Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  1002  1003  1004  1005  1006  1007  1008  1009  1010  1011  1012  1013  1014  1015  1016  1017  Next

Comments 50451 to 50500:

  1. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Hollow point ammunition..... Bushmaster assualt weapons..... Global warming, meet the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton CT. The current shortages of weapons and ammunition at US gun stores is not due to government restrictions, but on a surge in demand. When the US population really is hungry, the resulting anarchy will be well-armed, and NRA nuts will feast on liberal tree hugger flesh, at least if you take various rightwing blogs seriously. Community gardens will be plundered, wildlife populations will be poached to decimation, and all will struggle. It makes me very morose, until I start thinking about the Toba catastrophe, and a personal hypothesis, formed after some interesting neuro research a year or two ago into people who tend to respond with fear, vs those who can keep conflicting info in their head at once. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101173636.htm Think of humans as an "heirloom variety" with different populations having different traits, to better weather changing circumstances. Sure, aggression may benefit the gun nuts initially. But as things get worse, perhaps the genes for cooperation will pass thru a bottleneck of human evolution, like some say occurred after the Toba eruption reduced human pop to a few thousand souls. Add in religion... essentially a culturally accepted mythology.... and there is a chance we can rewrite the script. From a Christian perspective, more of a "stewardship" version of God's post-flood commands to Noah, than the resource exploitation version favored by contemporary industrialists (and consumers). In sum, I am hoping we really do miss those three meals. But only once in awhile, enough to perk people up so that they value good government intervention, instead of simply embracing mob rule. Anyway, in the US, when hunger comes, even the liberal treehugger peace and loveniks will realize just how many guns live on their street. Buckle up, Bones. . My guessing goes like this: I think
  2. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Tristan ENSO is supposed to be neutral. It is described as a cyclical redistribution of heat around the system according to Trenberth and others. If ENSO is not neutral over time then it becomes an external forcing which has not so far been accounted for in AR4 for example. There are several ENSO cycles over 20 years, so please nominate what time period is required for ENSO to become neutral.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Please take further discussion, including responses, about El Nino / La Nina / ENSO to the "It's El Nino" thread.
  3. Arctic continues to break records in 2012: Becoming warmer, greener region with record losses of summer sea ice and late spring snow
    @Terranova #12 Beats me why anyone expects to be taken seriously, when they claim a couple highly reductionist cherry-picked shimmies of the overall spider web of which we are part constitutes "ecological" speech.
  4. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    ENSO isn't supposed to be neutral. It's an oscillation, hence over any given interval it will have a maximum possible influence on a trend line. 20 years certainly isn't long enough to be able to read an accurate air temperature gradient without controlling for ENSO.
  5. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Harold Wainers's Visual Revelations Chapter 1 - Rules of Bad Graphics Rule 1: Show as little data as possible Rule 2: Hide what data you do show .... hiding the data in the grid,.. hiding the data in the scale . . People like Wainer and Edward Tufte (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information) are already aware of the tricks of people like Böehm and Lindzen.
  6. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    dana 1981 It seems that the best qualified skeptic Akasofu got closest to the actual 'averaged' temperatures. Presumably these averages are annual without any smoothing?? All the IPCC predictions are trending strongly up (0.19 deg/decade) - while the actual temperatures are slightly up (0.06 deg/decade). Akasofu at 0.02deg/decade cooling is closer than the IPCC. Why is he then the 'least wrong'? Fig 11 corrects the actual temperature observations to what they would have been without solar, volcanoes and ENSO and gets a better match with IPCC projections. Did the original IPCC projections exclude all these factors? I seem to recall AR4 mentioned volcanoes as an intermittent and unpredictable cooling effect, ENSO is supposed to be neutral over several cycles (20 years?) and solar is dismissed in AR4 as a minor forcing something like 0.12W/m-2 compared with a total radiative forcing of 1.6W/m-2. 20 years (1990-2010) is roughly 2 solar cycles - so the effect should be neutral over this period in any case unless more is made of longer term solar effects that does the IPCC in AR4. From what we know of ENSO, Solar and volcanic effects - why would they aggregate in the 1990-2010 period to a number significantly different to any random 20 year period?
  7. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Nice post Rob. Dick Lindzen is guilty of using the same form of trickery with the y axis scale to mislead his audience.
