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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. Brian G Valentine at 13:09 PM on 16 December 2012
    The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    I'm a signatory to the "denialist letter" (your terminology). There are REASONS for this. This is not simply "ad hoc negativism"
  2. Brian G Valentine at 12:57 PM on 16 December 2012
    The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    I think we need to be careful here, Hansen's and Ramanathan's interpretation are not quite the same. Hansen describes it as radiation increasing from higher levels in the atmosphere to maintain an equilibrium with (outer space), Ramanatan does not. Keep in mind too, that the oceans are not in equilibrium with the atmosphere, surely, as ocean evaporation takes place - and this is the bulk of the heat transfer of the ocean to drive the ocean temperature towards the air temperature. According to the World Meteorological Organization climate is defined as "Synthesis of weather conditions in a given area, characterized by long-term statistics (mean values, variances, probabilities of extreme values, etc.) of the meteorological elements in that area“ (International Meteorological Vocabulary. Sec. ed. WMO-No. 182. Geneva, 1992). However, what is considered in the center of this climate disputation: the globally average near-surface temperature of about {T} =288 K. This temperature has, if at all, only a minor physical relevance. Most explanations of the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect are related to temperature {T}. The explanation of the American Meteorological Society, for instance, reads: “The heating effect exerted by the atmosphere upon the Earth because certain trace gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, etc.) absorb and re-emit infrared radiation. Most of the sunlight incident on the Earth is transmitted through the atmosphere and absorbed at the Earth's surface. The surface tries to maintain energy balance in part by emitting its own radiation, which is primarily at the infrared wavelengths characteristic of the Earth's temperature. Most of the heat radiated by the surface is absorbed by trace gases in the overlying atmosphere and reemitted in all directions. The component that is radiated downward warms the Earth's surface more than would occur if only the direct sunlight were absorbed. The magnitude of this enhanced warming is the greenhouse effect. Earth's annual mean surface temperature of 15°C is 33°C higher as a result of the greenhouse effect than the mean temperature resulting from radiative equilibrium of a blackbody at the Earth's mean distance from the sun. ..." These 33 K are based on physical nonsense because the temperature of the so-called planetary radiative equilibrium, T_e = 255 K, and the globally averaged near-surface temperature are two completely different temperatures. The temperature T_e = 255 K is computed using a planetary albedo of 30 percent. This value, however, is only acceptable for the entire earth-atmosphere system. For an earth in the absence of an atmosphere for which this 255 K should be valid, the planetary albedo should be much lower. This was already discussed by Budyko in his textbook on climatic change published in 1977. Another requirement is that the surface temperature is homogeneously distributed over the entire planet. We know that this is wrong even in case of the earth having an atmosphere. If we perform the same calculations for our moon, we will obtain a temperature of T_e = 270 K for a planetary albedo of 12 percent. This is more than 55 K higher than the value determined by Monstein (2001) using remote-sensing-techniques (see attachment). More than 60 years ago, there were also remote-sensing observations, the results were higher than those of Monstein, but 30 K lower than T_e = 270 K. Consequently, we may conclude that this prediction of a temperature of a planetary radiative equilibrium is based on assumptions that are not fulfilled and the results notably disagree with observations. Often, it is stated that the moon is an inappropriate instance because of its slow rotation velocity. If this would be true (it is not), why did Pierrehumbert use this formula in case of the Venus (see his physics today paper, 2011)? The rotation velocity of the Venus is four times lower than that of the moon. It is interesting that the Enquete Commission of the German Parliament "Schutz der Erdatmosphere" (Protection of the Earth's Atmosphere) related in its report from 1990 these 33 K to various greenhouse gases by following Kondratyev. The explanation of the atmospheric greenhouse effect by Ramanathan et al. is not better. It is also related to {T} = 288 K. The authors argue that this temperature leads to a radiative emission of 390 W/m^2, but at the top of the atmosphere the emission into the space is only 236 W/m^2 . Thus, they argue that "the intervening atmosphere causes a significant reduction in the long-wave emission to space. This reduction in the long-wave emission to space is referred to as the greenhouse effect." This argument is unacceptable of two reasons: First of all, the power law of Stefan and Boltzmann cannot be applied to an averaged surface temperature because it is based on two integrations, namely the integration of the Planck over all wavelengths (or frequencies) and the integration over the adjacent half space. The latter is an integration over a vector field. Secondly, the globally averaged surface temperature has no physical meaning in the global energy budget for the earth-atmosphere system. In the well-known figure of Trenberth et al there is an energy budget for the earth's surface. The so-called net radiation in the infrared range (emitted radiation minus down-welling radiation) amounts to 63 W/m^2. This value serves to "warm" the atmosphere, but not the surface. It is much smaller than the sum of the fluxes of sensible and latent heat that also warm the atmosphere. Warming means the increase of the total internal energy of the atmosphere. If the down-welling infrared radiation is related to a temperature of the atmosphere, T_a, as commonly done in so-called Dines-type two-layer energy balance models for the earth-atmosphere system, one can determine this net radiation in the infrared range by many pairs of {T} and T_a values. So far these problems deal only with the definition of the "greenhouse effect." The absolute misunderstanding comes from the consequence of what the "greenhouse effect" must imply. If higher levels of the atmosphere (stratosphere) must cool in response to the effect, then heat transfer by radiation from lower levels to higher levels in the atmosphere necessarily increases, as the temperature differences increase, by assumption. Thus some sort of "decreased heat transfer" from the low levels to the higher levels cannot possibly be true. Furthermore, any radiation imbalance caused by this disturbance will (eventually) be equilibrated by molecular conduction. True, the component of molecular conduction is small, and convection effects are negligible. Nevertheless this phenomenon happens over the same time period that the radiation effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is assumed to warm the surface. The Earth and its atmosphere are an open system. The consequences of radiation heat transfer are different in an open and a closed system. This is where the problem comes in, and the misunderstanding of what the "greenhouse effect" must imply in an open system
  3. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Doh! I now realise that the temperature is an 11-year average, so naturally it will look different to most temperature presentations. But, dana, please could you still redo the graphs (figures 2 & 3) with a temperature profile that is not a running average. Thanks.
  4. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Dana, could you redo those graphs with a temperature dataset other than NASA GISS? The reason I ask is because I suspect you may see a much better correlation if you do. That NASA GISS dataset is a bit extreme for the temperature. Most temperature graphs I see show a peak in about 1998, with a gentle decline since then. This NASA GISS shows nothing like that. I don't think you have faithfully conveyed the message in Rawls' submission. There was great import to what he had to say about the chapter 7 admissions, but you reported none of this. It was as though your intent was to obfuscate his message. Here are his bombshells, for the benefit of your readers: "The Chapter 7 authors are admitting strong evidence (“many empirical relationships”) for enhanced solar forcing (forcing beyond total solar irradiance, or TSI), even if they don’t know what the mechanism is." And, "This analysis, where post-1980 warming gets attributed to the human release of CO2 on the grounds that it cannot be attributed to solar irradiance, cannot stand in the face of the Chapter 7 admission of substantial evidence for solar forcing beyond solar irradiance. Once the evidence for enhanced solar forcing is taken into account we can have no confidence that natural forcing is small compared to anthropogenic forcing." And, "The report still barely hints at the mountain of evidence for enhanced solar forcing, or the magnitude of the evidenced effect. Dozens of studies (section two here) have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices, suggesting that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change, very little of which could be explained by the very slight variation in TSI. At least the Chapter 7 team is now being explicit about what this evidence means: that some mechanism of enhanced solar forcing must be at work." And finally: "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."
