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Comments 52351 to 52400:

  1. What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
    "...(assuming that someone is still paying attention)." I am! I am, Alby! Then again, I'm a complete sucker for a well-spoken scientist....grrrrrrr...;) I've come to the realization, esp. after watching Frontline a few nights ago, that the *only* thing we can do, as those who follow, interpret, and understand the data, is to keep on refuting it, time and time and time, after immeasureable TIME again. Dale can continue to try, but, IMHO, to those who lurk or those whoa re jsut quiet (real) skeptics, the constant and calm debunking of the Dales of the world is what will win the day. I hope....
  2. Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
    mwsmith12 @2, Model runs made without GHGs suggest that global temperatures should have decreased if only natural variability is taken into account (see image below). This is even more so for the naughts given the prolonged solar minimum and the increased aerosol loading. Yet, because of the positive radiative imbalance/forcing from anthropogenic greenhouses gases, temperatures and energy in the climate system have continued to increase. [Source]
  3. Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
    mwsmith12 - Global surface temperatures in the noughties warmed, albeit slightly, that's why that sentence is constructed so. There is no expectation that it should have cooled given that the oceans, the repository of over 90% of global warming, have indeed warmed substantially through the noughties - save for a period 2004-2008. In other words; part of the trend in global surface temperatures is due to the burial of heat in the subsurface ocean during the La Nina-dominant period in the latter part of that decade, and the hiatus in ocean warming between 2004-2008. This will become apparent in later posts.
  4. Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
    Mike Roddy - the indirect effect of aerosols, i.e. their capacity to modify cloud characteristics, is far greater than their direct effect - the absorbing or scattering of sunlight, by the presence of aerosols themselves. This has been borne out by aircraft-based observations over the last few decades. The fact that aerosols did in fact increase over this period, suggests they played a part in this dimming trend. How much we don't yet know. Lindzen? - does his hypothesis predict dimming, brightening, dimming? Note also the solar trend during this period. Aside from the energetics problem, the solar trend make his idea untenable. Changes in human-made aerosol composition, and emission, at least match the dimming/brightening observations. I'll discuss more of this in upcoming posts, this post is focused on the results of the Hatzianastassiou paper.
  5. Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
    "a slower rate of warming of the surface ocean and global surface temperatures should have occurred in the noughties." That's what actually happened in the noughties, yes? But how do you know a slower rate of warming should have occurred, and not cooling?
  6. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Since air travel is such a small contributor to global CO2 emissions when compared with electrical generation, ground transportation, industry and agriculture that it seems to be a bit silly to require that all climate activists stop traveling by air. What about ocean transportation? Consider all that bunker fuel burned to deliver coal and oil around the world. When James Hansen shows up at a coal power plant in Great Britain do you suppose he did not get there by air? Bill Mckibben is one of the most energetic activists in the US and he is currently on a big campaign that will take him to most of our major cities and college campuses. He freely admits that to do his work he must travel by air. I wonder why Gore gets all the criticism for air travel? Could it be due to the success of the politically motivated anti-science organizations mentioned in the Frontline piece like the Heartland Institute? Gore is a name that seems to easily get Jasper and Eustis off the tractor and into the streets to protest. But the climate activists use this technique too. Mckibben likes to use Exxon to enflame the public. But the politics is not about party affiliation it is strictly about government action on climate change. Look how quickly the money and power moved against Bob Inglis in the 2010 midterm election. All he said was, “climate change is real.” That was enough for the Republican power brokers. He had been a respectable Republican for many years but that didn’t matter after those fatal words. Anyone who thinks bipartisan effort is possible with this issue is mistaken. Anyone who thinks that just because some majority of folks in the US thinks climate change is real, means that political action is possible is mistaken. The fossil fuel funded conservative influence to control thought and opinion is powerful. It is so transparent that it is laughable yet it is so tragically effective. I thought Frontline did a good job of laying out the history of the politically motivated opposition to any government action to reduce CO2 emissions in the US. They covered pretty much all the important events that have led up to the current situation. I was troubled a bit by the climate scientist who admitted that the opposition to any realistic solution was overwhelming and he just wanted to be able to say he had done his best to warn the public. I wonder if that will help when he talks to his grandkids about their future. I get that sick feeling in my stomach when I think about my grandkids. We all know this will not be easy. We have to change everything: power generation, all forms of transportation, agriculture and industry. It is nothing like CFC’s. We had an easy substitute for that, it is having unintended consequences, but the ozone holes are slowly getting smaller so far. It is nothing like acid rain. AGW is a gargantuan problem and we sure don’t need anti-science politically motivated supporters of the fossil fuel industry confusing things. It is hard enough. Even African nations that have suffered tragic droughts from climate change cannot stop themselves from developing oil resources once they are discovered. If our problems were just confined to disruptions to the carbon cycle and an overheating planet that would definitely be enough but they are not. We are not even that lucky. I won’t list all the others here but we humans have really built a lot of booby traps into our marvelous civilization.
