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Comments 50351 to 50400:

  1. It 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.
  2. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Punksta @ 75, given your understanding of physics, you should find this question a no-brainer: assuming CO2 is not responsible, what physical process is causing the oceans to warm at just the rate predicted by AGW theory? I would be delighted to have solid evidence that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is not, in fact, warming the planet.
  3. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    WRT permaculture, Rebecca Hosking's film, A Farm for the Future, is an absolute must-see. It's on Youtube now (48 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixx1c3RSw_8 It is more a response to Peak Oil than to climatic factors, but dealing with either require strong resilience-design being built into food production. Rarely have I seen so much common sense crammed into one short film!
  4. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Tom, 1) Warming is not at all like pregnancy - statistical significance matters. At least to those whose agenda is true science. 2) The physics of greenhouse warming says that the CO2 traps heat. This necessarily means that the without heating of CO2, and hence of the atmosphere, there can be no knock-on warming elsewhere. Nothing you have said gainsays this. Indeed you yourself speak of a continuing warming of the surface.
  5. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Rob, Yes, heat typically flows from the ocean to the atmosphere. And the rate of this is determined by the thermal gradient between them. Which is determined by the temperature of the atmosphere, and which would be slowed by a warmer atmosphere warmed by longwave absorption by GHGs. But equally, if the atmosphere is not warming, it (and hence CO2) cannot be the cause of ocean warming. And whatever the impact of back-radiation (now dismissed not just by skeptics but also many alarmists), it cannot occur in the absence of atmospheric warming.
  6. New research from last week 52/2012
    Thanks, Ari, for a fascinating series of posts, which have served to shine a spotlight on the range of science being undertaken, that impinges upon our understanding of climate change. I wish you a successful and interesting New Year.
  7. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #52
    From Peru, the report is about a NASA mission which will probably significantly improve the accuracy of altimeter and mass concentration measurements. However, reducing the error bars of measurement (what the Satellite will do) is not the same as reducing the measured trend. It may even result in an increase in the measured trend. Deniers always assume the later is impossible, ie, that any measurement error always works in favour of acceptance of global warming - despite frequent examples to the contrary. We, however, don't know whether trends will increase, decrease or stay the same with more accurate measurement until the data is generated. In the meantime, I will note two points: 1) Even if the GRASP teams simulated corrections turn out to be an accurate prognosis, the sea level rise will still show an acceleration; and 2) It is unlikely that the sea level data will shift appreciably because, as noted by KR above, ground based data shows the same rate of sea level rise.
  8. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Punksta @221: 1) NASA's Gistemp shows a warming trend of 0.087 C per decade over the last sixteen years; or 0.139 C per sixteen years. Deniers may want to call that "no warming" or a "halt in warming"; but that tells us only about their honesty. "The warming is not statistically significant" does not mean "there is no warming", anymore than "the pregnancy test was inconclusive" means "you are certainly not pregnant". 2) Contrary to your claim, the physics of the greenhouse effect do not predict that the atmosphere will be warmed first. Rather, they predict that the accumulation of energy at the Earth's surface (warming) will not stop until surface temperatures have risen sufficiently to restore radiative balance at the top of the atmosphere. Your silly claim that:
    "But since the basic mechanism of greenhouse warming is that the atmosphere warms due to CO2 trapping longwave radiation (leading to overall warming), this suggests the warming of the oceans *cannot* be a consequence of greenhouse warming (since the atmosphere is not warming)."
    only shows that you, like most so-called "skeptics", have not bothered to learn the theory before you declare it refuted. This urgency to declare a theory refuted despite not even understanding it shows that it is not scientific understanding that motivates the rejection of climate science.
  9. The Y-Axis of Evil
    con't on the humor bit, 5714 dollars means about a minimum wage of half a year. so to counter the climate change one would have to do double shifts for half a year and put all the income from the extra job to sustainable growth projects in the house. Then on other half of the year one should install the stuff bought (no way a man can do +16 hours/day continuously), in the rental apartment (ever heard of a minimum wager actually owning a house??) and get sued for not getting a permit from the housing committee of the guarded community. the deniers on the other side of the fence would rip the solar installation some night and get the annoying hyper-active green person growing vegetables on the front yard evicted. (/end humor) Sorry this went way off topic (delete if necessary).
