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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 53201 to 53250:

  1. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    One thing that Inuit communities all over the North believe is that the sun and the stars have changed their position in the sky. Many scientists discouraged them from bringing the attention of the outside world to this observation because, as NASA explained to the makers of the movie Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, it was impossible. This has been the attitude of many scientists to Inuit knowledge. But NASA was wrong. Pollution has altered the atmosphere in the Arctic creating inversions in the North which makes it look to observers on the ground that the sun and the stars have changed their position. Toronto Globe and Mail article on the subject is here. The Inuit might tell us some other things, like we should not destroy the stability of the climate system, but I suppose what we're saying collectively by our inaction is that's another thing we think is impossible.
  2. Sea level is not rising
    Composer99: thanks for the very useful reply. However for clarification: my citations are copied directly from the table on the front page of SkS 'Monckton Myths', hence my comment about these seeming muddled. Could I suggest a clarification?
  3. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Looks like some goalpost shifting is underway. It's the Antarctic that 'skeptics' have moved their attention too.
  4. Madness over sea level rise in North Carolina
    I feel it's my duty to point out that Tamino has a pretty good dressing-down of Dave Burton's sea level "analysis" over at Open Mind.
  5. Climate time lag
    Falkenherz, In Wang 2005 they are reporting the solar constant S, which will be the flux of energy received by a flat disk facing the sun. However as the earth is a sphere, one will need to adjust this in order to make proper comparison with black body radiation and greenhouse gas forcing in simple climate models. For the earth with radius R, the rate of energy intercepted by the earth is given by S*π*R^2 (in Watts). In simple conceptual climate models this is assumed to be evenly distributed on the earth which has a surface area of 4*π*R^2, and thus the solar irradiance is in fact: S*π*R^2/4*π*R^2 = S/4 The solar constant S is about 1366W/m^2, which translates to about 341W/m^2 in the context of radiative balance for the earth. In addition the change in solar forcing is only 1/4 of the change in solar constant. In figure 15 of Wang et al. 2005, the bottom curves is the estimation from Lean 2000, whereas the Wang et al. approach gave the top two curves, which has an increase of less than 1 W/m^2 for S. Diving this by 4 gives an increase of at most 0.25 W/m^2 in solar forcing. THe 0.17W/m^2 figure quoted in this article is likely based on the thick solid curve in fig 15 of Want et al. 2005. Regarding the lag: I think the point is that if the current warming is solely a response to the increase in solar irradiance prior to 1950, then we should've seen a decrease in radiative imbalance over a period of 25-50 years, but radiative imbalance is in fact increasing (according to Hansen 2005 for example).
  6. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    LarryM@10: perhaps we ought to start a fund? Someone who may have contact with Ms. Baikie could ask if she'd like to take a trip to DC/Canberra and speak to the folks there. If so, I'd chip in for it.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed spelling.
  7. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Thanks very much for this article on the human side and the immediacy of climate change impacts. Periodically the U.S. Congress holds climate-change-related hearings that often feature fake-skeptic speakers. It would be great if they could occasionally hear from directly impacted persons who have the eloquence of Ms. Baikie.
  8. Climate time lag
    On the time lag... I don't understand two things here from the article: First, the TSI increase is said to be only "between 0.17 W/m2 (Wang 2005) to 0.23 W/m2 (Krivova 2007) since the Maunder Minimum". In the essay from Wang 2005 , I found this graph in figure 15, where you have the TSI from three studies compared, and you can eyeball an increase from 1 W/m2 to 2,5 W/m2 from the different curves. Second, it is said that "Hansen 2005 estimates the climate lag time is between 25 to 50 years", and then "climate reached radiative equilibrium around the late 80's (give or take a decade)". If I count from 1960 onwards and assume 50 years, there could be a lagged warming until 2010 (which of course does not exclude additional warming by GHG).
  9. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Bernard J@8: took the words right out of my mouth. Well-said.
