but I can only remember it in nightmares.
architecture school required a drafting set, triangles, a T-Square, and sets of pens, and a lot of paper. not so many books.
I can remember friends in med school mentioning books which cost over $100 at that time.
Tom,
I think it works out that way unless they are required to use a commercial web based system for their homework (and homework counts).
Obviously, textbook publishers need some way to get around the trick of not buying books. Catching and suing all students who locate pdf versions of the textbooks (or buy the entirely legal versions printed oversees) isn’t remotely practical. So in many introductory STEM courses, companies encourage faculty to assign problems using their commercial system. The problems in the online homework then dovetail those in the book (which is nice at least in principle.) The homework is then auto-graded. The book companies then sell an “accesss” card to the students.
It seems the access card can be pretty pricey. They are frequently sold with new copies of books, but they can’t be reused (or at least they can’t be reused forever. Maybe a two semester or so.) College students generally are the ones who pay for the cards (though perhaps not always) so this can get expensive.
(To see some of these systems: https://webassign.com/ http://www.pearsonmylabandmastering.com/masteringphysics/ )
I have no strong feelings one way or the other about these. I’ve taught students who use them and at least sometimes some of these systems are… uhmmm…. odd in a not-particularly productive way. But in principle they do give instant feedback (and when the odd features are fixed, they would do so in practice.)
I took classes where the professors assigned books they wrote.
There was no online, but they would of course bring out new editions.
The main bookstore would buy back for $5 or so, which they would then sell for $50.
Angech, I think he is saying just for the reading.
Prices I remember are
$20-50 to read an Xray.
CT about $100.
MRI $500
this was decades ago, and involved lots of cash payments.
The bookstores may still be trying this, but it doesn’t work as easily as it used to. If the book is popular, it is now possible to locate used versions cheaply. This may not be the case for unpopular books written by faculty members who haven’t gotten their book adopted at other schools. But for widely used introductory books, used are often easy to get.
Regarding the expense of textbooks – the wacky prices – I’ve always assumed they were priced by computer algorithms based on how rare, or infrequently sold the item is.
The other idea that occurred to me is that it might be due to money laundering – or be used as a tool for fraud (get my accomplice to list something at an inflated price, buy it, call it a business expense or something, or get my pal to pass me the cash back).
Why should a textbook on standard physics be so expensive? My most expensive book in my student days was Quantitative Seismology at about $150, because there were only so little pure geophysics students and ebooks were not issued then in 1983.
Hans,
Why $200-$300? Good question. I think it’s just the structure of the market. At university, the person who picks the book is not the person who pays for the book.
Generally, a faculty member picks the book. They may be aware of a price, and they wish it was lower, but they have various and sundry reasons to pick that book. Many of the reasons do fall in the category of “good”. It’s really difficult for the faculty to make choices that avoid the high price of these books.
Also: bear in mind, in some cases, these physics books could, at least hypothetically, cover 4 semesters worth of material. In reality, most students use them 1-3 semesters and skip lots of chapters. Which chapters are skipped will likely depend on which major.
Heck, some are kept on the shelf and students will look back when taking another specialty course. So some chapters contain “***” sections that most faculty skip. Those ‘****’ sections because very useful later when a student is doing reviewing and likes the extended material. (So, for example, containing some material nearly everyone lecturing Phys 101 would skip might be handy for a student who is later reviewing for a qualifying exam and who will appreciate material being co-located.)
MikeN (Comment #151142
“Angech, I think he is saying just for the reading”
I think with an X-ray or CT or MRI the result is a picture/disc and an interpretation [reading].
It usually came as a package, that is the reading and disc would be sent to the GP or specialist or given to the patient to take to his doctor.
The charge was for the package, that is you got one bill for the whole package from the radiologist/his company whose duty it was to convey the result [package] to the appropriate person usually the doctor.
Most conversations, if any!, would involve the 2 doctors [radiologist is a doctor], not the patient.
Not sure how the doctor cost component works, 50% of the cost plus profit of the procedure perhaps.
The time differential would be minimal in most cases and very short.
