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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 50851 to 50900:

  1. 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."
  2. 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".
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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?
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.

  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Tom @94...not THIS!?!?? >;-D
  16. 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)].
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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!
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. 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).
  25. 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
  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Re Smith's comments at 79, my response is essentially what Dana said @80. Additionally, Rawls agreed to the terms of the IPCC review process which excplicitly stated that reviewers should not share the content with the public, "The IPCC considers its draft reports, prior to acceptance, to be pre-decisional, provided in confidence to reviewers, and not for public distribution, quotation or citation." Rawls knowingly renaged on those terms for politcal/ideological gain, that much is clear, regardless of his claimsto the contrary. The real motivation for such unethical actions by fake skeptics is so transparent it is laughable. So only people playing "games" here are people like Rawls and those fake skeptics and those in denial about AGW who are openly endorsing, perpetuating and aiding his attempts to misrepresent the science, and that includes some people on this thread. But we have long learned to expect those kind of games from fake skeptics and those in denial about the theory of AGW ;)
  29. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    Johnb and Soundoff, The Scientific American article said that the CO2 emissions increased 3% last year, not atmospheric concentration. There is not a direct one to one correspondence, since not all CO2 entering the atmospher is anthropogenic.
  30. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr: I have read through your comments and it seems to me you are arguing something that is orthogonal to the point of the OP. I assume you think otherwise, so perhaps you can enlighten me. As far as I am aware, the IPCC draft report quite correctly notes that:
    There is very high confidence that natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing. [Emphasis mine.] In particular, over the past three decades (since 1980), robust evidence from satellite observations of the TSI [total solar irradiance] and volcanic aerosols demonstrate a near-zero (–0.04 W m–2) change in the natural forcing compared to the anthropogenic AF increase of ~1.0 ± 0.3 W m–2.
    (Note the 2-order-of-magnitude difference in forcings.) The paragraph that Rawls asserts is a game-changer does not contradict the above statement in any meaningful fashion:
    Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR [galactic cosmic rays] or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system [cites omitted]. 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.
    Despite this non-relation, Rawls is attempting to claim the latter paragraph undermines the former in some crucial respect. It is this transparent mendacity that dana1981 is addressing in the OP. Was it your intention to defend Rawls on his central point (that the unquantified cosmogenic effects on climate upend the quantified difference in anthropogenic vs natural forcings)? If you were in fact arguing something else entirely, can you please clarify?
  31. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    “Gee, it might not even be an amplification at all, but a separate forcing. There's just too much uncertainty ATM to say one way or the other”. brr, have you read Naomi Oreskes “Merchants of Doubt”? One things for sure, they keep on keeping on!
  32. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    No doubt about that from me.
  33. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    Nicolas @ 3, it depends on which convention is being used for that 43-135Gt, Gt of CO2, or Gt of the C alone. If the latter then an extra 1Gt per year would be more than 10% as much C as human emissions, so not so small an addition. The convention used needs to be clarified.
  34. New research from last week 50/2012
    The author of the classic paper this week is an obscure Irish physicist of the 19th century. But at the University I attended in the 1970s (then University College Galway, now National University of Ireland Galway, in Stoney's time Queens's College Galway), he was a legend. In 1891, Stoney predicted a unit of electric charge he called the electron and laid the theoretical groundwork for it's discovery 8 years later. JJ Thomson won a Nobel Prize for that feat. Stoney was the first to do soemthing that has been repeated since, most recently by Peter Higgs. It is little gems like that which make we appreciate Ari's weekly post, but I suppose I will have to do the source directly from now on!
  35. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Tom @74: I'm sorry, but did you actually read Dana's article? It is pretty specific that if it isn't GCR it isn't the sun. You even do it in your final sentence of the first paragraph of your reply, "and hence cannot explain the warming". Have you also read the 30 odd papers that Rawls has cited to support his position? I haven't read all, but the 5 I have read were pretty adamant that some other influence from the sun is required to account for the solar forcing deficit from TSI alone. Gee, it might not even be an amplification at all, but a separate forcing. There's just too much uncertainty ATM to say one way or the other.
