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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 55401 to 55450:

  1. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    Looking at Figure 1 I was wondering if it is feasible and statistically valid to extrapolate from these data a projection of the further shifting of summer temperature anomalies into the future ?
  2. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    Bernard @1 - yes it will be a combination of effects, which is why I worded it 'whether the increase is due more to...'. We (specifically Kevin C) will be addressing that question in an upcoming post.
  3. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    However, it does not impact the main result of Hansen et al., that global warming has caused extreme heat events to occur more frequently and to be more intense on average. The question is more of a technical issue - whether the increase in extreme heat events is due more to an increased temperature variability, to the warmer shift in average temperatures, or to increased skewness in the temperature distribution.
    Or to a combination of some or all of the aforementioned... In any case, human-caused global warming is responsible.
  4. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Andy S: Quite the contrary, according to recent research Researchers looking at Stephen Colbert's 'truthiness' demonstrated that "People are more likely to believe something is true if a photograph appears alongside the story".
  5. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    I read an essay by George Orwell, and remember a few things, but the one that stuck was to invent new metaphors. Never use tired old metaphors, or cliches.
  6. Chris Crawford at 00:13 AM on 15 August 2012
    A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Dale, I have contacted more than 150 different organizations, ranging from green to "peak oil", climate change, environmental, energy, education, conservation... it's amazing how, by following blog rolls, you can find an ever-larger circle of possibilities. I balked at government organizations because they're too slow to respond to the short time window of a Kickstarter project. I didn't try the Koch brothers, but I did consider blackmailing them: "Gimme a million bucks or I'll publish this thing!"
  7. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 00:08 AM on 15 August 2012
    Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Look forward to reading the book. It's not easy to step outside your comfort zone and speak to an unfamiliar audience, especially a 'mass' audience. It's easy to talk to colleagues and peers - everyone speaks the same language. Move beyond that to a specific audience and it's not that hard for most of us, provided we have a reasonable idea of how much they know about the subject. Go beyond that to a mixed audience comprised of people who have some understanding through to people who have no understanding and are openly fearful of the subject, even to the extent of being hostile - and it is a whole other challenge. Politicians and community leaders have to face this when speaking in public. They don't always succeed in communicating complex issues. Most scientists don't ever have to speak about their work to anyone but other scientists. Some have to communicate with policy makers, investors or other lay persons. Climate scientists are increasingly being asked to speak to all sorts - from the eminently uninformed to decision-makers (not that they are mutually exclusive). Talking about science shouldn't be left up to researchers and it's not. Thankfully there are people like John Cook and his crew and Joe Romm et al who are trained in science but work as science communicators.
  8. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    I don't think war is going to go away just because everyone becomes green. Civ reflects what we know about ourselves and of course people like playing competitive games that involve winning a fight. There is no reason at all why Civ can not include the use of green developments and seeing how they do against fossil fuels. Really it requires the setting of a different goal for winning. That will then determine how a game is played and what technology is used.
  9. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Ahh, what a lovely post. Thank you for providing such a good summary.
  10. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    SEAN O, I get nothing when I click on your link.
