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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.

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Comments 50651 to 50700:

  1. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #10
    John, thanks for this. John and Doug, you make me think about retiring! I would probably get more useful work done, as opposed to merely remunerative! :)
  2. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    December 18, 2012 Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change. Evidence points to a further rise of just 1°C by 2100. The net effect on the planet may actually be beneficial Summary: Observations now allow accurate forecasting of ratio of warming / CO2 buildup. IPCC will publish the new estimates which are 1-1.5 degree C for a doubling of CO2 over the next 100 years vs. 3+ degree C in former IPCC models. No need to do anything to prevent this.
    Moderator Response: [TD] Linked text.
  3. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    December 18, 2012 Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change Evidence points to a further rise of just 1°C by 2100. The net effect on the planet may actually be beneficial. (-snip-). A version of this article appeared December 19, 2012, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Block copy/pasting is in violation of this site's Comments Policy. A link with a summary of why the link is relational to this thread is all that is needed.
  4. Italian flag curry
    Thanks, gws, for an exceptionally clear and concise post. Yours is a 'content-rich' post, but to me, the main takwaway was this: "Thus, she mistakes the expert evaluation of evidence for the evidence itself." This is a very common mistake, on both "sides" of the argument but, from my POV, is largely one assumed by the fake skeptics. Well-done!
  5. Italian flag curry
    Nice Post, Though I think you're mistaken when you suggest Curry is misrepresenting the methodology. I've followed Curry's tortured blog posts and argument threads over the years and come to (what I believe to be) a reasonably well-informed conclusion: she's just not very good at what she does. I don't know if she's just not very bright, or just a little lazy... but her process is not what I would call robust. And she does seem to be rather more susceptible to preconception bias than one would hope from a scientist of her stature (if not actual ability).
  6. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    sotolith7 @44 - Levitus et al. (2012) shows the error bars on ocean heat content measurements. See Figure 2 here.
  7. Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
    Great title John, it really says it all!
  8. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    sotolith7, Could you kindly tell me exactly who has been beating you over the head with "the hockey stick?" The only places I ever see it mentioned are denial factories like WUWT and climateaudit. They go on and on about it as if it is the foundation of all of climate science. I don't even see it mentioned anywhere else -- certainly not in the main stream media, very rarely here at SkS, etc. The world has moved on. Ocean heat content is soaring. Arctic ice melt, total ice mass loss, global temperature observations, extreme weather events, TOA imbalance measurements, paleoclimate sensitivity studies... all of this and more has been going on. Hockey stick? Not so much. If you've been beaten over the head with the hockey stick, which was created way back in 1998/1999 (13 years ago) as one graphic in one paper on paleoclimate, as evidence of an issue which is no longer a question in the debate (i.e. whether or not global temperatures have been warming at an unusual rate since 1979), then it speaks more about the web sites and media that you (as "not a denialist") have been visiting and watching, than it does about the actual progress and position of the science today.
  9. Dikran Marsupial at 23:34 PM on 20 December 2012
    This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    sotolith7 It does indeed look as if there is evidence of a plateau, however the eye is rather too good at picking out patterns in data, and often sees patterns where they don't actually exist. In this case, if you leave out the 1998 El-Nino spike, the visual suggestion of a plateau virtually disappears, for instance in the UAH data: This is why objective tests of statistical significance are a useful sanity check. In this case, the observations don't rule out the existence of a plateau, but they don't rule out a continuation of warming at a constant rate either. This is most probably simply due to the fact that there is too little information over that period to be able to draw any strong conclusion either way. In fact, for so short a period, it isn't really all that surprising that there should be the occasional plateau. So the best thing to do is to keep an open mind about it, but also to consider all of the relevant information. As to hockey sticks, I suspect that it would be difficult to produce as good a proxy for ocean heat content as we can for surface temperatures, which is why we don't have (AFAIK) an ocean heat content hockey stick. We can only draw conclusions from the data we actually have, so there is no goal post shift there, just that we have modern data for OHC, but not for pre-industrial OHC.