Angech, in my experience, the hospital charges for the XRay, and the radiologist practice charges for the reading. They can be combined, but don’t have to be. The prices I gave you were for reading only.
…don’t get me started….
The textbook system is kind of like pharmaceuticals, they keep churning out dubious revisions to keep “new” textbooks on the market which can’t be rented or bought used or found electronically. Is there any reason these books need to be printed?
Are there really glorious new achievements in basic chemistry and calculus that require a new revision every 4 years? Academic learning materials are kind of an academic welfare system.
Why can’t the best professors in their field get together and produce a “free to use” version of introductory texts for use in their field? This would include multimedia as well as boring old text and pictures. I’m talking discovery channel level professional lectures just at a higher academic level.
How many times did I have to sit in an effective prison cell listening to a mediocre professor drone on in front of a captive audience when the entire room was bored stiff, including the teacher?
I’d much rather listen to one of the best professors in their field on “tape” (ha, ha so old…) who also happens to have presentation skills and can be engaging then be sentenced to Room 101A in Generic Lecture Hall to consider suicide while listening to cranky old Professor BoringHead, or even worse Grad Student with no teaching skills Mr. Icanbebarelyunderstood.
I stipulate people learn differently. Some people do better with forced time and a live human who they can interact with. I’m just not one of those people.
Tom,
It’s certainly true that if glorious achievements exist in a field, that still doesn’t mean anyone needs to a new edition of the textbook.
Different schools are trying to bring material to people for free. Lots of “Moocs” have been set up. But, unfortunately there is a tradeoff between making something available online and having scheduled lectures. That is: flexibility often results in students deferring watching videos until the ‘last’ minute. They they fail, drop out and so on.
The problem is lots of students are. There are all sorts of studies on learning, many of which if you read have big gaping holes that make a reader just say “huh? Did they show anything?” Later studies often show the opposite– and you can usually see that the number of important uncontrolled factors is large.
But there are a few things actually do come up as helpful time after time. One is “spacing” meaning information is provided with time in between repetation of information. This is very helpful for getting students to not only learn information but retain it. The “forced” schedule where kids either get to the lecture by Prof. Boring or miss it entirely enforces spacing.
The other thing that pops up as working is “the testing effect”, which is that low stakes testing, with feedback, helps kids retain information that had been previously presented to them. Taking a test on material is more effective than reviewing notes, re-reading, watching a lesson again and so on. (This shouldn’t be much of a surprise to people who realize that playing ‘flashcards’ work; so does working practice tests and so on. All work better than re-reading chapters, looking at the underlined materials, and so on.)
Note that both these things aid learning by reducing forgetting. It’s thought to be an issue of transferring info from short term to long term memory and also doing something to make information retrieval.
Angech Comment #151131 MRI
A quick summary of what happened will make this all clearer. My left hip gave out at a golf course (my left leg just involuntarily went down a foot in the middle of my golf swing) and was very stiff on that day. However, it quickly healed to the point where all I had was a very minor sensation (not even pain) in the hip, and there was no functional problem at all a month later. About 3 months later, I noticed a little bump on the skin above where the left hip was, and I got worried about a Bo Jackson type of hip injury. I went to see my GP, she told me she was 95% sure that I had no issues and didn’t recommend anything further.
….
On my end, I wanted to be sure. She then sent in a request for an MRI because of my urging. Under garbagecare (also known as Obamacare), I had a $12,000 deductible so I knew I would have to pay for everything. I made the decision that I didn’t want to pay for an X-ray before the MRI because I knew x-rays aren’t nearly as sensitive as MRIs. (My insurance company didn’t like that and I understand their position, but I was looking out for myself and paying) The actual cost of the MRI was $600, which I considered very reasonable and paid immediately. The $2,000 radiology report charge was on top of the cost of the MRI. I consider it to be very unreasonable because if the doctor only did 5 reports a day (very conservative) and worked 5 days a week, he would make $2,500,000 for 50 weeks of work.
….