  7. Global Dimming in the Hottest Decade
    If the effect of cloud dimming is now considered by the authors to be far greater than that of aerosols, does this mean that Cox's work is less important than we thought? How do Lindzen's theories fit into this paper? Since overall warming will result in more water vapor and dimming, will the .52 w/sqm negative feedback cited during the 2000's increase in the future, offsetting a substantial portion of forcing from emissions?
  8. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Energy Imbalance http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/energy-budget.html 510,000,000 square km = 510,000,000,000,000 square meters 0.58 W/m^2 = 0.58 J/m^2/s 295,000,000,000,000 J/s = 2.95 x 10^14J/s Little Boy ~= 6.3 × 10^13 joules 4.6 bombs/s ? Yeah, about 400,000 bombs/day
  9. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Glenn, on the IQ test: I have to disagree that it is a good idea, or would even achieve the objective. Plenty of the deniers are actually highly intelligent (clearly more than 1 std dev above the mean); but, they refuse to accept information contrary to what they want to believe. Singer, Lindzen, Curry, etc. are all highly intelligent; that does not imply they are right. Who knows, maybe even "legitimate rape" Akin would pass that test. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be a good leader. You do have to be able to know your own limitations, and be able to choose who to believe rationally, without predisposition to those who tell you want you want to hear. Maybe that is the rub of what I'm trying to say; high intelligence and rational behavior do not always correlate. In any event, it is a mistake to assume that those with whom you disagree are stupid, or that smart people always come to the same conclusion. I was pleased to see the escalator; I'm not sure that credit was given where it was due. But, that is small potatoes relative to making the point that it makes.
  10. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Just so I didn't completely waste my time, I am reposting a comment I made to the online version of this Mail story which they have not posted. I think analogies such as these are useful because the general public are too easy too fool with the disinformation that Rose keeps churning out. The video mentioned is that: "Nasa video shows Earth's changing temperature from 1880 to present" which to us appears so clear... _________________________________________ "The video shows the true situation better than any words. It blindingly obviously shows that although global surface temperatures vary a lot year to year and country to country, over decades, the overall warming trend is clearly visible, most dramatically in the Arctic region. It clearly shows the big problem with David Rose's cherry picked start dates that badly misrepresent the true situation. Imagine, Mr Rose, you are on a beach at a place with a high tidal range. As the waves break 40 feet up and down the beach over one minute you are constantly pointing out when the water goes down the beach and biasing your trend lines to claim that the tide is going out - meanwhile the tide is actually slowly coming up at half an inch a minute. You are suggesting there is no danger but if you stay where you are on the beach, you will drown - and everybody else too. Natural climate variation is big like waves but CYCLIC. Global warming is small, like the tides but cumulatively more dangerous"
  11. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Tristan @33, Here are the full set of statistics for the period 1995 through 2012 for HadCRUT4: Trend: 0.097 ±0.113 °C/decade (2σ) β=0.0097464 σw=0.0016980 ν=11.093 σc=σw√ν=0.0056555 What is interesting is the trend for the UAH satellite data run by "skeptics" Drs. Roy Spencer and John Christy, their data show the strongest warming of all the products for 1995-2012: Trend: 0.121 ±0.191 °C/decade (2σ) β=0.012135 σw=0.0023288 ν=16.855 σc=σw√ν=0.0095612 One has to wonder why the "skeptics" are using the surface temperature data from a group that they continuously accuse of "fudging" the data, when they can use a "superior" (as claimed by "skeptics") product generated by "skeptics"? Well, the answer to that is very easy..... ;)
