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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 52801 to 52850:

  1. Cornelius Breadbasket at 00:31 AM on 17 October 2012
    Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    I am so grateful for this article. Here in the UK there is a growing backlash against wind turbines and the article was skewed to imply that growing energy prices were the result of green energy, which I don't believe to be accurate. With 'respected' papers like the Mail printing nonsense - no wonder we have UKIP printing policy documents like this one. Please - is there someone at SKS who would be kind enough to help me write an objective scientific response to this policy document?
  2. Arctic sea ice has recovered
    As Neven points out, CT sea ice area has now surpassed the record anomaly against the 1979-2008 daily average. The record from 2007 was 2.635 million km2 below the daily average. The record is now 2.705 million km2 below.
  3. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Bart: My fault. Updated data for all the series, including new versions of HadCRUT4, BEST and UAH on their way to John. Unfortunately we never got round to automating the updates.
  4. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    All the links look fine now. Must just have been the two you fixed.
  5. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    But what is much worse, in my opinion, is when you have a (formerly) respected scientist (i.e., Curry) enabling Rose while full-knowing the long dubious history of said "journalist". In fairness to Professor Curry she does claim that she has been misquoted She claimed she had been misquoted by David Rose last year as well. In fact she said: "At the moment, I’m feeling manipulated by both Rose and BEST." But she talked to him again, and was misquoted again. Well, gee golly, would you believe it? Poor, innocent Dr. Curry...
  6. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Dear all, Very good post, but...I downloaded the HadCrut4 data myself. The yearly average temp from 1997 to 2011 are: 1997 0.39 1998 0.523 1999 0.298 2000 0.291 2001 0.433 2002 0.485 2003 0.496 2004 0.438 2005 0.534 2006 0.491 2007 0.478 2008 0.383 2009 0.489 2010 0.54 2011 0.399 I computed a linear trend with Excell and the outcome is 0.06 per decade (not 0.084). As far as I can see the trend calculator seem to miss some points at the end of the series? Bart Strengers
  7. It's not us
    Carbon500, if you make reality a matter of perception then we have no common basis for discussion. Either the globe consists of more than the surface atmosphere (e.g. oceans, higher layers of the atmosphere, et cetera) or it does not. Either the graph you posted showed a warming trend or it did not. If you truly believe the 'not' position on either of these issues then 'the way you see it' is at odds with perceived reality 'the way I see it'.
  8. Climate sensitivity is low
    Falkenherz, it depends on what you mean by 'significant'. Current TSI (sometimes still called 'the Solar constant' even though we now know it isn't actually constant) is about 1361 W/m^2. The Maunder Minimum ~1700 was less than 1 W/m^2 lower. Thus, the most profound swing in TSI of the past several thousand years was a change of less than 0.1%. The difference from peak to valley of the ~11 year cycles is also about 0.1%, but obviously maintained over a shorter period. Over longer time scales TSI is increasing by about 0.1% per ~140,000 years as the Sun grows older and hotter. Yet, these 'tiny' changes in TSI have noticeable effects on the Earth's climate due to feedback sensitivity. The fact that current greenhouse gas forcings are already larger than any solar variation of the past few hundred thousand years should thus be of some concern.
  9. It's not us
    carbon500, You need to check out the latest SkS post.
  10. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    I was waiting for this debunk to inform my comments on HuffPo. Its climate section has been inundated by Daily Mailites. I love the denier / realist gif. This distortion of the Met Office HadCRUT4 data will I'm afraid be a powerful denialist tool. Complexity is the enemy in the Daily Mail's / WUWT world of automatic gainsay.
  11. It's not us
    KR: It depends on what you mean by an experiment. To me an experiment is something which has been set up so that variables can be controlled by the experimenter, hence my comments regarding an artificial atmosphere. CBDunkerson: the graph I'm talking about is entitled 'Monthly Mean Global Surface Temperature'- you don't agree with the way I see it; so be it. (-snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Off-topic snipped. Please follow the link that Adelady was kind enough to provide for a discussion of that newspaper article.
  12. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Tommi@7, Your critique has been explained in this post. Particularly in comment 2, Dana explains that the "dip" is due to incomplete BEST data from 2011, that "skeptics" like to cherry-pick to support their preconceptions, wheareas in the realist view, BEST series was extended with all available data for 2011 (at that time). Was it a good choice to illustrate this denialist meme? It is a matter of opinion. My opinion is that it was good, as we've seen example of such data cherying/distorting by denialists in the past.