  11. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Might I also suggest another book which is highly relevant, even 50+ years after its first publishing: "Language In Thought And Action," by S.I. Hayakawa. Highly recommended! Language In Thought And Action http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Edition/dp/0156482401
  12. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Andy@5: --Not only are there local ordinances that proscribe me EVER 'donning a bikini' in public, there is also... --NO WAY any person, perhaps especially male persons, can resist clicking your link. I had never seen Gaga in the aforementioned carne-suit, but...*now* I have. Time to go eat lunch....! Back to the regularly-scheduled science discussion....;)
  13. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    I will also read the book and then comment further. In the meantime, as regards the use of metaphors to convey complex scientific concepts, I think one critical key is to have mastery of the subject at hand, and being able to relate it to layfolk in terms of a common everyday occurance/object/action/thing with which they are familiar. Before becoming a geologist in the late 90s, I spent close to 30 years as a professional auto mechanic. I "retired" from that field in the early 90s to pursue my long-postponed secondary education. Fast forward to 1997: I applied to Columbia University Biosphere II's NASA-funed internship and when writing up my resume, I chose to leave out all my car-related experience, thinking it utterly irrelevant to doing work in the earth sciences. My then-girlfriend, who was and is much more astute than I about such matters, cautioned me against that, stating those experiences and expertise might be of interest to someone reading my app. So, in went the references to my experience repairing Jaguars and Rolls-Royces....>-/ I was doubbtful anyone in an earth science field would care.... Lo and behold, when I was accepted to the program, the head of the BSII project at the time, Bill Harris (also head of NSF, at the time) contacted me and did a final interview with me, on the phone. From memory, this is essentially what Harris told me, as to why he chose me. "I have a Corvette, and I wonder, when you get down here (Oracle, AZ) would you be willing to help with some issues on the car?" The short of it is: Over the years, my 'mastery,' such as it is, of things automotive has been *invaluable* in being able to convey complex scientific issues to those not so trained. It is true, as someone mentioned, that metaphor can only go so far, but if by using that technique, you can get a person's brain to 'click into' the key concept you're trying to convey, then it usually is easier to trend towards more esoteric and scholastic means to discuss the issues at hand. I look forward to reading Romm's insights.
  14. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Good review. The scientific community has great difficulty in communicating with the general public, via a media that relies far too much on false equivalency and a "he said, she said" mode of exposition. Contrairians assert that "it's all a hoax," and the response is what one might expect from a journal abstract: full of qualifications and caveats. The advice to keep it simple and repeat needs to be taken more to heart. Use simple, declarative sentences, without qualification, as much as that may pain most scientists. For example: "The best science shows that the human species is in peril." James Hansen, at least, has figured this out. But too many scientists think even speaking to the public directly somehow sullies their reputation.
  15. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    @ Albatross on #17: "It is really troubling that "skeptics" and contrarians like Christy are permitted to grossly and repeatedly mislead Congress without any consequence whatsoever. Policy makers need the best science to make informed decisions..." Don't make the mistake of assuming that the purpose of congressional hearings is to air the best science. It's just a dog and pony show. With a few exceptions, these people already understand the science, but they are serving a completely different agenda. The scientific community, however much scientists may generally disdain politics, needs to become far more politically savvy. Because this is what you are up against: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Statement&Statement_ID=4f92dad8-2308-4c1e-aba3-b39d33486519
  16. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    @Moderator response to #11: I think there is considerable evidence that funding matters. This blog rightly focuses on the substance of the science, and discouraging ad hom attacks is entirely appropriate. However, for what it's worth, I don't believe that making funding sources transparent constitutes an ad hom. While not currently popular among researchers, many professional societies have attempted to implement ethical guidelines for funding transparency, given the strong correlation between funding and findings. IMHO, I think revealing the funding of research should be standard practice.
  17. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Lloyd, It would be a good idea to read the paper before criticizing it. They have checked for normality and find that the distribution has shifted. Tamino does not agree with that conclusion on his blog. Hansen's work is peer reviewed. Please provide data to support your analysis. You assume that Hansen did not review the paper with a statistician. I doubt your assumption is correct. After all it was on the web for months for comments like yours.
  18. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Nicely review. I particularly liked the use of repetition on paragraph 4. I wonder if we'll see, in future blog posts, more use of the techniques you illustrate in the fourth paragraph, i.e. repetition...
  19. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    I haven't read the book (of course). Nonetheless, in true internet form, I'll comment authoritatively on the review. Firstly, all this is well known to anyone with any background in public speaking outside science. The value in Joe's work is therefore in bringing it to a specific audience and presumably in introducing some field specific examples. Beyond that, it gets messy. The problem with communicating in metaphor is that metaphors can only be pushed so far. If you give your audience a partial understanding of a system based on a metaphor, you also give them the tools to reach wrong conclusions on the basis of that incomplete understanding. That's a tough problem. I'm not saying don't use metaphor (indeed arguably all of science is an exercise in metaphor), but that doing requires care - it can backfire. This is a symptom of a deeper problem (which can probably be expressed more precisely using a sociological terminology of which I am unaware). Our natural mode of reasoning is something I call 'social reasoning'. In this mode, arguments which are simple and link in to things we already know are the most persuasive. However, this mode of reasoning is not well adapted to scientific exploration - this is presumably a contributing factor to the scientific hiatus between ancient Greece and the Enlightenment. Effective scientific reasoning is logically consistent and deeply evidence based, both of which compromise simple expression. Thus scientific arguments are frequently less 'fit' in social discourse than social reasoning. Again, that's a tough problem. I've got ideas here; Romm may have more, so I'll certainly try and make time to read the book.