  10. Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
    Esop: "I can't believe why the deniers keep bringing up the failed "it's the sun" argument time and time again." Because many of them know that continually repeating it will negate action on AGW. It isn't anything to do with science.
  11. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    I stress, I am not a denialist, but looking at the surface temperature graph since 1998, it seems difficult to deny that some sort of plateau is showing there. There seems to be a certain amount of moving of goalposts going on here: for years we were beaten over the head with the hockeystick, which, is I believe, a surface temperature graph, only to be told now that ocean warming is far more significant. The arguments for this above look plausible. But ocean warming seems always to be expressed as change in heat content. I'm wondering what these figures for the extra heat content translate into as a temperature rise. My guess is it's quite a bit less than the surface temperature anomaly. Then , considering the area and depth of the seas, isn't this data vulnerable to measurement and calibration problems? Just what are the error bars on ocean warming?
  12. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Alex C @23 OK, my fault. I jumped to conclusions. I am confused about the draft report. The text of the draft and the placeholder figure 1.4 don't seem to say the same thing. This of course maybe because it is a draft.
  13. Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
    Summary form of denier argument: So: a dog, a blonde, and a helicopter walk into a bar. But! That does not mean the blonde dog is necessarily in *charge* of the helicopter! Apologies for what may appear off topic but the structure of argumentation is not far off...
  14. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #10
    On that note, can I add my own note of thanks to you John for your work here? Dana gets a lot of attention for his prolific output, but your persistent effort in gathering and presenting press releases and summarizing the media coverage play a vital role.
  15. Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
    Even by denier standards, Rawls is really quite something http://www.nps.gov/flni/parkmgmt/upload/briefingpaperattachment1.pdf H/T Rattus Norvegicus at Stoat
  16. Charles08537024 at 14:08 PM on 20 December 2012
    Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
    Yes, I think the deniers hope to reach new groups--which is why it was so great to see Skeptical Science, The Conversation, and scientists like Sherwood get out in front of this nonsense and quickly shoot it down. Happily, the MSM picked up SkS and the others (with one the dismissable exception of Delingpole, who again displayed his utter ignorance of science and his inability to read carefully and think for himself).
  17. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Has anyone notice that National Review (the conservative newspaper that libelled Mike Mann and faces his lawsuit as a consequence) is in financial trouble as the result? Read about it here and here. The comment thread to the original pledge reveals an interesting trend. I checked just first few comments. The commenters that mock the pledge and LOL it, receive most "up" votes...
  18. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #10
    Doug H: Thanks for catching the typo (will fix) and for the positive feedback. PS - I'm retired as well -- have to be in order to produce the news roundups and the digest on a weekly basis.
  19. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #10
    The heading "Impacts: Wildires in the US" has a typo: it should be "Wildfires". Thanks for this list to add to my reading schedule. It's a good thing I am retired, so I have a chance to keep up!
  20. New research from last week 50/2012
    Thanks for all your hard work, Ari.
  21. Doha Climate Summit Ends With No New CO2 Cuts or Funding
    Doha will do nothing to cut emissions that are taking the world to four degrees and more of warming
    None of those in the second Kyoto phase increased their emission cuts pledges
    The Doha outcome puts the world on track for three, four or even five degrees of warming
    Elsewhere on this site, I have read that a 4 degree rise will create a global climate that is not compatible with organised human society. It is sooo encouraging to know our fearless leaders are boldly taking us where mankind has not been before, with nary a doubt or waver. Monkton & Co. must be excessively proud of themselves. As Monty Python put it in the Galaxy Song:
    So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
  22. Hans Petter Jacobsen at 08:59 AM on 20 December 2012
    Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Thanks to Larry for the feedback in @9. The first time I processed the temperatures I was surprised to see how well the temperatures up to and including solar cycle 20 fitted with the model. So I agree with Larry that SSH should have concentrated on this instead of trying to predict the temperatures in SC24. I am satisfied that my analysis is published here at SKS, and I don't know if it is necessary to write it up as a comment to the journal.