  10. Sea level is not rising
    Antwerpenaar: If only you were correct. The summary of the myth is ambiguous but when combined with the graphs that are part of the SPPI document I think the meaning is clear. At any rate, I suspect you have inadverently mis-paraphrased the myth statement, which cites Monckton as claiming:
    Together, these two unaltered [sea level] datasets indicate that global mean sea level trend has remained stable over the entire period 1992-2007, altogether eliminating the apparent 3.2 mm/year rate of sea-level rise arising from the “adjusted” data. [Emphasis mine.]
    When combined with the SPPI graphs, it is IMO clear that Monckton is claiming sea levels are not rising at all. I assume you have cited an actual quote by Monckton as well (in fact, it would not surprise me if it was from the same document that this rebuttal cites), which is probably par for the course from Monckton.
  11. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Sadly, in the scheme of Western social response to the climate damage our culture has wrought, people such as the Inuit will simply be regarded as a bit of collateral damage in our progress to... somewhere. My heart breaks for Caitlyn's people, and their melting world.
  12. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    woops..I meant to state "Decreasing our individual carbon footprint."
  13. Solar cycles cause global warming
    Falkenherz, the NASA study (Willson et al. (2003)) found that a slight trend (0.5%) was beginning to occur in the valleys of the 11-year cycle. As they say, "Although the inferred [total] increase of solar irradiance in 24 years, about 0.1 percent, is not enough to cause notable climate change, the trend would be important if maintained for a century or more." Not also that the study is ten years old. It doesn't take a precise analysis to tell that the most recent valley does not support the proposed trend.
  14. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Peter Lang@18: Read this... ..the ask the question again, "why the concern about arctic Ice retreat?" Decreasing our carbon footprint *will demonstrably* be a good first, if tiny step: all need to do as much as they are capable of doing. The biggest bugaboo will be getting governments in line with that thought, and passing stricter controls on carbon, such as the cap and dividend scheme. If we *all* focus on that, and NOW, there is some chance to avoid a really bad outcome. BAU, and the game's up. It's really quite that simple.
  15. Climate time lag
    Side Note: PETM warming is usually presented in simple form as 6C over 20k years or 5C over 12k years. If we get 3C from 1850 to 2150, we'll be warming at 24 times the latter PETM rate.
  16. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    philipm, I'm affraid Peter@18 may be incensitive to the medical emergency analogy. I know deniers who even in the wake of such emergency (hart attack) ignore any wisdom and seek help with e.g. homeopathy. Peter's complete misunderstanding of uncertainty (or denial of the meaning of uncertainty), as indicated by his bold text, suggests that he may also misunderstand/deny the graph from Holland 2006. So maybe this newer article from the same site debunking the true intentions of those who (like Peter) want to delay the policy response, will open his eyes. But, back to the topic, the article in question makes big claim that fossil fuel companies do go with mainstream science & predict the arctic ice is going to melt soon when it works to their advantage but there is no citation to back up such claim. I'm interested if the proof of such claim exists, or if the claim is unverified rumours, giving deniers an argument that this article is "another conspiracy theory by warmists"...
  17. Climate time lag
    My understanding from hearing paleo talks is that rapid species radiation following a severe event is pretty common. A proposed model is that in normal times, the competition for resources means that most mutations are unsuccessful. After the stress is removed and many niches are depopulated, then all sorts of mutations manage to survive because the pressure for resources is reduced, greatly increasing the scope for speciation.
  18. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Peter @ 18: possibly a troll but let's give you a pointer: if you have a heart attack you will accept any solution that's likely to be effective and worry about cost later. If you have sore toe, you may think twice about extensive surgery. I have a couple of posts on one of my blogs about this year’s massive drop: the minimum was about 3.4sq-km (e.g., this one, with a graph showing the minimum). If you update the graphs here and linked articles with the new minimum it looks pretty dramatic. Anyone remember the 2006 paper that was widely attacked for being “alarmist” for apparently predicting a near ice-free Arctic as early as 2040? We are well ahead of any trend modeled in that paper. Here's the reference for anyone who wants to compare it with the new reality as in this graph showing one of their runs vs. today: Marika M. Holland; Cecilia M. Bitz; Bruno Tremblay. Future abrupt reductions in the summer Arctic sea ice. Geophysical Research Letters. 2006, 33(23): 217. 25
  19. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Thanks for your article Caitlyn. The methods of Western science aren't the only ones that have provided humans with valid knowledge. There is a movie, Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, which can be watched online from its homepage.