  10. Perspectives of 8 Scientists Attending AGU Fall Meeting
    It is interesting to see the many reactions and responses to Michael's comment. I notice this phenomenon on other climate sites as well. Someone makes an 'ignorant' remark and quickly the conversation is sidetracked away from the context and subject matter of the article itself. It seems clear that many of these posters comment with the express purpose to accomplish this very aim. (many are repeat posters who clearly have been 'informed' and corrected many times before: It is a conundrum- (1) do we attend to these diversionary tactics? (2)do we respond, understanding that the poster may actually be, simply, mis-informed or uninformed with the aim of informing them? (3) Do we respond with the aim of 'speaking to' the open-minded onlookers? Hmmmmm.
  11. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #52
    Thank you KR for the response. You could be 100% sure that I disagree with the Watts et al. crowd arguments and methods (I was some time ago even insulted when commenting at WUWT). I was just worried by the implications of that reference frame issue,because an accurate and precise measurement of sea level rise is key for tracking the both the accumulation of heat in the ocean and ice sheet melting. I guess it would take a whole post to deconstruct this WUWT story...
  12. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Punksta - Although there is a small constant contribution by geothermal heat emanating from deep within the Earth, the oceans are warmed by shortwave radiation (sunlight) entering the surface ocean. Heat flows from the (typically) warmer ocean to the cooler atmosphere above. The rate of this heat loss is determined by the thermal gradient in the thin cool-skin layer at the sea surface. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases (predominately carbon dioxide) direct more longwave radiation (heat) back toward the ocean surface and thereby lower the thermal gradient in the cool-skin layer. This reduces the rate of heat loss from the ocean and, over time, they get warmer. See this SkS post: How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean.
  13. It's cooling
    curiousd - Do you mean this one? I don't know who generated it... [Source - found by using the SkS search for "graphics" and looking at a few links, primarily SkS Climate Graphics] If so, the various temperature records are simply aligned to a common baseline as stated in the graph, and the dark line is the average (again, as stated in the graph). If you know of a graph with an additional overlaid fit, please give the URL and context, as vague references are less than useful.
  14. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    KR, You don't mention rising CO2 - which means you agree it is not implicated in ocean warming ?
  15. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Dana1982, Let start with the first point. So you don't think greenhouse warming is down to CO2. What then?
  16. It's cooling
    Hi, Maybe this is the best thread here for this question. I found elsewhere on the net a plot of temperature versus year since 1850, attributed to SKS. I have determined that it is an average of 11 data sets...HadCrut, Giss, NOAA, RSS, UAH, NCEPRI, NCEPCFSR,NCEPTCR,ERA-40,ERA-interim. Only on the graph published someplace in SKS, however, is also fitted a red curve to the averaged data with an R squared given. Does anyone know what function this fit is to? Perhaps a best fit logarithm? I don't know how to find the graph on SKS in any of the many threads here, but hopefully someone else will know the answer. Thanks, CuriousD.
  17. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Punksta @71 - everything you said after "However" is wrong.
  18. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Most global warming goes into heating the oceans
    However * greenhouse warming works by warming CO2 in the atmosphere * the atmosphere stopped warming 16 years ago Therefore, warming of the oceans over this period cannot be due to CO2/atmospheric warming. It must be something else - but what ?
  19. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Punksta - The oceans absorb shortwave radiation from the sun, and release it out to space at a rate that is to some extent dependent on overturn rates. Over the last 16 years or so we've seen a rather huge El Nino (pushing heat out to the atmosphere, ~0.2°C or so above the general trend) followed by several La Nina's (absorbing energy from the sun more efficiently, cooling the atmosphere ~0.2°C below the general trend). Really - there are no surprises here. The 2-3% of the thermal mass of the climate represented by the atmosphere is showing some noise due to (primarily) variations in ocean overturning, but the 95% or so that are the oceans are still showing warming.
  20. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Daniel, You have completely misread my post - I explicitly note that the oceans (a far larger heat-sink) are warming. My point is merely that * greenhouse warming works by warming CO2 in the atmosphere * the atmosphere has stopped warming Therefore, warming of the ocean cannot be due to CO2/atmospheric warming.
