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Comments 50401 to 50450:

50401. Treesong2 at 09:32 AM on 26 December 2012
       West Antarctica warming more than expected
       Speaking as someone who knows nothing about the NCAR study besides what's here, and couldn't evaluate it even if he read the whole thing, I wonder if the much-processed instrumental record of a single site can bear the weight of the reinterpretation. How can West Antarctica warm so much more than East Antarctic coastal areas that are much further north? Is it elevation? I also don't understand the map. Does the color show temperature (per the caption) or temperature correlation (per the legend at right), and if the latter, what are the units? And why is the Antarctic Peninsula showing up with the dark blue of least warming/least correlation?
50402. Hans Petter Jacobsen at 09:00 AM on 26 December 2012
       Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
       SSH mention briefly that both total solar irradiance, ultraviolett light and cosmic rays change during a solar cycle. They do not highlight any of these processes in particular. The calculations within SSH's Solar Cycle Model are independent of which of these processes that is the strongest. The bottom line is that SSH's model cannot explain the global warming since the mid-1970s, regardless of the relativ strength between these processes.
50403. dana1981 at 08:44 AM on 26 December 2012
       This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
       Ron @55 - NOAA only has pentadal data available for 2000m OHC, except since 2005, so that's all we had to use. The graph ends circa 2009 because that's the average of 2007 through 2011. DK12 were using just 0-700 meter data and focusing on short-term changes (a.k.a. noise) and calling every little bump a 'climate shift'. As you can see from Figure 1, the global energy imbalance (essentially the slope of the graph) isn't decreasing. Estimates of the global energy imbalance may be changing, but that's not the same as the imbalance itself changing.
50404. John Russell at 04:10 AM on 26 December 2012
       Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
       Bert #24 It is an excellent analogy. The only difficulty I can see is that you need to have taken flying lessons to really understand the significance.
50405. Tom Dayton at 00:07 AM on 26 December 2012
       It's cosmic rays
       Update 2012: RealClimate posted "A review of cosmic rays and climate: a cluttered story of little success."
50406. Tom Dayton at 23:50 PM on 25 December 2012
       Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
       RealClimate just posted "A review of cosmic rays and climate: a cluttered story of little success."
50407. Ron King at 23:25 PM on 25 December 2012
       This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
       dana 1981 Looking at your paper cited above ref Fig 1, I was interested in why you and your co-authors used pentadal data and why it would make such a difference with DK12 data which you claim is focused on short term noise. note: "Our 0-700 meter result differs from that of DK12 over the 2002-2008 period because we use pentadal data whereas DK12 use quarterly data. This result highlights the fact that the DK12 conclusions are a result of their focus on short-term noise" Also why is there such a sharp rise in the 0-700m OHC in the 1998-2003 period which is not reflected in the 700-2000m OHC over the same period. Also why does this OHC graph stop in 2008 and not up to 2011 (the paper published in March 2012). Finally, the warming imbalance you confirm in the 0.4-0.6Wm-2 range agrees with Hansen's recent estimates but not with his 2005 model result of 0.85+/-0.15Wm-2, which should be increasing with growing CO2 levels since 2005. Why is the imbalance decreasing from the 2005 level?
50408. shoyemore at 23:04 PM on 25 December 2012
       Powerpoint friendly version of SkS Christmas cartoon
       Paul D, Commiserations. Here in Ireland, we seem to have escaped the deluge you have experienced. The island of Ireland is (roughly) the size of England, but with a far smaller population density. So we (possibly) have more natural sinks & more empty floodplains for water to drain into the sea. I presume we get the same rainfall, in fact I thought Ireland got more on the average! However, after the egregious bulding boom, it is only a matter of time before we are caught again on the wrong side of nature. To John Cook & Co: Happy Christmas to the Skeptical Science team!
50409. milka at 22:05 PM on 25 December 2012
       Powerpoint friendly version of SkS Christmas cartoon
       Hi John Wishing you, your family and Skeptical Science another successful year! Sandi Keane (and the Planet.....)
50410. Paul D at 21:20 PM on 25 December 2012
       Powerpoint friendly version of SkS Christmas cartoon
       Actually JC, if you had put it up earlier, I could have printed it out and sent it as a Christmas card.
