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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 50701 to 50750:

  1. Doha Climate Summit Ends With No New CO2 Cuts or Funding
    Tks for posting my IPS article. In my personal opinion little will change unless people march on their respective capitals demanding action and refuse to leave until it happens.
  2. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Actually never mind, it appears you indeed do have access to the chapter.
  3. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    JoeT - following KR's good sense to not go into detail on a leaked report, but also to try to help some more with your question, if you have by chance actually been able to obtain a copy of the draft, it would help to read the text accompanying the graphic in the section it appears in. Chapter 1.3.1 is where you'd find that discussion, and where you'll see just how dishonestly WUWT et al are touting Figure 1.4.
  4. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    JoeT - And no, it's not a surprise that the folks on WUWT are worked up. That's what they do - take something out of context, or wrong, get worked up, and make a great deal of noise as if it were the "game changer" for climate science. Sigh. "...it is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." - Macbeth
  5. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    JoeT - As per the IPCC Draft Report Leaked thread, it's entirely inappropriate to be commenting on something that is (a) a draft, and thus likely to change in some aspects before publication due to reviewer comments, and (b) a work that is only publicized due to the violations of confidentiality by one of those reviewers. If you wish to comment or query regarding one (or more) of the published papers the IPCC may refer to in the draft, in regards to the data and conclusions of those published works, that's another matter entirely - please do.
  6. More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    mispelto @#4: Thank you for your prompt response to my initial request. A follow-up question: The first sentence under the header, “Sea-level is rising – that is a fact” of the OP is: A number of processes are relevant for ice-loss in Antarctica, most notably to sub-shelf melting caused by warming of the surrounding ocean water. I presume that the term "sub-shelf melting" is equaivalent to "basil melting." Am I correct?
  7. CO2 effect is saturated
    Question: If I run Modtran, the number given as "ground temperature" is, in the tropical atmosphere setting, the same whether I turn off all the greenhouse gases (CO2, water vapor, methane, ozone) or leave defaults. The ground temperature in the tropics is 299.7 K with or without GHG. I don't think this can be right? Help?
  8. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Dana, Since it's related to this post, I'm hoping that you would comment on Figure 1.4 in Chapter 1 of the IPPC draft. It seems to have the people at WUWT all worked up (and now my head hurts from reading the comments there).
  9. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Smith, I believe the 1990 IPCC report only used a simple model forced by GHGs, whereas more modern climate models also simulate natural forcings as well as internal variability.
  10. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Do the GCMs have any component which takes into account variations in solar, volcanic or ENSO?
  11. Dikran Marsupial at 02:23 AM on 19 December 2012
    This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    BTW, the results will vary according to the dataset you chose, but the 1997-current confidence interval is so large that they will all include a continuation of the long term trend. It is a bit ironic though that the dataset produced by the climate skeptic is the one that shows the most warming!
  12. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    LarryM @#2, In the interest of full disclosure, those words of mine were inspired by those of Dr. Pierrehumbert, whose AGU talk I had the good fortune to watch in person. PS: Tks for fixing my broken link DB.
  13. Dikran Marsupial at 02:15 AM on 19 December 2012
    This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    On the topic of "no warming since [insert cherry picked date here]", if you go to the SkS trend calculator and compute the long term trend (1979-present) for the UAH dataset (produced by climate skeptic scientist Roy Spencer), you will get a trend of 0.138 ±0.074 °C/decade (2σ). Next, lets compute the trend from 1997 (the start of the "hiatus"), which turns out to be 0.090 ±0.232 °C/decade (2σ). This is clearly not statistically significant as a zero trend lies within the confidence interval. However, the long term trend of 0.138 °C/decade also lies well within the confidence interval, so the observations are also consistent with there having been no hiatus in warming, but just steady warming at 0.138 °C/decade with some perturbations superimposed on it due to e.g. ENSO. Furthermore, the long term trend of 0.138 °C/decade is closer to the estimated trend than a zero trend is, so the continuation of the long term trend is marginally more consistent with the observed trend than a hiatus. Essentially Monckton is making a statistical error in thinking that the lack of statistically significant warming implies that there is statistically significant evidence for stasis. The statistics are equivocal, they rule out neither a continuation of the underlying warming trend, nor the existence of a hiatus in warming. The difference between the scientific mainstream and the skeptics on this is that mainstream scientific opinion on AGW is not predicated solely on a 16 year trend (there are many other lines of evidence e.g. OHC and a lot of basic physics), whereas the existence of a hiatus is predicated pretty much purely on the lack of a statistically significant warming.