  5. CO2 effect is saturated
    curiousd @185: 1) Switching between Pressure and Relative Humidity changes the way H2O concentrations are calculated with altitude. Essentially, with Pressure, H2O is a function of pressure for the standard atmosphere. As such, it will not rise nor fall if you offset the surface temperature. In contrast, with the water vapour factor set to Relative Humidity, using the surface temperature offset to increase temperature will increase the H2O concentration, while decreasing temperature will decrease it. You can explore the exact effects in greater detail by looking at the output file under atmospheric profile for H2O. 2) The method you describe will not calculate the flux weighted mean altitude of OLR. Essentially, at each altitude, z, the value recorded is the OLR from z-1 minus absorption at z, plus emissions at z. What you require is the sum of ((emissions at z - absorption of emissions from z between z and space)*z) for all z, divided by / the sum of (emissions at z - absorption of emissions from z between z and space) for all z. I strongly suspect that Modtran will not provide you with that information. If it does, it will only be by careful perusal of the output file. What may be of more interest, however, is the effective altitude of radiation, defined as the lowest altitude such that, black body radiation with an emissivity of one at the temperature of that altitude equals the total power of the OLR at TOA. The formula for the relevant temperature is, from the Stefan-Boltzman law: T= (Iout/(5.67*10^-8))^0.25
  6. voice of reason at 10:18 AM on 16 December 2012
    IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Even as a skeptic unqualified in science the solar paragraph looked wrong to me so not really surprised. But what was a surprise was the summary of the rest of AR5 by Roger Pielke here. Not wanting to put the cart before the horse they seem to have made pretty much a total U turn, with most expectations of extreme weather etc pretty much quashed. The full report can be downloaded for those with the time and disk space, but no reason these quotes wouldn't be genuine. http://climatedepot.com/a/18800/Prof-Pielke-Jr-Analysis-of-UN-IPCC-Draft-report--IPCC-shows-almost-complete-reversal-from-AR4-on-trends-in-drought-hurricanes-floods
  7. CO2 effect is saturated
    Modtran questions Thanks to info here I think Modtran on the David Archer website would be good for me to learn about. Some questions: 1. What does the water vapor parameter mean? 2. I am trying to compute the "flux weighted mean altitude of the OLR" by looking "down" from various altitudes. So with the default parameters, then at 1 Km, upward OLR flux is 406 W/m squared and so 1 Km x 406 W/m sqd is 406 Km W/m sqd And at 10 Km, upward flux is 306 w/m squared and 10 Km x 306 W/m sqd is 3060 Km W/m sqd If I keep doing this I dont think the "flux weighted mean altitude of emission to space' is well defined. It keeps getting bigger and bigger all the way up to 70 km. What am I doing wrong, here? Obviously something,or have the whole idea wrong?
  8. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    ajason @46 - try listening to scientists instead of politicians. They're the ones who are really alarmed about climate change. I'm not sure why you're talking about politicians at all, since this post is about a scientific report.
  9. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    OHC to 2km looks to have risen by about 10^23 Joules over the last decade, implying a global energy imbalance of around 0.6W/m². Trying to get an idea of what this means for the climate, I calculated that this magnitude of energy imbalance, maintained constantly, would boil the entire world's oceans dry in about 33,000 years... which seems a disturbingly short time. I know that maintaining such an energy imbalance over thousands of years is not necessarily a realistic scenario, but are the numbers at least roughly right? I was working on the basis of 1 billion cubic kilometres of water having to warm by 80K at 4.18J/cm³/K.
  10. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    ajason, while I appreciate some of your sentiments re politicians, your analysis is flawed in several ways. 1. You assume that everyday humans are going to be immune to the rhetorical force of opinion-makers and their employers. These opinion-makers are highly effective in situations where everyday humans do not have the time, energy, means, and/or training to read the science and come to their own conclusions. Surely you know people whose political expressions could be mistaken for plagiarism of a popular pundit's talk show transcript. 2. The real truth? The real truth for an everyday human occurs when that human's empirical context is significantly changed over a period of time long enough to convince the human that the change isn't temporary. All other evidence arrives mediated in some way by other humans. If science is correct, then the real truth will arrive when we're already committed to the worst outcomes, because the real truth has to fight against the guiding hands of the opinion-makers (the infinitive "to convince" then becomes the key element in the above formulation). 3. I'm certain the Koch brothers have the best intentions, according to their own ideology. I'm certain that they think their corruption of the democratic process is a necessary evil to further human progress. I'm certain that Al Gore and James Inhofe have the best of intentions according to their own ideologies. Not sure about Morano. You want to do something about politicians? Teach the public how to think critically, create conditions where they are motivated to do so, and encourage open, non-hostile dialogue. That may require some fundamental changes, because, again, most people don't have the time, energy, training, and/or means to engage the science of just climate (among all of the other pressing issues). 4. Relativity isn't rapidly stressing the biosphere. This is a pressing issue. Though if I recall correctly, Einstein didn't leave alone relativity in one respect: the bomb. I recall he was quite vocal in his disgust that his fellow humans would use his scientific contribution to kill each other and generally make each other miserable.
