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villabolo at 10:23 AM on 2 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Daniel Bailey @#32: "And by urban standards, land is quite cheap right now. And there's over 600 square miles of it." Daniel, how much per acre? -
Rob Honeycutt at 10:15 AM on 2 January 2013Arctic Sea Ice Extent: We're gonna need a bigger graph
As an example of Tom's point, go look at pretty much any graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the NASDAQ for the prior, say, 24 month. You will never see such a graph starting with zero. Go to Google Finance and experiment with different time periods. The Y axis will automatically scale with the range being displayed. If you don't do this then, as Tom says, you run into troubles trying to discern any changes. -
villabolo at 10:07 AM on 2 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Doug H. #31: "Wherever you go, be sure to arrange strong defenses against those gun-toting desperadoes who would try to take your safe place away from you by force. Remember, if the climate changes as projected by models, the bad guys are going to be migrating to more comfortable climes, along with everybody else. This time around, the meek are unlikely to inherit the Earth." Well put, but individuals and family groups will be insufficient to arrange a strong defense against roving gangs. If we are to survive we need to organize in eco-villages/Arco-Santi like communities. 500 or more people, in a cohesive community, will allow for maximum efficiency of horti-permaculture as well as self defense. I suggest networking with such survivalist like minded people for a possible future relocation. A sense of community is of utmost importance. -
Tom Dayton at 05:00 AM on 2 January 2013Arctic Sea Ice Extent: We're gonna need a bigger graph
No, william, it is neither necessary nor desirable to always start the graphs at 0. Scaling should be appropriate to the purpose of the graph's readers. If you want to maximize the readers' ability to discern changes in the graph, you should make the graph fill the space as much as possible. {...snip...}Moderator Response: [KC] Inflammatory snipped -
william5331 at 04:41 AM on 2 January 2013Arctic Sea Ice Extent: We're gonna need a bigger graph
The Y axis on ice extent and ice volume graphs should always have started at 0. {...snip...}Moderator Response: [KC] Inflammatory snipped. -
Tom Dayton at 02:00 AM on 2 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta, even based purely (and therefore inappropriately) on statistics, the +0.14 C trend of the last 16 years is the most likely "true" value--the expected value. 0 is not the most likely value. Nor is +0.13, nor is +0.15. But trend values close to +0.14 are more likely to be the "true" value than trends far from it are. Statistical significance merely provides one estimate of the probabilities of those different trend values. Nor is there anything magical about the 95% confidence level; it is merely a traditional value. The 94% confidence level encompasses only values closer to the 0.14 most likely value. Statistics does not dictate what the confidence level should be. The situation outside of statistics dictates that. If you must make a decision based on your best estimate of the true value, you must weigh the costs and benefits of acting based on the several incorrect and correct decisions you might make based on that best estimate. You leaven those costs and benefits with the probabilities of the various errors and correct decisions. But even if you do make such a sophisticatedly thorough judgment, you are a fool if the statistics are the only knowledge you use to make your decision. Knowledge of physical processes such as causality, and a plethora of other factors, should be even more important in your decision. Statistics is merely one tool in a very large scientific toolbox. This failure of pure statistics to provide clear answers is not at all unique to climatology. I used to do massively complex ANOVAs in a completely different field, and usually had difficulty dissecting the complex relationships because the component, less complex statistical tests rarely were significant at the same probability level for them to logically support the overall, complex test. In other words, a naive perspective on the entire set of tests would be that they were internally inconsistent and therefore nonsensical and impossible. That's a similar phenomenon to what folks here have pointed out to you: Often all the short time intervals fail to reach significance at the same probability level as the longer time interval. That's why real scientists do not base their judgments solely on statistics, and even to the extent that they do rely on statistics, they do not rely on a naive, high school level of statistics. -
Tristan at 00:18 AM on 2 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
Neat image Bernard! -
Bernard J. at 23:19 PM on 1 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
I should probably explain the approach that I used to determine the intervals I derived for the post above. All I did was enter various start years until I obtained for each of the end years a minimum-sized interval where there was no way to describe a negatively-sloped line through the whole range. It's not the best way to derive the info, but it was quick and it's a good approximation and I didn't want to waste time with something that has been debunked countless times in the past. -
Bernard J. at 23:13 PM on 1 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta seems to come from a long, long, long line of denialists who are ignorant (often deliberately so...) of the fact that a minimum amount of time is always required to be able to identify a signal emerging from inherently noisy data. I have two points, in addition to the many others made above, to put to this person. The first is an exercise in thinking (yes, I am being optimistic...): 1) If there had been no "statistically significant" warming for twelve years, does this disprove a relationship between CO2 and warming? If there had been no "statistically significant" warming for ten years, would this disprove a relationship between CO2 and warming? Five years? Two? What is the basis for claiming that there is no relationship between CO2 and planetary warming? 2) using the trend calculator to which many people have directed Punksta, I constructed a graph showing how many years prior to a particular year are required to identify a statistically significant warming trend at the 2 %sigma; (~95%) level. It's quick and dirty - I didn't muck around with the autocorrelation period and I only used GISTemp - but it's enough to demonstrate for any year in the last three decades how many years of prior data was required to observe a "statistically significant" warming trend.