  14. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Speaking of climate predictions by real scientists, both right and wrong, see the excellent lecture by Ray Pierrehumbert at this year's American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting (lecture starts at 4:18). Like Albatross, he too states that being wrong sometimes is OK (it's the "great teacher"), as long as one learns from one's mistakes and doesn't double-down on the wrongness as some like Lindzen and Christy tend to do.
  15. Add Frame and Stone to the List of Papers Validating IPCC Warming Projections
    Interesting. It also highlights the fact that fake skeptics rarely invest the effort to make predictions, and when they do, they rarely (if ever) revisit their predictions. The reason for them not doing so is clear, they do not have a robust theory (e.g., anthropogenic global warming) on which to base their predictions, so any predictions they make invariably falter after a very short time (e.g., McLean's disasterous attempt). Here are a few more failures by fake skeptics: [Source] Now it is OK to be wrong sometimes, but all the time? And to never learn from those mistakes, but rather just keep recycling the same old tired debunked nonsense about cycles etc.? No thanks, I'll stick with the real climate scientists.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed link.
  16. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    DSL - I believe catamon is in agreement, which is why he/she pointed out that temperatures are holding steady despite low insolation, ENSO, ocean oscillations, etc. If the "no warming" crowd was correct (which they aren't) those cyclic influences should be leading to climate cooling, rather than a hiatus, and it's the underlying warming trend adding up to the current (but not everlasting) slow changes.
  17. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Catamon, the escalator in the upper right is highly relevant. Consider that during the "hiatus" period, there is a stretch from 2000-2007 where the linear trend is an alarming .02569C per year. And for the 90th time, surface temp is about the least useful of measures of global warming (Hadley in particular). Show me the parallel hiatus in OHC (steady as she goes) and global ice mass loss (loss accelerated).
  18. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    catamon - What happens when these various cyclic cooling influences reverse? Well, we would expect that it's going to get a great deal warmer as the temperatures regress to the mean of the trends. I find these "16-year" claims simply appalling, personally. I would like to point out certain aspects of the data: [Source, using HadCRUT4] The last 16 years or so appear rather flat (at least for HadCRUT data, not so much for GISTEMP), but 16 years is too short a time period for statistical significance. A quick check is to look at the trends for 17 or for 15 years, and note significant differences - a sign of a not too robust conclusion. Even more importantly, consider that last 16 years (cherry-picked to start with a very strong El Nino, ending with several La Nina's) with respect to the rest of the data. The 22 year trend 1975-1997 is ~0.16°C/decade. If you include the data to the present, if you include the 16-year "no-warming" trumpeted by Monckton, the 1975-present trend is 0.17°C, a higher trend than that of the first 22 years! In other words, if you look at enough data for significance, you see that even the claimed "no warming" data is still showing an accelerating trend - and that Moncktons claim is simply an artifact of deliberately cherry-picking from the noise.
  19. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    catamon: Thinking things through viz. climate is not Monckton's forte. I believe you have hit the nail on the head with:
    The question is then, what's keeping us warm if not CO2 and what happens when CO2 levels are higher than now, and there is strong solar activity, and we are in a warming phase of the 60 year cycle of ocean oscillations, and there is an El Nino??
    which Monckton clearly has not let disturb his mind.
  20. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Ok, people riddle me this, and please correct me if i am misunderstanding. I have seen it written on no less reliable site that the Lord Monktons himself that: "The 16-year temperature stasis that has now occurred must be explicitly faced." and: "one might argue that the relatively weak warming signal from CO2 has been overlain by three recent natural influences: in late 2001 we entered a ~30-year cooling phase of the ~60-year cycle of the ocean oscillations; the current ~11-year solar cycle displays near-unprecedentedly weak solar activity, implying the possibility of a Dalton or even Maunder minimum in the coming decades; and there has recently been a double-dip La Niña." So, for arguments sake i'll make a perhaps bold assumption that the above quotes are believable. That means that with 3 theoretically cooling influences referred to currently in play, we are in a "temperature stasis", not measurably cooling as i would expect. The question is then, what's keeping us warm if not CO2 and what happens when CO2 levels are higher than now, and there is strong solar activity, and we are in a warming phase of the 60 year cycle of ocean oscillations, and there is an El Nino??
