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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 51751 to 51800:

  1. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    In section: Is 1998 actually the hottest year on record? you have a link for: A new independent analysis of the HadCRUT record sheds light on this discrepancy ... with the URL of: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091218b.html This URL no longer exists; the new URL is: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2009/land-warming-record -scott
  2. Fred Singer - not an American Thinker
    Figure 8: Global temperature (red, NASA GISS) and total solar irradiance (blue, 1880 to 1978 from Solanki, 1979 to 2009 from PMOD). Can you explain why this figure differs from UEA data? For example: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
  3. It's a climate shift step function caused by natural cycles
    The arguments here are a bit strange. Firstly, climatic attributes are not stitched-together, time dependent, randomnesses + sinusoids + trends. Step-changes can be created by random sequences; and they can be detected in random data. However, within an experimental, hypothesis-driven context; its their attribution that is important. Secondly, if we are claiming a deterministic temperature (say) trend, but it is overlain by non-deterministic forcings, such as major climate shifts or higher-frequency perturbations (or measurement issues or whatever), then, if they have a statistically significant impact on the deterministic trend we are interested in; their effect needs to be removed. Otherwise our trend is a combined measure of the (impacts + deterministic trend) which is illogical, confounded and ultimately biassed. I think Tamino did a pretty average job; many of his cheer-leaders are not critical enough with what he writes. He used Rodionov's STARS procedure; but he did not mention that for the purposes he applied it, it needed to be optimised. Some of his 'steps' had only 6 data points, so, although he may have got highly (statistically) significant 'steps' he probably used 'low' detection settings; and they were probably meaningless. Balancing Type 1 and Type2 error risks; he'd have come up many-fewer steps; possibly none at all. He also had no corroborating data to evaluate his detected shifts against. The post above had none either. Finding or detecting shifts is no big deal; finding shifts that tell a story about the data is what good data analyst seeks to do. Then doing something with the findings follows-on. Fitting a quadratic to the Australian temperature dataset (Tamino in "Steps-3"), is nonsense. It predicts an accelerating temperature rise all the way out to infinity-time. There actually were steps in the series, in the 1940's; 1970's and around 1990's. Not detecting impacts that were real (and detectable) is a classic mistake. A second mistake is to use off-the-shelf averaged data. Australia has many climatic zones, and very few high-altitude measurement stations. The whole station network is warm-biased by most stations being located west of the Great Dividing Range (which splits the east coast from the rest). To do a job on Australian temperature trends, one would be well advised to use individual station records. Linear regression assumes trend is constant. Thus if there are steps, caused by random impacts, then to find the trend, the overall model has to include removal of the random (step) impacts, then attributable noise; then model the trend. Because one can fit steps to artificial data, and draw a climate-like graph, does not mean that is the way the climate behaves. Cheers, BillJ
  4. 24 Hours of Climate Reality - Watch It
    Final tally: Gore's program got 16 million views That's better than his 24 hr network Current TV (It's for sale if anybody is interested) gets. I tried watching some of both (Gore & Watts) & couldn't stay interested. I guess it's an acquired taste.
  5. Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
    Hi Ag, Above you wrote of me: "You assume that carbon released from thawing permafrost will be in the form of CO2." In fact, I assume no such thing. It was MacDougall et al. who chose to restrict themselves to only CO2 emissions from only terrestrial permafrost, and only from the top 3.5 meters of that (in some places it is much much deeper, nearly a mile deep, iirc). And they restricted their study in this way quite consciously. IIRC, they have a section in the paper where they explain that their results are likely quite conservative, precisely because they left out the sources you mention, along with some other things. It apparently is still too much to try to factor in all the very real carbon feedbacks that you mention and get a robust, reliable result, I guess. That is what I (but apparently it was just me) found to be so terrifying about their findings-- Adding just this narrow additional carbon feedback, and assuming an almost certainly too conservative 3 degrees C climate sensitivity for a doubling of carbon, and making the entirely unrealistic hypothetical assumption that we will stop all ff emissions of CO2 starting 2013-- making all these unrealistically happy assumptions, they still come to the conclusion that atmospheric CO2 levels will remain at the extremely high levels that they are at now for as far out as they could look (about two centuries). >If you add any fraction of any of the other enormous carbon sources that we know for a certainty will start to kick in soon if they have not done so already, >or if you raise climate sensitivity even slightly (as proposed very reasonably by Lunt et alia 2010, for example), >or if you make the blindingly obvious point that all CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will not, in fact, end next year ...if you