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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 55301 to 55350:

  1. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    I suppose his is the best place to bring this up. It's a new (to me) prevarication by AGW denialists. The accusation is that Michael Mann has been: ' caught astroturfing Amazon.com with the help of none other than John Cook author of your climate bible Skeptical Science. Seems Mike sent John a pre release copy of his book "The Hockey Stick Wars" that was distributed via the back door to a number of people to read and write reviews to be "in the holster" for the day of release. ' Another related accusation (by the same culprit, dalyplanet, in the same blog on the same day) is that the reviews were manipulated by John Cook and Michael Mann. Dalyplanet has posted to SkS under the same ID. The offensive accusations occur here. I provided a short defense, but there is no point in trying to convince dalyplanet of anything. No one listens to him anymore and he is as much an Internet troll as anything else. I can see why Michael Mann saw the need to write this book. I may even read it.
  2. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    I'm curious, what's the average thickness of the ice cap? I heard it was around 6' but I believe it's thinner.
  3. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    I really think you have given India and China too much credit. Are they still building coal power plants? How are their coal imports given the fact that they both have active coal mining industries? Do not confuse investments in wind and solar industries with actually constructing wind and solar plants in their own countries. It is a well know fact that China wishes to corner the wind and solar markets IN OTHER COUNTRIES. If you are willing to believe any of China’s “five year plans” I have a bridge I’d like to talk to you about. They remind me of the endless succession of unfulfilled “five year plans” that the old Soviet Union used to come up with during the 1960’s and ‘70’s. And China lies all the time about what their industrial and power plant emissions actually are. India is a completely different story. Not in the same league as China. It is basically a basket case. It still takes aid money while doling out aid to even poorer counties. It still subsidizes kerosene for lighting rural villages. In the most prosperous cities freshwater is delivered by truck. Power outages are a common occurrence in the nation’s capital. I certainly don’t expect India and China to be able to do anything to stop their relentlessly increasing CO2 emissions, or any of the other pollution problems they suffer from, anytime soon. Likewise I don’t expect the US to be able to do anything to initiate a carbon tax or a cap’n trade scheme. It is not up to the President it is up to congress. Now, I’m taking a chance here because I have been deleted before for “political remarks” and it does say “Political…comments will be deleted.” But SkepticalScience did choose the topic. So I will carry on…Since it is up to congress I’m sure you are all aware of the rampant conspiracy theory loving anti-science Republicans who dominate the House of Representatives and who are the minority party in the Senate. Since they dominate the House no climate bill will originate there and they will not take up a bill from the Senate if, by some miracle, the Senate were to pass one. Since, due to the “filibuster rule” in the Senate, the minority party actually has the majority by the throat, they can stop any bill the majority brings up. And it is possible for the Republicans to win the majority in the Senate with the upcoming elections so ending all possibility for climate legislation. The President and the Executive branch can do some minor things with the EPA but those new rules are being fought out in the courts and the court of ultimate appeal is dominated by the ultra-conservatives. As for the XL pipeline I think relations with our largest single nation trading partner has more to do with the final decision than CO2 emissions. Canada has only one way to get that sticky mess they call oil to foreign markets and that is through the US. US courts have granted that foreign multinational corporation eminent domain rights to force farmers to allow the pipeline to cross their land. So Obama will probably allow the pipeline to say on good terms with Canada and the farmers are powerless to stop it. So whatever the other more intelligent nations of the world might do, carbon pollution will not be reduced in the next 10 years or so. And most probably CO2 emissions will continue to increase for at least another 15 to 20 years. When we finally get the majority of the polluting nations to agree to some kind of policy it will only reduce CO2 emissions not end them. So world wide atmospheric CO2 will continue to go up at a slower pace. What we all need to do is start thinking about adaptation because mitigation seems out of the question.
  4. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Okay, I waited far too long for this. I can't believe no one else did it... But... *drum roll, please* "How many climate skeptics does it take to change a light bulb?" "None. They don't have enough Watts to power it even if it's changed." Get it? Watts? Anthony Watts? Oh, never mind.
  5. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    @ John Hartz #62 - You know how I have to deal with all those Gish-Gallops. I can do 'em too - that was the short version!
  6. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    @John Mason #60: Due to its size, your balloon will require its own toon. We can dub it, "The Never Ending Story."