  8. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Similar issues on selection of graph scales have been covered over at Denial Depot, by good ol' Dr. Inferno...
  9. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Please do not link to WTFIUWTW. I am also curious about the upper and lower bounds on that graph. I would have been nice if the producer of the graph would have found out the upper and lower limits of complex multicellular life, but no. These would have been c.+40 (°C) and -2 (°C), but maybe he's using some other scale. I mean, the '30' in that graph might well represent the Planck Temperature and the '0' might be 0 Kelvin. Of course it looks like the range between 10 and 20 is about the same as in Celsius scale, but I can't say for sure. No way this kind of graph would have passed in the secretary school, I hear. The X-scale is another matter, but given the incompetence in choosing the Y-axis endpoints, I'm afraid the producer of the graph may have misunderstood the 1850-2006 column in the ref. It is NOT the time of the day, but the year (which again is not shown in the graph.) Of course the above is just pure speculation about what's been going on in the mind of the producer of that graph. What I'm pretty sure of though, he doesn't want to draw attention to changes in global temperatures, and wants to have a bit of fun reading these responses.
  10. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Rob, thanks for the post. That last graph says everything worth saying: BAU will take us outside conditions that have existed for the past 5 million years. There's a sobering thought, as we approach another year of policy makers fiddling round the edges at best and deliberately making things worse at worst. Evolution has not fitted us to occupy our niche for very long, in geological terms. What a stupid species.
  11. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    dana1982 @ 13 thanks for persevering. I think it has sunk in now. John Russell @ 11, there are codes that provide all the common symbols. Some that we have discussed in this thread are:
    ° renders as the degree symbol °. © renders as the copyright sign ©. – renders as an n dash –. — renders as an m dash —.
    It would be best to review the pages linked to in earlier comments here, as HTML is off topic for the thread. Thank you, mods, for letting it run.
  12. The Y-Axis of Evil
    KR... That's interesting that our D Böehm has an actual history. Perhaps he'll be inclined to come and explain himself. (I'm not holding my breath on that one.)
  13. The Y-Axis of Evil
    D Böehm aka Smokey aka dbs (a moderator on WUWT who likes to post under sock-puppets) has posted any number of monstrously distorted graphs - he appears to make a hobby of them. Over and over and over.. Now, I will note that I feel anonymity on the Web is a good thing. Sock-puppeting, however, is another story entirely - if a moderator on a site misrepresents himself/herself as a rather virulent poster or two (who seem oddly immune to moderation), that is not honest. I don't care what a posters real name is, or where they work, their posts should make sense on their own. But if they are mixing roles as moderator of a site and an unrestrained sock-puppet poster of distorted information and insults, that's just downright deceptive. And calls into question the site itself - if there's deception in an aspect as important as moderation, what else is going on? From the WUWT policy page:
    * Internet phantoms who have cryptic handles, no name, and no real email address get no respect here. If you think your opinion or idea is important, elevate your status by being open and honest. People that use their real name get more respect than phantoms with handles. I encourage open discussion. * Anonymity is not guaranteed on this blog. Posters that use a government or publicly funded ip address that assume false identities for the purpose of hiding their source of opinion while on the taxpayers dime get preferential treatment for full disclosure. * A real working email address that you own (as a commenter) is required, so that I may contact you if needed. False or misleading email addresses may earn banishment. Changing handles and/or changing email addresses to get around this will also earn the same fate.
    Hmm... I sense an inconsistency. For a previous critique on this kind of graphic distortion, with no discernible purpose other than to deceive, see a comment on D Böehm/Smokey's work here.
    Summary: If you see a graph with unneeded compression or expansion, and in particular if you see one where [ ] the important data has been altered to change values, you can conclude one thing with certainty. The presenter of that graph is attempting to mislead. - KR
    --- Disclosure: I have been banned from that particular site since a post of mine that mentioned "D Böehm/Smokey", i.e. calling attention to the sock-puppet. Annoying, but rather unsurprising.
  14. The Y-Axis of Evil
    VictorVenema @1, the natural upper bound is the Planck Temperature, or 1.416834*10^32 degrees K. Clearly, on a graph properly displayed, not only is recent global warming completely inconsequential, but current global temperatures are, to a first approximation, zero (being 22 orders of magnitude smaller than the accuracy to which the Planck temperature is known, and hence massive warming by millions of degrees Kelvin is an absolute necessity for the future survival of life on Earth ... At least, I think that's how Böehm's reasoning goes.