  13. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    It's depressing how an apparently serious newspaper prints such garbage. I don't see any big complication in understanding that a linear trend overlaid on short-term cyclic variation can occasionally result in a "flat" or even "negative" short-term trend. A really simple thing to do is to create a plot of a sine wave added to a linear function (e.g. y = sinx + 0.1x will give periods of about 3 units where the curve goes down) and on a sufficiently small time scale, the trend appears reversed, or do what I did here: take a period when the temperature record is flat, add a positive linear trend, and you will still find periods when there is a negative slope on a trend line. In all cases, you know there's a linear trend because you've imposed one on data that had no trend before.
  14. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    #55 Hi again JoeRG, I think I understand why they chose to use the global value. It's because they're looking at total radiative forcing, and ultimately they include land/atmosphere/ice heating as well as OHC change in the calculation. So the total value should use a factor of 0.62. In this case it makes sense to calculate the individual components using the 0.62 factor because then they can be simply summed to get the final answer. What each column is calculating is therefore the global RF required to produce each heat content change in 0-700 m, 700-2000 m and LIA. Makes sense, as Table 1 is labelled 'global flux imbalance...'
  15. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    The Daily Mail has been appropriately described as "Britain's answer to Fox News". Enough said.
  16. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    BTW, there's something a little off in the escalator. The last data point shows up with an odd dip before disappearing for the red trend. As it's a good graph against all these "it hasn't warmed since YYYY" and I would've loved to link to that, but in its current state the animation potentially might raise some redundant questions from a certain crowd. Thankfully, Dave Britton handled the denialist comments in the met office response amicably.
  17. Sceptical Wombat at 19:19 PM on 16 October 2012
    Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    In fairness to Professor Curry she does claim that she has been misquoted and never said that the climate models were "deeply flawed". According to her blog she said 'The data confirms the existence of a ‘pause’ in the warming. The impact of this pause within the climate dynamic community has been to focus increased attention on the impact of natural variability, particularly the impact of internal multi-decadal oscillations in the ocean. The new climate model calculations for the AR5 have focused on trying to assess what it would take to accurately simulate these multi-decadal ocean oscillations and how predictable they might be. These new observations and climate modeling results will hopefully impact the the IPCC AR5 deliberations so that we do not see the same overly confident consensus statements that we saw in the AR4. ' Curry has consistently argued that a great deal of the increase we have seen (not to mention melting ice in the Arctic) may be attributable to the AMO and the PDO. These are convenient because the AMO in particular goes for multiple decades so even 30 years of increase can still be attributed to them. I haven't seen any analytic work by either Curry or anyone else to substantiate this hypothesis. Of course her claim for a pause in the warming ignores the fact that when you correct for TSI, ENSO and aerosols there has been a steady increase - and as you say there is the small matter of ocean warming.
  18. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    I'm struggling to convince a denier that the Daily Mail article is incorrect. One of the tools I'm using is the SkS post (What has global warming done since 1998?) that shows continued global warming in a graph using GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT data. My denier acquaintance insists that "NCDC is GISS data." I understand NCDC is under NOAA and GISS is under NASA. Clearly from the graph alone NCDC data is different or is processed differently than GISS data. Their respective websites suggest that NCDC and GISS rely on different satellite data. Can some tell me the difference between NCDC and GISS data? Sorry if this is the wrong place to post the question.
  19. Philippe Chantreau at 19:07 PM on 16 October 2012
    Climate sensitivity is low
    Falkenherz, Tamino has a good explanation with the maths, Wobbles part1 and part2, on the WB machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20080501124634/tamino.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/wobbles-part-1/ http://web.archive.org/web/20080419120634/http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/wobbles-part-2/ Wiki has the skinny on Milankovitch, I'm surprised you seem to be not yet familiar with that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles Berger and Loutre have published quite a bit on the subject, check them out. The litterature is out there.
  20. Climate sensitivity is low
    CBDunkerson, thanks for correcting me again. But my question is still open: So, are there really no significant changes in TSI throughout the last 450k years? Philippe, I take it I then have to talk about insolation instead of TSI? So, let me rephrase: What was the difference in insolation or whatever W/m2, in order to trigger the shifts during the last 450k years?
  21. empirical_bayes at 17:22 PM on 16 October 2012
    Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    What would be interesting to know, quite apart from implications for contact melting of ice caps, is what this continued sinking of heat energy in oceans does for their thermal expansion.
