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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 51901 to 51950:

  1. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Smith @79 - Wrong. Debunking Rawls' misinformation and misinterpretation of the IPCC text is not playing games. I'm not saying "well maybe this is what the IPCC really meant", I'm saying "here's what the IPCC text said and here's what the peer-reviewed literature says". SkS also did not support Gleick's actions in the Heartland affair, and we certainly did not take Heartland's statements out of context or put our own spin on their meaning.
  2. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @68 - But his is not true. You are most certainly playing the game. You have a post here about it, which was reprinted in the Guardian and you have participated the comment sections of both. You have in fact spend a great deal of time playing the game. Albatross @76 - How would you rate the ethics of Rawls leaking the document to the Peter Gleick affair. I seem to remember strong support for Gleick's "leak", why not the same in this instance?
  3. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    Thanks Soundoff, I got my 3% figure for this past year from the following article in Scientific American. Other publications have also picked up on it. I believe that previous years have shown similar being in a rising trend from 2.6%. Always happy to be corrected. Johnb http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-co2-emissions-from
  4. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @33... Actually there is a very high level of certainty that humans are the cause of the warming of the past 50 years. AR4 puts it at >90% certainty. The APS and AMS both state that it is "incontrovertible."
  5. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    @FDG #135: Dana has a very strict moral code. He will never shoot someone down who has already shot himself/herself in the foot.
  6. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    It seems to defeat the purpose if a press release and report can only be accessed by a username and password. Or am I missing something?
  7. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Composer99 @75, "Rawls is grasping at straws, plain and simple." Quite right Composer. As are those here (and elsewhere) who are trying so very hard to defend and justify his unethical actions, not to mention his twisting of the draft text. Same old nonsense and games from the fake skeptics.
  8. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    Hi, I have taken all comments to heart and taken a step further. Indeed if I use the Best data from Fig. 1 above, starting from the time period when their data is plotted as well as land based GISS, Hadcru, and NOAA and simply determine the best linear fit to log base 2 of the corresponding CO2 concentration ratio versus temperature increase, I get a c.s. of 3 degrees C as BEST states they get. Now I have also considered the recent data from Foster and Rahmsdorf through 2011, which had the AGW isolated by multiple regression against indexes for ENSO, solar, volcanoes and which has a best straight line through the data drawn by those authors. Applied to that same straight line this simple analysis yields climate sensitivity of 1.94 degrees C, and it stands to reason it would be less than for the land based data from that BEST graph. The Arctic data shows a larger over all delta T than either world or land based from Best, but the Arctic data has a pronounced wiggle to it that makes it impossible to approximate with a simple model, IMO. I wonder if anyone is trying a multiple regression analysis for the Arctic data such as Foster and Rahmsdorf did for the global data? Finally, I presume the quantity I get by doing this simple procedure is called the "transient" C.S?
  9. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    FGD135: There is no "game-changing" admission by the IPCC whatsoever. The sentence that Rawls is hung up on relates strictly to the relationship between solar activity and cosmogenic influence on climate. Unless the IPCC draft report goes on to upend the quantified forcings from AR4 and the rest of the literature, that influence is still orders of magnitude smaller compared to the anthropogenic forcings (greenhouse gases, land-use changes). Rawls is grasping at straws, plain and simple.