wiggle the least tiny bit toward what we know absolutely to be pretty indisputable reality on any one of these fronts, then MacDougall, as far as I can see, puts us solidly past a crucial tipping point into what I would call runaway global warming: where even if we stop all further human caused emissions, atmospheric CO2 levels--and so global temperatures--continue to rise into the indefinite future--but not forever, obviously--because of the feedabacks that are already starting to kick in (it's not just me, actually; Steven Chu uses essentially this definition of runaway global warming in a video talk he did on the subject). By the way, though your figure of 75 x CO2 is widely used and it still shows up on, for example, Wikipedia (last I checked), Schindell et alia (2006) claims a global warming potential for methane of 105 times that of CO2 over 20 year intervals (35x over century time periods). So, by and large, I agree with you, and then some. What I continue to be most puzzled by, however, is the failure of most monitoring devices in the Arctic region to consistently detect the kinds of increases in atmospheric methane levels one would expect based on reports of scientists like Semiletov, Shakhova and others of enormous kilometer wide plumes of methane exploding form the ocean, and seas "bubbling as if boiling" with methane. I hope the monitors are right and these reports and scientists were wrong, because otherwise we can truly expect this year's extreme weather to not just be the new normal, but become rapidly more extreme essentially every year for centuries or millenia--no matter what we do (or more like manage to stop doing).
  6. 24 Hours of Climate Reality - Watch It
    I found it often impossible to watch most of this, as the default setting was for high-def levels of video, which my computer does not support. In the final hour or so of transmission, I did manage to find a hidden click-button-thingy which allowed me to watch in low-definition. So the whole experience became bearable. But I am now trying to watch the Arctic segment, which apparently doesn't have a "low" option, and it seems that I must spend 2 1/2 hours on this, to watch one hour, with a pattern of 5 seconds of dialogue - 10 seconds pause - 5 seconds dialogue - 10 seconds pause. Could they not set the default setting to "low"? (Or at least offer an lo-def option for the non-live, catch-up mode of viewing?) Setting them to "high" virtually excludes everybody who is 1. only just computer literate 2. not on superfast broadband. But I suppose that's just the 99%. Still, the presenter's dress looks really good in high-definition, and I get loads of freeze-frames to examine this at my leisure. Leaving this here as I suppose that you are in contact with them, having been so widely quoted in the "reality drops" site. Have a word, will you?
  7. 24 Hours of Climate Reality - Watch It
    The show just ended, as did the competing WUWT climate denialist misinformation show. Final tally: Gore's program got 16 million views, Watts' got 16 thousand. So for every person misinformed about climate change over the past 24 hours, a thousand were correctly informed. I think that's a fair trade.
  8. Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
    Will @13 You assume that carbon released from thawing permafrost will be in the form of CO2. In the case of releases from peatlands and marshes, this is likely due to the presence of methanotrophic bacteria associatied with sphagnum mosses. However releases from shallow clathrate and yedoma, particularly where covered by a shallow water surface, typical of the Siberian continental shelf off-shore and thermokarst landscapes on-shore, will reach the atmosphere as CH4. It is already doing so. CH4 is a far more potent greenhouse gas with a GWP of 72 over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Its continued and accelerating emission will certainly exacerbate AGW far more significantly than believed by those who remain wedded to the fiction that we can limit AGW to no more than 2°C by 2100.
  9. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    Perhaps now out of date, but this article explains Obama's deliberate decision not to talk about climate during the first term: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/01/obama-strategy-silence-climate-change?CMP=twt_gu During the election, I think that Obama's realistic focus on climate was a huge advantage to him, post-Sandy. I don't think that Obama won on climate. I do think Romney lost on climate. Given his strategy of not mentioning climate, I think that Obama actually delivered a lot in his first term - decelerating rates of GHG emissions, better emissions standards for vehicles, and fiscal incentives for clean energy investment. I hope that he will now decide that real US and international action on climate issues would be recognised internationally as a lasting, priceless legacy. More interesting, in my opinion, is the effect on the deniers. Reading through the comments especially on several denier sites in the aftermath of the election, it became very clear that the prime motivation of many of the regulars is entirely political. But they are apparently a political liability. How much are these brave Galileos prepared to go on challenging the views of not just the science community, but also the vast majority of the business community, the media and the defence establishment? This to support some extreme right wing politicians, whose electoral chances appear to be severely damaged by association with these views? How does that work? If you are a GOP candidate, who would you rather have in your corner, agreeing with you on climate change, EITHER the scientists, the Pentagon, Wall Street, and the media, OR Anthony Watts, Judith Curry and the Koch Bros?