  22. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    YubeDube @4, Yes, the usual suspects for sure. The denial propaganda machine is doing whatever it can to try and drown out the inconvenient truths such as the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice and continuation of anthropogenic global warming. "Keep repeating until the noise drowns out reality." Agreed. This duo by Rose and Curry is clearly designed to drown out reality and help fake skeptics deal with their denial and cognitive dissonance. "....but in regards to the state of affairs in the world of journalism." This is a pretty sad time for journalism. Good and ethical journalists should be outing Rose and giving him a piece of their minds. But will they have the fortitude to call out one of their own? It is their loss and another hit on their profession if they don't.
  23. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    #53 MarkR Thanks for the explanation. It's clear now. #48 dana1981 Thanks as well. Regardless, the main conclusions remain unchanged. Not quite. Speak of an "accelerated rate" is a bit overstated. But nonetheless, the forcing is of course strong. For me it seems that DK12 used this difference of the 2000-2008 and 2002-2008 to generate this "negative" forcing. If so, it would be absurd. I have a last question. Why you use a factor of 0.62 what includes the whole surface? For a forcing that counts to the OHC, only the oceans surface is to consider. For the land values you use the LAI data where the rest, means the remaining 29% of the surface, have to be considered. For your OHC data a factor of 0.88 would be correct, I think. Do you agree?
  24. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    When 3-sigma events occur 10x as often, they are no longer 3-sigma events!
  25. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    Albatross @3 Google the title and you will quickly see the usual suspects pop up on the radar. This article is an excellent example of the concept of meme in regards to the disinformation of Availability cascade. Keep repeating until the noise drowns out reality. This article is disgusting not only as it is viewed in relationship to climate science and understanding but in regards to the state of affairs in the world of journalism.
  26. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    YubeDube @1, Interesting analysis. You finish by saying, "Regardless of the reasons for this article, the substance is appallingly misleading noise." I agree--nothing but noise from a radical, anti-science minority, it is all they have. It is bad enough that certain "journalists" habitually misrepresent the science and fabricate falsehoods. But what is much worse, in my opinion, is when you have a (formerly) respected scientist (i.e., Curry) enabling Rose while full-knowing the long dubious history of said "journalist". This is wholly unacceptable, and tragic that such repeated unprofessional behaviour goes without consequence. Not surprisingly, the usual fake skeptics out there have been only too happy to uncritically disseminate this propaganda.
  27. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    The daily mail article was linked on NZ's Whaleoil blog. It prompted me to download the HADCRUT4 monthly data and make my own graph. You can see my comment and graph here. The mail online had chosen to start their graph with the September 1997 figure, .475 degrees. The January 1997 figure is about .2 degrees so would have given the impression of an overall .3 degree rise through to May 2012. Of course nowhere does the mail online cop to only including the last 4 months of 1997's data.
  28. Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
    I started this last night knowing that someone was going to post....thanks Dana. Recently SKS has posted a number of quality articles on the issue of climate change communication-CCC. One aspect of CCC that keeps showing itself over and over is the misdirection of obfuscation as offered by those who, for whatever reason, feel the need to take their skepticism out of the realm of reason and logic and into the dark shadows of rhetorical excess and blatant misrepresentation. An article by David Rose from the Daily Mail Online is an excellent example of this and a focused dissection will give us the opportunity to examine a few of the techniques that are commonly used. The reader will be best served by opening the article in another window and placing it side by side; think of this as SKS-CSI: CCC Squad. Starting with the headline we are introduced to an unnamed report, one that the Met Office has said they did not release or produce, and a sinister suggestion that it was quietly release as thought there is something to hide. This point of a quite release is going to show up a few times in the article. Though the writer never talks about the origin of this report it is repeatedly implied that the Met Office is responsible. Next, we get two bullet points; one that stipulates a time frame statistically irrelevant, and the second that draws a conclusion only the writer knows the significance of but when used as a bullet point it must be important. Moving on to the bulk of the article: The opening sentence is nothing more than a repetition of the primary statistical outlier dressed up as relevant information and to those who don’t know any better it will carry the weigh of fact; that the writer and editor chose to place this as the opening sentence adds to the perception of importance that the information doesn’t merit. The second sentence introduces the concept of “debate” within the climate science community without introducing these other voices; later we will hear one voice who disagrees but the controversy from that voice has nothing to do with the “report”. This is a created controversy that does not actually exist within the science community but serves the writers obfuscation. No