  12. Philippe Chantreau at 02:10 AM on 25 October 2012
    Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    "flying is one of the most intensive fossil carbon emitting activities" That's another "look, squirrel!" argument. Coal burning electricity generation is the biggest problem and will remain thus until industrial scale coal burning is eradicated. That may not happen until it runs out, in which case we are in a heap of trouble. If ground transportation and electricity generation can be freed from fossil fuels, we have a chance to avert drastic changes, regardless of what is done with air transportation.
  13. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Skepticalscience trend calculator has zero within the confidence interval from 1995 using HadCRUT4. Tamino suggested a while ago that given the noise and the trend, 17 years is around the threshold at which we should always (95%) see a significant positive trend in the surface data. Combined, it suggests that the past 17 years has been unusually noisy.
  14. What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
    Just to set the record straight on some of Dale's misconceptions (assuming that someone is still paying attention). 1) Dale @33 claimed that, "But what we're talking about in this article is attribution, ie: how much ice melt did the storm or underlying conditions cause? He seems to have misunderstood the intent of the post, or is trying to reframe the argument to fit his narrative. Either way, the above statement misses the point of the post. 2) Dale @44 claimed that, "....and no conclusion of increasing frequency or intensity of storms over time can be made." That is not correct and misrepresents the content of the post, I suggest Dale reads it again . Some studies have found evidence of increasing frequency and/or intensity of Arctic Basin storms (e.g., Hakkinen et al. 2008) over a 50-yre period. In contrast, Screen et al. (2011) found no evidence for an increase in frequency of Arctic storms over the satellite era, but they did find evidence of an increase in the intensity of storms. Again, this is all stated in the main post. Long and Perrie (2012) have even proposed a theoretical mechanism that may be causing this increase in the intensity of storms, and it has to do with the loss of sea ice exposing more open water. 3) Just a general comment. Screen et al. (2011) found that it was the cyclone activity early in the spring (May through July) that that is critical in determining the final minimum extent. The storm of 2012 occurred in August. So that fact right away casts doubt on the claim being made by "skeptics" that this event was responsible for the record low.
  15. What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?
    Bob Loblaw (multiple posts), Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful analysis and commentary. Thanks too to others who have provided constructive commentary on this. Dale made some incorrect claims and I'll address one or more of them in the next post.
  16. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Kevin @16, Great work! Very interesting.
  17. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    The following post by John Brookes at Tamino's nicely exposes (from a slightly different angle) the game being played by the disingenuous likes of Curry and Rose et al. (my bolding): "My suggestion is that we insist that “No significant warming since xxxx” should always have to use 1995 as the starting date, as I’m sure we all recall when Phil Jones was forced to concede that there had not been statistically significant since 1995. It was good enough for the “skeptics” then. It should be good enough for them now." So the fake skeptics have again shifted the goal posts and 1997 becomes the new cherry-pick. They can play this disingenuous game indefinitely.....but not if we hold them to 1995, for example. Has anyone asked Curry why she supports the use of 1997 as a start date versus 1995 when using the HadCRUT data?