The x-ray sought by the Ortho’s staff (not him directly) was not necessary because it was coming about 45 days after the MRI. The MRI was shot from numerous angles. As I said, he didn’t even mention it when we talked, and in fact, he told me my hip was completely fine and to do whatever I was doing before and not worry about it. In fact, I have started a new regimen of butt exercises and those have greatly reduced the minor sensation I used to feel before — to the point on some days, I feel nothing at all.
….
On my end, I greatly object to not being able to find out what a procedure will cost ahead of time and to the gross overbilling of doctors who expect that their bills will be chopped down by insurance. Those people who don’t have insurance are highly overcharged and then the doctors send the bills to collections, which ruins the credit of their patients. When you talk to the business side of the doctors’ offices, the business section is completely ignorant of the law and think that whatever figure they pull out of the hat has to be paid by the patient. In fact, under the doctrine of quantum meruit, the doctors have to submit a reasonable bill, and if they are to sue, they have the burden of demonstrating the reasonableness of their bill.
….
In this case what happened was that the radiologist didn’t comply with insurance requirements and jumped the gun. Under his contract with the insurer, it is about 90% clear that he can’t seek reimbursement from anyone. It has been about 6 months, and so far, I haven’t received a second bill. If the original bill had been reasonable, I would have gone ahead and paid it notwithstanding the failure to comply with insurance requirements. (all insurance would have done in this instance is reduced the $2,000 bill to the insurance negotiated figure, which I still haven’t seen.) However, since I was overbilled, I won’t pay him.
JD
JD Ohio,
Technically, pretty much all MRI scans, which are a series of 2D slices, can be converted to 3D images mathematically, so saying that the MRI scans were taken at multiple angles isn’t quite right.
Dewitt: “which are a series of 2D slices, can be converted to 3D images mathematically, so saying that the MRI scans were taken at multiple angles isn’t quite right.” I will stand corrected. All I know is that there were a lot of images — something like 20-50.
JD
I teach basic statistics courses where current-edition texts routinely cost more than $200. And basically they are all old wine in new bottles. If you think that the hefty price implies a superb job of editing, well think again. These texts hardly are heirlooms and whatever reference value they have can easily be had from a number of free, online sources. New editions differ from old mainly in the problem sets, which seems to be the business model of the publishers. I found a free, open-source text that is not perfect but pretty good (well, it costs $15 if you want it in softcover) which is what I am currently using with good reviews from my students. I plan on using it again in the next term. Maybe something similar is available for introductory physics?
I just googled a secondhand copy of alonso and finn university physics 3 fields and waves edition 1983 for eur 163.
I’m flabbergasted.
BobK
There probably is. Since I tutor, my interest in buying books is merely to be able to see what material the students really will be exposed to, what they are likely to be expected to know and to be able to quickly tell them where to find something in the book they actually have.
So I have an assortment of books.
With respect to physics, there have been some changes I would call improvements over time. Images are less expensive to include than in the 70s. So better and more graphics are somewhat helpful. But it’s not as if older books had none.
Still, historically, the main change has always been changing the problem sets. Obviously, when the main change is new problems, someone trying to control student budgets might have just published a problem supplement from time to time. But obviously, that’s not in the publishers interest.
JD, I’m not sure that a $2000 MRI reading IS excessive. However, if I remember correctly a hip MRI would be substantially less. It was the head and brain CT and MRI that were higher cost. So you are probably right about the charge more because insurance will lower the rate. There are many doctors and hospitals that give discounts for patients paying cash. I remember an automatic 63% discount at one hospital chain in Illinois.
I agree with you about lack of price transparency, and uninsured getting stuck with a high bill. That said, frequently the insurance rate, particularly Medicaid and Medicare, is too low, and the doctors are making little money from it.
I was going to ask why with your higher deductible, you aren’t getting an insurance discount, but it appears that was a mistake.
MikeN “That said, frequently the insurance rate, particularly Medicaid and Medicare, is too low…”
I agree that that is the case. However, I don’t like being gouged to pay for underpayment elsewhere. I would also add that had I known that the MRI report was so expensive, I would have either had one done in China or simply asked the orthopedic surgeon to read the MRI. No way I would have ever paid $2,000 for an MRI report.