  10. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    John H @ 13 I'm not disagreeing that we need to act as soon as possible, and act in a massive way. I am hoping that Obama does engage with global warming, and I think dealing with it is the real way to begin to fix our nation's serious and systemic economic problems, but I also think he needs to start with something along the lines of a national climate change conference in which our side calls in its experts, by the hundreds if not thousands (which he seems to be moving toward), and the other side calls in their experts, such as they are, and over the course of several months or more the evidence is piled up on the scales and then weighed at the end. I do think he needs to let the other side have a spot at the table. I'll take Hansen over Watt any day. Without this kind of formal dog and pony show, any attempt on Obama's part to take action--say by proposing a carbon tax, which I think is the key thing that needs to be put in place, will be questioned by the people on the other side not just because they hate taxes, but because of the fact that the UN is the organization that stands behind the IPCC reports which will inevitably be referenced. Most hard-core Republicans (and these are not just the deniers) do not like, do not trust, and will not listen to anything with the UN's imprimatur on it, at least as far as I've seen to date. There is also another serious danger: it would be a tragic mistake for Obama to try to act too soon or with too weak a hand, and because of this then fail to push us to where we need to go. If that happens, he could end up exhausting his strength in Congress and walk away from the fray with some weak, half-baked steps that only appear to help, but in fact will haunt us when they prevent further steps from being taken. I'd rather have him spend the next four years, if that's what it takes, to lay the solid groundwork for the right course of action, than put in a shoddy foundation that screws things up for the next decade or more. Remember, this is the same country that needed Pearl Harbor to happen before we were effectively dragged into WWII, and I'm not sure we would have even managed to go to war with Germany at that point if Hitler hadn't declared war on us first. My guess is that on the subject of climate change, there are a lot more America First-types around now than there were when it was the Nazis we were worried about.
  11. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    Dana, I agree with your estimation: IMHO, it's yet another case of those who expect--and expected, in 2008--for Obama to miraculously just wave some kind of pixie dust wand, and *allllll* their pet wishes would become true. Sure, we ALL would like the POTUS to instantly grant us the magic ponies we want (and on both sides, there are puh-lenty who demand magic ponies!), but the exigent reality is, the financials of the country have to come first, if only by degree. I say let's see how the fiscal cliffiness works out, then we can begin bangin' away on Obama, to pay more attention to CC: my guess is, he will.
  12. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    I agree John H, I just think it's jumping the gun to criticize President Obama for putting climate change on the backburner just because he plans to focus on the fiscal cliff and its January 1st deadline first. I am all for putting pressure on him to take a climate leadership role, but at the same time if we become overly critical without justification, it may become counter-productive and reduce his motivation to address the problem.
  13. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    @dana1981 Many environmental organizations and activists worked their butts off to get Obama re-elected because they knew he accepted the scientific consensus on climate change and the need for the US to reduce carbon emissions. These organizations and individuals have spoken out and will continue to speak out on the need to move forward on the climate change front post haste. Brad Johnson's statement is in this vein.
  14. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    I'm not sure Obama did call climate change a secondary concern, unless I misread his comments. It seemed to me like he was just saying that addressing the 'fiscal cliff' will be easier than addressing climate change. Plus the 'fiscal cliff' has a specific deadline, on January 1st. We're not going to get anything done on climate change by January 1st. Seems to me like his comments are being blown out of proportion, unless I'm misreading them.
  15. Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
    Thanks for the link to that article, christkoz. Basically, we end up with competing claims, both by legitimate researches. Without the full scientific background to fully evaluate the merits, I tend to assume the most recent science is likely to be an improvement on previous science. But it is surely important not to place too much weight on any one study, one way or the other. John Doe has a link to the whole (short) MacDougall article--about the 18th comment down: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/oh-shit/#comments Here's hoping that your article and interpretation is right.
  16. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    @Don9000: I agree that Romney put coal on a pedastel. That is not the same as overtly challenging Obama's position on climate change. BTW, Obama did not categorically dismiss coal as an unacceptable energy source. If I recall correctly, he spoke positively about "clean coal", i.e., carbon sequestration. In a similar vein, Obama touted his "all of the above" energy policy. He did not qualify "all of the above" by saying "except for coal."