  18. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Please do not make this a personal issue. This is a social issue. This is a geo-social issue that needs corrective actions from every nation around the world. Making this a personal issue is one of their tactics so that nobody wants to force on themselves indivisually. Only thing each indivisual has to do is to admit AGW is real and happening now. Nobody would have to buy a hybrid car with 59 hp or paint our roof white if they admit/agree. It is a social policy issue. Even if all agree, we will not be able to realistically, practically do drastic things. There will still be the fuel fossil industries and other geo-political, economic factors. Let's get the first thing first. Let's get the majority admit it's real and happening now so that the policy makers wouldn't have to be pressured to say otherwise, so that all those green technologies will be more accetable to people and that would mean better economic advantages, oppertunities for the industries.
  19. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/an-inconvenient-question-should-al-gore-fly-to-stockholm/ Gore did make some comments about flying. And of course it is CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and habitat destruction that need addressing not breathing. Hansen is calling for 350ppm, therefore carbon sequestration, which would basically need the total cessation of fossil fuel use and a massive carbon sequestration effort through eco-system restoration. Therefore as flying is one of the most intensive fossil carbon emitting activities, it doesn't really seem a sensible activity for anyone understanding the urgent situation we are facing. And if someone wants to look for a way out in denial this is all too easy with this inconsistency of message to action.
  20. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Further to CO2 emitting issue. It's not about how much CO2 we are emitting. It's where the CO2 comes from. For example, if the fuel for Al Gore's jet comes from cooking oil then he can fly as much as he wants, with no adverse effects on CCycle nor atmospheric CO2 rise. Burning C from biosphere does not matter in grand scheme, because that CO2 will be absorbed back by that biosphere eventualy. But burning C from FF sequestered for 100s My is a different story.
  21. Sea level rise is exaggerated
    Sorry clearly an amateur at this here are the unembellished links.... http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2012_rel4/sl_ns_global.png http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_Adjust.png http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/images/alt_gmsl_seas_rem.jpg The NOAA trend seems to be a bit lower @2.8mm/yr http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/slr/slr_sla_gbl_free_txj1j2_90_500.png
  22. Sea level rise is exaggerated
    Here is an updated TOPEX and Jason data time series from CU. Hope it posts OK as I have not tried here before. Seems completely consistent with previous results from CU. It seems that CU AVISO, CSIRO and NOAA all have converged on a 3.1 mm/yr rate. Source
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Fixed image. Html posting tips are here.

    As a tip for images, place your URL address desired between both sets of "" in the string below:

    <a href="">< img width="450" src=""></a>

  23. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    ranyl, it would only be hypocrisy if Gore had ever said something to the effect of, 'the situation is so dire that we should stop using airplanes'. Given that he hasn't said anything like that, the whole 'Gore flies on airplanes so global warming must be fake' argument is, to borrow a phrase, 'not even wrong'. It's just stupid. Halting all air travel would not solve AGW... and solving AGW does not require halting all air travel. They might as well claim that Al Gore does not really believe in global warming because he continues breathing... which releases CO2! Humans will continue emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. That is inevitable and no one is saying we need to stop it. Rather, what Gore, Hansen, and other sensible people have called for is that we limit how much CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) we emit such that we do not continue strengthening the greenhouse effect.
  24. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    The head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, when asked if you’re wrong about humans changing the climate said "--- then I will have to say I’m sorry---“. Sorry, but saying sorry is unequivocally not good enough because it will be too late.
  25. Doug Hutcheson at 18:02 PM on 24 October 2012
    The Climate Show #29
    JasonB and DMCarey, thanks for trying to cheer me up "8-). Only when the tide of public opinion is behind us will informed decisions by our politicians be possible and ensuring the survival of our civilisation is clearly a political problem. Maybe my cynicism prevents me from noticing a turning of the political tide in countries "informed" by the Murdoch Juggernaut (AKA "The Evil Empire", but I digress). When the Tea Party starts demanding action to save their beachfront homes; when the Australian Liberal Party adopts policies designed to address AGW; when Christopher Monkton The Great (Deceiver) admits he is wrong; only then will I believe appropriate action will be taken. Of course, by then, it will be too darned late, but heck, at least I will be able to say "told you so" to the Viscount and his cadre.