scientist who works with the data or understands the nature of statistics is going to accept this time frame as anything more than noise. It is this degree of sophistry and speciosity that can alter the public perception away from the generally accepted message as generated by science toward a false perception of our actual climatic status based on nothing more than manipulative articles like this. Sentence three and the writer is offering a conclusion as to the meaning of this “report” albeit a conclusion that is again irrelevant and based on statistical noise that no scientist would accept as note worthy. Next we get a graph produced by the Mail that has the requisite amount of fire engine red to demand the viewer’s attention with just the right mix of deception in structure to look as thought it supports the articles central premise. Not only does the writer apply his own biased analysis to the “report” but he avoids any of the graphics from the “report” and has his people make their own. Note that the graph title makes a suggestion the graph never shows; “showing tenths of a degree above and below”, there are no points on the graph below, but the seed has been planted in the readers sub-consciousness. At this juncture it is evident that journalistic integrity and objective reporting are not what we are going to find. A line by line autopsy will not tell us much more than we have already discovered so let’s look at just some broad strokes. There is the repeated mentioning of the “report” being quietly released with the implication that in comparison to the “media fanfare” of the previous release of temperature data there must be a reason that implies that the devil is afoot. Reading further we get to meet a few of the popular memes that have been making the rounds such as: catastrophic, bourgeois Left-wing academics (a new one for me but one that I find most entertaining), another repeat of the articles primary focus but this time in the form of a pub trivia game (an appeal to populist working class?), still another repeat of the report being issued “quietly” in comparison to…; and then the monster who eats little babies, “Your energy bill is going to increase”. It should be noted that whenever reason and logic fail suggest someone has their hand in your pocket and is stealing from you to make your point unassailable. This article isn’t about science as it only skims the data, albeit incorrectly, this article is just another salvo in the war for the minds of the masses who are either to busy to notice of lack the sophistication to discern the high degree of sophistry being applied. This is about using a dishonesty of words to manipulate emotions in the reader who lacks the intellect to see the obvious propaganda. Maybe the motivation is pure business, trying to appeal to the readerships demographic. Regardless of the reasons for this article, the substance is appallingly misleading noise.
  29. Philippe Chantreau at 10:03 AM on 16 October 2012
    Climate sensitivity is low
    Falkenherz, if you are referring tp the galcial/interglacial cycles, the evidence points to changes not in TSI but in its distribution over the surface. That itself is an argument for high sensitivity to radiative forcings in general.
  30. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    Some of the links to the SkS articles from 'This Week in Review' are broken.
    Moderator Response: [DB] I found 2 broken links there & fixed them. Were there others? Thanks!
  31. It's not us
    Carbon500 - "Where have I made the claim that the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas hasn't been experimentally proven?" Let me refresh your memory. In your last post, which I replied to before it was snipped for being a Gish Gallop, you said:
    Does this really mean that the foundation stone of the CO2 story hasn’t been verified experimentally, and that calculated forcings are all the evidence there is?
    You did indeed make that claim - and it is indeed completely unsupportable given direct evidence such as Harries 2001.
  32. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    Indeed, Carbon Brief stole a little bit of my thunder there! My post makes a lot of the same points, and even uses one of the same graphics.
  33. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    For those interested -- and who are too impatient to wait for Dana -- CarbonBrief have already posted a Daily Mail debunk.
  34. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    Yes, we've got a Daily Mail debunking post almost ready to go. I may even publish it later today.
  35. Most coral reefs are at risk unless climate change is drastically limited
    This is a very interesting blog. I have studied Biology and Environmental Sciences where we have analysed the impacts of climate change on ocean warming and acidification, and have found the same results. Coral reefs lack the ability to diversify and as such, are subject to the harsh consequences when their environment changes. What some people do not realise is that declining coral reefs have a huge impact on the environment in which they grow. This is because of the feedback mechanisms that occur between the corals and the animals and plants that live amongst it - and the symbiotic relationships present. The fact that coral growth is limited to an increase of BELOW 1.5 degrees Celsius is very frightening, considering the possibilities of severer warming. Furthermore, that the scenario conducted only shows two thirds to be able to adapt to extreme conditions. It is situations like these where the environment (in this case coral reefs) cannot adapt appropriately to changing climates, that mitigation to anthropogenic activities is vital to their survival. Because while natural climate variability does occur, anthropogenic impacts put species at risk of extinction where before they may have had a chance to adapt and survive.