  17. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    Brad Johnson has some harsh words about President Obama’s statement to place a higher priority on spurring economic recovery than on tackling climate change head-on. Brad Johnson, campaign manager for ClimateSilence.org, an environmental group, said he welcome Obama’s “belated call for a national conversation about how to address climate pollution.” But Johnson said Obama’s assertion that climate change should be secondary to economic concerns was “a gross disappointment and an insult to the deep suffering of the millions of victims of climate disasters across this nation,” including Hurricane Sandy. Obama is scheduled to tour New York City Thursday to view storm damage and recovery efforts. “While conventional D.C. wisdom is focused on the manufactured crisis of the ‘fiscal cliff,’” Johnson said, “the truth is that the most urgent threat to our national safety and economic well-being is the climate cliff that we are already beginning to tumble over.” Source: Obama wants national ‘conversation’ on climate change; no legislation proposed, AP/Washington Post, Nov 14, 2012
  18. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    John, Unless I was tuned in to an alternate universe ... To the best of my recollection, Romney did make repeated appearances in coal country in which he embraced coal as a wonderful, special, awesome energy source for the future, and he made this same delusional point rather forcefully in two of the three presidential debates. Note too that Romney did easily win West Virginia, a coal producing state which from 1933 through 1996 was a fairly reliable Democratic state in presidential elections. Thus, I would say that had Obama taken up the issue, Romney would have engaged even more energetically. The other corollary point is that Obama's team appears to have been right in their assessment that their base was more energized than the opposition, and we all know climate change/global warming is like red meat to the Republican base. So why would Obama want to feed the trolls? It's also probably true that people who put global warming at the top of their list of concerns already knew who to vote for without having to hear it talked about on the campaign trail. It certainly motivated my vote for the blue candidate.
  19. 2012 SkS News Bulletin #4: Hurricane Sandy & Climate Change
    The media reports on Sandy talk about development on barrier islands, but none of them say why they are called barrier islands.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Background info here.
  20. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    @Don9000 #9: If a dsicussion of climate change during the Presidential campaign would have garnered more votes for Romney in Ohio and Pennsylvania, you can bet your sweet bibby that Team Romney would have pressed the issue.
  21. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    I think it is also important to note that President Obama's almost total silence on Climate Change during the campaign has been attributed to an awareness on the part of the administration that making it an issue would potentially have cost him substantial support in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Now that his last election is behind him, Obama does not have to be quite as cautious in bringing the topic up. It also helps that nature is continuing to give us signs that even skeptics have trouble sweeping under the denial carpet.
  22. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    curiousd - I strongly suggest you look at the advanced version of "How sensitive is our climate". The instrumental record of very recent times is perhaps the least certain measure of climate sensitivity: if you include estimates based on paleo, volcanic, instrumental, last Glacial Maximum, etc., you have consilience for a 2-4.5C range, 3C most likely value. Consistent indications from multiple lines of investigation is very strong evidence. Show Knutti and Hegerl 2008 Figure 3 to your audience. Knutti and Hegerl 2008
  23. Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
    wili@13, I think you're exaggerating the findings of MacDougal article, and unnecessarily compare it to the FT12, which is subject of this thread. Especially, with respect to your assertion:
    "The article above suggests that the climate sensitivity is closer to 4.5 than 3, which, according to the MacDougal article, spells _rising_ atmospheric CO2 levels for at least two centuries even if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow"
    This article is about ECS, while permafrost feedback within next two centuries will be driven by the temperatures from today till say 2050 (permafrost feedback is that slow) thus transient sensitivity influences permafrost. In general, I agree with you that permafrost feedback will be dreadful and unstoppable once started. But I think MacDougal whom you base your opinion on, overestimated the rate of permafrost melt. From their abstract I read "permafrost soils will release between 68 and 508 Pg carbon by 2100", although I don't know under what conditions, and what dynamics (not stated). Wheareas this study quantifies the permafrost feedback as 190 ± 64 Pg C by 2200. And that is under the assumption of scenario A1B, unlike whay you are suggesting above. So, a pessimistic anthropogenic warming essentially without curtailing FF. If we "stop all further burning of fossil fuels essentially immediately" as you are suggesting above, then CO2 levels out much smaller & anthropo warming will be lower, therefore perma feedback my be insignifficant. So, my botomline take on it is: current permafrost C flux is very small, it can grow to apocalyptic size under A1-type scenario but there is not point to despair yet: if we avoid such scenario by quick and efficient cease of FF emissions, we can also aviod permafrost feedback. The are large uncertainties about the precise modeling of PF. MacDougal apears to have estimated it on a high side. As usual, the insurance principle applies to thie PF scenario: the bigger the threat the more comprehensive insurance policy is needed, i.e. stop the FF emissions now because PF may kick in.