50411. shoyemore at 20:17 PM on 25 December 2012
       New research from last week 51/2012
       chriskoz #1 I disagree. The report of the Presidential Council may be scientifically inaccurate by what we know today but in its own time it was cutting edge. It is certainly of enormous historical importance. Historians wondering why it was never followed up may blame the 1970s Oil Crisis, though that brought in the first wave of practical energy efficiency measures in industrial economies. Considering that President Carter made a determined effort to research alternatives to fossil fuels (efforts that were negated by the Reagan Administration from 1980), the 1970s look like an opportunity lost.
50412. chriskoz at 20:04 PM on 25 December 2012
       Powerpoint friendly version of SkS Christmas cartoon
       Happy Christmas, John! Chris Koziarz.
50413. chriskoz at 19:56 PM on 25 December 2012
       Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
       Excellent analogy, Bert@24! The first of such kind that I've seen. I hardly make a post without useful input of mine but this time I make an exception and rest my post just on the applaud to you. Your little debunking analogy is worth exposing and repeating everywhere in popular media.
50414. chriskoz at 12:24 PM on 25 December 2012
       New research from last week 51/2012
       The classic of the week, being a summary for policymakers rather than a pure sicentific source; contains some inconsistent claims. What cought my attention is how, on page2 column2, they speculated the warming effect of CO2. First, they estimate: "if CO2 reaches 400ppmv, the temperature will rise by 1.4F which may happen by 2010". That was quite good guess, provied they did not have Charney climate sensitivity back in 1970. They just had Charlie Keeling 12y record of CO2 and well established GHG band absorption theory, including WV feedback. Then, in the next paragraph, they claim: "if all available fosil fuel is burned and one half of the resulting CO2 were added to the atmosphere and there were no compensating effect, then the Earth's temperature would increase by 2F to 3F". That's way too small even within the context of this article only. They even have over-estimated the recoverable coal as 7600Gt (well that's the possible C flux we estimate today including permafrost and methane clathrate melt) which would mean more than 20 times the amount of C we burned to day. And that would have 2F to 3F warming potential only? Clearly that classic has no value as historical/scientific piece. Perhaps it has value because it shows that back then, even poliicians have not been talking about "global cooling threat" as contrarians would like to see.
50415. Bert from Eltham at 10:26 AM on 25 December 2012
       Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu
       When I was learning how to fly in the late seventies my instructor put this hood thing on my head so I could only see my instruments or dash and not outside. This exercise was designed to teach a mere beginner like me to never fly in clouds or lose sight of the real horizon or worse at night. He gave me the usual instructions to climb/descend and turn to set headings and various combinations. He then asked me to climb to 7000ft on a heading of 135. I knew there was cloud higher than we were and sure enough we were in thick cloud. I could tell by the sudden dimming of the light. He then put me through a lot of turns climbs and descents and combinations of all these. After about twenty minutes he said 'You do know how to fly on instruments! You were not cheating!' I then told him it was a simple matter to just cross correlate all the instruments to give a true indication of the state of the aircraft. Working in science had given me this insight. Further if you rely only on one instrument and ignore all others you will crash. Even if you look at all and fail to cross correlate and not see the pattern you still crash. The usual control failure is a spiral descent at ever increasing speed into the deck. This is analogous to the deniers flying. They will point to one instrument and say all is good. If that one changes they will find another that tells them all is OK. They then put absolute trust in the balance centre in their ear (natural cycles) . They then ignore that their airspeed is increasing, engine revs are increasing, they are losing height and the artificial horizon looks 'stuck' at some impossible angle. The heading is varying a bit but that is due to the wind! All is fine until you hit the deck at a velocity higher than V never exceed for your aircraft. This chap Ridley has crashed a bank and he now knows how to drive a planet! Bert
50416. Paul D at 08:52 AM on 25 December 2012
       Powerpoint friendly version of SkS Christmas cartoon
       Looks like most of the UK this Christmas! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20493378
50417. Tom Curtis at 07:40 AM on 25 December 2012
       Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