  10. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @67, neither Dana nor I have argued that, it if it is not cosmic rays, it is not the sun. Just as with the IPCC, you are putting words into our mouths. Dana has argued that even if a amplifying factor exists that amplifies the effects of TSI and no other forcing, that amplifying factor would have amplified the reduction in TSI in the later half of the twentieth century and hence cannot explain the warming in the later half of the twentieth century. I have argued something simpler still. My argument is that, if all you know about something is that "it is something else", then you know nothing at all and cannot exclude hypotheses on that basis. If all you know is that the purported amplifying factor is that there was one, you do not know that it will not equally amplify GHG forcings, or even that it will not preferentially amplify GHG forcings. Ergo you cannot presume that the amplifying factor will increase the strength of the solar forcing relative to the GHG forcing in the late twentieth century. This point is driven home by one (indeed, the best of) the three studies cited by the IPCC - Bond et al, (2001) - which connects ice rafting events with variations in solar activity as determined by cosmogenic nuclides. Interestingly they propose a mechanism for the variation - a feedback through changes in the thermohaline circulation. That mechanism is temperature driven, however. Consequently it will be more strongly effected by ghg forcing due to polar amplification than it is by solar forcing. The only reason the Holocene record ties it to solar forcing is that GHG forcing was more or less constant over that period. So, what evidence have you or Rawls presented that the "something else" is not this, or some other mechanism that equally amplifies GHG forcings? None, of course. Rather you have simply used ignorance as an argument. What is more, you do not even know that the purported amplification is real. As with Rawls, you simply neglect the meaning of "seems". A second study cited by the IPCC - Dengel et al (2009) - illustrates this. They find a correlation between growth of trees and cosmic rays in the period 1961-2005 in the northern British Isles. Of course, as the IPCC mentions, a correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover has also been found in the British Isles, but not elsewhere. That fact shoots down the cosmic ray connection. The physical laws are the same everywhere - and if cosmic rays do not significantly seed clouds elsewhere, the cloud cover correlation in the British Isles was just a coincidence. However, a correlation between cloud cover and growth in trees is unlikely to be merely coincidental. So it appears that Dengel has merely found further evidence of the coincidental correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover in the British Isles. The simple fact is that all you can say from the IPCC statement is that: 1) There seems to be evidence of a factor amplifying solar forcing; but 2) The only proposed mechanism of that amplification is not responsible for it. From that it follows only that, either the apparent amplification was not real, or some unknown factor with unknown effects on other forcings has amplified solar forcings in the past.
  11. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    And I respectfully suggest from you Dana (and others) that you may want to leave those who want to live in an alternate universe to themselves until they wake up by themselves. You have to understand ... their dream is just sooo goooood ...
  12. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @68, You are already playing games - pretending Rawls' sentence is "poorly formed" and pretending not to comprehend brr's question. Just what is "poorly formed" about this sentence from Rawls: "The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link." Note the word "an". This word means that the amplifying mechanism could be ANYTHING, with GCR just one possibility. You went to some length to shoot down GCRs, but that was missing the point of Rawls' essay. Rawls' point was that the chapter 7 admissions are a game-changer. Can you please have another go at shooting him down? I respectfully suggest you missed on your first go. Thanks.
  13. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    It occurs to me that the Galactic Coincidence part of this theory that asserts that the changes in the GCR and Solar activity that allow the timing of warming to so perfectly coincided with our release of CO2 as to cause us to be fooled about the cause of our warming, needs to be pointed out too. The odds of this actually are, particularly given that there isn't any change to speak of in the solar activity or the GCRs in the relevant time frames, quite small. This whole business is complete rubbish. Rawls needs to be taken behind the woodshed for his part, and the rest of the mob at Watts has completely lost what little mind they were possessed of. There is no convincing ideologues though. Not ever.
  14. Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
    [repeated snips]
    Moderator Response: [RH] I've deleted several posts here for off-topic and accusations of deception. If you wish to contribute to the conversation please first review the comment policies so that your voice can be heard.
  15. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Senator Whitehouse exposes the deniers in the US congress factual terms- Pollution? Its not a problem- all we need to do is go back to the Gilded Ages- AGW? Something the Scientific elite want to do in order to redistribute wealth. That the climate this very moment in rainy Connecticut this dark morning has reached the point of no return (the same globally) Avoiding 2 degrees above the PI level- now is not possible. To many this concept seems unimportant.
  16. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    I'm quite surprised at this because until now I thought the permafrost thawing represented a much larger thread. If I read the above correctly the average yearly addition to the CO2 output will be about 1GT (43-135GT this century). Human output is currently around 30-35GT/y. So the 1GT/y seems like just a small addition. I must be missing something because a 39% of total emissions is mentioned.
  17. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Just to clarify what I stated in @55 (as we seem to be mincing words in this comment thread): [...] I am anything but a climate change proponent as I - just like others here on SkS and elsewhere - am working towards [anthropogenic] climate change not becoming any worse than it already is. So, if anything, I am an opponent of [anthropogenic] climate change.