  36. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Smith @79 - Wrong. Debunking Rawls' misinformation and misinterpretation of the IPCC text is not playing games. I'm not saying "well maybe this is what the IPCC really meant", I'm saying "here's what the IPCC text said and here's what the peer-reviewed literature says". SkS also did not support Gleick's actions in the Heartland affair, and we certainly did not take Heartland's statements out of context or put our own spin on their meaning.
  37. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @68 - But his is not true. You are most certainly playing the game. You have a post here about it, which was reprinted in the Guardian and you have participated the comment sections of both. You have in fact spend a great deal of time playing the game. Albatross @76 - How would you rate the ethics of Rawls leaking the document to the Peter Gleick affair. I seem to remember strong support for Gleick's "leak", why not the same in this instance?
  38. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    Thanks Soundoff, I got my 3% figure for this past year from the following article in Scientific American. Other publications have also picked up on it. I believe that previous years have shown similar being in a rising trend from 2.6%. Always happy to be corrected. Johnb http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-co2-emissions-from
  39. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @33... Actually there is a very high level of certainty that humans are the cause of the warming of the past 50 years. AR4 puts it at >90% certainty. The APS and AMS both state that it is "incontrovertible."
  40. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    @FDG #135: Dana has a very strict moral code. He will never shoot someone down who has already shot himself/herself in the foot.
  41. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    It seems to defeat the purpose if a press release and report can only be accessed by a username and password. Or am I missing something?
  42. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Composer99 @75, "Rawls is grasping at straws, plain and simple." Quite right Composer. As are those here (and elsewhere) who are trying so very hard to defend and justify his unethical actions, not to mention his twisting of the draft text. Same old nonsense and games from the fake skeptics.
  43. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    Hi, I have taken all comments to heart and taken a step further. Indeed if I use the Best data from Fig. 1 above, starting from the time period when their data is plotted as well as land based GISS, Hadcru, and NOAA and simply determine the best linear fit to log base 2 of the corresponding CO2 concentration ratio versus temperature increase, I get a c.s. of 3 degrees C as BEST states they get. Now I have also considered the recent data from Foster and Rahmsdorf through 2011, which had the AGW isolated by multiple regression against indexes for ENSO, solar, volcanoes and which has a best straight line through the data drawn by those authors. Applied to that same straight line this simple analysis yields climate sensitivity of 1.94 degrees C, and it stands to reason it would be less than for the land based data from that BEST graph. The Arctic data shows a larger over all delta T than either world or land based from Best, but the Arctic data has a pronounced wiggle to it that makes it impossible to approximate with a simple model, IMO. I wonder if anyone is trying a multiple regression analysis for the Arctic data such as Foster and Rahmsdorf did for the global data? Finally, I presume the quantity I get by doing this simple procedure is called the "transient" C.S?
  44. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    FGD135: There is no "game-changing" admission by the IPCC whatsoever. The sentence that Rawls is hung up on relates strictly to the relationship between solar activity and cosmogenic influence on climate. Unless the IPCC draft report goes on to upend the quantified forcings from AR4 and the rest of the literature, that influence is still orders of magnitude smaller compared to the anthropogenic forcings (greenhouse gases, land-use changes). Rawls is grasping at straws, plain and simple.