  11. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    In regards to those climate change proponents, I'd say are fairly pathetic in that they don’t let everyday humans decide for themselves if it’s true. Those proponents refuse to understand the concept of attaching themselves to bureaucracy which will tax or make people bend to their will, is appalling. There will always be arguments as to who is wrong and who is right in the climate change debate. The real truth will ferret out the public’s course of action, not from edicts or laws passed by politicians. When one side attaches themselves to that they are already going down the wrong side of the rabbit hole. How many times have people been lied to by politicians, that they hold the whole grail in the solution of things? It’s December 2012 in America and why aren’t we seeing the benefits of Nafta, and Gatt, passed in 1994, since they were supposed to be the next best thing since sliced bread? The road to hell is paved by the path of good intentions. It’s this distrust that should drive the proponents away from this resolve. Look at Einstein’s special theory of relativity, he published it and let it be. He didn’t get politicians involved in making people like or accept it. If the scientist really cared about people, then care about people and leave politics out of the equation.
  12. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    Hmm, given that Ramanathan, Hansen believe in same GH effect (modern codes build on Ramanathan), I have a bad feeling about this. Is this going to be: AGW violates 2nd law of thermodynamics (please read extensively into thread and also do the textbook stuff at Science of Doom) the greenhouse effect has been falsified Postma has disproved the greenhouse effect Or something novel? Please no "slaying the sky dragon" stuff. This is a science site.
  13. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    "You'd have to argue that natural forcings are highly negative then" Sorry, why do you think that? See the IPCC report for breakdown of all the forcing, anthropogenic and natural. Anthropogenic are both postitive (GHG) and negative (aerosol, land use change) but not a lot change in any natural forcing (eg slight increase in solar, very very slight decrease in milankovich forcing). Evidence for the manmade cause comes from multiple sources (models validation from forcing, direct measurement of the increased radiation on surface and attribution of that, lack of any other explanation).
  14. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    It should also be pointed out that in single model runs, you can get long periods with the ocean absorbing heat (which is La Nina). Keenlyside et al 2008 attempted decadal prediction by closely initialising models to actual condition and coming up with a long pause. Other modellers do not believe models have skill for type of prediction (see here ) but it shows that pauses in surface temperature warming (but not total ocean heat content) are consistant with modelling.
  15. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #9
    @Michael Sweet #1: Only Roger Pielke Jr. can answer your question. It will be interesting to see whether or not he posts a critique of the Nature paper you have cited on his website. I suspect that he will do so, For purposes of clarification, the link that you embedded in your post is to the article, From Risk to Opportunity 2012: The Greening of Insurance posted on the website Insurance in A Climate of Change. This website is part of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division.
  16. Doha Climate Summit Ends With No New CO2 Cuts or Funding
    GHGAT (green house gas added tax) rather than for example state sales taxes? This debate could be brought to the consumer... although as a practical matter, the GHG content in a particular product, exported by a particular nation, would be the source of great debate and cause some headaches within the WTO...
  17. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Great visuals from the SkS team once more. Nothing makes the case like a good clean visual representation of data.
  18. CO2 is just a trace gas
    DPC, In this case scientists predicted over 100 years in advance that increased CO2 would lead to warming. There is no room for citing "correlation does not necessarily mean causation." It is the deniers who try to explain warming by fitting magical natural cycles, scientists predicted in advance. Just what type of proof do you want? Spencer Weart has a detailed history of the scientific discovery of global warming that is hyperlinked. You will find your answers there.
  19. 2012 SkS Bi-Weekly News Roundup #9
    Science magazine published This article on insurance industry responses to Global warming (this link is a summary, there is a link to the full article). From the article: "Increasingly, multifaceted weather- and climate-related insurance losses involve property damage, business disruptions, health impacts, and legal claims against polluters. Worldwide, insured claims that were paid for weather catastrophes average $50 billion/ year (about 40% of total direct insured and uninsured costs); they have more than doubled each decade since the 1980s, adjusted for inflation. Insurers must also tackle risks emerging from society’s responses to climate change, including how structures are built and energy is produced" How come Pielke Jr says insurance costs are not going up when this article says doubling every decade? This article states that insurance is 7% of the global economy. They discuss market mechanisms where insurance companies are responding to AGW.