  20. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Chris: Here's a crazy thought. Have you contacted the people/orgs directly in the climate/energy business? This includes research facilities such as GISS, Suzuki Foundation, WWF, energy companies, Govt Climate Commissions, and dare I say it, the Koch's? There's also "people movements" such as GetUp here in Australia (which can move a LOT of small people in a very short time). Specifically people/orgs with a direct interest in climate communication and getting knowledge out to the public.
  21. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    chriskoz@3: I think it's because of the way Lady Gaga uses repetition and extended metaphor. Also, her videos get a staggering number of hits, so she must be doing something right. There are limits though, I'm sure that Joe is not advising John Cook or any of the rest of us to don a raw-meat bikini, effective attention-getter though that would be. Chris Mooney has an extended interview with Joe Romm.
  22. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Rhetoric aside, the laws of physics even apply in the parallel universe inhabited by Sen. Inhofe, the Heartland institute , Plimer et al. :)
  23. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    John, or whoever has read the book, Lady Gaga's listing among the esteemed persona as mentioned above is intriguing yet left unexplained. Does anyone have the explanation (best if supported by relevant citation) of such listing?
    Response: [JC] He cites examples of Lady Gaga using rhetorical techniques like repetition and metaphors in her songs. You'll have to read the book for more details :-)
  24. Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    I'm an assiduous a keen reader of Joe's blog and I go there often to find out what's happening in both science and policy. He's an excellent writer, too, and I'm so sure that I can learn lots from him that I immediately bought a Kindle copy of his new book. But (there's always a "but") I wonder how effective his style is in getting inside the heads of the doubtful and disengaged and actually changing their minds? There was a good comment on Planet3.0 , one I didn't entirely agree with, but which did express very well why some people often recoil from forceful rhetoric. Dan Thompson wrote:
    Now, I will say, for me, the recent Hansen paper makes sense. I like its sober approach. But when that paper is rolled up and I’m beaten with it, figuratively of course, what choice to I have other than to take the opposite stance and fight back? I saw an informal summary of Hansens’ paper published by Columbia.edu leads with a photo of a huge forest fire. It’s like they need that bit of drama to bring readers in. But drama quickly puts us on edge, feeling that we’re being knowingly manipulated, with the result being that you don’t quite trust what you’re reading.
    I'm relying here on my familiarity with Joe's blogging style, not with his book, which I haven't yet read. I will be interested to read how he deals with the psychology of persuasion. Maybe his straight-ahead style is the only one that works in today's polarized world of American politics, but I can't help thinking that he could use a little more honey with his vinegar.
  25. Chris Crawford at 13:14 PM on 14 August 2012
    A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Wow, you've got a good memory! Yes, the original game had a factor for people falling off their roofs while cleaning their solar units. This really is a significant consideration -- a LOT of people die each year falling off their roofs. I've forgotten the numbers, but the overall number per gigawatt-year was in the same league with most other energy sources. I didn't include it in this edition because nowadays we're talking about more centralized solar installations, or installations on large buildings that would be serviced by pros, so the death rate goes way down. But yes, I had to dig through numbers to come to that decision.
  26. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Have they actually checked for normality or is the distribution a heavier or lighter tailed one? Have they checked for change in variance with time? Have autocorrelations in time and space been allowed for?
    I think that the statistical understanding of the researchers is rather more sophisticated than the low level that would be required to ignore such basic processing. And even though such tests are useful, there's the simple fact that many analyses are robust to departures from standard assumptions, especially where such departures are slight. Further, there's the simple fact of the consilience of different datasets with each other, and with the underlying physics. If there is a Type I error occurring, then there is a huge problem not just with some statistical analyses, but with the fundamental scientific understanding of basic physical processes. Ockham's parsimony razor is unkind to such discrepant protruberances.