  26. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    "I agree that it's stupid to somehow try to dismiss, for example, Gore's message because he takes a plane somewhere." Hypocracy is the easiest way to havevagruements dismissed, and therefore I suspect due to this AL Gore has done more harm than good. And if he flies despite what he says then why shouldn't everyone else? He's hardly taking it that seriously is he? Hansen flies alot as well and yet we have a world of instant global communication. About time people walked their talk I'd say. Also about time climate scientists starting saying they are alarmed and be proud to be so!
  27. Doug Hutcheson at 17:14 PM on 24 October 2012
    Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Fred Singer likes to see "good science"? Heartland believes in "sound science"? Gee, don't say those nasty warmistas have been misunderstanding these paragons of virtue! I'm glad I don't own any of those North Carolina beachfront homes, because leaving it to my kids in my will would be giving them a poisoned chalice.
  28. Bert from Eltham at 16:48 PM on 24 October 2012
    Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. Bert
  29. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    lord_sidcup @21 Off topic, but I suspect someone has been reading Wodehouse as well as Whitehouse. Odd choice, that.
  30. Doug Hutcheson at 16:02 PM on 24 October 2012
    Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Thanks for another great post, Dana. I am constantly baffled by the deliberate obtuseness of people who argue for low climate sensitivity and a warm MWP. Own goal indeed.
  31. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    ...I think we have won the debate with the American people in the heartland. A two-way minority, as the US census and opinion surveys on climate change tell us. Global Warming’s Six Americas
  32. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Where do you start with people like that? They need a major brain rewiring job.
  33. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Yah, I'm not sure the AFP guy could have written a better script for telling his freedom-loving constituency that "I control your opinions, I'm proud of it, and I think you're too dumb to do anything about it (or even realize it when I'm telling you all this point blank)." Ultimate public response from this piece? *reaches for the bottle of anti-depressants*
  34. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Just finished watching Frontline... Myron Ebell of the CEI says, "There are holdouts among the urban bi-coastal elite, but I think we have won the debate with the American people in the heartland. The people who get their hands dirty, people who dig up stuff, who grow stuff and make stuff for a living; people who have a closer relationship to tangible reality, to stuff" I guess one only needs to check their finger nails to know what side of reality they are on, or to what degree they are being manipulated by skilled contrarians who avoid the science in favor of witty word play and glossy spin miestering. Without directly saying so, Ebell just called a majority of working class Americans too dumb to do anything other than work with "stuff", and only smart enough to understand that which is directly in front of their faces. On that last point I tend to agree.
  35. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Just finished watching the Frontline show. Quote: "Scientists call this 'Going Down the Up Escalator'"
  36. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    I agree that it's stupid to somehow try to dismiss, for example, Gore's message because he takes a plane somewhere. But I do think that we all need to have some idea of the level of our impact, and look for reasonable ways to reduce it. Yes, ultimately systems have to change. But it will be much easier to move quickly to renewables if our use of energy were a fraction of our current rate--in fact we would be within easy reach at that point. But if we all have ever increasing rates of use, or even just hope to maintain our absurdly high rates of energy use, it will be very hard to get anywhere near full renewable use for a long, long time--longer than we have. So really, guilt isn't the point. The point is to see clearly what we are doing so we can adequately prioritize the changes we need to make. Anyway, thanks for the input. Any further help on the math would be more than welcome.