The graph itself shows two further things:
1) there is nothing unusual about the current period required to identify statistically significant warming - indeed, over all there is a trend to the period becomng shorter.
2) prior to 1981, the post-World War II hiatus (significantly attributable to aerosols) triples the period required to identify warming. However, there was warming occurring then too, but it was being compensated for by other factors. This did not alter the physics of greenhouse gases though, and the same is the case today - CO2 is still warming the planet.
[I apologise for thumb-nailing the image. Try as I might, my efforts to use the width tag would not produce a visible graph.]
Moderator Response: [DB] Improved image width. Bernard, I tried to email you the proper image width code but the message proved undeliverable. -
Daniel Bailey at 12:48 PM on 1 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Well, I'm reluctant to mention it (because I don't want to make it a target destination), but the Keweenaw Peninsula portion of the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan would make an excellent long-term destination. Connected to the mainland portion of the UP via the lift bridge at Houghton/Hancock, the Keweenaw (also called Copper Country) is separated from the "mainland" UP by a natural "moat" and (counting Lake Superior) is completely surrounded by fresh water. The climate is harsh still in winter, but continued warming will greatly lengthen the growth season, fresh water is virtually inexhaustible, it's defensible (just drop the bridge and it's an island), it has abundant forest and farmlands and there's still copper and other ores (albeit deep) in the ground. Basically, one of the few areas in North America that figures to have its climate improve over the next couple of centuries: winters will grow milder, with snow becoming less of an issue [the record is 390" in 1979] and even less common [about 24" thus far this winter]; summer heat will still be ameliorated by the enormous thermal inertia of the big lake. And by urban standards, land is quite cheap right now. And there's over 600 square miles of it.
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Doug Hutcheson at 12:42 PM on 1 January 20132012 in Review - a Major Year for Climate Change
Regarding Whitehouse, how refreshing it is to see a politician telling the plain, unvarnished truth! Tony Abbott and the Australian Tea Party wannabes, are you listening? (Cue sound of crickets ...) -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:51 AM on 1 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
andrewfez @ 25, you asked "Where do you guys think the 'best' place in America is going to be to survive/thrive at around 2050?" Wherever you go, be sure to arrange strong defences against those gun-toting desperadoes who would try to take your safe place away from you by force. Remember, if the climate changes as projected by models, the bad guys are going to be migrating to more comfortable climes, along with everybody else. This time around, the meek are unlikely to inherit the Earth. -
Mal Adapted at 11:33 AM on 1 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Vrooomie:I'll say an area centered roughly around Bend, OR: decent glacial soils, reasonably temperate, year-round, and good precip.