       curiousd @68, I take it that you are asking about the small upward spike at the center of the CO2 absorption band rather than the large notch in the outgoing radiation caused by CO2 absorption and re-emission that Sphaerica has explained. The upward spike occurs in the point of strongest absorption by CO2. Because it is the point of strongest absorption, it requires less CO2 to absorb all (or most) of the upwelling radiation from below at that wavenumber. Consequently, CO2 at a higher altitude is able to absorb all upwelling radiation than is the case at neighbouring wavenumbers. Conversely, of course, there is stronger emission from higher altitudes at that wavenumber than from neighbouring wave numbers. These facts, together with the temperature profile of the atmosphere have interesting consequences: If you look down at 5km on the modtran program (default settings), you will see no central spike. That is because the high density is such that the greater absorptivity only makes a small difference in the average altitude of emission of upwelling radiation at that altitude. A small difference in altitude means a small difference in temperature, and hence little difference in the energy emitted. At 10 km there is a small downward spike at that wavenumber. Because 10 km is below the tropopause, higher means cooler, so emission from a higher altitude emits less energy. Again, however, because of the reasonably high density, the altitude difference is small. At 18 km, the small downward spike disappears again, although it was present at 17 km. The reason it disappears is that 18 km is the tropopause, so the small difference in altitude makes no difference in temperature, and hence emissions. At 20 km, a small upward spike appears. That is because the average altitude of emission for the wavenumber of strongest absorption is now in the stratosphere, and has a higher temperature than the neigbouring wavenumbers, whose average altitude of emission are still in the tropopause. At 30 km, the central spike is much taller. That is because the less dense atmosphere at this altitude results a greater altitude difference from the greater emission/absorption at that wavenumber, so the average emissions are from significantly higher. You will also notice, however, that the emissions from neigbouring wavenumbers are also higher than those at 20 km, indicating that the average altitude of emission to space at those wavenumbers has risen above the tropopause into the stratosphere. Despite this, total upward radiation has fallen nearly 1 W/m^2 compared to at 20 km. That is partly due to increased absorption by ozone, and partly because the average altitude of radiation to space in the wings of the CO2 notch is sill rising within the troposphere, resulting in reduced upward radiation. As move the look down altitude further up, upwelling radiation increase again, by about 1.5 W/m^2; but the basic shape of the CO2 absorption spectrum remains the same. It is important to note that the modtran model does not respond dynamically to increased CO2. Increasing CO2 increases the effective altitude of radiation to space. A simplistic understanding of this might suggest, from the fact that increased altitude shows increased upward radiation above 30 km, that increased CO2 will not decrease TOA IR radiation. In fact, that is not the case, even with no dynamic response, as can be shown by doubling CO2 in a modtran experiment. Further, increasing CO2 increases the height of the tropopause slightly, and significantly cools the stratosphere and hence the increase in emissions in the central regions of the CO2 notch with altitude above the tropopause. That means the Modtran model underestimates the reduction in IR radiation to space with increased CO2. Note also that different latitudes and seasons have very different temperature profiles, which makes a significant difference to the effect of change in lookdown altitude.
50418. villabolo at 07:31 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       Sphaerica "How are the exiting farmers in Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the US Midwest supposed to react to this?" Russian passports? Seems that the Ruskies won the cold war after all. :-)
50419. Bob Lacatena at 06:25 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       Villabolo, Yes. Some people seem to love to rather simplistically belief that agriculture can simply move further north, without considering that:
       • The length of the growing season (available sunlight and length of day) is shorter
       • The soil was scraped away during the previous glacial period, and it takes thousands of years of growth to replace such soil
       • How are the exiting farmers in Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the US Midwest supposed to react to this?
       • Now we're going to clear that many more tens of thousands of square miles of forest, further adding CO2 to the atmosphere, in order to make room for all of those farms?
50420. Bob Lacatena at 06:17 AM on 25 December 2012
       Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
       JRT256, Your comment is puzzling. Did you actually read the post? Sunspot cycles and variations and cosmic rays are definitively not currently warming the Earth's climate, since those factors have been on the decline for the past thirty years. As such, while there is some chance that they have a small influence on climate, this influence must be negative, and yet is clearly being vastly overwhelmed by CO2. Why is it that you think the above post does not answer "the question currently being asked?"
50421. villabolo at 06:09 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       John Russell @ #8 Wasn't meant as a criticism. :-) I could imagine what will happen to storm lashed refineries, pipe lines, and tar sands' pits.
50422. william5331 at 05:22 AM on 25 December 2012
       Subcap Methane Feedbacks. Part 3: Methane from beneath the ice
       There may be a couple of further wrinkles to this story http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/end-of-ice-ages.html
50423. John Russell at 05:04 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       villabolo #7 I'm sure you're right (though you're making my point about 'positives'). Never mind, they'll be too busy mining tar sands, minerals and pumping Arctic oil to notice.