  24. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    "The question is whether those who were conclusively proven wrong in their election data denial will connect the dots to their climate data denial." Fat chance! They won't even aknowledge their election data denial. Dean Chambers, of unskewedpolls infamy, is running a web poll asking "Was this election stolen by massive Democrat vote fraud?"
  25. littlerobbergirl at 21:59 PM on 15 November 2012
    What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    John Hartz - thanks for link Looks to me like he really gets it but has become a 'policy realist' the negative comments were carefully worded to minimise offense but whole response quite brave imo. His best shot is to keep up the green job side as much as he can get away with while protecting the environment agency enough to give them room to sort out large emitters. not very democratic but hes dealing with a broken system
  26. About New research from last week series
    Ari's is a great service, and the above explanation much appreciated. Spread the word!
  27. Newcomers, Start Here
    curiousd @229, by way of clarification, I believe it was suggested that Geoff Chambers apologize. Your name was involved only in that a response from me to you was quoted in the post suggesting that Geoff apologize.
  28. 24 Hours of Climate Reality - Watch It
    Also worth watching for Australian viewers, Catalyst at 8pm on ABC1 tonight (15/11/12) - a global warming special,
  29. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    Thank you KR. Your comments are most useful and encouraging. This website does an outstanding service in allowing scientifically trained non climate specialists to learn from experts in the field.
  30. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    curiousd - Please take a look at the GISS model forcings, a combination of the best information on greenhouse gases, aerosols, and other influences. The net forcings are shown here. Note that the 1940's were the culmination of several decades of low volcanic activity, with anthropogenic aerosols increasing in the 1950's and volcanic activity ramping up in the 1960's. CO2 is not the only forcing - the climate response will be to the sum of all forcings, and a logarithmic, or linear, or pure polynomial curve would at best be only an approximate fit to the non-linear changes in those forcings. It is important to point out that the graph you pointed to: [Source] shows both the BEST data and a simple subset of forcings, "...a linear combination of volcanic sulfate emissions and the natural logarithm of CO2". I would consider that illustrative of overall trends, but again solar, anthropogenic aerosols, and other influences play a role too. Explain to your audience that there are multiple forcings in effect - but that as can be seen from the general trends, the anthropogenic influences are changing temperatures in ways that natural variation wouldn't.
  31. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    The one valid criticism coming from this is that President Obama hasn't and still isn't showing enough leadership on climate change. But that's already noted in the above post.
  32. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    John Hartz @4 - I don't think the reactions to Obama's comments (including the headline) are fair, after reading what he said. He just said taxes should be easy, climate will be hard, and it's going to take bipartisan cooperation, but it's important, etc. I agree with pretty much everything he said.
  33. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    @Dana: Given what transpired at today's Presidential news conference, you may want to amend your article. President Obama was asked a question about climate change. His response is contained in the following article: Obama's First Priority: Economy, Not Climate Change by Common Dreams Staff An insightful analysis of the President’s response is contained in: President Obama’s press conference — climate change gets some attention, but enough? by Stephen Stromberg, Washington Post, Nov 14, 2012
  34. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    @Agnostic #1: The House passed legislation that you refer to is the Waxman-Markey Bill. Unfortunately, it died when that Congress was replaced by the current Congress in 2000. It has absolutely zero standing in the currnet Congress which will in turn be replaced in January with a new Congress.