  18. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Tom @65 - indeed, the mere fact that we're arguing about this sentence is enough for me to put money on both the sentence changing in the final report, and the contrarians spazzing out when that happens. Followed by me rolling my eyes and hopefully being able to ignore their childishness, because we've already had to put way too much effort into debunking a myth that should never have been born.
  19. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @67 - my answer is that I'm not going to play games, I'm not going to read what I want to read into a poorly formed sentence in a draft document, I'm going to wait for the final report. As should you, as Rawls should have, as should everyone.
  20. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    I ran some quick calculations for you, Johnb. A straight line projection forward for atmospheric CO2 ppm gives 415 ppm in 2022 using the slope since 2000. That’s close enough to your estimate. A straight line projection to year 2100 gives 577 ppm, not doubled yet from today’s level (but it would be doubled from pre-industrial levels). The rate of increase is slightly exponential, not linear, so the proper number should be higher, maybe near 900 ppm in a worst case BAU scenario. The concentration of CO2 did increase by over 3 ppm last year (larger than any prior year in the record) but this increase represents only a 0.9% rise, not 3%. A 0.9% increase means a doubling time of 77 years. Most prior years increased 0.5% to 0.6%, therefore 0.9% might be anomalous and an overstatement of situation.
  21. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @62: You didn't answer my question: What do they actually mean? Regardless of the GCR link in the paragraph, my interpretation is that they used it as an example, and that it could be something else. Hence the use of "such as". Tom @64: Please try to understand, I was pointing out that saying "it can't be GCR therefore it can't be the sun" is not good science, especially when they implied it could be something else. Invalidating one example does not invalidate all examples. Regardless of how you say it, when the IPCC says that forcing from TSI alone doesn't seem to account for observational data, saying "it was not GCRs" still leaves the door open for something else to account for the seeming difference between solar observations and TSI forcing. It most likely isn't GCRs as studies have shown, but it is probably something else. Saying "there's no other explanation" does not account for something we haven't found yet. And that's Rawls point. He got the IPCC to seem like they're backing down from the "it's not the sun, silly" reference in AR4 by getting them to include that sentence. Like pointed out above this is just a draft so will probably be struck before publishing. For that we shall have to wait and see.
  22. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    As the peer review in the IPCC drafts is a slow process, the writers of such a report should expand on things like this , I know, that states it's only 5 meters in there, but I guess West Antarctic contributes somewhat.
  23. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @62:
    "And I'm sure there will be a big uproar amongst the contrarians when that happens, because they're not interested in anything but generating controversy."
    A prediction you can bank on, based on a very well grounded theory.
  24. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr @59: 1) We are proponents of climate science. Climate science as it happens, predicts AGW, and we oppose negligently permiting continued AGW to the ruination of our descendants. That's not hard to grasp, now, is it? 2) While we're into micro parsing, would you care to explain what "seem" means, as in "The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations". 3) Neither you nor Rawl's have shown anything to suggest the explanation is not just a climate sensitivity in the upper end of the IPCC range. What is quite clear is that, whatever the explanation of this seeming problem, it is: a) not Galactic Cosmic Rays; and b) there is no other remotely plausible mechanism proposed by AGW deniers. Evidently, however, Rawls and you think that an argument from ignorance should trump real science.
  25. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Now that J.Romm has revealed that the IPCC draft includes a claim there's a 10% chance of sea ice growth in the next ten years, could it be a time for a "REAL climate report" which would include the "known unknowns" and their fullest extent. Of course, the report would be unofficial. In order to keep the report short, the consensus of the AGW should be stated in some 10 pages. Then there should be the list of unknowns and a short survey of potential importance of each. As the deniers are not convinced of the Anthropogenic part of AGW, the only scenario used should be the BAU scenario. Of course this report would not solve anything, nor offer any proposed courses of action, but it might still be more readable to deniers than the current one. The style of consensus statements should be something like: "Current 2012 greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will eventually lead to a sea level rise of at least 6 meters" and leave out the probability since deniers won't understand probabilities.