  21. New research from last week 50/2012
    Ari Thank you so much for these posts. I will miss them but understand you have to move on. Shoyemore Great little background on Stoney. Thanks Tony
  22. Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
    All, that would be N2O (nitrous oxide), not NO2 (nitrogen dioxide)
  23. More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    The basal melting I am referring to and is discussed in the resources is at the bottom of ice shelves. This is where the magnitude of basal melting is crucial in terms of ice thickness and hence stability of the ice shelves. Under the ice sheet it is not the amount of melt that matters it is really whether it is melting or not that influences flow.
  24. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Ok, ok, so the world is going to crap and the Earth is headed for Venus style runaway greenhouse, but we can at least get our literary quotes correct... Winston didn't say it first, I always thought it was Mark Twain but I found this article.. "A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes". - This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but it has never been verified as originating with Twain. This quote may have originated with Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) who attributed it to an old proverb in a sermon delivered on Sunday morning, April 1, 1855. Spurgeon was a celebrated English fundamentalist Baptist preacher. His words were: "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on."
  25. CO2 effect is saturated
    Never mind! Sorry. I now realize I was fooled by a cartoon drawing of the tropopause.....for an appreciable change in altitude in a realistic drawing the temp almost stays constant. Maybe that is why it is called a "pause".
  26. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    The video of Sen speech is the fragment about the burden of climate change on our grand/children. This video from 6:00 to 9:00 when Sen Whitehouse explains the escalator, is the key fragment for us to watch. He does an excellent job in choosing strong and precise words to describe the denialism surrounding the temp data. A classic speech well worth watching.
  27. New research from last week 50/2012
    So Stoney is his last name. I just read "Stoney G. Johnstone" and thought Johnstone was his last name. :) Corrected. You know, as I stop making these weekly new research posts, it leaves me more time to dig up the old gems. I just don't know yet how I will publish them, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.
  28. CO2 effect is saturated
    Thank you. There are unexplained things in these models. Next question. If you run the "NCAR visible + IR Rad Code" for the default parameters,the first upper left hand graph shows no increase in temperature with altitude once you get to the height of the tropopause. In other words the temperature just stays constant with height after the tropopause. Is this peculiarity because there is no stratospheric ozone in the model?
  29. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Calling Mr. Rawls. Mr. Rawls, are you in the building? Can you come to the comment stream and defend your integrity? It's taking quite a beating. Dale was unable to render life support. Indeed, he appears to have accidentally dropped a bottle of oxygen on what was left.
  30. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Let's sum up here. brr is arguing that there may be a solar factor which amplifies the TSI forcing. I have no problem with that - there may very well be. brr claims this is Rawls' entire argument, which is not true. As Tom notes, Rawls also claims that solar amplification could account for a significant amount of the warming over the past half century. That argument is discussed in the "Physical Reality Intrudes on Rawls" section in the above post. So brr, now that I've agreed that there might be a solar amplification factor, are you willing to admit that such a factor could not account for the recent global warming, given that solar activity on the whole is down over the past 60 years?
    Moderator Response: [DB] Note that brr is yet another sock-puppet of banned user Dale...and has also recused himself from further participation here.
  31. Philippe Chantreau at 11:26 AM on 18 December 2012
    More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    John, I believe that basal melt is melting that occurs at the base of the ice layer (i.e. between the ice and the underlying ground), where the liquid water layer acts as a lubricant and enhances glacial flow. If I remember Mauri's other explanations, that lubrication effect has the potential of increasing the flow of a glacier in rather spectacular fashion, as has been seen already in the Northern hemisphere.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Note that you describe the Zwally effect. This is explored in-depth in this SkS post, itself based heavily on input from Mauri himself.
  32. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Newsflash: In breaking news, Alec Rawls finds (-snip-). Claims refutation of altitudist dogma that Everest's summit is the highest location on Earth. Anthony Watts breathless with anticipation of this new, ground breaking revelation.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped.
  33. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @98, actually Rawls point was that:
    "The admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing changes everything. The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum. The final draft of AR5 WG1 is not scheduled to be released for another year but the public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself."
    What he has is the fact that the IPCC mentions a possibility (note again, "seems" does not mean "is") that total solar forcing is greater than 0.01667 of total anthropogenic forcing (ie, the ration of solar forcing to anthropogenic forcing). From this he concludes that the "admission ... changes everything" and "The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum." Well, I have news for you. Acknowledging that something may have made more than a 1.667% contribution to the warming is not acknowledging that it is important. Further, you could increase solar forcing by a factor of ten, and the warming would still be "almost entirely due to human activity". Surely anybody competent enough to understand simple arithmetic can understand this.