50424. william5331 at 05:01 AM on 25 December 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #51
       Hey Guys It's time we stopped obsessing about the climate deniers and just got on with documenting the changing climate. It's a shame to keep giving them oxygen as if they have something worthwhile to say. They remind me of someone standing on a beach during an earth quake denying that Tsunami's exist. They are irrelevant and becoming more so as the months roll on.
50425. villabolo at 04:32 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       John Russell @4: "From a human perspective we can expect much turmoil, in geo-political terms, as areas nearer the equator could eventually become uninhabitable and food production is forced to migrate latitudinally. I guess Canada, Siberia, Greenland and Svalbard become power houses of a new economy..." My understanding is that the soil in Canada's boreal forests is thin, rocky and acid. The acidity can be neutralized with lime though you'll need large amounts. The rockiness will make mechanized agriculture difficult. What's more, the albedo change in the arctic will guarantee that there will be more intense storms in that region which can ruin crops.
50426. villabolo at 03:58 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       @Terranova #3: Here is an example of a negative result on the Siberian permafrost. Of you're thinking of agriculture in that region, heavy equipment simply will not be able to operate in swampland. The only positive result I can think of is that the vegetation growing in this muck may slow down the CO2 build up by a bit. Other than that, it is not to our benefit to have increased levels of methane.
50427. John Hartz at 03:36 AM on 25 December 2012
       2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #11
       @Paul.H #3: My commentary under the SkS Highlights heading stems from what I have observed happening in the USA. It may or may not be reflective of what’s happening in other countries of the world. On a global scale, the ever-growing body of climate science is quite robust. The willingness of world leaders in both the public and private sectors to embrace what the science is telling us and to take appropriate actions to prevent a future global climate catastrophe is currently severely lacking.
50428. John Hartz at 03:14 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       @Trranova #3: The detail that you are looking for is embedded in the NOAA report itself, i.e., Arctic Report Card: Update for 2012 .
50429. John Russell at 03:09 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       @Terranova, #3 I'm not really sure what your point is. I guess it depends on what we define as 'negative' and 'positive'. Clearly some species will see their habitat shrinking, while other species will experience improving conditions and a population explosion. So is that positive or negative? For the oil companies it's already clear that they see the Arctic as a land of opportunity, as do shipping companies wishing to send their cargoes over 'the top of the world'. Positive or negative? The problem is we're taking a world that's to a large extent been in a reasonably steady state and we're giving it a really good shake up; not by intent but as a side effect of our activities. Eventually, of course, it will all settle again into a new and different equilibrium, but in the meantime you can expect turmoil amongst all species of flora and fauna with much 'collateral damage'. Positive or negative? From a human perspective we can expect much turmoil, in geo-political terms, as areas nearer the equator could eventually become uninhabitable and food production is forced to migrate latitudinally. I guess Canada, Siberia, Greenland and Svalbard become power houses of a new economy and we leave the Mediterranean, Middle East, India and Central America to stew in their own juice. Positive or negative? I know what I think.
50430. Paul.H at 02:57 AM on 25 December 2012
       2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #11
       Is there any actual solid progress being made though? While the climate science FUDers are doing their thing & large parts of the public continue to buy into that line of BS, for whatever reason - political ideology seems to be a favourite amongst those I've spoken to, I just don't see us going much of anywhere. Particularly this past year my level of pessimism has only been going up... I've reached the point where I despair for our future to be perfectly honest.