  37. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    OPa@25 "- take a marginally valid point of scientific discussion" "- exaggerate it and draw absurd, unjustifiable conclusions from it" For the typical individual who didn't: go to university, study statistics, work in research, read peer review journals, or ponder the complexities of any thing more involved the a cricket score these statements are met with a blank expression and a "so what". AGW as an issue of science is generally accepted within the science community and the data that serves as evidence for this position, though it is complex, is not confusing for those who have studied the science and understand the nature of natural systems. Now how many people in the general population are going to be able to fit in this niche of comprehension? For every Einstein there is a soccer stadium full of halfwit hooligans swilling beer and screaming at men kicking a ball. Taking a marginal point and spinning it into a unjustifiable conclusion is as easy as selling lotto tickets to the delusional.
  38. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    I hear you about the individual emissions, wili, but I also loathe how that guilt trip thing has become one of the major tools of the dissemblers: "So, just what are *you* personally doing to combat climate change?" To me, it's the equivalent of: "Hey look, there goes a squirrel!", and is used primarily to deflect attention away from whatever is the real topic at hand. Yes, we can all try to do our bit, and I'm not saying that every little bit doesn't help. But what we really need to do is change the way we generate electricity (especially, we need to get rid of coal) to use primarily renewables, and then gear up our surface transport to run off this clean electricity. That's a big ask, but it would go a long way towards solving the CO2 problem.
  39. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Oh, many of the denialists are very smart. Certainly the Koch brothers are. It is more a matter of intellectual honesty, and I'm not sure there's a good test for that. OT question: Hansen in his TED talk and elsewhere has said that our ghg emissions are adding the equivalent energy to the atmosphere of 400,000 Hiroshima bombs every day. Could someone check my calculations (and assumptions) to see if I am somewhere in the right ball park for what that comes to for individual emissions? As far as I can figure, Hansen's figure means that, over a decade, the average member of the top billion emitters (who are responsible for about 80% of emissions) has personally released the equivalent of at least on Hiroshima bomb (again, over the last ten years). (That would presumably include pretty much everyone who posts here and pretty much everyone that we know.) Thanks ahead of time for any corrections, suggestions, tweaks, reactions...
  40. New research from last week 42/2012
    Tamino has commented exactly as IanC has, about the Zhou and Tung (2012) paper that shoyemore asked about.
  41. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    Radical concept, no doubt someone will scream discrimination but... Any candidate for any seat in government must pass a simple testor they can't standforoffice. IQ greater than 120. This might be relaxed somewhat for those with University qualifications in technical disciplines - science, engineering, maths etc Wishful thinking I know but we can dream.
  42. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Well from this graph (Figure 3) it’s pretty obvious that global warming stopped in 1996 1997 1998. Never mind, I just realized I had my head tilted 20 degrees…. Thanx, Tamino and Skeptical Science. Cross Posted...
  43. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    This may not stand up to moderation. I may have violated the no political comments rule, but, after all you did say, "The program focuses mainly on how and why the politics and public perception of the climate issue have shifted in the USA." So here goes… "What’s behind this massive reversal?" Frontline is of course talking about just what happened in the US. Prior to the 2010 midterm elections the House of Representatives did pass a climate bill. Sure it was a weak bill but it finally passed and went over to the Senate where the minority rules. Where it takes 60 votes (we call it a supermajority) to get anything done and the Majority Leader determined that it just could not get passed; no matter what. So it died. After the 2010 elections the “reversal” happened. "What’s behind this massive reversal?" Follow the money. If Frontline is not going to talk about Citizen’s United, the conservative dominated Supreme Court, and who funded the elections of the Republicans in 2010 then we will not hear the whole story. So, YubeDude and StBranabas, that is shortcoming of democracy; if you extend the vote to everyone than every fool gets a vote. So far, in the US, the fools have packed the House of Representative so do not expect a climate bill even if Obama is reelected. He could talk until he is blue in the face about the reality of the problem, nothing will get the House to even allow a bill let alone discuss it. No matter what a given poll says, the only poll that counts takes place on election day and the balance of power in the House will pretty much stay the same after November 2. The fools are still in charge. De Tocqueville did an excellent critique of democracy. I’ll try to watch Frontline but it comes on pretty late for me.