  35. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    I will try this place to re - post comments I placed elsewhere. The moderator suggested a change of thread. I am interested in the optimum way to explain AGW to an audience with some scientific background but who are not in the climate field. In the BEST graph, "Global Land Surface Temperature 12 - Month Moving Average" there is a logarithmic curve fit to the data, with downward spikes associated with named volcanic eruptions. 1. There is a deviation of the data that is a peak above the logarithmic fit, for the years around 1940. Does anyone have an opinion as to what this deviation is? Perhaps the Atlantic Multidecadel Oscillation, although it seems there is some question as to whether the AMO exists or not? 2. If I take many points on this curve fit that are away from the volcano spikes and plot the temperature increase since 1750 against the log to the base two of the CO2 concentration ratio, I get a nice straight line with a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C. For explaining AGW to a scientist who is a non climate specialist, I think this is wonderful because it experimentally shows the 3 degree C.S. and therefore the fiddling around with cloud physics as done by Lindzen and Spenser is irrelevant. A general audience will not understand a detailed critique of - say - Spencer's tweaking. But they would understand that you get the 3 degrees C.S. without worrying about the clouds at all. 3. Because you get the 3.0 degrees C.S. experimentally, you do not depend on a simulation to argue the case. Again....the experts know the simulations are fine. But a non specialist, even with a scientific background, does NOT know this. The result directly from the BEST data gets around the "No one can trust a simulation ever" denialist argument, which is - to the scientifically trained but non climatologist individual usually the most difficult denialist argument to rebut. I guess I am looking for comments because I have been invited to give an antidote presentation on AGW to people who have a technical background at a University where someone keeps inviting people like Monckton to present Heartland Institute misinformation. But what the heck....maybe the best thing to do is go ahead with it.
  36. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    Agnostic @1 - I'm not sure, maybe if the Senate reformed the filibuster and then passed the exact same bill as was passed in the House. I think the Senate usually passes its own version and then the House and Senate get together and compromise, but obviously that wouldn't work with Republicans in charge of the House. And I'm not sure if the Senate can pick up a piece of legislation passed by a previous session of the House. Since there's not much talk about this possibility, there are probably legal barriers preventing it.
  37. Newcomers, Start Here
    Hi All, I just came across a suggestion when I searched under my name that I should apologize to John Cook for saying something about him being too busy to respond to a question I had. Believe me, I never meant to say anything negative about John, who is doing great and valuable work by creating this website. I apologize profusely, although I am still not sure what I did wrong here. This website has changed my life in a good way, and allowed me to become active in the war for climate truth and action. Am I in the good graces of SKS? If not is there a way to further make amends?
    Moderator Response: Curiousd, looking at the thread in question it appears as though you were an accidental bystander to a bit of a dust-up and thus became the victim of a touch of inadvertent impatience of no relevance to your own behavior. Please don't take it seriously; you've done nothing for which you need to apologize or make amends.
  38. What the 2012 US Election Means for Climate Change and Denial
    What are the chances that the 2010 carbon cap and trade bill can be resuscitated and passed by the Senate? For that to happen, the Senate would have to agree to relinquish its power to filibuster. Is that likely and if so, are we close to seeing the US adopt a cap and trade scheme?
  39. Humlum is at it again
    Classic read a bit of the paper, thought, not again, googled :"Humlum is at it again" Great heading .
  40. Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
    Question here...perhaps slightly OT but I do not have the expertise of most folks here so please bear with me. If you look at the graph on the Berkeley Earth web site that is called the "Global Land Surface Temperature 12-Month Moving Average" you see data fit to a function that follows volcanoes and is otherwise logarithmic. (1) There is one excursion of the data from the fit that is a broad peak centered at about 1940. Do you guys know what this is? Could it be the (possibly existing, possibly not existing) Atlantic multudecadal oscillation? If not the AMO what is it? (2) I have picked many points from this graph from regions away from the volcano dips and plotted the temperature increase versus log to the base two CO2 concentration ratio. I get a lovely straight line, excellent fit to the points, with climate sensitivity of close to 3 degrees C. I have an invitation to give a talk on AGW at a place which often invites denialgate types like Monckton. One or more of these characters might be in my audience.I would like to say that the BEST data shows experimentally that there is a short term C.S. of close to 3.0 degrees C. Therefore "clouds, shmouds" ....the cloud effects invoked by Spenser/by Lindzen are irrelevant to the over all picture.. A 3 degree C.S. comes from the BEST data. Also, you no longer really need a simulation to make the point. You get a C.S. of 3 degrees C from the BEST data experimentally. By you real climatologists here , is my point then valid from the argument I give?