  7. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Another batch: "You simply cannot proove beyond all reasonable doubt that electricity causes the lightbulb to emit light!" "What you call electricity spikes, we call natural variability." "Increasing the flow of electricty does not make the lightbulbs burn brighter."
  8. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "There is no darkness, the darkness is nothing to do with lack of lightbulbs and the lack of lightbulbs is due to volcanoes and in any case as the sun gets more active in the 60-year cycle there will be no need for them anyway and there's no point in changing lightbulbs because not everyone in China or India is changing lightbulbs and these Watermelons would have us living in a cave with no light and... oh *** I can't see my keyboard any more..."
  9. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Perhaps a new theme.. Don't worry, Fox News will tell everyone that we're sitting here in the dark."
  10. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Another Koch brothers... "Remember, we only buy lightbulbs that have the Koch brothers Seal of Approval.
  11. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Variation on the Koch brothers them.. "Don't worry, the Koch brothers are buying new bulbs for us."
  12. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "You know how those light bulb scientists are just on the light bulb research 'gravy train."
  13. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Keep them doggies moving... "Yes indeeedy, all of our lightbulbs were financed by the Koch brothers."
  14. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Sph@45, that would be the MCFLM (TM). Medieval Compact Fluorescent Light Minimum...:) Variation on a theme: "When *I* was kid, we had NO light bulbs! We lived in the dark! You best get used to it, kid!"
  15. Vanishing Arctic Sea Ice: Going Up the Down Escalator
    dana@27: Which came first..the chicken or the parallel egg? Parallel Earths I *thought* I'd run into Watts, somewhere before I began visiting here...all of these threads showing what's going on in the Arctic, are really, truly becoming frightening. I don't easily frighten, either: my ex was an Aussie...;)
  16. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "There is no consensus on Catastrophic Anthropogenic Light Bulbs."
  17. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "I don't know why you all are so concerned about a little light bulb. There is a loose tile on the floor, and the wallpaper is peeling, I spilled ketchup on the table, and the oven really needs cleaning. Shouldn't our limited resources be focused on more important issues?" "Nobody has checked the fuse, or called the power company, or looked to see if the lamp is plugged in, or called our cousin in Toledo to see if his light bulb is working. There's no proof that the light bulb is the problem." "You just want all the light bulbs to come from the One World Light Bulb Supremacy" "Your light bulb may be white on the outside, but it's red on the inside." "You've got a right-hand-thread light bulb there. We need to bring in a left-hand-thread light bulb for balance." "This is all just a plot to take control of the electricity grid." "I've analyzed the voltage applied to the bulb, and identified a 60Hz cycle in both the current and the light, so I've proved that the output from the light does not depend on long-term supply of power from the electric company. In fact, the lags show that the light generates power, not the other way around."
  18. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "Darkness is not the absence of visible light, its the presence of galactic cosmic rays!"
  19. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    This may be the most creative interactive thread in SkS history. We now have enough material for a number of follow-up toons in what will become the "Lightbulb" series. Keep those creative juices flowing and we will have enough material for the first-ever SkS comic book. PS - I find actively particpating in this thread to be very therapeutic. Try it, you'll like it!
  20. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    H/T to DSL: "Arrest that guy with the hockey stick! He smashed all of our antique lightbulbs."
  21. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    While walking the dogs, this one popped into my head: "It's hard to screw in a lightbulb that's been sprayed with Obfuscation oil."
  22. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Yes, Sph - you know, and I don't care what you and your studies say about the Great Darkness being just in a few places on one side of the room. The author of those studies uses "tricks" to "hide the light." Yep. I know. A Low Watt Bulb told me that I'm right, and I believe him.
  23. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Oh, and "You can't prove that my taking a baseball bat to the fixture has anything to do with the sudden darkness. (and funding to study the connection between my bat and the darkness should be given as subsidies to baseball bat producers)"
  24. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    DSL, Are you referring to the Medieval Dark Period?
  25. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    What are you fraudsters talking about? It's light where I'm at! And I've done my own research on this. Where I'm at, the light cycles on and off (with occasional variations when one of my twins pulls the lamp down); therefore, this darkness is just part of a natural cycle. It was darker during the Dark Ages.
  26. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Vrooomie, See comment 101. [Extreme trolling comments have been deleted from the thread.]