  15. littlerobbergirl at 12:15 PM on 28 December 2012
    The Y-Axis of Evil
    Nice build up. Fig 3, getting worried, but that bau line is the killer - welcome to the oligocene!
  16. littlerobbergirl at 11:41 AM on 28 December 2012
    Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Villabolo, more hopeful types here: global ecovillage network http://gen.ecovillage.org/ worldwide network of permaculture and similar groups and communities In uk and spreading fast transition towns http://www.transitionnetwork.org/ Spaerica i have that nightmare its replaced the nuclear one ill be an old lady with my bees and chickens easy meat for the roving gangs of brutalised starving townies. We have to make a better vision, enough nuclei of rational self sufficiency to spread to all. The great turning is the vision, it might sound impossible right now but has to be tried. Mutate and survive! John - forgot to say leeks did brilliantly and i did get early potatos and sarpo mains, they definately worth growing. I have been doing nearly everything in plugs and twice what i should need, and lots different stuff and varieties so at least i get something, i sell or swap gluts which gets me to meet the neighbors - more building community. Some things have gone feral and come up every year: chard, lambs lettuce, watercress, parsnips (really! They still dont come up from bought seed but 'my' ones pop up everywhere). But i have 1/2 acre to play with, and most of it is nettles :/
  17. The Y-Axis of Evil
    Why start the y-axis at 0°C? The only objective lower temperature limit is zero Kelvin. :-) Any suggestions for an objective upper limit?
  18. Other planets are warming
    Saparonia @19, Solanki 2004 shows the following reconstructions of sunspot numbers based on icecore isotopes: With two out of three reconstructions showing negative sunspot numbers in some periods, and the third significantly under representing solar variability, it is clear that these methods are not sufficient to make so definitive a statement about sunspot numbers. Even should we accept the reconstructions at face value, however, the fact is that solar forcing between twentieth century maximum and maunder minimum is about 0.3 W/m^2 at Earth's distance from the Sun. for Mars and the outer planets, the forcing is much less because of the inverse square law. Why we should ignore the 1.8 W/m^2 forcing from CO2 in favour of the much smaller solar forcing remains a mystery. Even more mysterious is why we should do so when the solar forcing has been declining over the last 30-50 years.
  19. Other planets are warming
    This is a recent study of ice cores that seems to show that the Sun is actually more active on a longer timescale and it's activity has increased. A&A 413, 745-751 (2004) DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20031533 "Reconstruction of solar activity for the last millennium using 10Be data" I. G. Usoskin1, K. Mursula2, S. Solanki3, M. Sch?ssler3 and K. Alanko2 The study used ice cores. The authors concluded "In conclusion, we have presented here a new reconstruction of solar activity on the millennium time scale based upon a description of the related physical processes. It implies that the present high level of sunspot activity is unprecedented on the millennium time scale. The results will be the subject of further analysis."
  20. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Dana, Excellent post as always. You should consider sending a copy of this post to the lead author of the IPCC chapter. There is some room for misunderstanding their original graph.
  21. West Antarctica warming more than expected
    The caption did initially say it was a measure of temperature - I changed it to temperature correlation, since that's what the figure is actually showing.
  22. West Antarctica warming more than expected
    @Philip M Cohen #1: There is no discrepency between the caption under the graphic and the graphic's legend. Both use the term, "temperature correlation." We have invited the paper's co-author, David Bromwich, professor of geography at Ohio State University and senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center, to particpate in this discussion thread and clear-up any confusion about what the graphic portrays.
  23. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    villabolo, I picture a Mad Max style assault on Arcosanti, where the attacking horde wants not gasoline but a sustainable lifestyle, even though their very numbers will preclude it. Still, when people are hungry, logic goes out the window (actually, it seems that when people are wealthy and happy, logic goes out the window, as well). Arcosanti may seem sustainable, but it is not a solution that can be used for 7 billion people. And I imagine that it is taking a huge amount of energy and global resources to construct, unless it is being build with horse-and-man-power alone, and only locally attained resources like precious metals. No... in the long run, Humongous would sit before his punked-out horde in his souped-up cobbled-together roadster, announcing over the loudspeaker that if the Arcosanti will abandon their stronghold, he will let them live. And when they refuse, Arcosanti will be overrun, and what is there will be destroyed. It's a nice thought, but probably not a viable, globally applicable solution.