  26. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr, the quote simply talks about reported relationships in some studies between GCRs or cosmogenic isotope and "some aspects of the climate system". I believe the text goes on to state that most research has shown GCRs are ineffective at seeding clouds. According to Rawls this text was inserted between the First and Second order drafts. It doesn't make much sense and will probably be revised or removed in later drafts. This is why it's dumb to be commenting on draft documents. Regardless, it doesn't say what you claim it says, and it's likely to change before the document goes final anyway. And I'm sure there will be a big uproar amongst the contrarians when that happens, because they're not interested in anything but generating controversy.
  27. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Philippe @3 - The Escalator has been updated (but you have to click the button to see it). I just haven't had time to do a blog post announcing it.
  28. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    dana @60: I fail to understand how interpreting the phrase "such as" to mean "for example" is putting my own spin on it. In every other usage of the phrase that's exactly what it means. However, if it does mean something different in science can you please tell me how it's used in science so that I may better understand IPCC documents (drafts and future documents). In terms of the paragraph in question, it is a pretty important distinction.
  29. Philippe Chantreau at 13:51 PM on 17 December 2012
    2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Now that the climatological year is over, is it possible to update the escalator animation displayed on the home page with all data up to 2012?
  30. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    brr, you're putting your own spin on the IPCC statement, which is still draft and subject to change anyway, and claiming that's what they really mean. Sorry, I'm not interested in playing that game.
  31. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Composer99 @58: Proponent - Noun: A person who advocates a theory, proposal, or project. Synonyms: supporter - advocate - proposer Actually, proponents of AGW are the people who support the scientific theory. Not the other way around. BaerbelW @55: Be careful defining yourself as "opponent of climate change". Since climate change is a natural process, one could then say you're an "opponent of nature". Shouldn't you refer to yourself as an "opponent of AGW"? dana @article: One thing I just noticed is the quoted IPCC paragraph by Rawls says, "implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as". They are using GCR's as an example of something that might cause the TSI deficit in explaining solar forcing. Basically the paragraph is stating: 1. Something else is needed other than TSI to explain observed total solar forcing. 2. Here's one example of what it might be (since GCR has been the focus of significant study the last few years). 3. We're not sure what it is, it might even be Solar Furries. Sorry, but invalidating one example doesn't invalidate the possibility that something else might explain the observational differences.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Please refrain from the usage of all-caps to make a point, as that is in violation of the Comments Policy (usage converted to underlined lower case).
  32. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    Kudos Sheldon Whitehouse. It's people like him who are the heroes in politics. Let's hope that it's a trend that catches on.
  33. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    Superb comment Tom - very nicely showing details that Valentine avoids in his verbiage in #49, notably that CO2 inhibits energy loss from Earth, and so that energy has to go somewhere. Now Valentine expects us to somehow have missed observing all the energy scattered by CO2 molecules escaping at some hitherto undefined "longer" (#53) wavelength. Surely, as apparently a PhD physicist, Valentine is aware of the skill with which humans are able to observe electromagnetic radiation, its emission and absorbtion at huge ranges of wavelengths, from gamma rays, through visible light, to radio. The emission and absorbtion of radiation, and our ability to spectroscopically measure this is the cornerstone of astrophysics, allowing us to understand the chemical composition of stars, the presence of planets, the expansion of the Universe and myriad other things without travelling vast distances. Geoscientists can send a rover to Mars and do chemical analyses of rocks (ChemCam), using similar techniques, and there are an astonishing range of earth-based applications of this knowledge, including most of telecommunications. Earth observation satellites are constantly measuring emissions from Earth at all manner of wavelengths for a wide range of applications. Maybe Valentine thinks the energy scattered by CO2 escapes at secret wavelengths (#53), known only to him. Maybe he thinks that CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is unique in the Universe in its response to electromagnetic radiation. I rather think he is fundamentally, and hopelessly wrong. Especially as we observe the Earth is gaining energy as expected.
  34. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #50
    You guys have some serious impact now! Keep up the fantastic work!
  35. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    Further to BarbelW's point, the framing that somehow, people agitating for action against warming are "proponents" of global warming is completely off base. It is the pseudoskeptics, by attempting to delay or defeat effective action, who are the proponents of AGW, since by their activism it continues unabated.
