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SeaHuck5891 at 11:23 AM on 14 November 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #45
Thanks KR. -
2012 SkS Weekly Digest #45
SeaHuck5891 - There's some discussion on one of the recent RealClimate.org open threads: search for Svensmark. It's essentially a repeat on an old idea, that passing through the arms of the Milky Way exposes Earth to more supernovae and radiation; a notion that (a) has little evidence, (b) requires both a lot of modeling and very high (and also unsupported) sensitivity to cosmic rays, and (c) absolutely zero to do with recent climate change, as we don't have a galactic arm transit coincident with the last 50 years of warming.Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed text and link. -
Riduna at 10:39 AM on 14 November 2012Book review: Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact by Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia
We all know that average global sea level rise primarily results from melting of land based ice and thermal expansion of seawater. We also know that land based ice is melting at an accelerating rate, now indicating that ice mass loss is more than doubling per decade. Given this knowledge, it is surprising how many people cling to the notions that sea level rise is linear and that IPCC predictions of a 1 metre rise in average sea level by 2100 remain valid expectations. Nothing could be further from the truth, particularly in light of persistent failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Anyone with basic mathematics can easily calculate that if decadal doubling in the loss of land based ice occurs for the rest of this century, the effect on sea level will not be significant until about 2060. So for the next 40 years, no need to panic. We can all remain complacent – provided we don’t bother to look at what is likely to happen in the period 2060-2100. In that period, we can expect average sea level to rise, not by 3 feet but by around 4 metres – and sea level is not going to stop rising post 2100. It is simply not possible to “adapt” or take action to protect coastal cities or fertile, food producing flood plains and river deltas from rapid sea level rise likely to occur in the latter part of this century. Nor should we assume as does Mr Micawber that “something will turn up”. It won’t, certainly not unless we stop the loss of land based ice. Some “optimists” may argue that the present rate of ice loss will not show decadal doubling for the rest of this century and that present accelerating rates of loss are anomalous. In reality there is not a shred of evidence to support such an argument. Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, indeed accelerating because of increasing loss of albedo and emission of CH4 and CO2 particularly in the Arctic. Global surface temperature continues to rise and is doing so at an accelerating rate. And the incidence of severe climate events are increasing. -
SeaHuck5891 at 10:28 AM on 14 November 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #45
Can anyone point me in the direction of a summary/critique of this paper?: ftp://ftp2.space.dtu.dk/pub/Svensmark/MNRAS_Svensmark2012.pdf -
Tom Curtis at 09:06 AM on 14 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
M Tucker @8, we are currently increasing atmospheric CO2 at an average rate around 2 ppmv. If we reduce that rate by 2.6% per annum (necessary to reduce the emissions to zero by 2050), we will increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to about 430 ppmv. Of course, if we do not start making significant reductions, we will overshoot the 450 ppmv mark well before 2050. The oceans do in fact absorb less as they warm, but so far the difference is small. Indeed, currently a greater fraction of human emissions are absorbed than in the early twentieth century, presumably because the increased absorption due to imbalanced partial pressures of CO2 has exceeded the reduction in absorption due to a warming ocean. Consequently, this effect is unlikely to represent a tipping point between now and 2050. The increased outgassing from tundra and marine clathrates is a different and more concerning problem. Currently, however, the emissions are small compared to human emissions and we can hope that they remain that way if we keep temperatures under 2 C. -
M Tucker at 08:01 AM on 14 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
Tom Curtis @6, thanks for your response. If I am not mistaken we are increasing atmospheric CO2 at a rate of between 2 to 3 ppmv per year. What is the rate CO2 is taken up by the oceans? Given the response the world has show to even slow CO2 emissions, I’m thinking we will reach 450 before 2050. I’m also thinking the oceans and the atmosphere will continue to warm as we go forward. Warmer oceans means less CO2 will go into solution. In fact some scientists have said the oceans are even now absorbing less. So, now taking an optimistic pov, I wonder how much do we need to reduce emissions by in order to keep CO2 below 450 by 2050? And I am aware that we cannot just cut emissions while we continue to cut down the forests. We must take the forests into account with the bookkeeping. Now, going back to my natural pessimistic state, since we have already seen an alarming amount of ice melting with much less than 2 degrees of warming, I wonder what we will see as we approach the magic 2 degree number? I wonder how much more will the desert climate zones expand? I wonder how much more extreme will the already extreme weather events become? That said Tom, I sure hope we are able to at least keep the warming at or below 2 degrees regardless of what sort of climate change results from that. I sure hope someone has found the temperature brake and is keep their hand on it. -