  20. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Thank you for your contribution. I hope that your people can work out a way to the future.
  21. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    bratisa #3, See this paper which Ari had in the research post a couple of weeks ago. It is a study of the French grape harvest commencement. French Grape Harvest
  22. Climate time lag
    thingadota, I also have read the Wiki article on PETM with great interest. However, keep in mind that the "sudden" shift of temperature probably still strechted over thousands of years. Plenty of time for adaptation for flora and fauna. Also, the continents and oceans had totally different positions, resulting in a global mediate climate, which for example allowed for forest vegetation up until the poles. Therefore, I think we cannot assume that a sudden shift in temperature combinded with a rise in CO2 is positive for evolution. Last point, "explosive" evolution seems always triggered when a high stress on life conditions forces lifeforms to adapt; which means, they die and only newborn with genetic mutations fitting to the new conditions have a chance for survival. From all this, I don't think that the PETM events really translate into a positive outlook for our current, soon about 9 billion, human lifeforms for the next centuries.
  23. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Wonderful post, a fresh and important view on climate change.
  24. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Don't want to sound cynical, but how much one does want to wager against my predictions that deniers either : - will question the authenticity of this testimony - will say that one shall not focus on the small picture, but rather on the global picture - will try and cheer her by saying there will be beautiful crop fields on Arctic soon (!) I voluntary left aside the "we have time to adapt" meme, since they already used IPCC AR4 (!) for that purpose by saying "models (!) show that sea ice will disappear only by 2070" And I omit of course the fact that they will be blind to the accumulation of testimonies like that around the world. For instance, in France, grape season arrives earlier than before - last year, I've seen call for workers from farmers during August (!!).
  25. Solar cycles cause global warming
    CBDunkerson, the website you linked has no mentioning on which TSI data they used or if this is just a statement out of "common knowledge". However, from another commentary tread here on the article on climate time lag, there was a link to a NASA study, which seems to result in still increasing TSI. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0313irradiance.html I don't know if that really makes a difference, but I am still trying to learn more about TSI. As of now, I am still with the three TSI curves from three different studies as shown in figure 15 of Wang 2005; also, see my comments above.
  26. It's not us
    I wrote to Prof Essenhigh a couple of years back when his paper came out. Not having received a response since, I thought I'd write an open letter to him: Open letter to Prof Essenhigh Brilliant that there's a peer review response now (Skeptical Science's Dikran Marsupial's response)
  27. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Thank you for sharing your personal perspective. A very much appreciated effort.
  28. Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
    Brilliant article. All the reports, all the data sets and all the measurements are about the real world and these people are the first witnesses of AGW and its extent. Its easy for my freinds and me to argue about whether climate change is real, what is causing it and what can be done but it is all just theory until you hear a real person describe first hand how it threatens a way of life many thousands of years old.
  29. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Peter @18 - The Arctic plays a big role in global weather patterns, for starters. There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about the sea ice death spiral. However, this is not the place to talk about climate solutions. If you want to discuss that subject, I recommend the rebuttal to the myth 'CO2 limits will harm the economy'. We'll be updating that rebuttal with a new blog post next week, coincidentally.
  30. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Why such concern about the Arctic sea ice extent? What is the consequence if the Arctic sea ice retreats? In fact, why so much concern about global warming? What is the consequence(s)? Most importantly, what is appropriate policy response? Uncertainty about the problem (AGW) is a given; uncertainty about the chosen solution is inexcusable. This is to say, we should be confident that our solutions are going to be effective, and the more expensive the solution the more confident we should be.