  24. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    JosHag @12 - if I were to extend Figure 9 back further in time, it would look essentially the same as Gavin's figure, though slightly different has he's using A1B and I'm using A2. Our baselines are probably also different. I just set the model mean value in 2000 equal to the 1998-2002 average temperature anomaly. I'm using the A2 model mean data from here, but you're right that the trend should be 0.18 or 0.19°C per decade to this point. I'm not sure how I got 0.16°C, I'll have to check on that later, but I've revised the post accordingly.
  25. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Doug @9, as I noted @2, it's not as simple as adjusting for different ECS estimates because we're not in equilibrium.
  26. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    John, I'm one of those who gave up this year. If the rain holds off I might head off down there this afternoon and start preparing the ground for next year - hope springs eternal. I think food security is something most people are still blithely unaware of and it's something we should be coming back to time and again. Events like Sandy grab people's attention but it's important that we use those opportunities to point to these issues which will impact on everyone. For people like me it just means a depressing patch of weedy mud and a few more pounds and pence on the weekly shop. For many people around the world a poor harvest means devestation.
  27. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Dana, many thanks for the informative posting. I compared your figure 9 for the A4 multi-model projections with this figure of Gavin Schmidt. Schmidt plotted the observational data together with the A1B model data and due to i.a. the La-Nina's in 2008 and 2011 the observations are running a bit lower than the model average. This is also visible in your figure 9, but due to the different scaling it is less distinct than in the RealClimate image. How would the scaling you use in figure 9 work out for the hindcast as is shown in the RealClimate image? I checked the IPCC A2 model data and calculated a warming trend over 2000-2012 from the average of the A2 model data and got 0.19 °C/decade (ranging from min 0.03 to max 0.35). You got 0.16 °C/decade. Am I using the wrong data?
  28. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    I just noticed that one can drag-and-drop the '©' symbol from the bottom left corner of this page where it says '© Copyright 2012 John Cook'. Can I suggest a degree (°) symbol is placed somewhere near there—or alongside the heading 'Post a Comment'—then anyone can drag and drop it into their comment while typing. Speaking personally I'd also like a '—' character too. I usually have to use two hyphens--like this--but the correct symbol would be useful.
  29. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    @Doug H "& deg;" is a HTML code which applies to all op systems. See the full list here. http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_entities.asp
  30. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Joe (#7) - yes I'm sure I have some stuff at home which I'll dig into when I get back. My personal experience of one C3 plant - the potato - is that if there's one thing guaranteed to lead to wipeout - as the Irish sadly discovered in the early 19th Century - is prolonged and very damp, humid and mild conditions - the conditions under which blight thrives. So we have two clear sets of variables (among many) to contend with here - potential yield and potential hazards (biological, meteorological and so on).
  31. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    dana1981 @ 8, thanks for the explanation. FAR and SAR were based on models using a lower ECS than the IPCC thought they were using. I take it that the graphs would look different again (worse), if we plugged in the current best estimate for ECS (3°C). As for the degree symbol, I am using Linux. It turns out that I can use the HTML code '& deg;' with no spaces - see this page.
  32. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Doug @3 - no, what I was trying to say is that the FAR and SAR thought they were using models with 2.5°C ECS; however, because they overestimated the forcing associated with doubled CO2, the actual ECS of the models was about 2.1°C. All I've done in my graphs is take actual GHG emissions into account - I haven't done anything with regards to climate sensitivity there. On a Mac the degree symbol is shift-option-8, by the way. On a PC it's Alt-176 I think.
  33. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Well, Dana has special cyborg powers, so creating such symbols is easy for him. ;-)
  34. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Rob @ 5, yes, it was because Dana is using it that I thought it must be invoked by using special html code. The standard HTML for superscript is 'sup', but that does not work here. Never thought of cutting and pasting it - doh! "8-\
  35. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Hm... No sooner did I post that then I noticed Dana able to use the ° symbol. (I just cut and pasted it from Dana's post.)
  36. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Doug... I'd suggest just using "C" to denote temp. That's pretty much the standard format used everywhere. Remember, lots of folks are in the US where the degree symbol will be construed as degrees F.