ranyl at 07:26 AM on 14 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
Even with the optimistic CS of 3C and dated models that excessively draw down CO2 (so hide warming), 450ppm still only gives a 50:50 chance of avoiding 2C or a 50:50 chance of being just about below 2C (>95% being above 1.8C), and a 50:50 chance of being above above as well with a much larger tale so 3-4C easily possible. Now with a CS higher than 3C and well 450ppm means no chance at all of avoiding 2C and lets face it 1.5C is looking mighty scarey considering what is already occuring, Arctic sea ice, total changes in weather patterns and weather extremes weekly, and so on and so on. And in my previous post, my ECS was the 100 year as it was 60% of the total warming, (Hansen more recently estimated 80% so my estimates are optimistic), and thus why 350ppm gives 1.8C to 3C, and 350ppm is the most realistic estimate not 390-400ppm and 3-5C is the most reasonable estimates from most proxies for the Pliocene, (deep water tropical give 2-4C as per Hansen), but even that is no comfort as CO2 in the early Pliocene was still 350ppm and thus 20-25m sea level rise, no ice NH and a totally different climatic system in terms of tropcial boundaries etc....and look at what weather we are getting already! We have a carbon debt not a budget and that needs facing up to and asap. And don't forget the mass extinction human activities has also induced which is accelerating as well. Just pointing it all out. 450ppm for me even at 50:50 optimistic estimates is far to much risk considering the stakes, indeed 1.5C seems like an amount that is going to push the adaptive capacity of the human civilzation (e.g. New York would have to be moved for sure). Also the ascertions about the albedo changes taking eons are more hope than reality. I would suggest people read the meltfactor blog, consider the very large size of the Arcitc ocean and the very high summer insolation levels, consider the rapid loss of snow cover in occuring also, consider the rapidly changing albedo on Greenland due to surface water, and so on...and also consider that the alebedo shift from now to the Pliocene was basically just the Greenalnd Ice sheet and seasonal ice covers of snow and ice, not the large ice sheets of the last ice age. I agree we must act now, but also we have to accept we have a carbon debt not a budget. -
Tom Curtis at 06:03 AM on 14 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
M Tucker @5, the temperatures and sea levels of the Pliocene represent the Earth System Climate Sensitivity, ie, the temperature response to forcing after all glaciers and ice sheets have reached equilibrium, and any changes to vegetation have also reached equilibrium. It is some consolation that the Charney (Equilibrium) Climate Sensitivity is between one and two thirds of the Earth System Response. The Charney Climate Sensitivity is the response after all rapid feedbacks (clouds, snow cover, water vapour etc) have reached equilibrium, but without changes to the albedo from the melt back of ice sheets or changes in land cover, and represents a good estimate of the near term (100-200 years) climate response to a change of forcing. The reason this is significant is that a large part of the additional CO2 added to the atmosphere by humans is drawn down into the ocean over a time scale of 200 hundred years. If we keep CO2 concentrations below 450 ppmv by 2050, and effectively cease all emissions thereafter, by 2250 CO2 concentrations will reduce to about 325 ppmv. After that it takes thousands of years for additional reductions in CO2, so we will face the full Earth System Response to the 325 ppmv; but only the Transient Climate Response (approx two thirds of the Charney Response) or the Charney (Equilibrium) Response at worst, to the full 450 ppmv. The upshot is that keeping the temperature increase below 2 degrees C is still a viable target, but we must act now. This is the time for urgency, not despair. -
M Tucker at 05:37 AM on 14 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
First I want to say that the following is a product of my extreme pessimism and I want any who read this to know that I think we need to keep improving models and I applaud what Trenberth and others are doing and I expect them to keep it up… "...past climate changes thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of years ago." That is what influences me. That is what I think about when I ponder what the future holds. Models are really important but they will always be an approximation of the real world. With better computers and better models we will get better predictions from the models. Climate changes thousand or tens of thousands of years ago are not in our league. In the past 800,000 years CO2 levels did not get much above 300 ppmv. Now about 3 million years ago, during the mid-Pliocene, CO2 was in our league. It was in the range of what we are currently at, about 390 to 400 ppmv. At equilibrium, the climate was about 2 to 3 degrees warmer and sea level was 35 meters higher than today. At that time the continents were in the same basic relative positions as today and ocean currents were mostly as today. That period of time has been extensively studied over the past 30 years or so with climate change in mind and the interpretation is solid. (I see that ranyl just mentioned the Pliocene warming. It is good to know that the information is out there so others can be