  36. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    Yes, John Hartz, this weekly post is very useful. Ouijit@7. Yes, I believe that the indefatigable dana1981 has a post in the works to debunk the Daily Mail article. Indeed, he has already prebunked it.
  37. Climate sensitivity is low
    "it is still very hard to grasp that incoming direct TSI can be modified by "earth climate" to such a high level that it in fact marginalizes the source's direct influence" How about considering how different the climate of the earth would be (ice ball) without any GHG then? If you dont think that theory is believable then consider that you deduce surface temperature of any rotating planet anywhere given TSI, albedo, aerosol and ... atmospheric composition (ie GHG).
  38. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    I agree with jonas at 5, very useful for keeping those not in the loop informed.
  39. It's the sun
    Interesting article on this topic: Steinhilber et al 2012, "9,400 years of cosmic radiation and solar activity from ice cores and tree rings". They use Be10 and C14 isotopes from ice cores and tree rings to reconstruct total solar irradiance over that period, taking advantage of some more recent ice cores for cross-checking. They then compare that to the Asian climate record, and find good coherence - albeit with periods of very low coherence, which they state are "...pointing to other forcings like volcanoes and greenhouse gases and their corresponding feedbacks. Their forcing data will apparently be made available at the NOAA server for paleo datasets, although only his 2009 revision is currently up.
  40. A comprehensive review of research into misinformation
    Vrooomie and gpwayne, if you were looking for practice at trying out John's techniques, then SA Dean did give you that opportunity. But although Mr. Dean did gussy up the standard run of the mill "sceptic" arguments and deliver them politely, they were obviously still just that from the outset.
  41. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    If coal continues to be replaced by natural gas in the coming decade or so and with it, the production of aerosols which have a very short life in the atmosphere, it should be possible to get a handle on the relative cooling effect of aerosols. Could we be in for a wee upturn in global warming just when we least need it (this year's Arctic ice melt)
  42. Climate sensitivity is low
    Falkenherz wrote: "So, what level of TSI difference started and ended the shifts we observe from the ice cores?" Rather than explain to you again why the glacial / interglacial cycle is not caused by changes in TSI I'll just point you to the previous time I explained it.
  43. Climate sensitivity is low
    Hi! It is still very hard to grasp that incoming direct TSI can be modified by "earth climate" to such a high level that it in fact marginalizes the source's direct influence. A problem many sceptics seem to have, too. Coming from the discussion of the alternative TSI reconstruction from Shapiro e.a. http://www.skepticalscience.com/shapiro-solar-2011.html#comments , which is counter-argued in that linked article because his observations would imply a very low climate sensitivity when compared to the reconstructed temperature curves from Ljungqvist. I read here with special interest about Hansen 2008 and his long term comparisions from earth history. Hansen 2008 does not bring forth any TSI data, but from his footnotes you get the impression there is almost no significant shift in TSI levels throughout earth history. However, he also states "The possibility remains of solar variability on longer time scales.", which he debunks by pointing out the TSI development of the last decades (last page); which I find not entirly coherent. Is there any data on TSI levels throughout earth history? (For example, for the last 450k years from Figure 2 of this article? I never really understood what part of the 6 Degrees difference from the ice cores is attributable to GHG and what part to TSI. Sure is only that TSI was the driver of the shifts from warm to cold and vice versa. So, what level of TSI difference started and ended the shifts we observe from the ice cores?)
  44. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #41
    From my perspective it is more effective to stop in on WNR than a broad troll of the literature. Hurrah for cogency. Yours FPjohn
  45. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    #48 JoeRG : Apologies if I repeat what you already know, but Table 1 is radiative forcing, related to the gradient of the OHC-time series. The error on a gradient is the measurement error plus non-linear components (e.g. ENSO/solar/volcanoes) which also add to the noise. By taking a longer trend you are including more data, and their average contribution reduces towards zero if the noise distribution has a mean-square of zero, so the error estimate falls. Try it in a spreadsheet with a trend plus white noise and then calculating the trend and standard error for different time spans. Even if the noise characteristics don't change, the error in the trend estimate is reduced as more data are included. Larger standard errors earlier on would serve to increase the error, but from Nuccitelli et al's numbers it seems that lengthening the trend calc from 6 years to 28 years more than compensates. Finally, you can see the same effect using Kevin C's excellent trend calculator. 2005-2010 has a trend error of close to 0.65 K/yr. Taking it from 1970 to 2010 reduces the error to 0.036 K/yr.