  45. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @67, neither Dana nor I have argued that, it if it is not cosmic rays, it is not the sun. Just as with the IPCC, you are putting words into our mouths. Dana has argued that even if a amplifying factor exists that amplifies the effects of TSI and no other forcing, that amplifying factor would have amplified the reduction in TSI in the later half of the twentieth century and hence cannot explain the warming in the later half of the twentieth century. I have argued something simpler still. My argument is that, if all you know about something is that "it is something else", then you know nothing at all and cannot exclude hypotheses on that basis. If all you know is that the purported amplifying factor is that there was one, you do not know that it will not equally amplify GHG forcings, or even that it will not preferentially amplify GHG forcings. Ergo you cannot presume that the amplifying factor will increase the strength of the solar forcing relative to the GHG forcing in the late twentieth century. This point is driven home by one (indeed, the best of) the three studies cited by the IPCC - Bond et al, (2001) - which connects ice rafting events with variations in solar activity as determined by cosmogenic nuclides. Interestingly they propose a mechanism for the variation - a feedback through changes in the thermohaline circulation. That mechanism is temperature driven, however. Consequently it will be more strongly effected by ghg forcing due to polar amplification than it is by solar forcing. The only reason the Holocene record ties it to solar forcing is that GHG forcing was more or less constant over that period. So, what evidence have you or Rawls presented that the "something else" is not this, or some other mechanism that equally amplifies GHG forcings? None, of course. Rather you have simply used ignorance as an argument. What is more, you do not even know that the purported amplification is real. As with Rawls, you simply neglect the meaning of "seems". A second study cited by the IPCC - Dengel et al (2009) - illustrates this. They find a correlation between growth of trees and cosmic rays in the period 1961-2005 in the northern British Isles. Of course, as the IPCC mentions, a correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover has also been found in the British Isles, but not elsewhere. That fact shoots down the cosmic ray connection. The physical laws are the same everywhere - and if cosmic rays do not significantly seed clouds elsewhere, the cloud cover correlation in the British Isles was just a coincidence. However, a correlation between cloud cover and growth in trees is unlikely to be merely coincidental. So it appears that Dengel has merely found further evidence of the coincidental correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover in the British Isles. The simple fact is that all you can say from the IPCC statement is that: 1) There seems to be evidence of a factor amplifying solar forcing; but 2) The only proposed mechanism of that amplification is not responsible for it. From that it follows only that, either the apparent amplification was not real, or some unknown factor with unknown effects on other forcings has amplified solar forcings in the past.
  46. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    And I respectfully suggest from you Dana (and others) that you may want to leave those who want to live in an alternate universe to themselves until they wake up by themselves. You have to understand ... their dream is just sooo goooood ...
  47. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @68, You are already playing games - pretending Rawls' sentence is "poorly formed" and pretending not to comprehend brr's question. Just what is "poorly formed" about this sentence from Rawls: "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." Note the word "an". This word means that the amplifying mechanism could be ANYTHING, with GCR just one possibility. You went to some length to shoot down GCRs, but that was missing the point of Rawls' essay. Rawls' point was that the chapter 7 admissions are a game-changer. Can you please have another go at shooting him down? I respectfully suggest you missed on your first go. Thanks.
  48. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    It occurs to me that the Galactic Coincidence part of this theory that asserts that the changes in the GCR and Solar activity that allow the timing of warming to so perfectly coincided with our release of CO2 as to cause us to be fooled about the cause of our warming, needs to be pointed out too. The odds of this actually are, particularly given that there isn't any change to speak of in the solar activity or the GCRs in the relevant time frames, quite small. This whole business is complete rubbish. Rawls needs to be taken behind the woodshed for his part, and the rest of the mob at Watts has completely lost what little mind they were possessed of. There is no convincing ideologues though. Not ever.
  49. Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
    [repeated snips]
    Moderator Response: [RH] I've deleted several posts here for off-topic and accusations of deception. If you wish to contribute to the conversation please first review the comment policies so that your voice can be heard.
  50. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Senator Whitehouse exposes the deniers in the US congress factual terms- Pollution? Its not a problem- all we need to do is go back to the Gilded Ages- AGW? Something the Scientific elite want to do in order to redistribute wealth. That the climate this very moment in rainy Connecticut this dark morning has reached the point of no return (the same globally) Avoiding 2 degrees above the PI level- now is not possible. To many this concept seems unimportant.

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