Hmmm, Bend's climate makes agriculture challenging, on account of a pretty short growing season (90 days is optimistic), and not enough moisture without irrigation. It will get warmer, but it may or may not get wetter. Precipitation models currently show wetter winters, drier summers in that area. Having lived in the inland PNW, I'd pick Moscow, ID or Cle Elum, WA myself. -
dana1981 at 11:01 AM on 1 January 20132012 in Review - a Major Year for Climate Change
It's a travesty that a senator named Whitehouse isn't in the White House! Especially given that he's one of the few American politicians who understands and is willing to speak out about the biggest threat we face. -
chriskoz at 10:54 AM on 1 January 20132012 in Review - a Major Year for Climate Change
I'll start the first comment in 2013 on the positive note: I've heard voices "senator Whitehouse for whitehouse". I sincerly wish those rumors (sic!) were true and Whitehouse won in 2016... I clearly see Obama accepts the science but he is too affraid (or maybe disempowered/corrupted) to act on it. But from the video of Whitehouse's great (perhaps historic) speech, we must say he wouldn't be affraid to act strongly and perhaps vindicate US to the leading position in GW mitigation. -
John Mason at 09:33 AM on 1 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Commiserations to all growers too! I couldn't reach my garden today - half a mile of raging floodwater stood between me and it. A slug-free New Year to you all, those of you I know and do not know. Best wishes - John -
padruig at 08:04 AM on 1 January 2013The Y-Axis of Evil
While compressing or expanding an axis (as well as clipping and truncating data sets) is an old tactic frequently used in advertizing. When I see this, I just get out my red pencil and shift into 'peer review' mode. Typically, published journal articles do not present results in absolute temperatures but instead compare temperature to an average datum period which variance from is considered an anomaly. These average periods, in the US are from 1961-1980 and in the UK and Australia is 1961-1990, are intended to even out seasonal influences as well as the larger periodic cyclic processes such as ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) and the AO (Arctic Oscillation) Comparing temperature anomalies gives a bit more value in making comparisons and it also makes the statistical hurdles a bit less challenging. As a point of reference here in the United States, most of our meteorological services are provided by NOAA and the National Weather Service. These agencies along with DoD, NASA, GISS, NFS, NPS, BLM are just a few of many agencies conducting climate studies as these changes affect our policy making. -
SoSethSays at 06:41 AM on 1 January 2013The Y-Axis of Evil
By the way, the source of the graph is NOT from the US Bureau of Meteorology that D. B. claims; it is quite evidently (by the domain) from the Australian Bureau...and shows a rising graph in any scale.Moderator Response: [DB] Note that the chart depicted in Fig 1 itself notes that it is derived from US Bureau of Meteorology data, NOT from a reproduced work originally from the US Bureau of Meteorology. -
Nick Palmer at 06:07 AM on 1 January 2013Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
The degree sign on a PC can be got by using alt 167 ºººº -
CBDunkerson at 04:43 AM on 1 January 2013Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Punksta, you're treating '16 years without statistically significant warming' as if it means there has been little or no warming. It doesn't. It means the time period chosen was too short to prove statistical significance. You acknowledge that the 30 years prior to that showed warming... but there were numerous 16 year periods within that 30 year duration which did not show statistically significant warming. Thus, the current 16 year 'hiatus' as you call it could be part of an unchanged warming trend. Indeed, the past 30 years (including that 16 year 'hiatus') do show statistically significant warming. So do the past 20 years. Choosing a time period too short to establish a statistically significant trend and then arguing that it means anything is inherently nonsense. Show me a statistically significant 'cooling' trend and we'll talk. Chopping the ongoing warming trend to a duration short enough to avoid statistical significance is just flim-flammery. -
CBDunkerson at 04:31 AM on 1 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta, suppose that air temperatures went up for 30 days in the Spring, but then for the next 16 days there was no statistically significant warming. Meanwhile the oceans continued to warm slightly. Would you argue that this was conclusive proof that the cycle of the seasons was not causing the warming of the oceans or the previous warming air temperatures? This is a direct parallel to your argument 'against' global warming and ought to make clear why it is wrong. There was a study about a year ago that found the minimum period needed to establish a statistically significant trend in global temperatures was about 17 years. They could have saved the effort and noted that 'skeptics' so frequently use 'no warming for 15 / 16 years' to surmise that the boundary must be a year higher. Put another way... there hasn't been a statistically significant 'cooling' or 'flat' global temp anomaly trend since the 70s. -
dana1981 at 04:13 AM on 1 January 2013Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Punk @73 - your first point isn't wrong because CO2 isn't causing global warming (it is), it's wrong because the greenhouse effect doesn't work by "warming CO2 in the atmosphere". That's not an accurate description of the greenhouse effect. -
villabolo at 03:47 AM on 1 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
andrewfez @ #25 "I keep hearing food prices will double in real terms by 2030..." Food prices are likely to double before 2030. That estimate sounds like it based on linear models taking only temperature rise into account. Commodities, however, tend to jump in price in a non-linear fashion e.g. oil prices in 2008. 2020 is when the arctic is bound to get ice free in the summer and the great alterations in weather will affect crops. It's safe to assume that the Arctic meltdown is not included in whatever model was used to calculate those prices. Nor are drenching thunderstorms. -
citizenschallenge at 02:10 AM on 1 January 2013New research from last week 52/2012
Thank you Ari for all the work you've put into this. It is important for folks to have a source of reliable news, when it comes to the steady flow of scientific papers and information. it's been useful and very valuable! Happy New Year -
vrooomie at 01:51 AM on 1 January 2013Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
andrewfez@25: Keeping this focused on food security, and tossing in a bit of geological data to gin up a SWAG about your question? I'll say an area centered roughly around Bend, OR: decent glacial soils, reasonably temperate, year-round, and good precip. -
Punksta at 01:02 AM on 1 January 2013It hasn't warmed since 1998
(-sloganeering snipped-).Moderator Response: [DB] Please respond to Dikran's question above:"In that case, can you tell me exactly what it means for the observed trend to be not statistically significant?"