informed) So, for me, all this talk about limiting warming to 2 degrees, or limiting sea level rise, or stopping the glaciers and ice sheets from melting, is all a bunch of fantasy arm-waving bureaucratic BS. The longer we wait to do anything the worse we can expect the outcome to be but we have already ensured a very bad outcome. We have the International Energy Agency making statements like: "No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2 °C goal” Good luck with the magical temperature brake bureaucratic hogwash. Good luck with all the “we can prevent catastrophe” rah rah cheerleading. Since we are really doing nothing and since the best we can hope for is some sort of inadequate slowing of emission, not ending them, atmospheric concentrations will just keep rising. Sure, some sort of unforeseen process to take CO2 out of the atmosphere may come along but all I can think of when I hear that is: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. -
ranyl at 04:31 AM on 14 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
Early Pliocene: ~350ppm from range of papers. 3-5C hotter from general range of estimates. ECS for 100 years presuming all feedbacks being equal over the milenia time scales the earth has cooled 3-5C, for a 70ppm /175 ppm = 0.4 of a halving, therefore a halving produces ~7.5C cooling, ~60% occurs in a hundred years, so that is 4.5C in a 100 years, or a 100 year ECS of 4.5C at the lower estimates. So not really a great surprise that the CS is higher than thought and might also explain why the models have underestimating, melt, tropical expansion, extremes and so on. And also the permafrost melt is going to release lots fo CO2 for sure now as well. 350ppm, we are at 395ppm. What is the carbon budget? or How much more carbon is anyone prepared to spend? -
Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Adding to Sphaerica's comment: Frequent errors in these discussions are attempts to argue back from analogies. Analogies are useful "forward" explanations - complex system A is (in part) analogous to a more familiar system B (to portions thereof), and if your listener has context on B that can be useful in explaining relationships in A as "like" those in B. Energy balance in the climate is like a dam in a river, or the radiative greenhouse effect is like a blanket, for example. But those analogies cannot be used for "backward" testing, as there are portions of the complex system A that are not mapped in B, and portions of B that have no corresponding element in A - and assuming that the mapping is 1:1 is an error. Hence arguments such as from motorcycle shops to lunar regolith, or for that matter many of the "2nd law" or "Slayers" objections to the greenhouse effect, are simply meaningless nonsense, handwaving. An analogy is a useful explanation. But testing theories about complex systems needs to be done in those frameworks, using numbers, using math, with the actual relationships - not in a partially mapped analogy that is not the system in question. -
Composer99 at 02:41 AM on 14 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Further to Sphaerica's comment, I might add that if, like me, you don't have the skill set to do the maths yourself, link to someone who does. -
mbayer at 01:49 AM on 14 November 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #45
In the cartoon, it should be "this neither" (instead of "this either"). -
Bob Lacatena at 23:39 PM on 13 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
To any casual reader who wanders by and reads Rosco's approach to science... This exemplifies why it is important to do the math, and to actually quantify the effects in question. It is very easy to "consider" and to do "thought experiments." With a wave of the hand, the dark side of the moon has 720 hours to cool and look, a sweltering motorcycle shop needs fans. It's so easy when you do everything by analogy, with none of that highfalutin mathematics and calculations and fancy numbers to get in the way. Don't do science by thought experiment and "obvious" conclusions. Run the numbers. All of them, not just the ones that conveniently seem to demonstrate the point that you'd dearly love to be true. -
Kevin C at 20:16 PM on 13 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
Some further details on AMO+MEI vs SST+MEI. In order to test the robustness of my results I tried rerunning the calculation with truncated data, using a whole range of start dates. The method gives good discrimination between the two models, favoring the SST model, for dates before 1880, and from 1900 to 1940. For 1880 and 1950, the results are more marginally in favor of AMO. These date ranges are similar to the date ranges showing no significant trend. In retrospect this is not unreasonable. That was a surprise: I had assumed on the basis of the p-value that the results would be more robust. My current thoughts: 1. p-value may be misleading for low values of R2. If this is the case, then presumably if I can find the appropriate statistical test for this kind of comparison then it will show that the models are similar. 2. The data violates OLS assumptions - certainly true. ACE appears to be nonlinear and the errors don't look normally distributed. Tamino could no doubt answer some of these straight off. A few other details: Best results seem to involve using AMO from Apr/May/Jun and MEI from Jul-Dec. R2 may be improved by using sqrt(ACE) rather than ACE. Best R2 I can get is about 0.4. Where does that leave us? Well, while the data doesn't favor SSTs over AMO, neither does it favor AMO over SSTs. So on the basis of the data alone we don't know which is better. On the other hand, we do have prior knowledge from meteorology. Finer scaled weather models and empirical studies both link hurricanes to SSTs, so I am a little surprised that the climate literature didn't link them to SSTs rather than AMO in the first place. Does anyone know how this came about? -