  27. Climate Change, Irreversibility, and Urgency
    "It seems clear to me that, in the natural world, change tends not to happen in a smooth progression; it happens in fits and starts as various tipping points, large and small, occur." John, in case you're not aware of it, here's a link that robustly supports your supposition. Punctuated equilibria As a geologist, one of the most stark examples of this is the Burgess Shale, in Canada. I am *very*, very worried we're at, if not past, an imprtant tipping point in our 'open, uncontrolled' experiment with the world's biosphere. My experiences at Biosphere II, and knowing its intimate history, also have led me to the same point as your last statement. "It's psychiatry we need, even more than climate science."
  28. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Curious question for a/the Mod(s): My intial view of this thread indicates 128 comments, but what I *see* is 121....what am I missing here?
  29. New research from last week 36/2012
    the Lucas-Paper of JGR produces empty pages after page 3 ...
  30. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    John Hartz, enquiring minds wanna know: is it *really* the coffee, or the ~additives~ IN the coffee?? In either case, this entire thread is a thing of beauty, to watch....methinks a poster could be made from this, and the thought occurs that it would be WAY more an effective tool to battle denialists with than our "reasoned" scientific data. My vote for the best, so far? "Al Gore just wants us to think it's dark, so he can make billions selling us light bulbs!" Sphaerica, +10...;)
  31. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    More coffee please... "Don't worry. Gish is galloping to our rescue." "If no one else can do it, we'll let Ad Hominem take over."
  32. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Blame it on my morning coffee... "Just throw the bulbs at the ceiling. One of them is bound to stick."
  33. New research from last week 36/2012
    What about these news here? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/6/global-warming-fanatics-take-note/#ixzz25u4FCzsb Is there an article which helps to put that into context or is this really new stuff to consider?
  34. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    A theme with much potential... "Don't worry, the strawman will rescue us."
  35. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    Note that at Neven's blog (for instance this comment here) people have named that hole in the ice the Laptev Bite, and the prevailing theory there is that the warm current from the Barents Sea that is forced downward is hitting the underwater Lomonosov Ridge, deflecting upwards, and causing the hole. I would not be surprised if this September, and certainly next August and September, we don't start to see the icepack being split down the middle as the current follows that underwater ridge, dividing the ice pack in two before melting it completely away.
  36. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Oh, and of course it was darker in the mediæval period. If one takes a dendrochronological core, there's less light in the centre of the tree. Ergot, those crazy darkists are cereal liars, liars, pants-on-St-Anthony's-fires. Quod erratic demonstrandum.
  37. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    The balloons just keep coming... "Stop! You're standing in six inches of seawater."
  38. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "Dark is the Emperor's New Light"
  39. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "Al Gore just wants us to think it's dark, so he can make billions selling us light bulbs!"
  40. Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
    Ugg. As I stated at RC, I honestly do not understand how that Humlum paper gets through peer review with that interpretation intact. It such an elementary error in interpretation to think the correlation explains the mean value in annual CO2 change. And it's not as if it isn't well know that ocean pCO2 is increasing, stable isotopes of atmospheric CO2 have changed and we can't account for all anthro emissions. How can anyone think the ocean is a source of CO2 given that fact? Who reviews these things? I really think Rasmus was too deferential in his evaluation at RC. Sometimes short and direct is the best policy. Long winded rebuttal suggest that there is some meat there.
  41. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    35. A new dawn, a new beginning... "Stop! If you replace the lightbulbs, people will be able to see the multiple lines of evidence hanging from the ceiling."
  42. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    As possible evidence of my theory, consider the following overlay of the currents onto today's Cryosphere Today image. I have circled the area that is still rapidly melting in orange. You can see the ice concentrations as magenta, red, yellow and green (magment and red are the most concentrated, then yellow, then green). This is Nasa's image for how the freshwater flow has changed:
  43. Sceptical Wombat at 00:24 AM on 12 September 2012
    Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    I don't have any problems with Australia buying carbon offsets from other countries instead of reducing our own carbon emissions - provided that the offsets are genuine. What matters is that we reduce and ultimately eliminate global carbon emissions. If it is more cost effective to pay someone else to reduce theirs faster so that we can reduce ours more slowly then that is what we should do. The danger with cap and trade systems is that carbon allocations are in effect a form of money and (as with water allocations or money itself) there will be a strong temptation for governments to simply create more, which of course results in a lowering of the price. It is crucial that the integrity of the system be maintained. Unfortunately Jason is wrong in thinking that a lower carbon price will result in lower compensation. The household compensation is fixed so a lower carbon price will result is a budget problem.