  21. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Yawn. Punksta spreads FUD ("halt in warming"? Really???) by ignoring the 97.7% of the land surface/oceans/cryosphere (the oceans and the cryosphere) which, inconvenient to his messaging, indelibly show warming, by drilling down to that which shows the least warming over that period, the land surface. In fact, when applying the Foster and Rahmstorf methodology, the global warming trend in each of the major data sets IS statistically significant since _2000_ (yes, even less than 16 years) • http://www.skepticalscience.com/foster-and-rahmstorf-measure-global-warming-signal.html • http://www.skepticalscience.com/still-going-down-the-up-escalator.html And even further evidence that the warming continues (topical data: whodathunkit?): • http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-lesson-for-monckton-and-co.html Fun fact skeptics like Punksta hate #1: The oceans have been gaining 2 Hiroshima bombs worth of incremental energy PER SECOND since 1961. Unabated. Specifically, the total heat content change from 1961 to 2011 (50 years) is approximately 21 x 1022 joules. That's about 210000000000000000000000 joules (a joule is 1 watt for 1 second; so a 100 watt light bulb will use 100 joules in 1 second). That's a BIG number but somewhat unreal. So how much energy is this? What could it do? What is it in the real world, where we don't routinely look at numbers that big. That is HOW Big...? This is a rate of heating of 133 Terawatts (or 0.261 Watts/m2). 133 Terrawatts is 2 Hiroshima bombs a second. Continually since 1961. Every. Second. Of. Every. Day. For. 50. Years. The reality is, due to the radiative physics of CO2, there is an energy imbalance in the Earth's energy budget. As a result, the Earth system (land surface, oceans and its cryosphere) is still accumulating energy, unabated. "Skeptics" like to focus on the tiny 2.3% of the system, the surface temperature record, and then further focus on just 2% of that (the United States) in an effort to distract. Essentially, it's a game of "LOOK!!! Something shiny!!!" • http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051106.shtml • http://www.skepticalscience.com/Breaking_News_The_Earth_is_Warming_Still_A_LOT.html Fun fact skeptics like Punksta hate #2: That El Nino years, La Nina years and even ENSO-neutral years are all rising in temperature over time (warming). • http://www.skepticalscience.com/john-nielsen-gammon-commentson-on-continued-global-warming.html Basically, Punksta is still playing on the Escalator...except he's trying to go Down the Up Escalator. • http://skepticalscience.com/still-going-down-the-up-escalator.html The world warms; humans are the cause of it. Life sucks for fake-skeptics, as the incontrovertibly inconvenient data and physics are against them. Facts, like tiggers, are wonderful things, for those who have them.
    "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it. ~ Voltaire"
  22. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    The simple fact is there has been a 16-year halt in warming, in stark contrast the the 30 years before that. This though is still short in climate time-scales, and other indicators have *not* stopped moving, eg ocean temperatures, arctic melt, CO2 rising faster than ever. But since the basic mechanism of greenhouse warming is that the atmosphere warms due to CO2 trapping longwave radiation (leading to overall warming), this suggests the warming of the oceans *cannot* be a consequence of greenhouse warming (since the atmosphere is not warming). It must be something else - but what ?
  23. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #52
    From Peru - First of all, the GRACE satellites have a gravimetric resolution on the Earths surface of roughly 100km, and their intersatellite distances are measured on very short time frames (many times per orbit), meaning that any long-term drift in reference frame will have essentially no effect. For gravimetric measurements this is a red herring fallacy, as the issue simply won't affect the measures. Secondly, WRT sea surface altimetry, long-term drifts in reference frame might be more of a problem. In which case we can cross-check against tide gauge data, as per Church and White 2011:
    The linear trend from 1900 to 2009 is 1.7 ± 0.2 mm year−1 and from 1961 to 2009 is 1.9 ± 0.4 mm year-1. However, there are significant departures from a linear trend. We estimate an acceleration in GMSL by fitting a quadratic to the time series, taking account of the time variable uncertainty estimates. From 1880 to 2009, the acceleration (twice the quadratic coefficient) is 0.009 ± 0.003 mm year−2 (one standard deviation). This estimate is slightly less than but not significantly different from the (one standard deviation) estimate of Church and White (2006) of 0.013 ± 0.003 mm year−2, but still significantly different from zero at the 95% level. From 1900 to 2009, the acceleration is also 0.009 ± 0.004 mm year-2...
    Emphasis added - yes, there is an acceleration of sea level rise, shown by data wholly independent of satellite altimeters. "If this issue is not clarified, it could become a major argument against global warming, perhaps one of the strongest ones." Well, no! There are many independent lines of evidence, all pointing to global warming - as with sea level, with both satellite and tide gauge data sets. The 'skeptics' continue looking for a single issue, a silver bullet, to prove their case - and they continue to be shown to be (mixing metaphors a bit here) making mountains out of trivial molehills.