Tristan at 18:01 PM on 13 November 2012It's aerosols
If you add the confidence intervals for the radiative forcing due to aerosols presented in the 4AR, you get approximately {-2.5,-0.5}W m^-2. This seems to account for the majority of the uncertainty of the total RF. To what extent has the aerosol uncertainty reduced since 2006/7? -
Kevin C at 17:48 PM on 13 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
chriskoz: The two results are pretty much independent - indeed now you have raised it, I think that adjustment of the Hansen'88 results on the basis of ECS is probably invalid. Over decadal timescales, climate response is represented by transient response (TCR), not ECS, and assuming the two covary is not necessarily warranted. Indeed Hansen & Sato (2011) speculates that TCR in models may be a bit off because the rate of ocean overturning is underestimated. AR4 finds signficiantly different TCR from pure physics models (~1.6) and empirically adjusted models (~2.2). (This is all from memory, I may have some of the details wrong). So Hansen'88 is dependent on TCR, whereas FS12 is classifying models by ECS. It would be really interesting to reclassify the models by TCR and see if the result is the same. It would also be really interesting to revisit the Hansen'88 discussion looking at the TCR of Hansen's '88 model. I don't know if they were reporting TCR at the time, however if someone has the forcings and the temperature projections for each scenario I could make a good estimate. It's a lot of work for a purely historical question though - given all the exciting current problems to work on I can't get very excited about it. -
JasonB at 17:10 PM on 13 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
Tom Curtis @ 45:Pielke's normalization procedure handles the extra expense in sea walls, hurricane proof construction etc in an obtuse way. By increasing current building costs, and hence current estimated wealth per capita, these defensive measures will inflate the normalized costs of damages done by earlier hurricanes.
On the face of it that seems absurd — a major modern hurricane that causes widespread adoption of new and much more expensive construction standards will not have those additional costs added onto it's economic losses or even those of future hurricanes whose actual losses are reduced because of those investments but will instead make earlier hurricanes suddenly seem to be more damaging relative to the modern hurricane! But looking deeper, if you want to ask the question "What economic losses would we experience today if that particular historical hurricane were to hit now instead of 1923 (or whenever)?" then the logic behind it starts to make some sort of sense. But only briefly, because the raw loss data for the historical hurricanes were related to the actual construction standards employed at the time. In other words, you can't simply take the actual economic losses of an historic hurricane, multiply them by a correction factor to account for higher costs, and expect to get a good estimate of the economic losses were that same hurricane to hit today. Why? Because modern construction standards actually work. I have lived through many tropical cyclones in a region prone to them. Due to their regularity and severity (the worst I experienced — and the only one I can think of where the eye passed directly over us — had 240 km/h winds and a central pressure of 915 mbar/hPa) buildings were naturally built to stand them and damage is often minimal and loss of life rare. An historic cyclone that might have caused significant damage and loss of life in the early days would barely make a dent now. Yet "correcting" the historical cyclones economic losses to take into account modern construction costs would give exactly the opposite impression! This report on building damage in Goldsworthy and Port Hedland following Amy (which I referred to above) and Dean in 1980 is actually quite an interesting assessment of the effect of improved building standards that confirms my own experience. This whole exercise seems fraught with problems and a terribly indirect way to say what the consequences of global warming will be. I think "events" is a much simpler and more meaningful quantitiy to get a handle on than "normalised losses". Once a trend in "events" has been determined — magnitude and/or frequency — then you can try to figure out what the economic impacts will be going forward. After all, if New York was to experience Sandy-like events every few years, that would massively add to the costs of future construction and those additional costs should certainly be sheeted home to global warming if global warming was the reason for NY experiencing Sandy-like events every few years. Instead, Pielke's normalisation method would keep making the historic storms seem more and more expensive as more and more expensive construction techniques were employed, allowing him to continually claim there is no trend in normalised losses! -
chriskoz at 16:37 PM on 13 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
The result of this study is indeed pessimistic if it concludes ECS > 3K However, Hansen 1988 was using ECS 4.2K, and it was shown to have overestimated the amount of current warming (Hansen's scenario B which turned out to be on track so far). Lesson learned from Hansen 1988 is: ECS should be 3.0K for his 1988 model to be spot on. Details were discussed here So, in the end, I'm not convinced that FS12 results are robust and bad news are inevitable. How do you reconcile FS12 with Hansen 1988? -