  44. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    I spent some time looking at the Arctic currents yesterday, such as here: I'd love to know more about the models that point to the Arctic being a two state system (all ice, or no ice, year round). I'm wondering if one of the problems is that without the icepack, the warm water flowing in from the Barents Sea won't easily dive beneath the fresher water flowing in from the Siberian rivers? Or is salinity the key factor, and that won't change?. But scientists have already detected a change in those (freshwater) currents, so maybe this will happen... freshwater will flow counterclockwise around the coast, while warm, Barents sea water will flow through the pole to Greenland. We may be seeing some of this effect right now... look at what is still melting in the Cyrosphere Today maps. If so, with the ice gone, it could mean more warm water flowing through the pole to the coast of Greenland, and that alone could potentially keep ice form forming, even in the cold dark of winter. But if the two-state theory is correct, this whole "when is it zero" argument may well be a very, very short discussion.
  45. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    To put Glenn's statement more concisely... Pretty soon the amount of ice by any measure really is going to be zero, so the question will be moot. "No ice" will mean no ice. Of course, then "skeptics" will say that "well, water is just warm ice, so really there's still lots and lots of ice in the Arctic. In fact, all of the world's ocean's are ice, which means we're going through a period of catastrophic global cooling! Global warming is a hoax!"
  46. Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
    That Humlum et al. 2012 paper is discussed in a new post at RealClimate.
  47. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    This reminds me again of that old saying by, IIRC, Churchill: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
  48. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    More about world's renewable capacity (including PV) because Figure 4 gives not enough details. This report, esp. Table 2 at page 6, shows the world's capacity as 1342GW in 2010, and projected to become 2167GW in 2017. The continuous consumption in 2009 was 15 terawatts, according to quick search on wikipedia. Of course, caparity does not equal production, and we
  49. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    More about world's renewable capacity (not just PV) because Figure 4 gives not enough details. So, I'd like to provide better perspective below. This report, esp. Table 2 at page 6, shows the world's capacity as 1342GW in 2010, and projected to become 2167GW in 2017. The continuous consumption in 2009 was 15 terawatts, according to quick search on wikipedia. Of course, caparity does not equal production, and we all know problems with their integration, insufficient reliability to provide baseload, itd. So total renewable capacity is still only 10% of demand, while realistic production would be at best I guess 50% of capacity, thus 5% of demand. PVs are even smaller percentage of theat. The numbers above are probably the only guidance to Romney, who does not seem to look beyond just his potential 4 year term. However, the growth rate and price drop is more important consideration, IMO. And those, are about to reach or reached grid parity within this decade according to this analysis. If that forecast is believable, then we should see a big boom of PVs later in this decade. Pending the resolution of the PV energy storage issues, the fossil-powered plant imminent collapse will follow. That last vision suggests how short sighted is Romney's policy, if he puts renewables at the near-last place in his list.
  50. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    I strongly agree with U.S. assessment and it should be far stronger as a global technology leader. I'm still concerned that Obama has accepted a 100 year natural gas national supply in State of Union and this campaign. His recent action to double MPG requirements by 2025, CAFE, was welcome. It is regularly ignored in U.S. that global prices set fuel prices and increased production will likely result in increased export making self-sufficiency little more than a talking point. Approving deeper wells and Arctic drilling approval should be balanced against increased clean energy production. State level clean energy action is progressing in some states much faster than a national program. I'd much rather see high-speed-rail cross national lands, if anything, versus mining. Your point regarding Obama and the Keystone concerns me, current action is delay. Coal production versus coal power production are two points often ignored here. Coal mining will result in increased export as energy is reduced. Obama's DOE has accepted the vast supply of methyl hydrate gases as viable. That isn't carbon reduction. We waste power on a 50 year old infrastructure that neither party is likely to make serious efforts to catch up with the EU. Increasing and stronger weather events are still often accepted as flukes, ignoring similar global activity. I didn't know whether to smile or cry when middle U.S. temperatures were comparable to Australian Outback this year. Insufficient information was made available about reduced nuclear power production due to temp rise in cooling supplies. Grumpy old electrical engineer. U.S. should be leading the world in all climate beneficial and carbon reduction activities.

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