  24. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Question : I have found on another web site a neat looking plot of temperature versus year going well back in time. It states that this graph is from SKS and consists of 11 different temperature records averaged. If indeed this graph comes from SKS can anyone tell me where to find it here? It would seem that this graph would be on topic for this thread, if indeed that web site was correct. Sorry I cannot be more specific about where I found the graph, I lost those notes. I would keep digging further until I found it again if there is an interest.
  25. The Y-Axis of Evil
    No offense intended,,, I think jimspy sort of has a point in that larger numbers have an effect on peoples' perception. (humor) I would indeed be probably more understandable to general public if, let's say 0,05 picoCelsiuses would be converted to... let's say 'negative dollars'. Then it could be easily stated that we're fighting against a temperature rise of -40'000'000'000'000 dollars. This might even be divided against the negative of population of the earth to get the temperature rise per person to get 5714,3 dollars/person which would approximate towards the cost of conversion of a averge american household running on renewables instead of fossils. It might be I got the numbers wrong there. Of course this sort of scale would only obfuscate the argument for those using €s or other currencies, like the Zimbabwean dollar which (at least a couple of years ago) was the basic unit of currency being the smallest measurable unit of currency (the so called 'Planck currency') (/humor) Of course this sort of thing has been calculated better in those carbon trading schemes, but apparently nowadays people are talking more about carbon taxes.
  26. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #52
    From Peru@2 Hasn’t Watts got two eyes in his head?
  27. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #52
    I have made a comment on the previous open thread, about one article at WUWT: The Geodetic Reference Antenna in Space (GRASP) It claims that the current Terrestrial Reference Frame is riddled with sistematic errors, making satellite Sea surface altimetry (TOPEX-POSEIDON-JASON1-JASON2) and gravimetric (GRACE) measurements to be unreliable data. If this issue is not clarified, it could become a major argument against global warming, perhaps one of the strongest ones.
  28. Perspectives of 8 Scientists Attending AGU Fall Meeting
    Boswarm @ 2, you said "The sleeping masses won't wake up!" Regrettably, they have not yet woken up and their peaceful slumber is being perpetuated by mass media non-science such as the article you linked to in The Age. Nothing would make me happier than scientific evidence that all the effects of AGW, which are currently being measured, are wrong. I can promise that such science will not be found in popular newspapers, such as The Age, but in reputable scientific journals, where the science is put to the test of peer review. So far, the papers denying AGW are very thin on the ground.
  29. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #52
    Well, that’s very interesting - best/most popular “science websites”. I looked them up and WUWT, Jo Nova etc. are nowhere to be seen. Now best “science blog sites” is a different matter. There are WUWT and the rest of the pseudoscience crowd. Must be the dodgy voting system that the blogosphere folks use to come to such a startling conclusion. Skeptical Science has won an award for demolishing denier’s myths, and if they changed the blogosphere voting system would undoubtedly beat the denier blog sites hands down. Go Skeptical Science, and fully informed New Year to all us readers.
  30. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    All I can do is LOL at cormagh @24. No matter what dataset you pick, deniers accuse you of cherrypicking. You average multiple datasets together, and you're accused of 'combining temperature records to prove your point'. There's just no winning with denialists.
  31. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Vroomie & Villabolo: From my decidedly un-scientifically-uneducatedly layman's POV, working as I do with the Great Unwashed, I have to point out, as does Villabolo, that the masses are only dimly aware that there two temperature scales (and don't even mention Kelvin to them). At the very least, they are not -instinctively- aware of the six-degree problem, and must be told about it. And then it's a crapshoot as to whether they believe it, or become fully invested in it. The average person thinks, When I drive from New York to Miami in the winter, the temperature goes up THIRTY degrees, so how bad could 6 be? It's probably a bit difficult for some scientists to fully appreciate the depths of American ignorance of science, working as they do with colleagues and interested students who have acquired a modicum of knowledge. But people do react to large numbers, and I merely thought the opportunity for us to say the words "Six thousand millitherms" would give us a chance to open some eyes. However, if you think it will muddy the waters, or give deniers yet more fodder for lobbing grenades, forget I mentioned it.