  27. calyptorhynchus at 12:13 PM on 14 August 2012
    Book review: Language Intelligence by Joe Romm
    Good luck! The reason that communicating global warming and other upcoming environmental catastrophes is that a huge change in mindset is required. Up to now our society has operated under the assumption that we can do anything, we are in control, our desire for economic development cannot be modified in any way. All this has to change.
  28. Bert from Eltham at 11:52 AM on 14 August 2012
    The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Yes we need at least five sigma signal to incontrovertibly prove our premise. This will be very robust and far too late! The statistics of extreme events do not prove the case but taken with all the other indicators that are all skewed toward a warming Earth are a very compelling argument. Bert
  29. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Tamino has a look at the paper.
  30. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    I like Ollie's suggestion of randomized (and maybe hidden) biases. Combining that with multiple turns (3 still sounds a bit low) should make for good replay value. Let the player review and respond to the results each turn. That's what made the DOS game engaging, before getting familiar with all the effects. No mass fall deaths in this version? That was kind of funny...
  31. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Perhaps we should wait for the analysis tomorrow on the paper itself before going too far down this road.
  32. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    It's good that people are now looking at theglobal pattern of extreme events rather than at individual ones. Any signal will be detectable in the ensemble rather than in individual observations. But they really do need a statistician in on this rather than relying on their own knowledge of statistics. There are things that they have not done in this study that need to be done to make the conclusions more robust. Have they actually checked for normality or is the distribution a heavier or lighter tailed one? Have they checked for change in variance with time? Have autocorrelations in time and space been allowed for? I don't see any sign of these having been considered and as a statistician I would want them to have been looked at. This looks like a case of non statisticians doing their own statistics when they should not. I think the conclusions are probably correct but are not robust enough.
  33. Chris Crawford at 07:35 AM on 14 August 2012
    A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    I'll chime in with Dale by noting that Civ is fundamentally a war game. That's its point and purpose. It wasn't designed to teach history, economics, military science, or environmentalism. It was designed to be fun -- and it does that very, very well. I love that game. Balance of the Planet can't hold a candle to Civ in terms of fun. That's because it was NOT designed to be fun -- it was designed to be educational, and in that, it greatly outpaces Civ.
  34. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    The point of redirection to SoD is to help you understand the physics - that AGW does not in fact involve a mechanism that violates 2nd Law nor that it proposes a novel definition of 2nd law. Keep reading - try to understand what is actually happening.
  35. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Paul @15 The problem is, Civ is a war-game, not a planet simulator like Chris is creating. That's why environmentalism doesn't really get a lookin in Civ. ;) Try Alpha Centauri if you're looking for a more environmental focus.
  36. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    I have played Civ II to V and haven't been impressed by any of them when it comes to environmental issues. In Civ IV they lost the plot and linked it to nuclear war. The problem they have is that they do not show how to develop alternative political strategies to achieve a result. You are stuck with war, trade and no differentiation between low carbon strategies etc. There isn't a built in analysis of carbon footprints based on certain trade stategies. eg. I doubt if there is a difference between importing a product rather than producing it locally. Hence you can't experiment to see what happens if all nations make do with what they have locally etc. What if your nation went vegetarian? And what about developing low carbon tech? There is tremendous potential in Civ to create a genuine low carb product that challenges players to try something different.
  37. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    suibhne - I would refer you to the reference Chris Ho-Stuart pointed you to (his peer-reviewed reply) the last time you argued in support of G&T. I would note that suibhne has been repeatedly pointed to the errors in his physics (here, here), and stand by my recommendation
  38. Chris Crawford at 05:22 AM on 14 August 2012
    A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Mike, I looked over your simulation. Very interesting. Organizing it so that each country has its own team is an interesting approach, but I'll caution you that some people will resent being given a podunk country, so you should probably lump countries together into groups large enough to have an effect comparable to those of the biggest countries, such as America, EU, and China. Certainly all of Africa would have to be lumped into one unit because Africa comprises such a small portion of the overall problem. Indeed, it might be interesting to lump countries together by characteristics. Thus, the USA and EU constitute one group, the East Asian nations another, Africa a third, and so forth. A question: are the three team members from each team awarded points individually or do they win/lose as a team? That will have an important effect on their interactions. The greatest value of your simulation, I think, will be in demonstrating how political considerations cripple our ability to address these issues.