  20. CO2 is just a trace gas
    I find this a really disappointing article. For me, this issue is the main one that I would like an answer to. I accept that CO2 is rising (due to human activity), global temperatures are rising and that there is a strong correlation between the two. But correlation does not necessarily mean causation. And it's pretty basic that increased levels of CO2 causes an increase in the Earth's temperature, but the thing I wonder about is whether it is on a scale large enough to account for all (or at least the majority) of the global warming experienced in the last several decades. That's why I read this article, wanting more information on that specific point. But unfortunately all the article contains is more of the same as you get everywhere else when it comes to the climate change debate - ANALOGIES!!! Analogies are not proof in any way, shape or form. I could just as easily write a few analogies showing that a trace element of something has no impact. It doesn't add anything at all to this specific question. I would really appreciate if someone could add some actual proof on this issue. Thanks. P.S. Have just found this site and, despite my comments above, I have found it very useful. Have looked at several arguments/responses that I had not heard before and found them a useful resource. Thanks.
    Moderator Response: [TD] Skeptical Science "Argument" posts intentionally are narrow. That is one of the strengths of Skeptical Science, as a complement to other sites and books that provide broader treatments. For example, if you are interested in the narrow argument that CO2 is only a trace gas, you can easily find the narrow rebuttal to that argument without having to wade through a bunch of other material that does not interest you at this moment. The "CO2 is just a trace gas " post was intended to address only that one narrow argument against CO2's causal role. A post more directly and comprehensively addressing causation is "Increasing CO2 has little to no effect."

    You don't have to browse through the entire Arguments list to find relevant ones, though. As a newcomer you will find helpful the broad guide to the posts in The Big Picture post you can get to by clicking the big button on the home page.

    Even then you might find you want broader or deeper information. Skeptical Science does not try to provide all that (with some exceptions). Another of Skeptical Science's intents and strengths is to provide concise and readily accessible links to other resources for that additional information. Some of that is the peer-reviewed literature linked in every post, but often the comments provide just as much information. Michael Sweet already gave you an excellent reference. You might also watch the video lecture by climatologist Ray Pierrehumbert from the U. of Chicago, titled "Successful Predictions," from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference a couple weeks ago.
  21. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Thanks DSL and dana1981 it'll teach me to pay much greater attention to the captions in figures
  22. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Ray @36 - Figures 2 and 3 do extend beyond 2000. They don't extend further because they're 11-year running averages. Cosmic ray data in Figure 3 also comes from a 2003 paper. brr @40 - no, anthro accounting for >100% warming would only require a slightly negative net natural forcing, which is quite plausible over the past half century. SoundOff @41 - good to see the IPCC getting attribution right, i.e. noting that the net anthro contribution is >50% of warming, and the GHG contribution is >100% since 1950.
  23. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    I was just reading through the draft of the upcoming AR5 linked to earlier. Here’s a quote from the draft that tells us the latest scientific consensus thinking on causes of warming.
    Quantification of the contributions of anthropogenic and natural forcing using multi-signal detection and attribution analyses show it is extremely likely that human activities (with very high confidence) have caused most (at least 50%) of the observed increase in global average temperatures since 1951. Detection and attribution analyses show that the greenhouse gas warming contribution of 0.6°C–1.4°C was very likely greater than the observed warming of 0.6°C over the period 1951–2010. … Taken together with other evidence this indicates that it is extremely unlikely that the contribution from solar forcing to the warming since 1950 was larger than that from greenhouse gases. Better understanding of pre-instrumental data shows that observed warming over this period is far outside the range of internal climate variability estimated from such records, and it is also far outside the range of variability simulated in climate models. Based on the surface temperature record, we therefore assess that it is virtually certain that warming since 1950 cannot be explained by internal variability alone.
    Note the use of the words “very high confidence”, “very likely”, “extremely unlikely” and “virtually certain”.
  24. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    When you answer, answer in the right thread. There are a variety, and navigation is easy. Let's just go with the standard greenhouse effect: CO2 absorbs/emits at pressure-broadened bands in the thermal infrared range, the range within which the sun-warmed earth emits. Increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 means greater likelihood that radiation will be absorbed before being radiated to space. Once absorbed, conduction or re-rediation can occur, but the direction of re-radiation is random, and the process repeats until the energy is transformed or is radiated to space. Increasing atmospheric CO2 therefore effectively decreases the cooling efficiency of the climate system. Oceans store energy via GHE by skin temp increase, preventing the sun-warmed top meter (or so) from cooling as much convectively. Oceans also warm via GHE indirectly through a variety of mixing and land-interaction processes. That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and does result in downwelling longwave radiation has been instrumentally verified (e.g. Puckrin et al. 2004, among others). And of course the satellite inference and decades of lab work and practical application. I don't know what direction you're going to take this, so I can't suggest an appropriate thread for your response. I'm all ears with an open mind. If you can show me how increasing atmospheric CO2 does not result in greater energy storage within the climate system, I'll be a very happy person.