  36. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    FGD135: There is a good reason for using the NASA GISS data. It is the only temperature dataset with global coverage, the other datasets omit substantial portions of the polar regions, see this figure: I studied the impact of this omission in great detail in this post - the impact is a warm bias which peaks around 1998, declining to a cool bias in recent years as the warming of the arctic and antarctic have taken off.
  37. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    re Brian Valentine @53: The "insults" are far less than those deserved by a PhD in physics who pretends not to understand the role of simplified models in pedagogy; and bases their criticisms of a theory solely on those models rather than the actual theory. A scientist, acting in good faith, who intended to criticize the theory of the greenhouse effect would start by showing how, if the greenhouse effect they predict does not exist, Line by Line radiation models achieve such stunning matches with observation as those achieved by the Fu-Liou model: For those who can't count all those dots, that 134,862 comparisons between the model and observations with a very tight fit. Further, those model/observation comparisons were made over a wide range of conditions, so they are robust: What is more, a scientist acting in good faith would, if they doubt a theory and wish to suggest that observations outside the range of current instruments refute that theory, design an experiment to test that hypothesis. They would not glibly assert their untested hypothesis in public forums as if their unsupported word carries more weight than literally hundreds of thousands of observations. The telling fact that shows the various charlatans such as Valentine are just that is that they do not conduct the research which, according to them, would quickly disprove the existence of the greenhouse effect by observations. Nor do they build global models from the ground up, encoding basic physics and known initial conditions to see whether their theory holds water outside of simplified examples. Climate scientists do both of the above because they actually believe their theory, and expect useful results. In contrast, the "scientists" of Valentines ilk believe their theory so firmly that they are afraid to test it. But that does not slow down their efforts to distribute it to an (they hope) un-discerning public at every opportunity. So, what of Valentines claim that the energy missing from absorption in the CO2 band reappears at longer wavelengths. Well, the Line By Line models say no: The green region is the radiation to space at the top of the atmosphere. The red region is the additional radiation to space if the surface had the same temperature and there was no atmosphere. Clearly in the longer wavelengths (and hence smaller wavenumbers), emission to space is also reduced relative to that which occurs at the surface. Ergo that those wavelengths cannot be making up the shortfall at a wavenumber of 15 cm-1. You will also note the rapid fall of of power emitted per wave number as wave number decreases, which means the shortfall simply cannot be made up at still lower wavenumbers (longer wavelengths) than those shown in the model.
    Moderator Response: [TD] Somebody really, really should put the content of this comment in a Skeptical Science Argument post! (Okay, omitting some sentences and paraphrasing others.)
  38. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    FGD135 - the data are plotted as 11-year running averages to remove the short-term influence of the 11-year solar cycle. And the difference between the various surface temperature datasets is very small. You're free to plot whatever you want - I'm not the keeper of the temperature or TSI data.
  39. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Thanks gws. Yes I know it's not likely, but my line of thinking was that it evidently hasn't happened yet from natural forces, which means that the Earth must have generally been in energy balance to within a very small fraction of a Watt for billions of years. That makes the 0.6W/m² of energy imbalance we're responsible for now rather significant, in comparison. Natural forcings have been larger at times, but only on much longer timescales, as far as I'm aware - i.e. tens of thousands to millions of years. That means the Earth has probably only very rarely been out of energy balance by as much as it is now. Is that a fair point, do you think?
  40. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    And further to venus versus moon... the question of meaningful use of averages depends of on what you want to use them for. The difference between dark and light side temperatures are extreme because it doesnt have an atmosphere. Venus does and surface temperature is very uniform (thanks to atmospheric greenhouse effect) despite its slow rotation.
  41. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    "what is absorbed is re-radiated at longer wavelenghts still." Molecules have discrete vibrational energy levels and can not radiate at any wavelength they wish. Any undergrad in chemistry or physics could tell. And don't forget that Kirchhoff and Plank laws apply here.
  42. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    "what is absorbed is re-radiated at longer wavelenghts still." Are these longer wavelengths somehow undetectable?