  32. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    cormagh - It's not terribly common to average multiple temperature records in these discussions. But this certainly short-circuits the "You used a data set that (has poorly specified problems that boil down to contradicting my point of view)" arguments commonly heard from 'skeptics'. Personally, I prefer GISTEMP for accuracy, as it avoids the polar holes present in (for example) the HadCRUT and satellite data. And that's because I prefer looking at all the data rather than subsets. But again, averaging multiple data sets is reasonable, and probably preferable to plotting multiple data sets in this already crowded graph.
  33. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Regarding Figure 1, when did it become common to combine whatever combination of temperature records were needed to prove one's point?
  34. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    An afterthought, have any of the gardeners here thought of permaculture? Can orchards be more resistant to the weather than other crops?
  35. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    I believe that any future civilization will have to rely on solidly built greenhouses to shelter crops from the local weather.
  36. The Y-Axis of Evil
    @ vrooomie & jimspy Jimpsy, I know you're thinking from a PR point of view but there is a flaw in your terminology. "Milli" is a well known term by the public for thousandths thus using it will give the impression of triviality. A more public friendly response to this pseudoscientific nonsense would be to simply state that the chart has been "compressed" or "squashed down" or some similar phrase that the public can understand. vrooomie Most Americans, uneducated as they are, won't fully appreciate what a 6C rise would do; especially if they live in a relatively cool place.
  37. Perspectives of 8 Scientists Attending AGU Fall Meeting
    @catamon at 12; it's real easy to find (myth 5, it's cooling should get you there). Here's the basic version, click on intermediate for more complex details: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm
  38. Skeptical Science Firefox Add-on: Send and receive climate info while you browse
    Ive found this a REALLY USEFUL APP but since Ive started using Windows8 it doesn't accept my log-in. Ive tried logging in on Sks but the app (sorry add-on) asks me to log in again, i do so but nothing happens. Anyone else having this problem?
  39. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Respectfully, jimspy, and from my POV as a earth scientist, I see absolutely no reason whatever to muddy up the discussion with a new metric of temperature. Degrees are widely-and well-understood by lay and scientific folk, and though we (Americans) still cling to our Fahrenheit, over the *rest* of the world, there is still a plenty enough comprehension of what a 6C temp rise will be: Uninhabitable.
  40. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Ron King, you're really asking the wrong question. Relevant questions are: "What qualifications do Drs. Douglass and Knox have as "climate scientists" Douglass and Knox paper on ocean heat content is the one that Nuticelli et al. (2012) address] answer: none. Douglass is a low temperature superconductivity physicist. He gained his PhD in 1959 and essentially retired as a publishing physicist in 1991 (his last paper in the area of his expertise was published in 1991). Knox is a spectroscopist with a particular focus on biological photochemistry. He gained his PhD in 1958. "Why are Drs Douglass and Knox writing occasional papers in an area completely divorced from their expertise in their late 70's? answer: Difficult to understand. Their first paper in their late career choice [Douglass, Blackman and Knox (2004) Temperature response of Earth to the annual solar irradiance cycle. Physics Lett. A. 323, 315-322] was scuppered by their error in not accounting for the fact that the (albedo-corrected) total solar irradiance has to be divided by 4 to account for the spherical geometry of the Earth when considering the Earth-absorbed irradiance. The smattering of papers this pair have published since on climate science have almost uniformly been shown to be blatantly flawed by rebuttals published in the scientific literature. The answer to your question: "...is John Church the only recognised climate scientist among the co-authors..." answer: John Church is a recognised climate scientist. That's ONE MORE than the authors of the paper Nuticelli et al. are addressing. Robert Way is a graduate student studying glaciology, climate statistics and climate change attibution. John Cook is at the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. That seems like quite a bit of climate expertise status to me (If it's "staus" you're after which seems to be the case). Judging by the postings at this site the other authors have the requisite qualities to address the issues, i.e. a strong physical understanding and honesty. Three questions for you Ron: 1. Couldn't you have found this out for yourself? 2. Don't you think it's a little odd that two elderly physicists choose to write very occasional papers on subjects completely outside their expertise, and that are objectively shown to be wrong? 3. Don't you think it's quite a good idea that objectively flawed analyses that find their way into the scientific literature are robustly rebutted?
    Moderator Response: (Rob P) Ron King was yet another sock puppet of Ken Lambert - banned some time ago for troll-ish behaviour.
  41. Mexican Climate Legislation and Other Hopeful News
    Alberta has had a carbon tax since 2007.