Bernard J. at 12:30 PM on 13 November 2012Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
Grim reading indeed. I've always hoped that sensitivity would converge at a value no higher than 3 C, although my guts have always thought that it would be higher. FS12 seems to imply that it could be appreciably higher than 3 C which, combined with the almost complete lack of action to date in addressing carbon emissions, bodes ill for our children and the biosphere in which they will live - such as that 'living' will be. I've said as much before and I'll say it again - an emergency response to AR5 is our last chance, else all our subsequent activities will simply be as aimless as Deck-chair Thimblerig on the Titanic. -
Philippe Chantreau at 10:31 AM on 13 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Well, Rosco, (-snip-). There is plenty of information available on the subject, from NASA and other sources, with which you are obviously not familiar. I will not bother linking anything because, if you have any sincerity, you will find it quite easily, no help needed. Your argument is not well constructed, it is a delirious case of Dunning-Krueger effect. The fact that you feel that you can come here and lecture not only on planetary science but also on moral principles is laughable. The kicker was putting together the idea of a well thought out argument and that of a square planet. Thanks for the entertainment. (-snip-).Moderator Response: [DB] References to deleted comments snipped by request. -
Rosco at 09:28 AM on 13 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
As an interesting thought experiment - would a cubic blackbody have a different temperature to a spherical one ?Moderator Response: [DB] Please note that Rosco has recused himself from further participation in this venue (essentially a meltdown/temper tantrum). -
Kevin C at 06:57 AM on 13 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
Brief update on my analysis at #70 and #71: Despite the convincingness of the p-values, the method fails on the robustness tests I've been performing. Results should be treated with extreme caution. More tomorrow. -
littlerobbergirl at 05:56 AM on 13 November 2012About New research from last week series
I'm glad to see another 'lurker' was brave enough to 'de-lurk' to support you - for every poster there are 100s of readers :) -
IanC at 04:42 AM on 13 November 2012New research from last week 45/2012
Mark, The Stephen et al. paper is basically an update to the global energy budget (e.g. Trenberth et al.), in light of newly available new satellite measurements. The main changes occur in the surface budget instead of the top of atmosphere (TOA) budget. The biggest change is an increase in the estimation of downwelling long wave radiation (a.k.a. back radiation), over previous estimation given by Trenberth. The reason given by Stephen et al. is that the Trenberth estimation is largely based on reanalysis models that have a known lack of low clouds. It should be noted that Stephen et al. compared the measurement to the current CMIP5 models, and they are in fact reasonable agreement (given the large uncertainty). As pointed out by Gavin Schmidt on realclimate, the Stephen et al. paper in fact brings the estimation of longwave radiation closer to the current generation of climate models. The main point, I think, is that the Stephen et al. paper is in no way contradictory to our current understanding of climate, nor does it fundamentally change any of our current understandings. -
Lanfear at 02:51 AM on 13 November 2012Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
Tom Curtis@63 "Never-the-less, I think you need to support your claim a bit better." No strong evidence, only my own perception of that the actual problem that the engine-engineer have been trying to solve is (as you also note) the even distribution of the fuel with the intake air. Incidently (if the linked Wikipage is accurate), the O2-level of the diesel exhaust would indicate that the issue is not asmuch O2, rather some other factor. OTOH there is not any O2 in the gasoline(petrol) exhaust, but a sizeable amount of CO which could be the result of too rich mixture resulting in O2 'starvation' and incomplete oxifidation of the carbon, or reversely, not enough O2. Hmm... if only Vroomie had done some exhaust analysis on his Suburban in the different configurations, then his example would not be up for speculation. Regarding the rockets, I still am of the view that they are apples, since sincam's original claim included a possible design with high efficiency and zero emission (carbonwise I presume). Hence the rocket (in any form my limited imagination can procure) is out of the question since it does in effect rely on having the combustion gases immediately expelled to the environment as a mean of propulsion. His reference to rockets is thus an irrelevant distraction. -
Mark Harrigan at 02:25 AM on 13 November 2012New research from last week 45/2012