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Phil at 23:53 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Sorry, Cross posted with JasonB - seems we had the same idea ! -
Dikran Marsupial at 23:51 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
punksta Consider an atmoshere and ocean in thermal equilibrium, so that the amount of heat radiated/conducted from the oceans is precisely balanced by the amount of heat recieved by the ocean from solar radiation, back-radiation from the atmopshere and by conduction from the atmosphere. No suppose an upwelling cold current replaces relatively warm water across a large fraction of the tropical Pacific. Clearly the ocean will now be radiating less IR as part of the surface is colder than before, but the incoming solar radiation is the same, so the oceans will begin to warm up. However, as part of the ocean surface is now cooler than before, the atmosphere will beging to cool a little in response. Now of course the energy transferred between the atmosphere and oceans will change a little (for instance there will be a little less back-radiation from the slightly cooler atmosphere). However the heat capacity of the atmosphere is small compared to the oceans, so I suspect the difference has relatively little effect. Now I am no physicist, but it seems fairly obvious that it isn't a given that ongoing atmospheric warming is a precondition to ocean warming. P.S. it is called "La Nina". -
Phil at 23:46 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
RobP said: On the upper left hand side of the SkS homepage is the trend calculator. One simple experiment (with regard to this topic) is to use the trend calculator to do the following: 1. Determine the trend and uncertainty for the period 1996-2012 2. Determine the trend and uncertainty for the period 1980-1996 3. Determine the trend and uncertainty for the period 1980-2012 And then ask yourself: is the trend for 1. greater than or less than 2. ? Is the uncertainty in 1. greater than or less than 2. ? Are either of the results in 1. and 2. statistically significant ? Is the result from 3. a summation of 1. and 2. or is it different, is it statistically significant ? You might then come to your own view about whether there really has been a "pause" (whilst gazing at figure 1!) Caveat: I tried this with about 4 of the various datasets. They all showed similar results but I didn't try them all. -
JasonB at 23:41 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Punksta, The problem with what you are saying is that: a) The warming of the atmosphere needn't be "ongoing" for the ocean to keep warming over the last 16 years, merely that the ocean has not yet caught up, in exactly the same way that the car continues to accelerate until it has reached the speed it will eventually reach based on the final accelerator position, and the kettle continues to warm until it has reached the temperature it will eventually reach based on the final knob position. You have not shown any research that would suggest the time it takes for the world's oceans to reach equilibrium is only 16 years. b) The atmosphere has continued to warm anyway. You appear to be mistaking a lack of statistically significant warming for a lack of warming, which is something else entirely. There will always be a period of time that can be quoted that the warming is not statistically significant over. The lack of statistical significance is entirely due to the shortness of the period of time, not due to the lack of a trend. Think about this for a second: The GISTEMP warming from 1980 to 1996 was 0.081° ± 0.149° per decade — not statistically significant. The warming from 1996 to now was 0.113° ± 0.122° per decade — also not statistically significant. But the warming from 1980 to now was 0.153° ± 0.049° per decade — very statistically significant. How can that be? Here's a clue — the English phrase "statistically insignificant" does not mean the same thing as the statistical phrase "not statistically significant". So, the premise of your argument is false, and the argument itself would be incorrect even if the premise was true due to your failure to take into account inertia. -
Tom Curtis at 23:19 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta @232: (1) Trends 1996.92 to 2012.83 (ie, the most recent 16 years of data): Gistemp: 0.087 C per decade (0.139 trend increase in temperature over the 16 years). NCDC (NOAA): 0.047 C per decade (0.075 trend increase over the 16 years) HadCRUT4: 0.053 C per decade (0.085 trend increase over 16 years) UAH: 0.093 C per decade (0.149 C trend increase over 16 years) RSS: 0.003 C per decade (0.005 C trend increase over the 16 years). Of these, Gistemp is the most accurate in that it: a) Alone of the three surface temperature indices, has global coverage; b) Has more stations than NCDC, and significantly more stations than HadCRUT4; and c) It is a surface record, and is not contaminated by data from the stratosphere (which is cooling) as is the case with RSS and UAH. I note that a 0.03 C decadal trend taken over 16 years is a trend increase of 0.048 C, so even Punksta's