  46. Shapiro et al. – a New Solar Reconstruction
    gws, yes, thanks! So I will now look into the bigger picture from that quoted article "how sensitive is the climate" in order to fully understand the argument of this article here.
  47. Shapiro et al. – a New Solar Reconstruction
    Falkenherz @32 In general, the answer is yes. As you are not a scientist, let me explain what this means in the science world: 1. If the Shapiro result is defensible in methodology and argumentation, it contrasting past results (metaphor: does not fit existing puzzle) is provisionally accepted 2. This leads to more questioning in this field (actual skepticism!) to explain why different results were obtained, which usually improves the science down the road 3. When said improvement comes along, the result that does not fit into the improved picture becomes marginalized (even if we cannot clearly explain why it was wrong) So far, any arguments made in the past not fitting global warming theory (call them "rogue puzzle pieces") by forwarding alternative explanations (e.g. the Lindzen Iris hypothesis) have not stood the test of time outlined in 1.-3. So if past is any indication of future, Shapiro et al. will not cease to exist, but it may get marginalized quickly unless more evidence fitting it is appearing in the peer-reviewed literature. Does that help?
  48. Climate time lag
    Falkenherz, It is, unfortunately, common that people do not talk "eye-to-eye", and online, without benefit of direct feedback or physiognomy, even more so. That said, people here immediately responded asking you to be clearer on message. It took a while before it was understood here that you meant to say that "serious" skeptics argue that "TSI drives all other changes" (your initial "top-up"), aka also the observed CO2 increases. Needless to repeat ?: No, no evidence for that being the current mechanism of climate change. Instead, plenty of evidence for the universally acceptance mechanism. And no, no hard feelings, you are welcome to be back with more as long as it's not too far our ;-)
  49. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues
    Lloyd Flack "I think climate change denial is more common in physics than in most sciences. " Yeah. Another one is Geology, particularly what is called 'economic geology' - the geology of digging stuff up. That is perhaps easy to see why. They spend their working lives 'building our world' by finding stuff to dig up. So they have an emotional vested interested in preserving the merit of what they have done. Then the focus of their working life is about the questions of 'what rocks, where?'. They don'tactually need to focus to much on the story of why those rocks are what they are - you left that behind in your undergraduate days. And they don't spend much timeon the academic geology - history of the Earth, what processes occurred over that history, a deep understanding of the chemistry of the past. Yet they are surrounded all the time by the immensity of geology. So it is easy to lose sight of the causes of geology andthe part living systems play in that - Photosynthesis gets invented 3.5 billion years ago, photosynthetic organisms flourish in a CO2 rich world. They start elevating the O2 level in the atmosphere till, at around 10% O2 the so-called 'Great Oxygenation Event' occurs. Rising O2 levels start to react with the masses of iron dissolved in the oceans to produce Iron Oxides- Rust. This precipitates out and sinks to the sea floor where it builds up in thick layers. Which we are mining today, 2.5-3 billion years later. If their career hasn't led them to think deeply about why the geology is what it is, not just what it is, they can easily be overwhelmed emotionally by their sense of themeaning of their working lives and lose sight of this.
  50. It's not us
    Carbon500 wrote: "Sometimes it's useful to stand back and just look at the contours of a graph rather than playing games with trend lines and placing all your faith in statistical results." So... avoid any hint of actual math and just let your preconceived notions guide your 'understanding' of the data? "The section of graph I'm talking about is quite different in character from what precedes it." True, in that it does not show as rapid an increase in atmospheric temperatures... but you implied ("Finally, the globe is warming? Is it?") that it doesn't show an increase at all, which is simply false. Even if it weren't false it would be the wrong graph for what you purport to be disputing. That's a graph of lower atmospheric temperatures, not "the globe". The oceans of the world are a vastly greater reservoir of energy than the lower atmosphere... and measurements of ocean water continue to show a high rate of warming. Finally, even if we could use just the lower atmosphere to determine whether the globe was warming, while ignoring the vastly more significant oceans, and we pretended that the lower atmospheric graph you posted did not show the warming trend it actually does... your 'conclusions' would still be wrong because there has been extensive research on the various factors at play in atmospheric temperatures over the past hundred years and the 'difference in character' you note has been explained by measured changes in factors other than the greenhouse gas forcing. Basically, greenhouse gas warming continues to increase and is the primary driver of the continuing warming trend. The short term variability you cling to is the result of other smaller factors (e.g. solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, soot, et cetera) varying up and down enough to change the slope of the trend over short time frames... but not enough to stop the inexorable upwards march.

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