  41. WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
    New facts about the tremendous amount of energy contained in Superstorm Sandy are still emerging and being reported on science-based websites such as the Weather Underground and Climate Central. For example, today we learn… “According to Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, since 1988, only one tropical storm and no hurricane has had a larger area of tropical storm-force winds. "Most incredibly, 10 hours before landfall (9:30 am EDT October 30), the total energy of Sandy's winds of tropical storm-force and higher peaked at 329 terajoules — the highest value for any Atlantic hurricane since at least 1969. This is 2.7 times higher than Katrina's peak energy, and is equivalent to five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs," Masters wrote on his blog.” Source: 32-Foot-Plus Waves From Hurricane Sandy Topple Records by Andrew Freedman, Climate Central, Nov 14, 2012
  42. New research from last week 45/2012
    Mark, I found a copy the paper here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gkbto14cy8ip2y/ngeo1580.pdf
  43. WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
    I am no means an expert in these matters, but it seems to me that the analyses and conclusions contained in Roger Pielke Jr’s Wall Street Journal Op-ed are not compatible with the latest estimates of damage (US only) caused by Superstorm Sandy and the estimated costs of damages of other severe weather events in the US during 2012 as presented in: 2012 May Rank As 2nd Most Disastrous Year Since 1980 by Andrew Freedman, Climate Central, Nov 12, 2012 Here’s the lead paragraph of Freedman’s excellent article. “With about six weeks remaining in the year, there have already been 11 natural disasters that have cost $1 billion or more in damage, bringing 2012 to second place on the list of top billion-dollar disaster years. The current record-holder is 2011, when there were 14 billion-dollar disasters. The widespread and intense drought — which as of Nov. 6 still covered at least 60 percent of the lower 48 states — and Hurricane Sandy are expected to go down in history as two of the most costly weather-related disasters since 1980.”
  44. WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
    David Roberts from Grist has an excellent and insightful essay on how to communicate to the public how events like Sandy are relevant when discussing AGW. His essay is titled: The moral logic of climate communication
  45. Fasullo and Trenberth Find Evidence in Clouds for High Climate Sensitivity
    Chris Dudley at the open thread at RealClimate point out: "I missed this originally but it turns out that raypierre does not put a lot of stock in the new study by Trenberth and Fasullo. He ‘described the paper as “another useful data point on the spectrum of estimates of cloud sensitivity,” though not “an absolute game changer.” He pointed out, for example, that the correlation between water vapor and clouds was drawn from short-term seasonal fluctuations. Researchers cannot be certain that those same correlations would hold true in response to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the future, Dr. Pierrehumbert added. “The whole problem is really the nature of the observations,” he said. “We don’t have long enough satellite records of cloud observations to really do this kind of study by directly looking at which models get the low clouds right, so we try to indirectly run around the inadequacies of the satellite record.”’" http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/a-new-tweak-for-global-warming-predictions/
  46. WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
    Brian,
    Not everything is going to get worse with AGW. To think otherwise is delusional.
    Actually, yes, everything will get worse. Everything. Some things may seem to get better for a while (say ten or twenty or even thirty years), but they will (a) quickly be drowned out by the intense gravity of the things that do worse, and (b) any improvement will be short lived (in climate terms) and overwhelmed by negative aspects. The "CO2 is plant food" meme will be a perfect example. Yes, you may see crop yields increase for a brief period in selected areas, due to benefits from increased CO2 concentrations. But over time changes in temperatures, moisture and growing seasons, disproportionate benefits to pests (like the pine bark beetle) and weeds that are better adapted to higher CO2 levels, and other effects will reduce crop production far below any meager benefits from CO2. Yes, some things won't get worse or may even get better, for a very short while. But things are going to get bad, and in some cases very, very bad. In particular, Hurricane Sandy is a whisper of a hint of what's in store. We have barely begun to warm this planet, and like opening a window in a rain storm, the wind and rain are still barely getting in. To think otherwise is delusional.
    I would recommend that everyone here get down from his/her high horse...
    Gladly, when people like you and Pielke start to be more realistic, and stop loudly clinging to every pathetic, ill-founded and cherry-picked argument as an excuse to ignore addressing the issue. It would be one thing if Pielke were suggesting moderation in action, because people are overreacting. He's not, because no one is overreacting -- no one is doing anything at all! He's pretty much promoting complete paralysis, and to date he and his ilk have succeeded, to the serious detriment of us all. To think otherwise is delusional.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Can all parties please focus on the science? Passion for accuracy is admirable, but can sometimes steer threads off-course when that passion begins detrimentally affecting the tone of the dialogue. Thanks!