cherry picked data set with its cherry picked period does not give a result of no warming, contrary to Puncksta's claims. It also leave grave doubts as to his maths, as he apparently thinks 16 years equals 10 years (to expect only a decades warming over the full 16 years); and that 0.048 = 0. Once again, there has been a warming trend on all data sets over the last 16 years. That trend has not been statistically significant on any data set. That just means that on all data sets, the error bars are wide enough so that they do not exclude underlying trends equal to zero, or indeed, equal to or greater than the IPCC predicted warming. Dressed up in its best form, Punksta's argument comes down to the inference: If we restrict our data to just the last 16 years, there is insufficient data to conclusively determine that the trend is not zero, or to determine that the trend does not equal the IPCC predicted trend. Therefore, the IPCC predicted trend has been falsified. -
Punksta at 23:11 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Rob, I am not claiming the earth or oceans are cooling. I am merely saying, pretty much in line with conventional wisdom on the topic, that since AGW happens by means of warming of CO2, and hence of the atmosphere, that ongoing atmospheric warming is a precondition of ongoing ocean warming. -
StBarnabas at 23:06 PM on 31 December 2012Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Thanks for the nice post. We have about a hectare of land in Northumberland, a poly-tunnel and raised beds etc. But 2012 was dreadful for the "rain it raineth every day." My land has turned into a slurry of mud and water. Best wishes for the new year. -
CBDunkerson at 22:48 PM on 31 December 2012Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
The only answer which need be given to cormagh's comment is that his claim is simply false. A combination of temperature records are not "needed" to prove the point. Any of the major temperature records (GISS, NCDC, HadCRUT4, UAH, RSS, BEST, et cetera) or any combination of them would show the same results... the IPCC projections have been in the ballpark and all the denier estimates above have turned out to be below observations. The differences between the observation data sets are much smaller than the differences between the IPCC projections and the denier estimates. -
andrewfez at 22:28 PM on 31 December 2012Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
Where do you guys think the 'best' place in America is going to be to survive/thrive at around 2050? I keep hearing food prices will double in real terms by 2030, so at some point, i'm going to have to at least try to produce a percentage of my intake by organic gardening, etc. Any thoughts on places with pretty robust water tables, etc.? -
Tom Curtis at 22:19 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
In a rational conversation, the conversation progresses by people responding to the points that others have made. They do not simply yell more and more loudly the same slogan again and again. Punksta clearly is incapable of the former, and relies slowly on the frantic repetition of his slogan. Nothing is gained by conversation with a person that committed to irrationality. Consequently, I will simply note that: 1) Puncksta continues to insist that 0.14 C of trend warming over the last 16 years (gistemp) is no warming at all because it fails a test for statistical significance. He also no insists that noting that there has in fact been a warming trend over the last 16 years (even though all five major temperature indices show warming over the last 16 years) is propaganda. his world is so inverted that simply describing the situation accurately becomes, to his mind, propaganda. 2) He has clearly not bothered to read the introduction to the greenhouse effect that I linked to. Had he done so he would have seen that his objection to my description was in fact part of my description. Anybody confused by Punksta's bluster about absorption should think about what the effect of CO2 would be if the atmosphere was the same temperature as the surface, or warmer than it. In the later case, for example, adding greenhouse gases will cool the surface . I discuss this situation in a comment here (as does Chris Colose in the following comment). -
Rob Painting at 21:57 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Punksta - On the upper left hand side of the SkS homepage is the trend calculator. Use any of the global surface temperature datasets - they all show warming over the last 16 years. This is at odds with your claim. Indeed, the ocean heat uptake in the upper 2000 metres of ocean shown in Nuccitelli (2012)increased dramatically between 2000-2004 which negates your strawman argument of global surface air temperature and ocean heat content being closely coupled over such short time frames. Greenhouse gases exert a long-lived and persistent forcing of the ocean cool-skin layer, which is why there is a strong relationship between global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide in the ice core records, but they operate in tandem with other