  25. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @35 Possible, but not exactly likely. You'd have to argue that natural forcings are highly negative then, including certain feedbacks that AGW requires to be positive. Like I said, reality says it'll be somewhere in between.
  26. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr, you sound like a merchant of doubt. Somewhere between 100% natural and 100% anthro? That would require the falsification of the greenhouse gas effect. Solar de-coupled from surface temp fifty years ago. It had been tracking surface temp fairly well prior. See Pasini et al. (2012) and other attribution studies. Solar has been flat or falling for fifty years, and we just went through the deepest 11-year cycle trough in the instrumental period, yet global ice mass loss actually accelerated during that time. ENSO and AMO are not sources of energy. At best, you could argue that El Nino is moving energy stored long ago, but you're going to have to provide a mechanism that works. Unless you like long odds and hanging out at the far ends of error bars, AMO lags surface temp. What other mechanisms are you proposing for the source of the trends in surface temp, OHC, and global ice mass loss?
  27. Brian G Valentine at 13:38 PM on 15 December 2012
    The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    Why certainly, Mr Digital Subscribers Line, happy to oblige. You must first give me your interpretation of the "atmospheric greenhouse effect." There are numerous of them (Hansen, AMS, Ramanathan ...) Pick your favorite, and I will show why the reasoning is false. Will you change your opinion about the effect if you are shown why your interpretation cannot be valid? (-snip-). I will only do this exercise once.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory tone snipped.
  28. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Ray, look closely. Look at the increments. The answer for the blue line in fig. 3 is in the caption.
  29. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Apologies I should have written Figures 2 and 3
  30. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Can you advise why the graphs in figures 1 and 2 don't include years later than 2000?
  31. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    julesdingle - "...increased frequency of cool la ninas and no hot el ninos...." The ENSO is best described as an aperiodic variation, somewhat chaotic in nature: it doesn't cycle back and forth at regular intervals, and there are significant stretches more heavily El Nino as well as La Nina. The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is perhaps our longest direct observation of the ENSO; it is defined as the difference between sea surface air pressure anomalies at Tahiti and Darwin. Note that in the SOI higher values are La Nina's, and lower values are El Nino's - flipped relative to the more common representations: [Source] It should be clear from this that the recent prevalence of La Nina's is not at all unusual - the 1990's, for example, consisted mostly of El Nino's, while much of the 1950's through 1970's La Nina was more common.
  32. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Indeed, well said by Sherwood. brr @33 - you're missing the distinct possibility that more than 100% of the recent warming is anthropogenic (i.e. that natural influences are in the net cooling direction). But I'd put my money on something close to 100% anthropogenic warming over the past ~50 years.
  33. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Professor Sherwood again. This time interviewed by New Scientist and making the obvious point.
    The most interesting aspect of this little event is it reveals how deeply in denial the climate deniers are," says Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia – one of the lead authors of the chapter in question. "If they can look at a short section of a report and walk away believing it says the opposite of what it actually says, and if this spin can be uncritically echoed by very influential blogs, imagine how wildly they are misinterpreting the scientific evidence.
  34. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Rob @22 Whilst it's NOT uncertain whether solar caused the last 50 years of warming, it's also NOT certain that humans caused the last 50 years of warming. Say what you will about graphs such as that in figure 1 of this article, those studies don't quantify ALL natural and anthropogenic sources, only subsets. One may have ENSO but miss AMO. Another may have the AMO but miss the PDO. I think we will find the reality is most definitely somewhere between 100% natural or 100% human. Fingering humans for all the recent warming is as ludicrous as fingering solar. Both sides fall for THAT trap.
  35. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Dana1981 @31, Thanks, that's what happens when I search for text (Cosmic Ray) in a scanned pdf. Doh!