Hi Ari - have you, or anyone, carried out an analysis on this paper from Late September in Nature Geoscience? An update on Earth's energy balance in light of the latest global observations The abstract says, in part "In light of compilations of up-to-date surface and satellite data, the surface energy balance needs to be revised. Specifically, the longwave radiation received at the surface is estimated to be significantly larger, by between 10 and 17 Wm−2, than earlier model-based estimates. Moreover, the latest satellite observations of global precipitation indicate that more precipitation is generated than previously thought. This additional precipitation is sustained by more energy leaving the surface by evaporation — that is, in the form of latent heat flux — and thereby offsets much of the increase in longwave flux to the surface." I have scanned on here and can see any reference to it. I also can't get behind the paywall to read the actual paper but a number of "sceptic" sites are claiming that it is a serious blow for AGW and associated models. I'd like to be able to read it and reach my own conclusions on that but would also really appreciate some of the more expert posters on this site and their views if they have read it? -
Kevin C at 23:09 PM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
JRT: I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't think I understand your question. None of the ACE analysis we've been doing in the comments or the figure in the article includes Sandy since the current ACE data only runs to 2011. Apart form that, for Sandy to become a post-tropical cyclone (as opposed to a mid-latitude formed extratropical cyclone) it had to first be a tropical cyclone. The frequency of formation of tropical cyclones is therefore a relevant factor (although not the only one) in the chances of a Sandy-like event recurring. If that's not what you were asking, please feel free to clarify. -
Tom Curtis at 21:55 PM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Michael Sweet @91, if no heat was stored in the Moon's regolith, temperatures would fall to 2.7 degrees K at night, that being the temperature of the cosmic background radiation. The near constant night time temperature contrasts sharply with the presumed behaviour of a "simple black body". (Of course, there is nothing in the nature of black bodies per se from retaining heat, and therefore not instantaneously matching incoming radiation with outgoing radiation with the same power.) As a matter of interest, I have googled Roscoe's quote and found it on several denier documents without citation. Therefore, the attribution of the quote to NASA must be considered suspect until the source of the quote is cited and linked to. -
michael sweet at 21:21 PM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Roscoe, I see no conflict between your quote from NASA and the article. According to you, the article states "the temperature drops almost immediately, and plunges in several hours down to minus 110 degrees C". NASA says "in contrast with a precipitous drop in temperature if it was a simple black body, the regolith then proceeds to transport the stored heat back onto the surface, thus warming it up significantly over the black body approximation" A black body would drop to -110C almost immediately. If it takes "several hours" as the article says, that is "significant warming" as NASA says. The problem is you are reading the articles incorrectly. Perhaps you should read the article again to clarify the data. Just because you do not understand the data does not mean everyone else does not understand it also.Moderator Response: [DB] All parties please note: Rosco's Moon comparison has been previously rebutted, most recently here. As such, it is to be treated as sloganeering and subject to moderation. -
Ari Jokimäki at 21:11 PM on 12 November 2012About New research from last week series
Thank you for the interest! :) -
JRT256 at 21:09 PM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
I was wondering why you are treating Sandy as though it was just a hurricane. IIUC from NOAA/NASA, the category 1 hurricane Sandy never actually made landfall but became a extratropical cyclone (which did) after it merged with a large cold front. -
Tom Curtis at 21:07 PM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
emperical_bayes @72, the PDF of the paper is here. The data for the paper can be downloaded in Excel format here. -
Brosz at 19:35 PM on 12 November 2012Climate of Doubt Strategy #1: Deny the Consensus
First time reader here. Very informative. Thanks. BTW CBS Sunday Morning did a cover story yesterday that showed climate is real, is human caused, and there is scientific consensus regard that. http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsis.rbml?pageType=sundaymorning&catid=57548138&feed_id=35 I am encouraged that the media, starting with Frontline is starting to find the courage to address this. GWB -
empirical_bayes at 15:27 PM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
@BWTrainer, I'd say your characterization of Piekle is a "reverse ad hominem". In fact, the only way Pielke Jr is "clever" is in his crafting an argument out of the shards of denialism that remain which are likely to obfuscate, confuse, and distort the true argument. I have seen this in person at conferences featuring many TV meteorologists as well. I wonder why Pielke appears to be the "house favorite" of the WSJ, but don't expect a forthright answer from anyone. I'd also say that Pielke's study (anyone have a free, direct link to it?), as near as I can tell, neglects to compensate for the clear positive correlation between economic and population growth and storms damage and losses, even without any mechanism in mind. One could as readily drive the hypothesis into Pielke's view of the world which says that the increased economic and population growth are directly causing the losses, even if we know better because of lags and other interactions. The point is, if his analysis cannot differentiate between these two modes, what real good is it? -