50431. Terranova at 01:46 AM on 25 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       As a working biologist/ecologist, I found the article interesting, but scant on information. It did prompt me to do a little research on the vegetation and food chain bullets. My initial reaction was that those statements did not appear to be a negative consequence of climate change and instead appeared to be generally positive. A Christmas Eve morning spent reviewing published data supported my intuition. From Environmental News Network, "Rising temperatures in the Arctic circle has caused changes in vegetation in the last few decades. Plants are growing taller, there is less bare ground devoid of vegetation, and even some shrubs are growing. It is far from being an agricultural breadbasket, but is well on its way to becoming a more lively ecosystem." The arctic fox population fluctuates based on prey availability - notably lemmings. It is a well studied and classic example of predator/prey relationships as pertaining to population sizes. Also, competition with the larger red fox has caused population decline in areas where the red fox has increased it's range. The northern limit of the red fox's geographic range is determined directly by resource availability, whereas the southern limit of the arctic fox's range is determined, through interspecific competition, by the distribution and abundance of the red fox. There are definitely climate change fingerprints on resource availability. However, it is not the only reason red fox numbers have increased. It has to be considered that the decline in gray wolf numbers has led to an increase in the number of red foxes due to decreases inter-specific competition and predation. Less gray wolves also results in fewer carcasses for arctic foxes to scavenge from. Also, a recent paper shows that climate change will favor non-specialist animals in the sub-arctic. From the paper: "The reason they expect global warming to benefit Arctic mammals rather than hinder them, they say, is that most high-latitude species are generalists: they’re used to having to cope with a wide range of climatic conditions and aren’t too dependent on any one feature of the ecosystem." Some species will decline, but many others will benefit. And, with phytoplankton being the base of the trophic level pyramid more energy will be available to move upward to larger animals. There may, or may not, be issues related to the timing of the phytoplankton bloom, but regardless aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems will be benefit. A recent paper by Arrigo, et al (2012) supports this.
50432. John Hartz at 00:44 AM on 25 December 2012
       Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
       @ JRT256 #18 The answer to the question, “What's the link between cosmic rays and climate change?”, is the SkS rebuttal article to the denier myth, “It’s Cosmic Rays”. To access the Intermediate version of the rebuttal article, click here To access the Advanced version of the article, click here If you have any follow-up questions about the contents of either of these two articles, please post them on the common comment thread to the articles.
50433. Bob Lacatena at 23:57 PM on 24 December 2012
       Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
       curiousd, What is it exactly that you are asking about the hole (the inverted spike)? Yes, that is the region of CO2 absorption, but what don't you understand? Without knowing that answer, just taking a shot and hoping this answers your question: Within that range of wavelengths (or wave numbers or frequencies, depending on whichever measure is being used), CO2 strongly absorbs radiation. In the dense troposphere, such absorbed energy is usually quickly transmitted, through a collision, to another molecule, most likely O2 or N2 (those being by far the most common). This leaves the CO2 molecule capable of absorbing (and transmitting) IR once again, and also heats the atmosphere (given that the temperature of a gas is primarily a measure of the translational kinetic energy of its component molecules). At higher altitudes, where the altitude is less dense (and cooler), the CO2 molecule has more of a chance of re-emitting the absorbed radiation before passing that energy on to another molecule by collision. Even so, while it is more likely to have absorbed the energy from the warmer parts of the atmosphere below than the cooler parts above, it may radiate it away in any direction, with equal chance, so that some of the radiation arriving from from the planet below, through the atmosphere, may be radiated back down where it is more likely to be absorbed by the atmosphere and transmitted to another molecule. Eventually, of course, some of this radiation escapes into space -- but much less of it within this band than in other bands, due to all of the interference along the way. So there are two ways that you can explain this. One is to visualize the various photon-and-molecule interactions along the way, which prevent energy in that band from proceeding through unscathed (as it does in most, but not all, other bands). Another, broader way to look at it is that the energy in the IR band is dimmed, much as lighted is partially blocked, scattered and dimmed when passing through a fog. But in the case of the radiation in this band, in the atmosphere, there is eventually a point in the atmosphere where that band of radiation is being emitted and the atmosphere is rarefied enough to allow it to escape, unhindered, into space. Since this altitude is higher, that area of the atmosphere is also cooler, therefore it emits at a lower temperature and therefore it emits less total radiation (in that band). In a nutshell, then, this means that for other bands, the degree of emission (the strength in that band) conforms to the temperature at the surface of the earth (since the radiation makes it through, unhindered, from surface to space). [Study the Stefan-Boltzmann law.] The band in the absorbed-by-CO2 range, however, is hindered, and so is emitted from an area near the top of the troposphere. That area is, of course, much cooler, and so the radiation of emission represents that of a body of a much lower temperature, i.e. radiation in that band is weaker. Taking this one step further and increasing the CO2 concentration can, among other things, show that eventual transmission into space, while unaffected and so unchanged in other bands, will occur from a higher altitude in the CO2-absorption bands. This means that total energy emitted from the surface, which has warmed due to the effect, will be higher, but emission into space within the CO2 band will from an even higher, cooler altitude, and so will be reduced. [There are other details here, such as pressure and doppler broadening, which marginally widen the bands being discussed, but these details aren't strictly necessary to understanding the "hole" or "window" under discussion.]