  36. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Thanks gws for taking the time to answer. Every answer triggers a bigger question or at least a more in depth one. The ENSO question for me is the 'apparent'[I use that just because what appears to a layman to be this or that is neither here nor there] increased frequency of cool la ninas and no hot el ninos. I am sure someone will correct me but if the ocean has heat how come it is not on the heat[or having more intense] el ninos cycle. The first question is really what will happen to ocean heat- is it a heat sink that will give up its energy- will it just continue to absorb more energy- will it mainly just defrost the Arctic? [btw I am familiar with the CO2-ghg- surface temp data].
  37. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    panzerboy @30 - the link and reference is correct, see their Figure 8.
  38. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Jules, a quick note: "will surface temperatures suddenly catch-up with accelerated warming in the coming decade?" Temperature increase follows the forcing agent nature and trajectory. For global temps, we are currently on an accelerating trajectory because GHGs (mostly CO2) are. So, I guess the answer is likely 'yes', with the caveat that local temps are not global temps. "will the seas just keep absorbing the heat?" there is, to first degree, no reason to think that the distribution of increasing heat content (see Fig. 1 above) will change "Are there physical limits?" yes and no; mostly on CO2 abundance due to buffering by the ocean and its contact with carbonate rocks, but that won't stop possibly catastrophic warming. Not sure what you meant by "ENSO ... last 16 years been so quiet". We had more La Ninas instead of El Ninos, is that what you meant?
  39. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Is the cite (Link) for figure 3 of "Krivova & Solanki 2003" correct, following the link to http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/2003ESASP_535__275K.pdf came to a paper on solar irradiance but no mention of cosmic rays.
  40. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Again I must thank the denialists for pointing me to such valuable documents..I had not seen the draft reports. I quickly debunked cosmic ray-ism with glance at a chart on page 80 of: http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/TechnicalSummary_WG1AR5-TS_FOD_All_Final.pdf (it seems like many, many years ago that I learned of desmogblog, Oreskes, and Hansen - all by the loud croaking of denialists... backhanded thanks)
  41. It's cosmic rays
    For those interested, I looked back and now see that comment 12 above addresses the denier argument that the effects of TSI could be lagging, and includes a hyperlink to a more detailed explanation.
  42. It's cosmic rays
    Rawls writes on WUWT: "In effect they are claiming that you can’t heat a pot of water by turning the burner to maximum and leaving it there, that you have to keep turning the flame up to get continued warming, an un-scientific absurdity that I have been writing about for several years (most recently in my post about Isaac Held’s bogus 2-box model of ocean equilibration)." Does someone have a precise explanation of what Rawls apparently misunderstands about the science when making this analogy? My impressions are as follows (I have a mechanical engineering degree with a loose focus on the thermal side of things, so I have better than a layman's understanding of heat transfer, but I am no more than a casual student of climate science): 1) When you heat a pot of water, it DOES stop getting hotter when the water reaches 100 deg C, as the temperature of liquid water cannot physically go above that. More importantly, the reason why the water can keep absorbing heat without any increase in temperature is that it is giving up thermal energy at the same rate that it is being absorbed, in the form of the latent heat of vaporization of the water vapor that escapes the pot! When that vapor touches something cooler and condenses, it will pass that latent heat of vaporization back to whatever it touches. If you do happen to increase the flame level, one thing that you will notice is that the steam escapes more quickly, to account for the fact that the water temperature can't go up any more, and a thermal energy balance must nonetheless be maintained. 2) Even if Rawls had picked an simpler example without physical phase change, like heating an empty pot, that too would eventually reach an equilibrium temperature for a given flame level. This would happen because the higher the temperature of the pot, the more heat it gives off by convection. Thus, when the rate of convection of heat from the surfaces of the pot into the surrounding air became equal to the forced rate of heat transfer into the pot from the flame, the temperature of the pot would stop rising. So his basic premise, that it would be absurd to think you have to keep increasing the flame level to raise the temperature of something you are heating, is false: eventually the object stops getting hotter, and you DO have to raise the flame level! 3) Giving Rawls the benefit of the doubt that he understands the law of conservation of thermal energy within a control volume, he seems to be implying that climate scientists have failed to account for the Earth's ability to respond relatively quickly (i.e., in significantly less time than 50 years) to whatever amount of forcing resulted from the increase in TSI that occurred before it remained generally flat 50 years ago, and reaching an equilibrium vis-a-vis that forcing long before now, so that effects of that forcing delayed by 50 years cannot explain the current warming. Rawls' attack doesn't pass my smell test, and I trust that climate scientists are in fact very familiar with and have accounted for the lag between a step or ramp up in TSI and its observed effects on global temperatures. Can somebody address that succinctly, in a way that would help somebody who is not necessarily so scientifically inclined to understand why they should trust that scientists have taken any "lag" effect into account?