  37. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    dana1981 @ 2, I'm still confused, so I am obviously missing something. If I have read the OP correctly, FAR and SAR originally used 2.5o ECS, the revised graphs were based on 2.1o and the real ECS is approx. 3o. To my confused little mind, the revised graphs should use 3o. Where am I going wrong? PS: I still cannot get superscript tags to work, to render the degrees symbol: I am using the HTML codes 'sup' and '/sup' inside pointed brackets, but that is not working.
  38. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Doug @ #10 I think that the attitude the conservative elite in the US, political and religious, have regarding disaster victims will spark civil unrest at some time in the near future. These people are so arrogant as to blame the victims of Sandy and Katrina for their plight. They actually state that the homeless were negligent because they chose not to have flood insurance! As for the role that religion will play in the future we have no further than the past to look for answers. The clerical elite will serve as an opiate for the masses to deaden the pain. Yes we're living in interesting times.
  39. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Thanks Doug @1, typo fixed. Yes, the current best equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) estimate is 3°C. However, remember that's equilibrium sensitivity, and we're far out of equilibrium. More relevant would be the transient climate response, but that wasn't reported in earlier IPCC reports. It's not so simple as adjusting for lower ECS, because it could just be that the model transient response is too fast or too slow, irrespective of ECS. So while the 'best estimate' models in the FAR and SAR had roughly 2.1°C ECS, we don't know what their transient climate responses were, so we can't adjust for that.
  40. Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate
    Minor niggle: under 'Don Easterbook' you have the typo 'bsaed', instead of 'based'.
    The SAR also maintained the "best estimate" equilibrium climate sensitivity used in the FAR of 2.5°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. However, as in the FAR, because climate scientists at the time believed a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would cause a larger global heat imbalance than current estimates, the actual "best estimate" model sensitivity was closer to 2.1°C for doubled CO2.
    I'm confused by this. I thought the current best estimate of equilibrium sensitivity was about 3oC? I gather from the text that, if we take models used in FAR and apply a 2.1oC sensitivity, we come closer to observations. Is that a correct understanding, or am I missing the point? Mods: what is the correct code to render a degree sign?
  41. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    villabolo @ 9, the future I see as increasingly likely, is one of mass unrest. It is said that we are only three meals from anarchy and our supermarkets habitually keep about three days' supplies on hand, being utterly dependent upon just-in-time deliveries of food products to keep their doors open. When food supplies become scarce and expensive, due to a combination of crop failures and rising energy prices, wealthy countries and individuals will have the survival advantage of being able to pay the higher price. The disadvantaged are not likely to accept starvation without putting up a fight, just as those living in low-lying coastal areas are not likely to quietly drown without resistance as sea levels rise. The resulting civil and international wars could destabilise even the strongest economies. In addition, pests and diseases of ourselves and our food sources are likely to migrate to areas where they do not currently exist, causing sickness and death in populations having no natural resistance to them. The global human population supportable by the coming climate will likely be far lower than it stands at present. War, pestilence and starvation will take care of that equation for us. The survivors may choose to follow an entirely new political paradigm for what passes for civilisation, but I would put my money on the emergence of fragmented populations held together by the equivalent of warlords. It will be of academic interest to see what role religion plays in the new world order.
  42. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    dana 1981 The slope of your Fig 1 OHC graph reduces sharply around 2004 indicating a reduced imbalance. This coincides with the full deployment of the Argo floats and their use for OHC measurement. Before the wide coverage of Argo - ocean heat content measurement was sparse and very doubtful reliability. So the slope of the graph has decreased in the Argo period. So I don't understand what you mean by; "Estimates of the global energy imbalance may be changing, but that's not the same as the imbalance itself changing". Both the estimates of warming imbalance (Hansen and others) and the measurement have reduced since 2004-05 which seems inconsistent with an increasing radiative imbalance from steadily higher CO2 levels.
  43. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Somewhat off topic but, on the issue of adaptation and the inevitable population collapse let me offer a possible solution. Our civilization simply cannot be reformed. It will collapse and turn into something resembling a feudalistic state. Or perhaps a network of communities like Arcosanti. Arcosanti is an experimental community under construction 70 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. It is designed to be self reliant in food and economically. When finished, it will house approximately 5,000 residents. Of utmost importance, its food will be grown in greenhouses sheltered from the worse of weather. Basic infrastructure will all be within a ten minute walk from all residencies. This will minimize the need for long distance commuting. A global network of Arcosanties replacing our current urban/suburban/rural civilization would be sustainable into the indefinite future.