  34. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr - You are continuing to ignore two very important points, points that Dana made and that Rawls neglected. * The direction of solar changes has been opposite temperature changes for the last half century. This means Rawls (even aside from the implications of violating his confidentiality agreement) is arguing against himself. Any such amplification is a cooling influence, not a warming influence. * Solar changes (of any kind) are orders of magnitude smaller than GHG changes over that period, according to all observations of past climate behavior. They simply do not overwhelm those GHG influences. Perhaps (only perhaps, not clearly established, as per the IPCC draft text) there are solar amplifications over and above insolation - the evidence thereof is very weak. But they do not, can not, dominate over the anthropogenic greenhouse gas changes - they are too small, and in the wrong direction. Rawls has highlighted sections of the IPCC draft that contradict his opinions. And your support of Rawls is (IMO) equally unsupportable. You have simply not established your case in the face of the internal contradictions of this leak. You appear to be suffering (again, IMO) from confirmation bias, seizing upon anything that supports your convictions. And yes, if you feel otherwise, you are going to have to support your opinions - or see those unsupported opinions (appropriately) dismissed.
  35. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    None of you are addressing the IPCC noted difference between observed solar forcing and TSI. That difference implies something else from the sun has caused the difference. There is no need for me to prove anything KR, since the IPCC itself admits there is something else: "The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations". And that is Rawls point. The IPCC finally admitted there's something other than TSI from the sun that could influence climate.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Let me point out something from the Comments Policy to you:

    • Comments should avoid excessive repetition. Discussions which circle back on themselves and involve endless repetition of points already discussed do not help clarify relevant points. They are merely tiresome to participants and a barrier to readers. If moderators [meaning: me] believe you are being excessively repetitive, they will advise you as such, and any further repetition will be treated as being off topic.

    As KR points out below, you simply have not established your case. Simply repeating it, re-phrased, is insufficient. This is a science-based website. As such, the onus is on you and Mr. Rawls to prove your point with links from the published, reputable literature that actually support your case. Failing that, further prosecution of this line of discussion is without merit...and will be moderated accordingly.

  36. More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    mspelto: Thank you for supplementing the OP with additional material. It would be extremely helpful to our readers if you would describe what "basal melting" is.
  37. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr - It is worth noting that all of the observed insolation (various solar influences) that vary with the solar cycle, including the Maunder minimum, can be correlated (as one major forcing) with various climate temperature changes. Over the last half century, however, solar influences have changed in a direction opposite to temperature changes, decreasing insolation, whereas the order of magnitude greater GHG influences have increased along with temperatures. And those changes are over an order of magnitude smaller than GHG effects, at least according to historic observations of solar influences. Your "solar furries" influence, amplifying insolation, must have (a) changed direction of amplification ~1960, no longer varying with TSI, and (b) have never for some reason been observed. In addition, you will need to (c) show why the observed GHG spectroscopic changes haven't the effect that physics says they will, as otherwise there is no room for your "furries" to operate. Finally, you will have to (d) provide or suggest a testable mechanism for said "solar furries" to operate. If you cannot support those four points (a-d), I would have to consider your claims simply armwaving - the unsupported invocation of uncertainty in the face of repeated observations and data.
  38. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Tom @94...not THIS!?!?? >;-D
  39. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    It's worth pointing out that some of the apparent correlations between solar output variation and climate-related responses (a.k.a. "empirical relationships") relate to regional effects that may occur with little effect on overall global temperature. An example is the possible (not yet substantiated) effect of reduced solar irradiance in causing reduced winter temperatures in N. hemisphere continents. This would be a possible example of the requirement for an "amplifying mechanism" (e.g. a forced influence towards the low index state of the NAO) that induces a significant local effect that is not linked to global changes in surface temperature. Those that are actually interested in the science (as opposed to playing tedious "gotcha" games) will likely learn a little more about this when the final version of the IPCC report appears. Mike Lockwood has a useful recent article on this topic [Solar Influence on Global and Regional Climates Sur. Geophys. 33:503-534 (2012)].