  47. WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
    Ultimately the analyses merely confirm what I stated from the beginning--there is no significant trend in the ACE data given above. Simple courtesy would require you to acknowledge that. With no detectable trends in the Atlantic basin ACE, landfalling hurricane frequency and strength, or normalized damages, there is simply no evidence that AGW has made hurricane damages worse. This does not preclude, of course, that such damages might increase in the future.
    Firstly, Brian, I am aggrieved at this comment. Let me show you what our exchange looks like from my perspective: 1. You make an unsupported claim about the ACE trend. 2. I go and do the work to check your claim for you. I present not only the result you asked for, which strongly refutes your claim, but also several others, one of which doesn't. 3. You make a claim about AMO. 4. I go and do the work to check your claim for you. I present my initial results, which suggest that ACE is predicted by SST rather than AMO. Then on the basis of further analysis I correct my claim to the weaker statement that SST is at least as good a predictor of ACE than AMO. 5. You accuse me of discourtesy. So from my perspective it feels as though you are making claims, I am doing my best to present a skeptical analysis of the data, including all my results whether or not they support my position. You do not thank me for my effort, and then you criticise me for my discourtesy. That is the basis of my grievance. Perhaps our exchange looks different from your perspective. If so, I invite you to present it. Secondly, It is possible that you have missed the point of my analysis. I assumed, wrongly, that it was obvious from context. Let's go back to the title of this article: 'Asking the right questions'. I presume you recognize that there is a rhetorical device, well used by lawyers, that when asking a question would lead to an inconvenient answer the trick is to ask a different question. The main point of the article is to suggest that this is what is happening. Here are two questions: 1. Is there a connection between global warming and Atlantic hurricanes? 2. Have US landfalling hurricanes increased over time? I would suggest that the second question is being used to distract from the first. It is harder to answer because you need to rely on coarse grained data or proxies of various kinds. The first question is both more important for understanding what might happen in the future, and is more easily answered because we can rely on fine scale meteorological data and/or meteorological models, which shows a very clear connection between SSTs and hurricanes. I can give you a load of papers, but if you are interested you can very easily find them yourself. RPJr insists that we neglect our knowledge of physics and meteorology and only accept data from the past. Firstly, no justification has been presented for rejecting that information. Secondly, even if we do so, we have to invoke AMO to reject the positive trends in favour of the neutral ones, and as I have shown AMO is certainly not a better predictor than SST, while SST has a physical basis. I hope that clarifies my claims.
  48. WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions
    Albatross: Go to RealClimate, go to Tamino, or use the search function here and you will find numerous examples of Roger's dad cherry picking, or misrepresenting or distorting the science to fit his narrative. Why is Roger Jnr. not hopping about accusing his dad of being a liar in public? As you know Roger is quick to (falsely) accusing other scientists of lying or fudging the data etc. Actually, if there's a single reasonable excuse for obvious inconsistency of the kind Albatross describes, surely it's the deference of a child to a parent.
  49. New research from last week 45/2012
    @ IanC Thanks Ian - yes I reached the same conclusions and posted same in a thread over at The Conversation "It goes to the heart of something that those who study the science already know - that the main uncertainty is to do with climate sensitivity - how much warming will be associated with increased CO2 levels and how fast will it occur. And the paper only indicates that the measured uncertainties in heat flux (more back radiation than was thought which suggests greater warming influence from CO2 but a greater latent heat flux exchanged between the surface and the atmosphere due to the evapotranspiration cycle) are much larger than thought. The trouble is such uncertainties cut both ways - warming could be much higher than the models suggest or much lower." Nevertheless I would love to be able to read the paper since climate sensitivity is one area of climate science that I think is of legitimate debate. Based on the current indicators (sea ice etc) and the potential for tipping points I worry it will be much larger than 2-3 degrees but I hope it will be much smaller.
  50. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Curiousd here. Interested in communicating these things to physics trained non climate scientists. To me, if I go to the Berkeley Earth website and use their "global land surface temperature plot 12 month moving average", I see a nice looking fit that ignores obvious volcano effects and is described as "logarithmic". If I take the temperatures from that graph, look up the CO2 concentrations of corresponding years, and plot delta T versus log to the base two of the CO2 concentration ratio I get an excellent straight line with a slope giving a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C. So "clouds/shmouds"......Spencer is wrong and over the time span of the Berkeley Earth data the C.S. is 3 degrees centigrade. What is wrong with what I am doing? Or am I right? (I could show the result if I could figure out how to post a graph on this thread.)

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