50434. JRT256 at 23:32 PM on 24 December 2012
       Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
       Interesting, but aren't you beating the wrong dead horse? The question currently being asked is whether Sunspot cycles and variations in cosmic rays that accompany them are influencing the Earth's temperature and climate.
50435. curiousd at 22:09 PM on 24 December 2012
       Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
       In the above nice graph by Conrath, et al, there is that cental up going spike that appears at the maximum absorption wavelength for the CO2 bending mode. The same thing shows up using Modtran and the spike varies in an interesting way with the simulated altitude of the satellite. If I show this to an audience someone will ask about that spike. I could guess but don't want to. Can someone explain?
50436. Dikran Marsupial at 21:43 PM on 24 December 2012
       Foster and Rahmstorf Measure the Global Warming Signal
       @curiousd Firstly it is rather overstating things to suggest that the "Foster - Rahmsdorff multiple regression analysis is one of the important parts of any AGW presentation"; it isn't, it is a useful analysis that shows that the recent "hiatus" in global temperatures can be adequately explained by the observed forcings and ENSO. If it wasn't for the "skeptics" bloviating on about the hiatus and promulgating multiple misunderstandings of statistical significance, Foster and Ragmsdorff would get far less attention that it does. The really important parts of an AGW presentation are about physics, not statistics. What Foster & Rahmsdorff are not doing is claiming that their regression analysis is a solid attribution study (as far as I can see), so it isn't that surprising that there may be other elements relevant to a proper attribution (e.g. cloud cover, aerosols etc.) that do not appear in the analysis. Regression analysis has a problem called "missing variable bias", which basically means that if one of your explanatory variables is correllated with some relevant variable that is not included in the analysis, it will act as a proxy (to some extent) for the missing variable. This means that a regression analysis can be used to show that something can be explained by X, Y and Z, but not that it is explained by X, Y and Z. This is what Foster and Rahmsdorff are aiming to do, i.e. demonstrate that observed temperatures can be explained by a linear trend, solar forcing, volcanic forcing and ENSO, and therefore there is no real reason to be greatly surprised by the apparent hiatus that is the focus of so much interest. The analysis is primarily useful in combatting misinformation.
50437. Doug Bostrom at 15:01 PM on 24 December 2012
       The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
       Philippe: Ideologues pushing this nonsense in the opulent comfort of Western countries that have well established, stable, democratic goverments would be well served to go experience what life is like in countries that have no effective goverment. Basically, it's hell... Good government is like an efficiently functioning electric utility, remarkable mostly because so much of it has become invisible to us, taken for granted. We may complain about the rates we pay for electricity but what's far worse is flipping a switch and having no lights come on. Good government is like no government in the mutual feature of invisibility.
50438. bjchip at 13:01 PM on 24 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       Hmmm... I make it 2017... but we'd need to define "Ice Free" to make it more real. I am pretty sure this was done over at Tamino's site too :-) I am however, further predicting that it won't make a lick of difference to CEI, Heartland, Watts, Limbaugh, Inhofe or Monckton.
50439. Philippe Chantreau at 12:20 PM on 24 December 2012
       The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
       I'll add that talking about entrenched individuals when discussing a US goverment agency is also moot. The leadership of these agencies is subject to the vagaries of elections and changes in fact more often than desirable for consistency and follow-up of long term actions. The 2 consecutive Bush administrations appointed leaders for the EPA under whom the enforcement process slowed to a crawl, effectively rendering the agency toothless. I note that Markx also establishes his strawman of choice by suggesting that proponents of goverment involvement have the illusion that government will always act in the interest of most people. Ridley shares in that fallacy, as far as I can tell (I don't really have the time to dwell in his ramblings). Of course, since nobdy and no group of people is perfect, this is not the case, the strawman is an especially easy one to set on fire. But that's a very different contention that saying that the overall sum of government actions will result in mostly adverse consequences, a step that Markx and Ridley seem eager to take as if it logically followed. Ideologues pushing this nonsense in the opulent comfort of Western countries that have well established, stable, democratic goverments would be well served to go experience what life is like in countries that have no effective goverment. Basically, it's hell: Life run by whatever local maffia manages to scare other groups by violence; corruption as a way of life; merit and competence relegated as useless ornaments of one's persona, because connections are the only thing that matter. I've lived on 3 continents and a large island, and visited other places too. It takes more than ideologically driven rethoric to convince me. Ideology almost never passes the test against reality. The other strawman is that any kind of new government action is a step toward non-democratic government. This argument has been around for so long that you'd swear by now we should be in a full blown dictature.