  31. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    [14] how do you know what Kaufmann is about to tell us, and why not just tell us what he's going to say instead of telling us we'll be surprised? Polyak et.al. 2010 looked at the data from 300 past and ongoing studies before concluding that "the ice loss we see today... appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities". Science Daily news report on the study is here. Kaufmann et.al. published this in 2010, which revised their chart from their 2009 paper, on long term temperatures in the Arctic. Anomaly is relative to the average during 1961 to 1990:
  32. Sea level is not rising
    I get the impression that this explanation is muddled. The 'myth' statement says: "the rate of increase in sea level has not changed since satellites first began measuring it reliably in 1993" (i.e. talking about a real but constant rate of increase with time: saying that the derivative dLevel/dTime is constant). ... but 'what the science says' gives: 'The claim sea level isn’t rising is based on blatantly doctored graphs contradicted by observations' (i.e. suggesting that the 'myth' is not talking about a rate (derivative) but about the absolute level. Personally I didn't read it that way). I don't have much respect for Christopher Monckton, but I'm not sure that his standpoint is being correctly addressed here. And arguably, the 'myth' statement justifies his trick of sloping the graph: it can be seen as a convenient way of illustrating that the line is straight, i.e. no acceleration.
  33. Philippe Chantreau at 09:08 AM on 26 September 2012
    Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Esop @9, I believe that Rutan's comment was about a sea ice decline that had "stabilized." I'm trying to find the original quote.
  34. It's cooling
    @192: "And now, 2012 (to date) is the hottest year on record." Not globally. I think you mean for the USA it's the warmest so far. Globally it will make the top ten, but won't approach the record. That of course doesn't mean that warming has stopped- it hasn't.
  35. It's cooling
    muoncounter@167: And now, 2012 (to date) is the hottest year on record. Science marches ever forward...;=/...and puts another nail in the denialista's insistence that there's "been no warming since 2001." Sigh....
  36. PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
    Link in citizenschallenge comment @174 is broken (four "/" characters after http: instead of two).
  37. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    Robert, why do you say that about Kinnard? And what will be the difference between the methodologies? Do you have a link to a pre-print for Kaufmann?
  38. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    [7] I don't think that Kinnard et al is an accurate representation of the variability in sea ice over the past 1400 years. In fact I think you will all be surprised with the results that the next Kaufmann et al paper will show - ie much greater Arctic climate variability.
  39. New research from last week 38/2012
    Carbon500 & Muzz, no the term acidification is entirely accurate. You just don't seem to understand what it means. Your argument is the same as claiming that one cannot say that they are 'moving North' while in the Southern hemisphere. The current hemisphere (or pH balance) is irrelevant to the the direction of travel (or pH change). If the pH is decreasing then acidification is going on. Claiming otherwise is an attempt to redefine the way the term has always been used. As to ocean acidification being based solely on estimated uptake of anthropogenic carbon... equally false. Direct measurements show the pH change. You really ought to read the 'OA not OK' article DSL linked.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Ocean acidification is now officially Off-topic on this thread.
  40. New research from last week 38/2012
    Muzz: (-snip-).
    Moderator Response: [DB] Ocean acidification, the accepted term by oceanographers for this subject, is off-topic for this thread. See the thread linked by DSL above for those wishing to pursue this further.
  41. Solar cycles cause global warming
    Falkenherz wrote: "But, their [BEST's] statement on solar radiation seems not to be backed up by their data." It is for their temperature data and any solar radiation data I've ever seen other than the Soon & Briggs values of unknown provenance. As stated on the page I linked to, BEST ran analyses of their temperature data results against human carbon emissions, volcanic eruptions, solar variations, et cetera and found various correlations (e.g. volcanic eruptions corresponded to brief cooling spikes in a trend that otherwise matched human CO2 emissions). Offhand I'm not sure what TSI data they used, but... take your pick. There are plenty of TSI studies which show that it has declined slightly over the past several decades. Unless Soon & Briggs specify where they got their radically different 'data' there really isn't much to 'debate' here.
  42. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Arctic Sea Ice Extent 2012 Update
    That graph constructed by Ramez Naam doesn't show a hockey stick so much as it shows Arctic sea ice has fallen off a cliff.