JD
JD, some web searching suggests you got a very high rate for the physician’s bill, and a very low rate for the MRI.
A pelvic MRI typically costs about $1,000-$5,000, depending on such factors as the complexity of the condition being investigated, whether the procedure is performed in a hospital or a physician’s office, and a patient’s geographical location. For example, in New Hampshire hospitals[2] a pelvic MRI typically costs about $2,835-$4,753, while in Maine hospitals[3] , the statewide average payment, barring discounts, is $1,528. At the Pacific Alliance Medical Center[4] in Los Angeles, it ranges from $2,758 to $3,109.
Payments typically include both a fee for the physician’s work and a fee for facility overhead. For example, in Maine, the average professional charge is $258, while the average facility charge is $1,270.
I’m confused why you paid the $600 right away. Don’t you want it to run thru insurance, to keep your deductible from staying at $12,000? Indeed, most physicians delay their billing to have the hospital eat the deductible and they can get a check from insurance.
Mike N: “I’m confused why you paid the $600 right away…Payments typically include both a fee for the physician’s work and a fee for facility overhead.”
…
I used an organization that specializes in moderately priced MRIs. (they also tell you ahead of time what it will cost.) My GP said that they did a professional job. If you pay the day of the service, they give you a discount. I considered the $600 a good price and paid it.
…Also, I read in multiple places that when getting procedures done you should stay away from hospitals. The hospitals have to be open 24 hours a day, and they charge patients for the cost of being continuously open. An urgent care center, for example, is open much less and can charge based on something like the costs of being open 10 hours a day.
JD
JD thanks for the fill in and Mike N.
When I come back in my next life I want to be a radiologist if they are still charging like that. Wow.
Acetabular dysplasia (a shallow hip socket) which can date back to birth developmental dysplasia is a cause of early onset osteoarthritis of the hip which was traditionally picked up on
JD thanks for the fill in and Mike N.
When I come back in my next life I want to be a radiologist if they are still charging like that. Wow.
Acetabular dysplasia (a shallow hip socket) which can date back to birth developmental dysplasia is a cause of early onset osteoarthritis of the hip which was traditionally picked up on X-ray but would also be easily diagnosed on an MRI these days.
Avascular necrosis [Bo Johnson?] occurs idiopathically in children [Perthe’s disease] or with trauma, unlikely but an MRI should rule it out.
Sounds like you were just unlucky with the swing. Best of luck now on.
Textbook scam? Lucia, I’ve thought this over a bit, and I think the very high prices are probably part of a scam. Someone (maybe buried in a largely unsupervised department at a large college or maybe at a foreign university) needs to be able to say that something like $400 is a good deal for the textbook. So, whoever the scammer is states to some large organization that $400 is a good price for the text and uses the Amazon listing to justify the price even though the publisher sells the text for $215.. Then the scammer and his cohorts skim something like $100 or $200 off the sale through a reasonably sophisticated scheme, and whoever superficially checks the bills thinks the $400 price is justified. At the end, the scammer gets his money.
….
This sort of reminds me of the rug seller going out of business scam. Someone sets up shop somewhere and then claims he is having a going out of business sale. Unsophisticated consumers, not knowing what rugs cost automatically assume that they are getting good deals and buy over-priced rugs. I have seen legitimate rug sellers complain about these phony going out of business sales. In the textbook case, the probable scammers (in my view) use the Amazon listing to deceive someone or an organization about the real worth of the textbooks and go from there to get their ill-gotten gain.
JD
Bo Jackson. Close though.
JD – I hypothesized above the pricing on such items was done by an algorithm and/or was a tax dodge.
I just read a suggestion that the pricing algorithms search the web for similar items and price slightly higher. If only two sites have the item, and both use the same algorithm, they end up getting into a price spiral.
I still think some of it is some form of “business expense” dodge.
My bet is that within a few years, MRI’s and X-rays will be analyzed mainly by computers.