50440. Philippe Chantreau at 11:48 AM on 24 December 2012
       The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen
       Markx if you agree with all the points I made that you have listed, then you agree that your original argument, to which these points constituted a response, was bunk. Strong environmental regulations are the hallmark of free countries where citizens care about their quality of life. As for the EPA/market comparison, you are the one who brought up "entrenched individuals" bent on "enriching themselves" implying that this is what the EPA is about. I said that it was grotesque. I maintain that view and note that you have failed to provide examples of real individuals who would have verifiably conducted such evil deeds. My example, however, adapted from your piece of rethoric with a few changed nouns can be supported by actual events and actual people who have actually screwed the entire world to the point of driving some countries' economies near total collapse. That is where the comparison resides: Same language, different actors, one is real and heavily documented, the other is fed to you by ideologues and fictitious. Now, I'm sure that some instances of corruption and systemic failure can be found in the EPA process, as no human endeavor will ever be flawless. However, the consequences will be orders of magnitude smaller than the mess thrown upon us by the finance barons. And no, I am not going to list names, it can be found all over Google, books have already been written about it, etc.
50441. JoeT at 11:39 AM on 24 December 2012
       Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
       Great, Dana, I'll be looking forward to it. Thanks to you and others here for the great work that you all do. I've learned a lot, although I have a lot more to go. If I can put in a request -- I'm very interested in understanding more about the physics of drought. More than just "the wet gets wetter and the dry dryer." I think this is a crucial issue that the world is going to have to face right now -- not some decades in the future. I've been reading the interesting papers of Isaac Held of the GFLD, but I'd like to know more about the assumptions that go into the various models, as well as the contradictions between models and the ramifications.
50442. Doug Hutcheson at 11:32 AM on 24 December 2012
       2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #11
       Wouldn't it be nice to be able to link to an equal number of articles reporting actual, solid progress in the war on AGW? It seems all we are hearing are apologies and excuses, but no tangible deliveries. At least we in Australia can look at our brand-new carbon pricing scheme with some satisfaction. Even though it is still too little to be of significance, it does lay a foundation for future meaningful actions. With a change of government expected in 2013, can we realistically hope that the conservative side of politics will keep up the good work started by the progressives? I have a bad feeling the answer is "no".
50443. Bob Loblaw at 10:20 AM on 24 December 2012
       CO2 effect is saturated
       curiousd, Tom: q is almost certainly specific humidity (mass of water vapour per unit mass of moist air). Humidity units can be quite confusing - the only one that makes sense to everyone is relative humidity, and it's the one that is most useless for serious work. Other common ones: e - vapour pressure (partial pressure of water vapour) r - mixing ratio (mass of water vapour per unit mass of dry air) Td - dew point temperature (temperature at which air would reach saturation if cooled) Conversion between various forms is a common torture test subject in undergraduate meteorology courses.
50444. Tom Curtis at 09:55 AM on 24 December 2012
       CO2 effect is saturated
       curiousd @193, I am not familiar with that model, so I can't be much help. However: lev = Level, numbered from the top of the atmosphere (32 km) p = atmospheric pressure at that level z = altitude in kilometers T = temperature Unfortunately I cannot help you with q.