Doug Bostrom at 14:53 PM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Rosco, what happens at the top of the atmosphere-- where convection ends? Also, you need to do some research on why the ISS employs radiators. Start with something simple, like the Apollo spacecraft. Try here: history.nasa.gov. -
Tom Curtis at 14:14 PM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Rosco, the mean surface temperature of the Moon at the equator is approximately 206 degrees Kelvin. For comparison, the mean daily temperature in August (the coldest month) at Vostok Station (the coldest place on Earth)is 205 degrees Kelvin. In other words, the means surface temperature of the hottest location on the Moon is the same as the mean surface temperature of the coldest location on Earth when it is at its coldest. The mean annual temperature at Vostok Station is actually just over 10 degrees K warmer than the mean annual temperature of the Moon at the equator. As it happens, the Moon has a lower albedo than the Earth, so all else being equal, it should be warmer than the Earth, yet it is colder. Can you explain how your theory that the Earth's atmosphere cools the Earth is compatible with these facts? -
Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Rosco - Your comments here are interesting, but perhaps not in the fashion you intended. Rather, they show what errors occur when you don't take all factors into account. Convection and latent heat indeed cool the earth, pushing heat into the upper atmosphere where it can be radiated. If the atmosphere lacked convection, we could readily expect temperatures perhaps another 40-45°C warmer than currently exist. We are indeed fortunate that convection exists, that atmospheres become unstable and convect with warming, that evaporative processes move energy away from the surface. But without the greenhouse effect (in a Gedankenexperiment consideration, as certainly other things would change with such a physical modification), without significant radiation from high in the cold atmosphere rather than the warmer surface, the Earth would be ~33°C colder than current temperatures, on the order of -16°C to -18°C. Heating and cooling of the lunar regolith are indeed factors in the moon's average temperature. But that average is quite a bit cooler than the Earth's temperature (in fact, if the Moon had an equivalent atmosphere, it would be warmer, as the albedo of the Earth is rather higher - 0.3 as opposed to the Moon's 0.12). If you take all of these factors into account, rather than focusing on a single factoid (defined as a piece of information smaller than a useful fact), the radiative greenhouse effect has just the influence predicted by the physics of spectroscopic absorption, emission, and the atmospheric lapse rate. And that's ~33°C warmer than we would be without the greenhouse effect if that was the only change. -
Rosco at 12:34 PM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
doug_bostrom - it is not my analysis - I have quoted NASA. (-snip-).Moderator Response: [DB] All parties please note: Rosco's Moon comparison has been previously rebutted, most recently here. As such, it is to be treated as sloganeering and subject to moderation/snipping. -
threadShredder at 12:11 PM on 12 November 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #45
Is anybody else having trouble with the RSS feed on SkS? I keep getting: The address (http://www.skepticalscience.com/feed.xml) does not point to a valid HTML or XML page. "An error occurred while parsing EntityName. Line 83. Position 52. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:53 AM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
Rosco, your remark is unlikely to be deleted and your enjoyment will probably be brief. :-) Starting with: based on Rosco's analysis, may we conclude that Earth's moon has an atmosphere comprised of regolith? -
Rosco at 11:23 AM on 12 November 2012Greenhouse effect has been falsified
There is a basic flaw in the paragraph Empirical Evidence for the Greenhouse Effect We only have to look to our moon for evidence of what the Earth might be like without an atmosphere that sustained the greenhouse effect. While the moon’s surface reaches 130 degrees C in direct sunlight at the equator (266 degrees F), when the sun ‘goes down’ on the moon, the temperature drops almost immediately, and plunges in several hours down to minus 110 degrees C (-166F). The flaw is that the cooling rate on the Moon is significantly slower than your article suggests and even NASA state :- “During lunar day, the lunar regolith absorbs the radiation from the sun and transports it inward and is stored in a layer approximately 50cm thick. As the moon passes into night, the radiation from the sun quickly approaches zero (there is still a bit of radiation from the earth) and, in contrast with a precipitous drop in temperature if it was a simple black body, the regolith then proceeds to transport the stored heat back onto the surface, thus warming it up significantly over the black body approximation.” Contrast this with the fact that Earth's atmosphere obviously reduces the heating "power" during the day and you have empirical evidence that atmospheres reduce surface heating of planets - not the reverse.I expect this comment to be deleted but it was enjoyable posting it. (-snip-).Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped; moderation complaints struck out.
All parties please note: Rosco's Moon comparison has been previously rebutted, most recently here. As such, it is to be treated as sloganeering and subject to moderation.