  40. More ice loss through snowfall on Antarctica
    There are a few points worth adding to put the Winklemann et al (2012) paper into perspective. The paper is making the point that more interior snow does not lead to a lack of sea level rise and quantified this using several models that focused on the grounded portions of the ice sheets. This project has been a leader in pushing the limits of our modelling capabilities. The models used are not yet designed to physically reconstruct the pattern of basal melt rates under ice shelves. Basal melt rates are simply parameterized. It has become clear that changes in the ice shelves are the key and this is driven not by surface melt as is noted in the article, but by basal melt. It is not clear at this point that dynamic changes outlined above lead to greater changes than basal ice shelf melt. To put this in perspective a few recent papers are worth noting Prictchard et al (2012) observed-“We deduce that this increased melt is the primary control of Antarctic ice-sheet loss, through a reduction in buttressing of the adjacent ice sheet leading to accelerated glacier flow. This is illustrated in a NASA new release . The Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica has net basal melting accounting for about half of the total ice-shelf mass loss, with the rest being from iceberg discharge (Wen et al, 2010). Pine Island Glacier has surface features that suggest ice-shelf-wide changes to the ocean’s influence on the ice shelf as the grounding line retreated and reveal a spatially dependent pattern of basal melt with an annual basal melt flux of 40.5 Gt (Bindschadler et al, 2011). The influence of ocean temperature on melt rate is well illustrated in Holland et al (2008) Figure 1. It is also worth noting that GRACE does not examine ice shelves, that the models are poor at addressing dynamic changes in ice shelves or in basal melt rates. That is why Operation Icebridge has been so valuable in assessing the changes in ice shelves.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed link urls. You used the ” (italic double-quote mark) instead of the " (vertical double-quote mark) throughout.
  41. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    chris, haven't you been reading the debate. It's the solar furries. I wonder if solar furries have soft fur? Perhaps Brr will tell us, as the mechanism involved as only been observed in his imagination.
  42. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr "There is more to the sun than TSI." Well yes, the measurable solar outputs are: the open solar flux, the sunspot number, the solar irradiance, the galactic cosmic ray flux, the UV irradiance. These have all trended in a mild cooling direction since the mid-late 1980's as the solar output has reduced somewhat. So which solar parameter do you have in mind that has a warming contribution as the solar output reduces? As is rather well established (and as the IPCC report points out) these solar parameters vary pretty much in concert (e.g. through the solar cycle) and so the fact that one may observe some apparent correlation between the cosmic ray flux (say) and some measurable parameter on Earth is not evidence for a contribution from the cosmic ray flux. That's part of the problem of interpretation re the "many empirical relationships" in the IPCC draft report that some of the anti-science chaps have become so exercised about. No doubt it will be presented more clearly in the final version of the report!
  43. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @90, the IPCC draft report says:
    "Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link."
    (My emphasis) By definition, amplifying mechanisms are positively correlated with the signal they amplify. You have now resorted to arguing that because some studies suggest a climate signal positively correlated with TSI and negatively correlated with GCR, therefore there may exist a solar related factor that is not positively correlated with TSI and negatively correlated with GCR. Or more to the point, you are suggesting there is an unknown factor positively correlated with TSI and negatively correlated with GCR up until 1980, but negatively correlated with TSI, and positively with GCR thereafter. And your evidence is that there exists a positive correlation between global temperatures and TSI (and negatively correlated with GCR) prior to 1980, but a negative (positive) correlation afterwards. In the terms of philosophy of science, your theory is (designed to be) unfalsifiable. Its sole purpose is to provide a mental shield so that you don't have to face the evidence. As an aside, I enjoy the irony, pointed out by Dana, of Rawls quoting a paper that disproves the solar/warming connection as proof of the solar/warming connection. Edited to correctly state the correlation between GCR and TSI.
  44. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Tell you what brr, why don't you or Rawls explain to us how these other hypothetical solar factors are acting in the opposite direction of TSI, and solar activity in general? Rawls has cited a bunch of papers about pre-industrial solar forcings. He even has the gall to cite Lockwood and Frohlich's paper, Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Some of the papers he references are about solar influences on local weather. It's a classic quantity over quality argument. Throw all the solar-climate related papers you can find at the wall and hope something sticks. It reeks of desperation. What he has not done is answer the challenge I posed above. Until you or he can, you've got nothing other than a bunch of transparently desperate hand waving. You don't even have a working hypothesis.
  45. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Tom @89: And there you go again with a singularity comparison. There is more to the sun than TSI. Once you admit that, maybe we can all work together to find out what else there is to the sun.