processes, such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which create short-term fluctuations in global temperature and act to disguise this persistent forcing when viewed over short intervals. This slower rate of warming of the global surface temperature, even if we don't allow for the possibility of human pollution aerosol-induced attenuation, isn't exactly a surprise, climate model simulations show periods of a decade or more where there is little or no warming, even in the presence of a strong global energy imbalance (i.e global warming scenario). Which bring us to the key issue - the Earth is currently in energy imbalance. The warming of the ocean, the major heat reservoir on Earth, shows us as much. The planet will continue to warm for decades until it is able to shed the excess energy and come back into equilibrium. To claim that the Earth is cooling, or about to demonstrates a poor understanding of the enhanced (increased) Greenhouse Effect. Also, note the comments policy. Repetition of an unsubstantiated claim, or myth in your case, constitutes sloganeering and will run the risk of deletion. We expect commenters to back up claims with references to peer-reviewed literature, or bonafide global datasets. -
littlerobbergirl at 21:54 PM on 31 December 2012Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
I just found exellent australian permie site while following Anne's 'hugelkultur' lead. http://www.permaculturenews.org/ You guys are years ahead of me! Great stuff in comments too -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:51 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta wrote: "1) Warming is not at all like pregnancy - statistical significance matters." In that case, can you tell me exactly what it means for the observed trend to be not statistically significant? For example, does that mean that there has been a pause in global warming? -
JasonB at 21:41 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
JasonB, ou dispute that if the atmosphere is not warming, it (and hence CO2) cannot be the cause of ocean warming
Well, obviously I dispute that, that was the whole point of the examples I gave. The car doesn't stop accelerating as soon as the pedal stops moving, and the kettle doesn't stop warming as soon as you stop turning the knob into the new position. They aren't in equilibrium instantaneously.So even if the atmosphere continues indefinitely with the the current non-warming pattern, never significantly warming ever again, the oceans will continue warming in line with CO2 ?
Non-sequitur. Your claim is that the oceans cannot continue to warm until now because of AGW if the atmosphere hasn't warmed for 16 years. 16 years is not "indefinitely". And the atmosphere has continued to warm during those last 16 years anyway, so the point is moot. GISTEMP says 0.113° per decade. The 16 years prior were only 0.081. What on earth made you think the atmosphere had stopped warming? -
littlerobbergirl at 21:27 PM on 31 December 2012New research from last week 52/2012
Thanks Ari, for all your efforts. I shall continue to follow your twitter feed, i had already started preferring it, my brain hurts less taking the hard stuff in smaller chunks ;) Happy new year, wrap up warm now x -
Punksta at 20:33 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
JasonB, ou dispute that if the atmosphere is not warming, it (and hence CO2) cannot be the cause of ocean warming So even if the atmosphere continues indefinitely with the the current non-warming pattern, never significantly warming ever again, the oceans will continue warming in line with CO2 ? -
Punksta at 20:21 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Doug H You avoid my point - IF (1) greenhouse warming happens by absorption of heat by CO2, and the consequent warming of the atmosphere, which slows cooling of the oceans into the atmosphere (2) there is no significant warming of the atmosphere for some period THEN greenhouse warming cannot be behind any ocean warming that may occur in that period. I have no suggestions as to what other forces may be dominant. Furthermore ocean temperatures readings are nowhere near as robust as surface ones, so any supposed match-up to expected AGW warming is equally open to question. -
Punksta at 20:02 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
Tom Curtis @ 229 1) Denying the 16-year warming hiatus is pure propaganda. the greenhouse effect works because atmospheric CO2 is cooler than the surface ... No, it works because of the absorption spectra of GHGs. However, you do correctly conclude (albeit for the wrong reasons), that the surface warms as a result. Which means that if the surface is *not* warming, then the greenhouse effect is *not* in evidence. increased air temperature reduces the outgoing radiation at the Top of Atmosphere Yes, a warmer atmosphere slows the cooling of the oceans into the atmosphere. But, again, if the atmosphere is not warming, it cannot be slowing the cooling of the oceans into itself. So if the oceans are indeed cooling, it must be something other than increased GHGs at work. -