  23. CO2 effect is saturated
    curiousd @191, the agreement is, of course, largely coincidence. One reason the model will not produce an accurate estimate of instantaneous forcing is that, unlike in the real atmosphere, increased CO2 will not result in a cooling above the tropopause. The temperature offset is relayed to all higher levels resulting in a warmer stratosphere, not a cooler stratosphere as would actually occur. Professor Brian Fiedler recommends calculating radiative forcing from 20 km look down to allow for this, which will no doubt yield better, but still imperfect results. Anyway, that is not the primary purpose of this comment. Rather, Monash University (in Melbourne, Australia) have just placed online a global energy balance model, which you may enjoy playing with. Unlike LBL models it is globally resolved, and allows for lateral energy transfers. I believe these are handled by parametrization, however, rather than being an emergent property of dynamic and radiative processes as in a GCM. As Domminget and Floter say:
    "In contrast to CGCMs the model assumes a fixed atmospheric circulation, clouds and soil moisture, which are given as boundary conditions. It thus does not simulate internal chaotic climate variability caused by weather fluctuations and also assumes that climate change, due to external forcings such as 2 9 CO2 increase, is a small perturbation, which does not change the atmospheric or ocean circulation, which is clearly a simplification."
    Clearly such a simple model cannot be used to "prove" anything; or indeed to make detailed quantitative predictions. It is potentially a useful tool for instruction (and learning), particularly as key parameters can be left out of the model to judge their influence (with suitable caveates). Full documentation of the model can be found in Domminget and Floter (2011) (PDF).
  24. Hans Petter Jacobsen at 07:03 AM on 20 December 2012
    Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Thanks to MA Rodger @6 for his discussion of the Longyearbyen temperature series. The local temperature series vary considerably with respect to how well they fit with the Solar Cycle Model. Longyearbyen is a short series, starting in 1912. The other local series in [2] cover a longer period of time. I therefore think it is wrong to place special emphasis on Longyearbyen, as SSH do in [1]. I think it makes thing even worse to do separate analyses for the four seasons in the Longyearbyen series, as SSH also do. The Longyearbyen temperature series contains monthly absolute temperatures. I convert them to monthly temperature anomalies to be able to use monthly resolution for the start and end of both the solar cycles and the temperature series. The Longyearbyen temperatures at rimfrost.no is now available up to and including November 2012, covering the first four years of SC24. I just repeated the analysis with the updated temperatures. The observed mean temperature in these four years is 4.6°C higher than the model's prediction for SC24. I played a little with that number, and concluded approximately as MA Rodger does at the end of his comment @6. Thanks also to MA Rodger @10 for the link to the HadCRUT4 temperatures. That is what I need to answer Alex's question in his @4. I see that the file format is a little different from the formats that I have programmed so far, so I need some time to update the programs.
  25. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Hans Petter Jacobsen @8 Is this HadCRUT4 page of use?
  26. Sun and climate moving in opposite directions, says leaked IPCC report
    Excellent summary. I can't believe why the deniers keep bringing up the failed "it's the sun" argument time and time again. I guess they feel that they can reach new groups that don't know that the argument is proven wrong multiple times, and their message has never really been about the truth anyway.
  27. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    It's unfortunate that the real utility of the SSH study was missed in the SSH paper, but fortunately was clearly presented in this article and the longer version. Until cycle 20 there is somewhat of a correlation and a plausible physical mechanism to conclude that the solar cycle is a detectable forcing for the climate system. That forcing presumably continues after cycle 20 but is small compared to some new forcing that is not correlated with the solar cycle and really kicks in in the 1970s (hmmm...what could it be?). This post very nicely explains what the SSH paper could have explained if only they had applied high quality scientific analysis as effectively as Hans Petter Jacobsen. Would you consider submitting your analysis to the journal as either a Comment on SSH or a separate paper that challenges the SSH conclusions?