Jit,
I thought the tradition was to price slightly lower. ??
Jit, the book Lucia lists, has two sellers, very close in price, that both have large marketplaces on Amazon, with seemingly random products for sale.
Jferguson/MikeN:
Maybe it depends how many you have to sell. If you have one, you go slightly higher – if hundreds, you go lower? dunno, have no experience of selling anything other than a few silver-age comics on Ebay.
Jit,
Ebay is a bit different from Amazon because it’s an auction. Too high a price will sometimes prevent anyone from bidding. A lower price might attract two people who…. oddly… are more willing to pay the higher price precisely because they saw someone else was willing to buy the item near the price they ultimately paid.
But I think Mike N is at least partly right. If the item you have is available in limited numbers, you think the number of potential buyers is high relative to the number of available items, and inventory costs for the item are low, you might want to sell at the slightly higher price. That way you make more money on your item because your competitor runs out of items, they yours sell and you make a little more. On the other hand, if storing the physical item is expensive, or your competitor can just create more of the item, listing at the higher price will definitely be a bad idea.
Actually my theory is a seller with low storage cost, and willing to wait for the buyer indefinitely. But it doesn’t seem to match the other items they are selling. I would have expected lots of semi-rare
books, all at inflated prices. Instead there appears two very similar sellers, suggesting some sort of scam that requires the appearance of a competitive market.
MikeN,
My guess is the prices for all used versions of those books will plummet when edition 2 comes out. The reason is the book is currently one of the “favorites” of the AP. That means a fair number of highschools, many likely in prosperous suburbs, probably own a trove of those books. Meanwhile, I would suspect that college draw from a wider selections of because colleges don’t care what book the AP recommends.
When ed. 2 comes out, many highschools will dump their copies of ed. 1 on the market. Then the prices of used versions of the first edition will plunge. But in the mean time, the number of used copies on the market is low, while people who might want a copy for some reason might be willing to buy used– provided the price is sufficiently below that for new copies sold by the publisher.
When will ed 2 come out? Dunno. That book’s copyright states Pearson; 1 edition (July 22, 2013) My guess is the next edition should come out in less than 3 years. 🙂
Textbooks are an amazing scam.
$200 plus for a paper bound volume on US History
(or you can rent it from Amazon for $22 – which is close to what the book should actually cost)
Textbook makers get colleges to pick their book for a course, book is mandatory for the course, students pay big $ for the book.
Two years later new edition, so no second hand market.
Its a terrible rip-off of the students
Off-topic (but this is an open thead): a comment on models by Upmanu Lall:
HaroldW,
You quote the woman “data for the next 100 years”. Is ‘data’ the right word? She seems confused.
HaroldW,
If that quote gets much exposure, the guy is going to be savaged by the climate enforcers.
.
j ferguson,
The lack of awareness of what is data and what is not is so widespread among climate alarmists that there seems to no longer any distinction at all. Boggles the mind.
.
BTW, I read a long but interesting paper on the sources of emissions of methane which have caused the post 2005 rise in atmospheric concentrations. Based on geographical distribution of methane concentrations and C12/C13 ratio changes, the paper concludes the sources are biological (farming and wetlands, mostly in the tropics), and that neither fracking nor a drop in the rate of atmospheric destruction of methane are likely to be the causes. The data are clear and the analysis convincing. ‘Rising atmospheric methane: 2007–2014 growth and isotopic shift’, Nesbit et al, 2016.
j ferguson,
The author’s point is that the World Bank woman really does believe that she has a reliable climate prediction at the specified resolution going out 100 years.
After all, it’s just physics, isn’t it — or so she has been led to believe. She’s interested in effects (WG2), and takes as gospel the “science” results (WG1). I suspect she does not understand the limitations of such predictions.
HaroldW,
At least there was the word ‘risk’ involved which should have been a clue to her. What us more worrying is wondering what use may be made of her product. We certainly can anticipate that it will be authoritative.
JD Ohio: I am wondering if you ever took one-third of a judgment after spending only a few hours negotiating a settlement. What did that come to in $/hr.