  43. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Funded Denialists know that their unpaid Denialist believers will not look at the actual report: and they know that will be the case. The object is to delay mitigation efforts, and for the USA the tactic is working. Lying Denialists: is anyone surprised?
  44. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Further to doug_bostom's points, @25, the IPCc reports, by *design*, have to be carefully constructed such that OPEC countries, like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait, will sign off on the various ARXs. Not only is science inherently conservative, you toss that fact on top of that, and it's AMAZING the IPCC gets these things out as *often* as they do, and as conclusive of the main points.
  45. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    catman306,
    Am I misinterpreting this?
    Yes. See this post here.
    However, there is still no direct link between human activity and temperature.
    Wrong. See this post here. But the main fallacy you are committing is to assume that a link requires a simultaneous and exact parallel between CO2 increases and temperature increases. Two use an analogy, that's like arguing that the seasons don't cause the earth to cool, because it's hotter in the day than at night, and some weeks are warmer and some weeks are cooler. There's no obvious connection -- unless you look at things over a long enough period of time, and allow for variations due to other factors like weather fronts to move in and out.
    And that's assuming that the polar ice core measurements are true, despite the aforementioned argument that the displacement of water in ice makes the measured levels skewed.
    This is BS. Study the subject in more detail to understand the truth. So far, you act as if you believe in AGW ("Help! Can someone please straighten out this (possibly) local skeptic?") and yet what you do instead is to repeat a series of lame, flawed denial memes. The two approaches don't fit together. So which is it? Beyond that, you could learn more about all of this yourself, without the need for me or anyone else to direct you. This entire site is built on a database of denial lies (politely called "arguments") and clear, explanatory rebuttals. Use the links and the search boxes, and learn about this stuff yourself, before posting embarrassing nonsense. [P.S. If I sound ticked off, I am, because the "oh, I believe in AGW, but I have this skeptic friend, and what about..." approach to placing misleading comments is getting very, very tiring.]
  46. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    "You can't "win" with them. It's a bit maddening. It's like wrestling snakes, covered in butter, in a jello pit." I like that one, Sphaerica: unlike the one about a wildcat and a hot stick of butter, I *can* use yours in polite company...;)
  47. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    I think Hank is referring more to semantics than the specific case at hand; IPCC expresses itself w/what a lot of folks will see as diffident and inconclusive language. For the IPCC it's an asymmetry problem; the right way to say these things in science-speak inherently sounds a bit mushy to the lay public. In the hands of people w/bad faith the scientifically "right" way to describe research is potentially disastrous. IPCC absolutely must adopt the scientifically valid way to speak and so has an inherent weakness when it comes to idiotic "debates."
  48. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    John Russell, Yes. Now, if they correct the wording on the quoted section to make Rawl's confusion less likely, they'll scream that it's a conspiracy to hide the truth that was plainly stated in the draft. You can't "win" with them. No matter what is said, how or where, they will twist it. It's a bit maddening. It's like wrestling snakes, covered in butter, in a jello pit.
  49. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    It’s important that every time anyone in denial refers to this as ‘the leaked IPCC report’, or, ‘the leaked AR5’, they’re told very firmly that these are just drafts and that the real AR5 will not be available until September 2013. I completely agree that it’s best not to be cajoled into discussing the supposed content. Second: look out next September for those in denial looking for differences between these drafts and the published AR5, and trying to use them to show… well, anything really that diverts attention away from the fact that there’s even more evidence to indicate that the world is warming and it’s caused by humans.
  50. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Hank... Uncertainties and hedging is what science is all about. That is what happens at the cutting edge of knowledge. What is NOT uncertain is whether solar accounts for the warming of the past 50 years. It doesn't. No ifs ands or buts. Rawls just flatly misinterpreted what he read. ...Or more accurately, he selectively interpreted what he read, dismissing large passages and conclusions, in order to craft a conclusion he preferred. Confirmation bias at its finest.

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