  28. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Mighty Drunken @22: Maybe there was a bit of a misunderstanding? Sorry I was referring to Figure 1.4 in this blog post, not Figure 1.4 from AR5. Bad ambiguity on my part, no I mean that the results from Rahmstorf et al. (2012) show this quite clearly.
  29. Hans Petter Jacobsen at 02:00 AM on 20 December 2012
    Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Philip @3, I agree that the failure of the model after cycle 20 is obvious when the dots are numbered with their solar cycle numbers. I don't know why SSH don't show the numbers. Without the numbers it is very difficult for the reader to see the failure. I did not see it myself before I had downloaded the temperatures, written the programs and examined my plots with the numbers. In [2] SSH show many plots with many local temperature series and with the HadCRUT3 NH temperature series, but without the solar cycle numbers. In this post on my google blog I show many of the same plots, with the numbers. I did this to check that the dots are in the same positions. They are, so there is no disagreement betwen SSH and myself on that. Alex @4, on this website we can download the HadCRUT3 (and the CRUTEM4) temperatures in a simple ascii format, but not the HadCRUT4 temperatures. Therefore I have not executed the programs with the HadCRUT4 temperatures. Do you know of a website where I can download the HadCRUT4 temperatures in the same simple format ?
  30. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    #6: Agreed. Their prediction for Svalbard is so far off that it beggars belief: http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/Svalbard_radio/statistics.html The remarkable thing is that (as far as I have seen) nobody in the scientific community has taken them to task for this failure regarding Svalbard temperatures. Ie, they can continue this nonsense and get away with it, duping the ignorant masses in the process. Very few in the scientific community take these guys seriously, but that does not mean they don't have an impact. They get quoted in the Norwegian press all the time, geting more coverage and having more impact than those doing real science.
  31. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    These two papers by Solheima Stordahlb & Humlum are classics of the genre - nonsense presented to look like scientific argument. The graph-fest presented in The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24 was the first to be written although the last to be published (allowing both papers to reference each other). As yet, the authors haven't quite perfected their style. In this first paper they are quite insistant that just "looking at" their graph of sun cycle lengths "tells us that we can expect several long cycles in the next decades" which their analysis says is indicative of very low NH temperatures. What is remarkable by its absence in these two papers is intelligent comment about the temperature records since Sun Cycle 23 ended. These are the ones that will contribute to the low average temperatures they are predicting for Sun Cycle 24. The nearest they get to such a comment is in their second paper Solar Activity and Svalbard Temperatures where they suggest a small drop in Winter temperatures in 2009 &10 may point the way to their predicted freeze up. Yet this 2009/10 Winter record is hardily even a straw to grab onto. These jokers are predicting Svalbard temperatures will drop "from −4.2°C in SC23 to −7.8°C, with a 95% confidence interval [−5.8 to −9.6]°C in SC24." This is their grand finding, the whole reason for the paper. And why not? Svalbard's annual and winter mean temperatures "are completely described by the PSCL-model" that they created. To achieve this lower annual mean, given the 2009-2011 mean at −3.76°C is even higher than the mean for SC23 (also noting the all-time record high for winter 2011-12) and also given the last 12 months could be taken as a reasonable value for the 2012 mean temperature (−1.87°C which would be the second highest annual mean on record), then the average over the remaining years of Sun Cycle 24 to achieve the temperature drop forecast by our trickster trio would have to be −10.4°C, with a 95% confidence interval [−7.6 to −13.2]°C. If you bear in mind the coldest single year on record for Svalbard (from 1912) is −10.4°C, never mind "even less likely," can we really take these jokers seriously?
  32. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    I have been on vacation the last week and am trying to sum up this latest non-scandal. It seems like a guy with limited (if any) scientific credentials violated his confidentiality agreement with IPCC by releasing draft text prematurely. And, the real punch line here is that he claims to have had a moral obligation to do so. I would think the real news story here is about this unethical individual breaching his contract with IPCC. Have I missed anything? I'll wait until September to read the final IPCC text.