Brian Purdue at 20:00 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
General comment It’s quite obvious that Punksta is talking in circular riddles, an art perfected by climate denier bloggers. He/she is jumping from one thread to another using the same silly red herrings. We can only hope this denier tires and goes away or the moderator enforces SkS’s site policy on this well recognised technique. I would like some questions answered properly though. -
Sapient Fridge at 19:46 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Punksta, are you now claiming that back radiation doesn't exist? Wow. Got anything to back that up? Here's an explanation of back radiation and details of how to see it for yourself by one of the "skeptics" favourite scientists, Roy Spencer. A more in-depth explanation is provided by The Science of Doom. Regarding your misunderstanding that that fact that warming has not reached statistical significance in the last 16 years means that there has been no warming in that time, have a look at the graphs in this post by Tamino. The trend from 1980 to 1997 is lower than the trend from 1997 to 2012. It just hasn't reached the point where we can say we are 95% sure that it isn't by chance. When we are over that 95% confidence level the deniers will simply pick a shorter period after that time. Previously the date chosen by AGW deniers was 1995, but when warming since then reached statistical significance (95% confidence) they moved the date to 1998. In a few years the meme will be that there has been no warming since 2004, or some such date. -
Punksta at 19:43 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
Doug H @ 228 ...Nothing about 'trapping heat', per se, in that, is there? Well, it is implied, and quite in agreement with what you said. The randomly directed re-radiated IR will only reach earth or space if there is a free path for it. Otherwise it will be absorbed by another CO2 molecule. And so on ... It's all about the 'mean free path' as I understand it. -
Tom Curtis at 19:15 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta @227: 1) Prattling on about your "agenda is true science" does not turn an indeterminate test ("the warming is not statistically significant") into a determinate falsification ("there has been a 16 year halt in warming"). Misinterpreting tests of statistical significance is not a mark of true science, but of propaganda, pure and simple. If you wanted to interpret the test accurately you would note that, not only does the test over 16 years of data not exclude zero warming; but it also does not exclude warming at greater than the IPCC predicted rate. The key question then is, if you expand the period under consideration until the trend is statistically significant, does it show warming or not. Want to take a bet on what it shows? Or will you chicken out and show that propaganda is your aim with your misrepresentations of science and scientific method? 2) I have written an introduction to the physics of greenhouse here. In a nutshell, the greenhouse effect works because atmospheric CO2 is cooler than the surface. As a result, when it absorbs surface radiation it is more likely to loose the energy gained through collision than remision, resulting in less power being emitted. This reduction in emitted radiation requires compensating increases elsewhere, which can only be achieved by the surface warming. So, contrary to your understanding, increased air temperature reduces the outgoing radiation at the Top of Atmosphere, thereby resulting in an imbalance. If an imbalance already exists, and the atmosphere does not warm, then the imbalance will not be reduced, with the consequence that more energy will be absorbed at the surface than if the atmosphere had warmed. Bizarrely, with your clear misunderstanding of the physics, you have got it exactly backwards. -
JasonB at 19:07 PM on 31 December 2012Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
But equally, if the atmosphere is not warming, it (and hence CO2) cannot be the cause of ocean warming.
In exactly the same way that a kettle on the stove will never boil if you fail to keep turning the knob higher and higher, or a car will stop gaining speed as soon as you stop pushing the accelerator lower and lower. Because as we all know, inertia doesn't exist and everything reacts instantly to any imbalance so there is never any "catching up" to do. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that there's no statistically-significant indication that warming has slowed at all... -
Doug Hutcheson at 19:03 PM on 31 December 2012It hasn't warmed since 1998
Punksta @ 227, you say "The physics of greenhouse warming says that the CO2 traps heat". Does it? I thought the theory said a molecule of CO2 captures an IR photon and either re-radiates the IR in a random direction, or excites an air molecule by collision. Nothing about 'trapping heat', per se, in that, is there? Of course, I don't have the advantage of your grasp of physics. I would be truly grateful if you could prove AGW theory wrong, as I am currently mildly alarmed by the evidence.
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