  44. New research from last week 42/2012
    Shoyemore, As far as I can see the WUWT article actually largely reflects what Zhou and Tung (2012) (ZT12) concluded. The real issue is really whether ZT12 got the analysis right, but I'm not convinced that they did. As I understand it, ZT12 is an extension to Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) (FR11). FR11 used multiple linear regression to remove effect of 'natural' forcings on temperature, such as solar, ENSO, and volcanic aerosol. The novelty of ZT12 is that they carried out the same analysis for a much longer period, and added in atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) as an additional `natural' factor for the temperature trend. What they've found is that after doing the regression, the implied anthropogenic warming is only 0.08 degrees per decade, or half of FR11. More importantly they found that the anthropogenic warming has remained constant, and not accelerating as one would expect given the CO2 forcing. The study is sound in principle, but flawed in execution IMO. In order to genuinely separate out the natural and anthropogenic signal, you have to use the right indices to represent the natural factors. Unfortunately for AMO, the commonly used index is the sea surface temperature (SST) of the north atlantic, which itself is a superposition of the AMO and global warming signal. The Authors used the linearly detrended SST, which probably removes the linear aspect of the global warming signal, but the nonlinear part of the global temperature signal is still embedded in the AMO index used by ZT12. Thus when ZT12 removed the effect of AMO, they've really removed not just the effect of natural AMO, they probably also threw away the nonlinear signal, thus underestimating the anthropogenic signal. I think this is certainly crucial to the validity of their paper, and have the potential to completely nullify their findings. I am surprised that this question is not addressed in the paper at all. I don't have the technical expertise to check this, but I am hoping that someone will.
  45. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    DSL@20: "No matter how cynical you get, it's *impossible* to keep up." Lily Tomlin, from "The Search for Signs Of Intelliegent Life in The Universe." >;-D
  46. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    StBarnabas@7: With your permission, and proper attribution, I'm gonna *steal* that line! "Invincible ignorance:" Truly one for the ages! I too, battle those with severe cases of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome (essentially the same as II, but less fun to say!) and though I always strive to answer questions, once it become apparent that they suffer from II, I give up. Dana, thanks for the reminder post; I've done the same on Facetubes, too.
  47. itscoldoutside at 04:56 AM on 24 October 2012
    Antarctica is gaining ice
    FYI, a more-or-less positive press article on this: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1275441--antarctic-sea-ice-is-increasing-is-global-warming-over (which might be a step forward for The Star, until recently the were still in the habit of including a random denialist quote).
  48. Climate of Doubt and Escalator Updates
    First post Great site and congrats to all. To my great shame my brother in law is a climate change denier. The fact that I have a PhD in Physics and that he does not even have a CSE in maths or any science does not seem to trouble him. I just get mad at his "invincible ignorance" as my dad would have put it. Anyway sorry for the rant and thanks again for taking the time to compile this. Sadly facts do not seem to work either.... StB
  49. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    There's a real classic 'sceptic' feel to this whole thing: - take a marginally valid point of scientific discussion - exaggerate it and draw absurd, unjustifiable conclusions from it - when people challenge these ludicrous exaggerations accuse them of ignoring the issue, circling the wagons, not saying what you want them to say in the way you want them to What disgusts me is that Judith Curry doesn't just buy in to this, she is a prime force driving it.
  50. Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial
    Chris G: Check out the first paper in New Research #42 - model shoing increased winter negative AO. There also an older paper on colder boreal winters which Tamino has posted about very recently. The recent cold winters certainly seem to be tied up with the warm Arctic, and are dragging HadCRUT down because it misses the Arctic. However as far as I understand (which is no more than you when it come to models), I think they are the result of us just having undergone a change in the Arctic, rather than approaching one. Of course the knock-on effect on the Arctic may trigger other unforseen changes, but I wouldn't even attempt to guess what they might be.

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