  33. Hans Petter Jacobsen at 00:10 AM on 20 December 2012
    Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Thanks for the feedbacks. It is great that Esop asked the newspaper to do a follow up inteview with SSH in 2014. When I downloaded the temperatures from the internet in May/June 2012, the HadCRUT3 NH temperature anomalies were available up to and including March 2012. The model's prediction for solar cycle 24 (SC 24) is -0.381°C. The mean temperature in SC24 up to and including March 2012 is +0.505°C, which is plotted in Figure 1 and 2. Now the HadCRUT3 NH temperatures are available up to and including October 2012, and the mean temperature observed so far in SC24 has risen to +0.525°C. This makes it even less likely that the temperature in SC 24 will be as low as predicted by SSH.
  34. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Very nice post, thanks for looking into this. I wonder, how would this look using data from HadCRUT4?
  35. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    It seems that if you just number the dots by cycle number in their diagrams, the increasing failure of the model after cycle 20 is blatantly obvious. How can they have failed to think of this?
  36. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Alex C @ (18) "As to "the globally-averaged surface temperatures ... generally are in the middle of the scenario ranges," that is quite clearly demonstrated by Figure 4. The statement doesn't mean that it tracks the mean all the time, but the observations fall within the first standard deviation range without seeming to be biased toward one side of it. " It seems to me that Fig 1.4 does show a bias to one side, that the IPCC projections shown in the graph do side on the prediction of more warming than has occurred. Am I reading the graph incorrectly? I understand that due to recent natural variation the global temperatures are "depressed" and therefore this is expected.
  37. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Whitehouse/Huntsman for the White House in 2016. (I imagine that sensible guy/fellow Utahn Huntsman gives up on the anti-science GOP well before the next election)
  38. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Excellent work, Hans Petter! Great to see some sensible stuff coming out of Norway, pretty rare these days. I remember seeing a presentation of SSH's work in an article in the newspaper Aftenposten last year. I emailed the journalist and told her to do a follow up interview with SSH in 2014. We'll see if that happens. Could be interesting. A record warm 2013 or 2014 (depending on ENSO) could mean big trouble for the deniers. I say could, because the science side has not been nearly good enough at highlighting the failed cooling predictions of the denial movement (going back to at least 2007) A failed prediction is something the average Joe understands, but so far, the deniers have been allowed to fail time after time without the public getting informed.
  39. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Klapper, you're trying to refute a statement about a long-term trend by cherry picking short-term data. If you read SkS regularly, you should know that's not a valid approach.
  40. Solar Cycle Model fails to predict the recent warming
    Nice, thank you!
  41. CO2 effect is saturated
    Tom Curtis you have made my day!! So I shut off all the other GHG and ran Modtran with 375 PPM CO2. Wrote down outgoing flux. Kept everything the same except went to 750 ppm CO2. Adusted the temp offset to give same out going flux as before. Doubling CO2 then gives radiative energy balance for this location, if CO2 the only GHG, with a 1.1 degree C increase offset. Probably lucky but cool (pardon the expression). ( FYI Hansen says in his book that "Any physicist worth his salt can show doubling CO2 with no feedbacks gives 1.2 degree increase".)
  42. New research from last week 50/2012
    I too have enjoyed these posts. I probably only read a majority of the abstracts a few times, but there were always a few gems among the ones I did peruse. I wish I had more time to delve into your offerings -- there was always the intention to come back and look more thoroughly, but never the opportunity.