-
Alpinist at 10:33 AM on 12 November 2012Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
[snip]Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Inflamatory snipped. Please keep the discussion strictly to the science. Name calling (whether justified or not) detracts from the argument being made, and hence is best avoided. -
Riduna at 10:10 AM on 12 November 2012Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
PBS in general and Frontline in particular have a question to answer: Why is it in the public interest to provide a platform to people like Singer who deny basic science for financial gain funded by those who produce and use fossil fuels? -
piet.zijlstra at 08:09 AM on 12 November 2012About New research from last week series
Dear Ari, Yes I am a regular reader too and I also cannot respond. I am studying climate science for only one year now. (after retiring Thanks for your effort! Sincerely yours, Pieter -
Kevin C at 07:32 AM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
Here's an idea: I added a trend term to both regressions. They will now both give identical results, since the only difference between AMO and sea temp is the detrending term. However, the values of the trends will tell us something. Here are the stats on the trend term using AMO: TREND 0.24495 0.09866 2.483 0.0143 * And here's what you get using temps: TREND -0.1346 0.1138 -1.182 0.239 The additional trend that has to be added to fit ACE using AMO is different from zero by about 2.5 sigma - that's significant at the 95% confidence level. So there is a statistically significant trend over and above what is predicted by AMO+ENSO. When using temperatures, the additional trend is only 1.2 sigma (in the opposite direction). The ACE trend is slightly less than would be expected from temps+ENSO, but the difference is not statistically significant. Sea temperature certainly seems to play the dominant role. Whether there is an AMO component over and above the temperature component is inconclusive. -
Kevin C at 07:19 AM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
Brian B: I had noticed the same thing - that the trends are dependent on the point in the AMO cycle. So I've spent the last couple of days looking at more sophisticated analyses. The literature is clear on the link between both AMO and ACE, and ENSO and ACE. We can examine this in detail. I ran a multivariate regression of AMO and MEI (using the extended MEI which runs back to 1872, supplemented by the normal MEI from 1950). Here are the stats:Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 93.613 3.985 23.491 < 2e-16 *** AMO 150.013 21.829 6.872 2.04e-10 *** MEI -20.963 5.294 -3.960 0.00012 *** --- Signif. codes: 0 - *** - 0.001 - ** - 0.01 - * - 0.05 - . - 0.1 - - 1 Residual standard error: 47.03 on 137 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.2932, Adjusted R-squared: 0.2829 F-statistic: 28.42 on 2 and 137 DF, p-value: 4.73e-11As expected, ACE is positively correlated with AMO and negatively with MEI. The coefficients are also highly significant. Now, AMO is simple detrended Atlantic temperature. The interesting question is whether hurricanes are actually influenced by AMO, or by temperature. So I took the raw temperature data before detrending and used it in place of AMO. Here's what I got:Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 95.552 3.937 24.270 < 2e-16 *** AMO_temp 136.179 18.597 7.322 1.88e-11 *** MEI -24.318 5.276 -4.609 9.18e-06 *** --- Signif. codes: 0 - *** - 0.001 - ** - 0.01 - * - 0.05 - . - 0.1 - - 1 Residual standard error: 46.24 on 137 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.317, Adjusted R-squared: 0.307 F-statistic: 31.79 on 2 and 137 DF, p-value: 4.571e-12Now that's interesting! The fit against temperatures is rather better. Temperature+ENSO is a better predictor of ACE than AMO+ENSO. Is the difference statistically significant? As a crude measure, the difference in log likelihood suggests the latter model is about 10x more likely than the former, but I need to do a bit of digging to find the proper significance test for this kind of comparison. That has implications. If ACE is controlled by AMO and the correlation with temperature is incidental, then when AMO flips back around 2020 we should see a reduction in hurricanes. However if ACE is controlled by sea temperature, then things are likely to continue to get worse as the Atlantic warms. And the data appears to point in the latter direction, I'm just not sure how strongly. This is very preliminary - as well as the significance tests I need to investigate lags between the different terms. A lot of tedious analysis I'm afraid. -
Dave123 at 07:14 AM on 12 November 2012Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988
I just noticed this question about why- why do faux skeptics hang on to Hansen's old work? Why do they obsess about Mike Mann's original paper? For Hansen's paper the answer is that 30 years have elapsed. If Hansens models are seen as right and valid, they constitute a prognistic, falsifiable test of climate modeling and thus are consistent for the need to act NOW. But if you can trash Hansen, then you can say "well, models may have improved, but we won't know until we "freeze" today's models and see how they come out 30 years from now. Taking today's models, starting them 30 years ago and seeing how they read forward to today isn't good enough, because we already know the outcome. We need to make the scenario forecast without knowing the outcome. The Hockey stick (which is off topic for this thread, I know) is a matter of needing a MWP that no one can explain. If we've got an unexplainable MWP, then our current warming could be from the same unknown source...regardless of all the physics and laws of thermodynamics. It's a complex system and we just don't know enough. Motivated reasoning. It's fun ain't it? -
littlerobbergirl at 07:12 AM on 12 November 2012About New research from last week series
Thank you for your efforts ari its appreciated. i read several of your picks each week but dont feel qualified to comment - i imagine i'm not alone. -
dana1981 at 05:49 AM on 12 November 2012WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
idunno @68 - yes, Ridley and the WSJ is a bad combination. Rob Painting is working on a response to that article. Suffice it to say that like everything Matt Ridley writes related to the climate, it's riddled with errors.
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