  44. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    John Mason's piece does remind me of what Hanrahan said: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_Hanrahan
  45. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Excellent post John, thank you for this. A question: the Tao & Zhang results (I haven't read their paper) are especially interesting. Do you know of any similar studies done for C3 plants?
  46. West Antarctica warming more than expected
    Here’s how Prof. Ricky Rood (University of Michigan) summarized the Bromwhcih et al paper which is the subject of the OP. Since this blog was first published, David Bromwich and colleagues published the paper, Central West Antarctica among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, in Nature Geoscience. This paper is a complex study, which uses models to reconstruct and complete the temperature record in West Antarctica since the 1950s. They explain in detail their evaluation techniques and search for cause and effect of the regional warming that they find. Their ultimate conclusion is that West Antarctica is warming rapidly, especially in summer. They point to the summer of 2005, which saw significant surface ice melting, and warn that the temperature is getting to the point that melting might accelerate. This is especially significant in West Antarctica because the base of the ice sheets there are below sea level and especially vulnerable.”, Source: Things Going Fast, a Blog post by Dr. Ricky Rood, Weaterunderground.com, Dec 21, 2012
  47. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Perhaps Lovelock is correct. He predicted that some time this century the population of the earth would reach 1b. Even worse than climate zones shifting northward would be flickering. That is the climate shifting back and forth between the present regime and the new one. Farmers would have no idea what to plant each year. More catastrophic than the present, gradual 4km per year creep of the climate zones northward is if they lurch northward. This may occur if the Arctic ocean collects enough energy to reverse the polar Hadley cell. The polar jet stream which indicates where the Polar Hadley cell and the Ferrel cell meet looks suspiciously like a top that is slowing down just before it tips over and stops. ps. Here in New Zealand lots of rain interspersed with sunshine. Just harvesting a bumper crop of garlic. Raspberries going nanna brained and all the fruit trees on line for a great crop. http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/greenland-melting.html
  48. Philippe Chantreau at 05:25 AM on 27 December 2012
    IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Pol8 "proved" and "intuitively" do not belong in the same sentence when talking about science. There is absolutely nothing new in what you presented.
  49. Food Security: the first big hit from Climate Change will be to our pockets
    Here in southern California my 3 Sisters garden (corn, beans and squash interplanted as companion crops) did fairly well. We have a Mediterranean climate here and the weather is relatively stable. I might even be able to get two crops in the extended warm season. Water is piped in though.
  50. 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 I was speaking merely from a biology/ecology perspective. But, since you brought it up, I do expect to see oil production in the not so distant future. I also think it can be done with minimal impact to wildlfe and will actually occupy a miniscule footprint. To draw an analogy from work I do with cellular tower construction companies -the demands of society will lead to development. It is our job as biologists to ensure that the construction of these towers does not impact (or we minimize to the fullest extent of the law) any Threatened or Endangered Species, Migratory Birds, etc... That leads to moving site locations, installing different lighting, etc... I am not naive enough to think there will be no impact from oil exploration/production, but it can certainly be reasonably managed. And, as far as shipping over the "top of the world" goes, I can't envision any significant or moderate environmental impact. In fact, if you look at the reduced distance travelled you would find that less fuel will be consumed and that should be a benefit. Yes, we've been in a reasonable steady state for the bulk of modern human history, but you know as well as I do that has not always been the case and flora/fauna and ecosystems have changed and spread and shrunk and appeared and disappeared. Survival of the fittest in action. And, yes, we do have a hand in that climate change, but one has to be a realist. Everyone on the planet needs to do their best at minimizing our impact to the environment, but any near-future moving away from FF is unlikely. Those cell towers I mentioned earlier? Don't even get me started on the much greater environmental impact that wind farms and solar farms have. There are certainly good applications for each, but for the most part the impact I have seen from them has been quite significant. Villabolo and Sphaerica: I did not mention agriculture and I do understand the limitations of different types of soil. I am not a geologist, but we do have to work closely with them when doing T&E surveys. But, it should be noted that the increased biomass in natural ecosystems on land and in the ocean will have a greater uptake of CO2 due to increased photosynthesis.

Prev  1002  1003  1004  1005  1006  1007  1008  1009  1010  1011  1012  1013  1014  1015  1016  1017  Next


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us