  43. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    "...since 1980 they are amplifying a cooling effect..." I don't think that is anywhere close to the truth. I downloaded the count from the Moscow monitor, which has data from 1958 to 2012. Keep in mind the "troughs" in the count should be warming pulses if the GCR/cloud theory is correct, and the "peaks" should be cool/neutral phases for climate. Also keep in mind the warm forcing from GCR is not only the depth of the trough, but really the breadth/depth combination. However, using just peak/trough values, in the Moscow database the deepest trough is around 1990, the lowest peak is the one ending in 1998. Hence the greatest warming effect should have been in the 1990's for GCR if theory is correct, not as stated: a cooling effect since 1980. That brings us to the next point. The count clearly went back up since 2000, since the trough from 2000 to 2003 is clearly not as deep as the troughs in the count at 1982 and 1991. However, it does last longer so net forcing might still be high compared to other troughs. Since 2003 the count really bounced back up, the peak of 2009 being higher than any other in the record. However, keep in mind temperature has not really been increasing since 2000, so that does not invalidate the GCR/cloud hypothesis.
  44. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Jeez, I respond to Klapper because I see that it has been a while with no response, and by the time I type it out, there are three.
  45. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Klapper (14), I suppose most of these talking points have been gone over before, but... Lower CO2 is not the only factor that was not (could not?) be predicted in 1990 which has reduced the rate of increase in the surface temperature. There has been an increase in Asian aerosols, the sun has been less active than usual, and the ocean has been warming at depth - which may or may not be related to the dominance of La Nina in recent years. Not sure, but it appears you are trying to imply that, because the explanation is complicated, it must be wrong. A model is just a way to approximate reality. Science works by replacing models with better ones, whether that is in chemistry, nuclear physics, what have you. So, if you are going to throw out the IPCC ensemble of models, what are you going to replace it with? If you are going to replace it with nothing, then you might as well be saying we don't know everything; therefore, we know nothing, and that conclusion really doesn't follow that premise. If you can show a model which does a better job over the last 20 years, as well as the over the historical record, that would be very interesting. Pretty lines on a graph with no connection to the laws of physics would not be very interesting.
  46. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Klapper @14, Re your claims concerning the FAR predictions, please look carefully at the figure inmy post @1 above and Figure 1 in the [main post]. You are applying a linear trend to a curve that is not linear, with the result that the resultant trend overestimates the amount of warming expected between the end points. Indeed, when done properly, the graphs above show excellent agreement between what was predicted for circa 2011 and what was observed. I sense that you are reluctant to accept that predictions made over 20 years ago, using pretty simplistic models by today's standards, have done remarkably well. Now please compare those predictions with those of "skeptics" and those in denial that are shown above. Your post contains at least one error. 2012 is probably officially going to be designated a La Nina year (yet it will very likely be the 9th warmest on record). As for 2013, it is still a little too soon to say, but the official forecast is for ENSO neutral conditions to persist into 2013. Your claim of a La Nina for 2013 misrepresents the official position of the CPC. But here again we have "skeptics" arguing about the noise (i.e., ENSO) when it has already been pointed out by climate scientists ad nauseum that it is pointless (and misleading) to focus on periods of time that are unable to extract a statistically significant signal from the noisy temperature record. Yet "skeptics" continue to play this disingenuous and scientifically meaningless game. FWIW, my simple box-type model is predicting a global surface air temperature anomaly for GISTEMP of about 0.61-0.65 C, so 2013 may tie or break the current global record (+0.64 C) without the boost of an El Nino. And think about this, barring a large tropical volcano blowing its top, 2013 will likely be warmer than 1998 was (+0.59 C), and that year followed a huge El Nino (a three plus sigma event if I recall correctly). If that happens it will impressive and speaks to just how much the positive radiative imbalance (from humans increasing greenhouse gases) is warming the planet. [Edited to fix typos, see square brackets]