  46. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @88, I said, @86:
    "If you want, you can simplify that to: TSI has been decreasing, therefore, it is not the Sun. You, however, have claimed that Dana, and I have argued: It's not Galactic Cosmic Rays, therefore it is not the sun. If you cannot recognize the difference between those two sentences, there is no point in discussing anything with you."
    You respond by saying:
    "The article finishes by stating solar activity has been flat, and recently a downturn, which does not explain modern warming. IE: "It's not GCRs, thus it's not the sun"."
    With breathtaking gall, you also claim to be misinterpreted. Regardless, there is no point in discussion with somebody who shows such overwhelming inability to parse an argument.
  47. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    @dana & Tom: Both of you need to listen very carefully, as you are mis-interpreting what I am saying. I will try to make this very clear. Rawls say, and even cites 30 odd studies since 1990, which show the observed solar influence is not fully explained by TSI. He's saying, that there is more to the sun than TSI. For the FOD Rawls reviewer feedback explained this and the result was the addition of the explanation to the SOD which uses GCR as an example of what could be the extra component of solar. He claims that is a game-changer. The article above focuses on GCRs and (rightly) shows that observed GCR readings to not explain modern warming. This is in line with later IPCC statements in the SOD. What the article does not address is the observed difference in solar forcing to TSI. It leaves that question mark still in existence. The article finishes by stating solar activity has been flat, and recently a downturn, which does not explain modern warming. IE: "It's not GCRs, thus it's not the sun". Tom, you also validated this statement in your comments. But what Rawls is saying, is that the 30 odd studies he cited show that the sun is more than just TSI. True, TSI has been flat, but there are various other indicators which have been quite active, for example some of the magnetic indicators at certain ranges. Rawls claim that there's more to the sun than TSI has not been addressed here. The article, and commenters, focus on TSI as the only solar indicator. It is not. Thus this article does nothing to address Rawls claims. It addresses the example that the IPCC used to explain the difference in observed solar influence and TSI, but nothing to address the actual difference (no matter what caused the difference).
  48. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Composer 99 @83, I believe you have identified one of the most ludicrous aspects of Rawls argument. As it happens, the total Radiative Forcing since preindustrial times (1750) of anthropogenic factors is 2.4 +/-0.6 W/m^2. In contrast, the radiatiave forcing from changes in TSI over the same period is 0.04 +/-0.06 W/m^2. Even if we use the upper range of that estimate, changes in TSI are approximately a twentieth of anthropogenic forcings, and a sixth of the error in anthropogenic forcings, meaning they can be (but are not) ignored as insignificant. Rawls has not established that total solar forcing, or TSI plus a amplifying factor unique to solar forcing, is greater than TSI. All he has established is that there are some studies suggesting that possibility - while he studiously ignores other studies suggesting the contrary. Never-the-less, we can play a game of "let's pretend" and grant him his stronger claim. Even with this pretense, however, his argument depends essentially on ignoring the low value of the TSI. It comes down to arguing that because: Effective solar forcing is greater than TSI; therefore, Effective solar forcing is greater than Anthropogenic forcings. Or, more simply: X > 0.04 => X > 2.4
  49. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @81, my paragraph, and Dana's article are quite clear. The nature of the argument presented in both is: TSI has been decreasing while the globe is warming, therefore, the sun has not caused the global warming even if TSI has been amplified. If you want, you can simplify that to: TSI has been decreasing, therefore, it is not the Sun. You, however, have claimed that Dana, and I have argued: It's not Galactic Cosmic Rays, therefore it is not the sun. If you cannot recognize the difference between those two sentences, there is no point in discussing anything with you. Further, if you will not state that you recognize the difference, and withdraw your silly misrepresentations of Dana (and now my) words, I would request the moderators withdraw your posting privileges. Somebody unable or unwilling to recognize that clear difference is no posting in good faith, and therefore has no part in a civilized discussion.
  50. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @81, if you think the above article argues "if it isn't GCR it isn't the sun", you need to re-read it. I'd suggest starting with Figure 2 and the section it's in, with the heading "Solar Activity is Down". "It's the sun" is such a weak argument, I thought the contrarians had moved past it. I hadn't seen this one in quite a while. Now suddenly it's making a comeback - maybe they cycled through all the other myths and have come full circle back to this loser of an argument. I mean seriously, trying to blame the sun for global warming when solar activity is down? That's kind of a joke.

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