  42. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #12
    I was navigating the internet when I found this posts in WUWT: Why ice loss and sea level measurements via satellite and the new Shepherd et al paper are highly uncertain at the moment Where, after briefly reviewing the Shepherd et al. paper A Reconciled Estimate of Ice-Sheet Mass Balance that makes a review on ice sheet melting related sea level rise, show this: The Geodetic Reference Antenna in Space (GRASP) -A Mission to Enhance the Terrestrial Reference Frame Where is stated that there are systematic errors in the Terrestrial (GPS?) Reference Frame that would make highly uncertain the measurements of the TOPEX-POSEIDON-JASON1-JASON2 satellite altimeters and GRACE ice sheet and ocean mass gravimetric data. They show, for example, this slide: As an example that “TRF errors readily manifest as spurious sea level rise accelerations” So that WUWT concludes “A good first step would be to get the GRASP mission funded and then go back and redo Shepherd et al to see if it holds up. Until then, it’s just noisy uncertain data. ” I do not know what to think about it. If true, this is a serious blow to the satellite missions and all their data. Note: sorry for the big size of the slide. In the comments policy page the HTML tag to re-size images does not work.
    Moderator Response: [RH] Fixed image width that was breaking page formatting.
  43. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Bernard J: I realize that, which is why I went for the more specific "millitherm = 1/1000th of a degree CELSIUS." Creating a new term gets the media's (and their readers') attention. And attention is what is needed, and quickly. It also allows us to speak in terms of hundreds, and not "hundredths."
  44. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Have added an image of a waterlogged arable field to the end of the post. Right across the English Midlands similar scenes are everywhere. Had a few beers with a local farmer last night and the conversation revolved around ground conditions and how on earth these fields could be ready for spring planting.
  45. Mexican Climate Legislation and Other Hopeful News
    At pwc page Low Carbon Economy Index 2012: Overview we have the following statement: "Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation, would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees of warming by the end of the century. To give ourselves a more than 50% chance of avoiding 2 degrees will require a six-fold improvement in our rate of decarbonisation." The full report in pdf format can be downloaded from a link at the bottom of the page linked above.
  46. Perspectives of 8 Scientists Attending AGU Fall Meeting
    Uncle Pete @ 8 and Michael @ 4 Allowed = advertised (Fairfax publishes books)
  47. Mexican Climate Legislation and Other Hopeful News
    Try this, although I haven't checked whether it does give a prediction of 6 degrees: http://www.pwc.co.uk/sustainability-climate-change/publications/low-carbon-economy-index.jhtml
  48. Mexican Climate Legislation and Other Hopeful News
    The Price Waterhouse Coopers reference/link is weak. It points to a Guardian blog piece which itself refers to other Guardian pages, which in turn are a bit dead. I would like a reference to the actual PWC information.
  49. Perspectives of 8 Scientists Attending AGU Fall Meeting
    "What is more, they do so only by a massive and deliberate cherry pick of an interval with an extreme El Nino at the start and multiple strong La Nina's at the end - a circumstance that should lead to a strong cooling trend. Instead we have a weak warming trend indicating a strong underlying trend." Can anyone point me at any actual research out there examining this proposition in detail? The proposition makes sense to me, and should, i think, be an "oh dear, WTF is actually going on here" moment in the "debate" about anthropogenic climate change. Yet the "no warming for 16 years" is the current "killer" meme amongst the skeptic lobby when the data its based on, maybe, has serious implications for a warming future.
  50. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Ron @60, "...should not be attacked for not being a climate scientist by people who aren't climate scientists." Your red herring argument dismisses one and all critiques made by non-climate scientists in this faux debate? You are conceding that the opinions Monckton, Watts, McIntyre, Ridley, McKitrick, Morano, Michaels, Pielke Jnr., Inhofe, Bastardi, Douglass, Knox, Singer, Easterbrook, Peiser, McLean, Jo Nova, Montford, Mosher, Baliunas, Loehle, Tom Harris, Muller, Liljegren, Condon, Happer, Lewis, Plimer, Soon, Idso, Tisdale, Dyson and many, many other fake skeptics and contrarians are to be ignored when it comes to climate science. For the record, in science it is not considered an "attack" to note legitimate and noteworthy errors and flaws in arguments made by fake skeptics and those in denial. Trying to invoke that hyperbole in a scientific debate is conceding that you have lost and are grasping at straws.

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