50445. Tom Curtis at 09:50 AM on 24 December 2012
       Foster and Rahmstorf Measure the Global Warming Signal
       curiousd @94, I am not up on the maths used by Foster and Rahmstorf, but my understanding is that they took four indices, one each for solar, ENSO, and volcanic activity, and a linear trend; and regressed them against the temperature record. The only check that these are all the factors involved is that the residuals have a normal distribution. Using this method, if there were a fifth factor whose activity was highly correlated with one of the four factors used by Foster and Rahmstorf, its effects would have been included with the regression of that factor. Thus, if stratospheric H2O was causing a near linear cooling trend in surface temperatures, it would have been included in the analysis simply as a reduced global warming signal (the linear trend) and the linear trend should be interpreted as the consequence of two factors (increased GHG forcing plus decreasing stratospheric H2O) rather than the consequence of one. Alternatively, as stratospheric temperatures are significantly effected by solar activity, the effect of reduced stratospheric H2O may by highly correlated with the solar signal. As Sphaerica points out, the test of this supposition would be to find an index of stratospheric H2O, and to repeat Foster and Rahmstorf's analysis with five indices rather than four.
50446. Tom Dayton at 08:51 AM on 24 December 2012
       Models are unreliable
       No, Jack, you don't get a pass just because your "time is limited". You have plenty of time to type pompous assertions, so certainly you have time to at least click the links we provide you before you type more. There is no "if" about it--source code and documentation of GCMs easily are available, if you just click. We have given you links to only a subset of them. Another one is the Monash Simple Climate Model (based on GREB)--so simple that you should easily be able to confirm the quality of its code, the sensibility of the factors it includes, and the deviation from horizontal of its projections. (Hat tip to the Rabbett.) You responded "The range of uncertainty for those models is so large it doesn't really tell us anything. A result so broad that it would be difficult for it to ever be wrong is also not very right." Your statement is obviously wrong, unless you can't draw a horizontal band with your imagination, in the graphs we provided you. Well, maybe you can't, so this first figure's authors have done it for you. It would be really easy for the models to be wrong, but they aren't. Being wrong means the globe will not warm, so there's no need to do anything. In contrast, being right even at the low edge of the predictive envelope most definitely means needing to act substantively right now. When you do bother to click the links we provide, you need to then read carefully. Your interpretation of RealClimate's FAQs on GCMs as "primarily tuned by trial&error, not scientific principles [please note the word 'tuned']" is a result of your skimming when you lack the most basic prior knowledge. If you had bothered to watch the short Climate Modeling 101 videos I pointed you to, you might have had the knowledge to understand that those tunings (of which there are relatively few) are done not to make global temperature evolution match the observed evolution, but instead to make a few very narrow, specific, component, physical processes in the model match the observations about those very narrow, specific, component, physical processes. As KR responded to you, these are physical models, not statistical ones.
50447. villabolo at 06:59 AM on 24 December 2012
       Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
       Any predictions as to when the Arctic will be ice free in the summer? I predict 2020 for first ice free season.
50448. dana1981 at 05:20 AM on 24 December 2012
       Foster and Rahmstorf Measure the Global Warming Signal
       Honestly if you're going to argue that changes in solar activity from over 60 years ago could be causing global warming today, you might as well argue that subterranean unicorn farts are causing global warming too. Just because we can't conclusively disprove something doesn't mean that it's remotely physically plausible.
50449. dana1981 at 05:12 AM on 24 December 2012
       Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
       Note that I've got a comprehensive blog post and rebuttal to the myth that the IPCC overestimated global warming (the argument based on Figure 1.4) in the works. It should be published next week. And it's pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.
50450. KR at 02:40 AM on 24 December 2012
       Models are unreliable
       JackO'Fall - "...re-running a 2004 scenario (for example), yet adding in 'known future' levels of things like CO2 and volcano emissions. If that exists, please let me know." See Comparing climate projections to observations up to 2011, Rahmstorf et al 2011, which does exactly that. "...they (models) are primarily tuned by trial&error, not scientific principles [please note the word 'tuned']" I would have to call this an incorrect assertion based upon not knowing how these models are developed - ie, from the physics. "What I was referring to is a lack of source-code with documentation for the GCMs. If it exists, I am clearly wrong and fully retract that statement." See the RealClimate links for GCM model codes, also radiative transfer models and others. Again, these are widely available, and have always been. "The range of uncertainty for those models is so large it doesn't really tell us anything. A result so broad that it would be difficult for it to ever be wrong is also not very right." On the contrary - predictions of climate change due to anthropogenic influence data back 120 years, and have been demonstrated to be correct over and over again. --- To be blunt, Jack, you have made a long list of assertions that are (a) wholly incorrect, and (b) you would have found to be so with only a little effort in looking things up. I strongly suggest you do a bit more reading.

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