  47. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Klapper @14: The actual FAR scenario that best fits the modern realized climate forcing is Scenario 2.5(D). This was discussed in detail in "Wall Street Journal 'Skeptics' Misrepresent the IPCC" by Keith Pickering, 3 March 2012. http://www.skepticalscience.com/wsj-skeptics-misrepresent-ipcc.html As Dana said too, you're ignoring GHG reductions in other forms like CFCs, which were banned by the Montreal Protocol only just before FAR was released. Furthermore, you're forgetting that since FAR was released there was an update to the forcing equations that the IPCC used, the new paper being Myhre et al 1998. The CO2 equation, ∆F = Aln(C/C_0), was A = 6.3 in FAR and A = 5.35 in Myhre et al 1998. In other words the IPCC was using a higher forcing per increase in CO2 than later research suggested to use. It's no wonder their prediction might be higher. ENSO predictions right now are neutral with a slight positive bias. I myself wouldn't bet on another La Nina. And there are ways, remember, to filter the ENSO signal anyway. Foster and Rahmstorf did this. If you really think that an El Nino will cause a spurious spike, then maybe we can just apply their methodology and remove it, and we'll see then. JoeT @17: They weren't just CO2 emission scenarios, they were total emission scenarios. The (1) and (3) points in Section 1.3.1 also tell why the projections aren't in line with the observations, which is because of natural variability that the projections did not model. So, if we include *only* present CO2 levels, of course they won't change much, but if we use the fuller 3D models and include the correct natural variability we have observed, the models will predict the temperature accurately. As to "the globally-averaged surface temperatures ... generally are in the middle of the scenario ranges," that is quite clearly demonstrated by Figure 4. The statement doesn't mean that it tracks the mean all the time, but the observations fall within the first standard deviation range without seeming to be biased toward one side of it.
  48. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Was doing some further contemplation re my post above in terms of where we are in the "cycles" Lord Monkton has referred to. 60 years before 1998 it was 1938, so i'd say that was in the last "cooling phase of the ~60-year cycle of the ocean oscillations". from a chart here: it looks to me like around then we were also, broadly speaking, in a similar stage of low or decreasing solar activity. So, for arguments sake i will assume that the decade following 1938 has similar conditions in regard to solar and ocean "cycles" to what Monkton is claiming for the 1998 to now period. from a chart here: It appears that the temperature records show a quite rapid cooling over a decade or so. That's something i have seen on a lot of the charts depicting temp in the 20th century. Regardless of how different people treat the data, that didn't happen post 1998. Implies to me that there is some other factor at play now compared to then and the warming effect increased of CO2 levels would seem to be one of the candidates. My conclusion from this and reading other people posts here on this issue that really do make sense to me: Lord Monkton is perhaps not quite as smart as he thinks he is, and the most polite thing i can say about it is that he has rather blatantly shot himself in the foot with his published justifications for "16 years with no warming".
  49. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    … as a truly "emerging issue" (the effects of warming permafrost) could not have been included in climate change modelling to date. Really? This issue has been “emerging” and largely ignored by overly conservative scientists for a decade or more. It is not as though the effects of thawing permafrost have only become apparent in the last year or so. We have known for decades that roads, railways, pipelines, bridges and buildings resting on permafrost foundations would be disastrously compromised by thawing which creates poorly drained waterlogged landscapes lacking bearing strength. That permafrost embodies or covers significant methane deposits, preventing their release into the atmosphere is hardly new. Their presence, estimated quantity and their warming effects, if released by thawing permafrost have been reported on in peer-reviewed Papers for at least 20 years. Over the last decade many scientists have reported their findings on cryogenic carbon, the threat posed my thawing permafrost and warned of the potential for this feedback to bring about abrupt climate change. The broader climate science community have largely ignored their findings. Belatedly declaring this a “truly emerging issue” seems a feeble excuse for the way it has been and continues to be ignored by those engaged in climate science modeling.
  50. Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
    Moderator, I accept that the "snipped" posts may have strayed from the topic 'Climate Myths from Politicians', but the accusations of deception leaves me perplexed. Deception was never my intent. The content of the posts were verbatim extracts from Parliamentary Hansard, accompanied by a link to the source documentation. Any perceived deception contained in the texts were not of my making.

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