  43. New research from last week 38/2012
    Muzz, see the excellent SkS series on ocean acidification written by working ocean scientists: OA not OK.
  44. Climate time lag
    Let me just pipe in, this article and the discussion during the last pages is very interesting for me to read, because it nicely summarizes what was buggering me the last weeks during my own personal quest for knowledge (TSI, lag, "heat storage", CO2 levels, PETM, evolution, etc.). I think some findings will always be open to interpretation, but the important thing is that all findings are on the table. Please continue to bring on your findings and your personal interpretation of it!
  45. New research from last week 38/2012
    Is the ocean becoming less basic or more acidic? I would assume if the ph of the ocean is greater than 7 then it is not acidic at all
  46. Solar cycles cause global warming
    CBDunkerson, thanks for the explanation and the link, this clarifies for me the issue with the WT (and, I finally know what "BEST" stands for...). But, their statement on solar radiation seems not to be backed up by their data. I am just starting reading about TSI, so I am very careful to accept figures and conclusions just as a given, yet. Lanfear, the figure 14 is wrong to use I believe, because it is just about faculae. Figure 15 presents three TSI curves from different studies, ranging from an increase between 1 and 2,5 W/m2. The study itself seems to come to a (eyeballed) result of 1 W/m2. I don't know if the 2,5W/m2 can be really called as outdated. As to the physical mechanism, I agree. But maybe the way of calculation of global temperature leaves room for some kind of heat storage (ice-melting, oceans, air streams, etc.) which is not captured by available data. I am not so sure we can confidently say "there is no physical mechanism". Tom Dayton, thanks for the link, this comes very close to what I was thinking about. But I don't get two things there: First, the TSI increase is said to be only "between 0.17 W/m2 (Wang 2005) to 0.23 W/m2 (Krivova 2007) since the Maunder Minimum". Wang 2005 is the same essay I quoted above, where I found this figure 15, where you can also eyeball 1 W/m2 to 2,5 W/m2 from different studies. Second, it is said that "Hansen 2005 estimates the climate lag time is between 25 to 50 years", and then "climate reached radiative equilibrium around the late 80's (give or take a decade)". If I count from 1960 onwards and assume 50 years, there could be a lagged warming until 2010 (which is exactly my point) and not the 80's. I probably will continue discussion over there, I still did not get all points. This whole TSI measuring and relating to glonal temperature is very complicated thing.
  47. It's not bad
    This could be the "acceptance of AGW" tipping point for people in the US: drought-related bacon shortage predicted.
  48. Solar cycles cause global warming
    Heh, now that I look more closely I note that while the 'shape' of the temperature line on the WT graph matches that on the BEST graph... the scales are different. WT shows all values ~2.5 C higher than the BEST graph. The X axis also appears to be off with various peaks being shown in slightly different years between the two graphs. This would seem to confirm skywatcher's earlier suggestion that the WT chart was produced by some method other than direct graphing of the data.
  49. PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
    Great post. I actually read the WTFUWT response first, so it was rather delightful to come here and read a nice balanced explanation of what Watts was so upset about.
  50. Solar cycles cause global warming
    Falkenherz wrote: "1. The graph in the Washington Times (Source: "University of California-Berkeley Earth-Surface Temperature Project" -> so it IS based on scientific work?)" Yes, that label would mean that the graph was part of a scientific study... if the label itself weren't fiction. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project concluded that past temperature studies were accurate (in contradiction of their initial assumptions) and that the observed warming was almost entirely due to humans. Their findings on solar influence can be summed up with the statement, "Solar variation does not seem to impact the temperature trend." So the question becomes, how did Soon and Briggs get a graph (which appears nowhere in the BEST studies) showing a 'strong correlation' between temperatures and solar variation from a study that concluded there was no correlation between temperatures and solar variation? The likely answer is that they took temperature data from BEST, TSI data from some other source, put them together on a graph, and falsely labelled the result as coming from the BEST study. The 'US daytime high temperature' values shown on the WT graph appear to match up with the 10 year moving average of such on this page from BEST. So far as I know the source of their TSI 'data' remains a mystery.

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