  43. The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    "Hansen describes it as radiation increasing from higher levels in the atmosphere to maintain an equilibrium with (outer space), Ramanatan does not. " Hansen's explanation is the outcome of the Ramanathan model (we are talking about Ramanathan and Coakley here?). There is no contradiction. "that the oceans are not in equilibrium with the atmosphere," Do you think this is news to climate modellers? So lets see - the Radiative Transfer Equations at the core of greenhouse theory successfully predict the temperature structure of the atmosphere and the spectrum that will be observed when viewed from both surface of the planet looking up, and from the top of atmosphere looking down. The model can do this for any planet (taking proper account of rotation speed). By contrast, you have so far not offered an experiment that the physics cannot explain. So what appears more likely - you have found a flaw in the physics? Or that you have failed to fully understand the physics?
  44. Doha Climate Summit Ends With No New CO2 Cuts or Funding
    As far as I can see the best thing about DOHA is that the United Nations process did not collapse completely. But is has moved from a tortoise-like to a snail's pace. Until, the USA and China come to some bilateral arrangement, there will be not much to be seen in the way of progress.
  45. Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions
    You wonder at times which rhubarb pot they have been hiding under. Sybil Fawlty springs to mind, Special Subject, the blindingly obvious. I suspect that damage to foundations will be the least of their worries. With anthropogenic CO2 emissions continuing their annual increase at the 3% level it should be time to remind those with the responsibility that under the laws of compound interest 3% annual equates to a doubling in 24 years. The start point was some few years ago now. Additionally a straight line projection forward for atmospheric CO2 ppm should give us 410 ppm in a Decade's time. Am I being unreasonable ? Johnb
  46. This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.
    Just in case anyone wonders... Boiling off the ocean (equivalent to a runaway GHE) is very unlikely to happen for several reasons, such as 1. Unless positive feedbacks to anthropogenically emitted CO2 are larger than expected, FF derived CO2 forcing and associated T changes are limited to FF "availability", and 2. ocean carbonates are buffering atmospheric CO2 over 1000s+ of years, so as long as an ocean is present with sedimentary carbonates (such as at depth), CO2 uptake into it slows (and limits) atmospheric increase Problem is, neither of these limits is likely to limit atmospheric CO2 to a level palatable to today's society and environment, hence the concern.
  47. Brian G Valentine at 00:45 AM on 17 December 2012
    The Latest Pre-Bunked Denialist Letter in Lieu of Real Science
    I can't write much now, and will not be able to for some days. Thank you for calling me names, Tom, it shows to me what I am guilty of, and is a good lesson for me. Obviously your graph shows what happens when one looks out a window fogged by water (ha just a joking analogy), what is absorbed is re-radiated at longer wavelenghts still. If there were observational evidence of the "greenhouse effect" and I deny it - then you have called me the wrong name. Valentine is not a "charlatan" - he is "insane"
  48. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    ajason@46 "In regards to those climate change proponents,...." Apart from what others have already pointed out in their replies, the first half of the first sentence is wrong as well as far as I'm concerned: I am anything but a climate change proponent as I - just like others here on SkS and elsewhere - am working towards climate change not becoming any worse than it already is. So, if anything, I am an opponent of climate change.
  49. Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
    For addition to Australian politicians denial list; Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (20:13): ( Ex Hansard House Reps AFP 18th June 2012) http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr/8f9c3c2a-1ee7-4657-a602-aef97dd32610/0382/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf Image url: http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/handbook/allmps/99931/upload_ref_binary/99931.jpg Back in 2005, the United Nations Environment Program, with one of those 'the science is settled' predictions, asserted that global warming would create millions of climate change refugees. By 2010, it was said, these people would be forced to flee their homes because of rising sea levels from melting ice caps. Well, 2010 has come and gone and there has not been a single person made a climate refugee because of rising sea levels. However, here in Australia we now have some of the world's first climate refugees, forced to flee their homes not by rising sea levels but by government policies subsidising industrial wind turbines...... ... Firstly, we need to be clear how little power wind turbines actually produce. You would need 3,500 giant steel windmills to produce the equivalent output of one single, medium-sized conventional coal or gas fired power station. Secondly, even if we built these 3,500 steel windmills, we would still need a gas fired power station as a backup—for when the wind doesn't blow, the power doesn't flow. It is that simple. And of course any gas fired backup power station needs to be ramped up and down to compensate for the intermittency of the wind. A gas fired plant runs inefficiently, burning more gas and having a shorter life span than a plant which is just working normally. It is like a car battling through heavy traffic —less fuel efficiency and more wear and tear. Overseas studies have suggested that we could actually lower our emissions of carbon dioxide if we did away with wind turbines altogether and just ran gas power stations inefficiently.
  50. IPCC Draft Report Leaked, Shows Global Warming is NOT Due to the Sun
    ajason "In regards to those climate change proponents, I'd say are fairly pathetic in that they don’t let everyday humans decide for themselves if it’s true." How does anyone decide whether anything is true with out the information needed to base their decicion on? So how does an 'everyday human' decide the truth of something when they don't have the knowledge base to do that? Which most people don't have wrt AGW. This is sort of the 'one man's opinion is as good as anothers' argument. Which is fine when discussing our preferred football teams. But is completely wrong when considering subjects that are based on detailed factual information - the more knowledgeable person's opinion is worth more because it is an opinion upon the factsand they have more of them. Where my health is concerned, my doctor's opinion is worth far more than my own - that why we always take our doctors advice. If what the taxes are spent on is worth it, taxes are good. Or do you think governments shouldn't tax us to provide for the national defense for example, or to build roads? Besides, in situations of deep and profound threat, Government is that part of society that has the duty and responsibility of responding to the threat. So when scientists sea clear threats to our wellbeing and security, who should they 'attach' themselves to, the Boy Scouts? Government is the centre of society. Our focal point. If they aren't doing that very well, we need to fix that fact. But not ostracise government. "There will always be arguments as to who is wrong and who is right in the climate change debate. " Which is totally different from who is actually right and wrong. Some people can never stop arguing even when they have been shown to be wrong again and again. So the simple existance of arguments actually doesn't say very much without an assessment of the merits of the arguments. This is the centralnature of cranks. Some people become so fixated on an idea that they can never recognise that they have lost an argument and concede.Somepeople go totheir graves arguing. "The real truth will ferret out the public’s course of action" Yes but. The full impact of AGW will reveal itself over time. And presumably our response to it then will be appropriate to what ishappening.But the inertia and lead times involved in the climate system means that we have to be acting on it decades before it fully manifests itself. "How many times have people been lied to by politicians ..." Yep, sometimes they do. Guess why. When they tell us the truth, we can't handle it, we want to wish it away or blame someone for it. Or vote them out. So all governments deceive us a bit because they have to to be able to get things done. This is the down side of democracy. "Look at Einstein’s special theory of relativity, he published it and let it be...." Interesting example. When he published the theory, there were no apparent real world consequences toit, certainly no hazards associated with it that were obvious then. So Einstein 'put it out there'. Years later, asit became clear that his theory had some very real and dangerous consequences - Nuclear Weapons - He got very,very political. So to in many other branches of science. When the science has clear negative implications for human wellbeing, the scientists have a deep moral obligation to get involved in pushing for a response to the threat. Because they are the ones best qualified to understand the threat. And if you look at the advocacy of most scientists on this it is along the lines of 'we need to achieve these goals by this point in time or this will happen'.Andif 'the politicians aren't responding veryquickly - they aren't, then the scientists start to bypass the politicians, to convey the magnitude of the threat to the people so that the people can pressure the politicians. "If the scientist really cared about people, then care about people and leave politics out of the equation. " Wish they could. If you really care about people then you know that we need to achieve profound change rapidly. That is the only thing that will 'care for people'. Profound change at this pace can only be driven by government - only they have the power to bring about the changes needed fast enough. The private sector can change things rapidly when there is a buck in it. But they can't bring the targeted focus to the problem needed since their agenda is always somewhere else. In a perfect there wouldbe no politics in government. Government would be what it truely should be - good management. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world and too many of my fellow citizens feel the need to politicise everything. So unfortunately, Politics is it. Sadly it's the only game in town.

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