  39. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    KR says ...... Science of Doom site (search there for "Gerlich"), including such gems as On the Miseducation of the Uninformed by Gerlich and Tscheuschner (2009) and Radiation Basics and the Imaginary Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Science of Doom site is an evolving platform. Leonard Weinstein has a recent guest post there. How the “Greenhouse” Effect Works – A Guest Post and Discussion. SoD agrees with the broad outlines of the post. Leonard Weinstein would agree with Silas that it is technically incorrect to say heat moves spontaneously from a lower temperature object to a higher temperature one. Why do some in climate science take issue with the technical language of thermodynamics? There is no debate in physics about whether or not heat can flow spontaneously from a lower to a higher temperature object. Thousands of physics textbooks and thousands of physics departments unanimously agree with Clausius that it cannot. To argue otherwise is to peddle pseudo science. To redirect folk to SoDs site may not have the result that KR intends.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Being argumentative, repetitive and pedantic constitutes sloganeering and is in violation of the Comments Policy. FYI.
  40. Sequestering carbon nature's way: in coal beds
    Onceaskeptic, There are lots of answers to the plastics problem. First, we use it too much because it's so cheap, because it's a byproduct of the distillation process. It's there, why not use it? But if it's not there... do we really need to coat magazine pages in plastic, or use plastic straws (straws were once made of rolled paper, you know). Do children need to live a childhood dominated by heaps and heaps of plastic toys? Would it really be that unacceptable to actually have well-crafted, real wood trim some things (instead of plastic, which is sometimes colored to look like real wood)? Similarly, yes, with today's infrastructure we burn more FF collecting recyclables than we do just creating new things. But what if vehicles were electric, and drew their power from a grid whose source is not fossil fuel based? We're light years from there now, yes, but we have to get there. I think you are trapped too much in the moment, without recognizing the myriad possibilities. Think of the major lifestyle and technological differences just fifty or a hundred years ago. The USA did not have an interstate highway system. Think about rail and air transport, communications and electricity, manufacturing and more. It's not like things have been this way for centuries. Our current "lifestyle" is a blip in history. Things don't have to be this way, and they don't have to stay this way. "Thinking outside the box" means eliminating false assumptions -- and I think a lot of your pessimism is based on a number of false assumptions.
  41. David Archibald Exaggerates the Solar Influence on Future Climate Change
    At least Archibald is admitting that the data aren't following his prediction. That's a small step in the right direction, unlike say Don Easterbrook, who just distorts the data to make his prediction look less bad.
  42. New research from last week 32/2012
    Is there an error in the Citation about the Tree-ring study from the Alps? We're not quite at December 2012 yet? "Atmospheric Environment, Volume 61, December 2012, Pages 169–179" Anyway, these updates/Abstracts on new research is great, even though I don't spend time and money on reading the actual articles. Thanks Ari!
    Moderator Response: [DB] The paper is to appear in Volume 61, December 2012 edition of Atmospheric Environment, which is currently being compiled. No error.
  43. New research from last week 31/2012
    Moderator - The Dessler full text link goes instead to the Küttel et al 2012 full text.
    Moderator Response: [DB] A pre-print is here. Updated post accordingly.
  44. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #31
    Tristan, you may find your answer here. here
  45. David Archibald Exaggerates the Solar Influence on Future Climate Change
    "...he says cycle 24 is likely to be a long one, ending in 2026. Until then we should see a global cooling of 0.9º over the entire cycle"
    Record CO2 forcing + a more active, awake-for-longer sun = global cooling? Reminds me of the immortal words of John Wayne:
    "Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid."
  46. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Chris I too have a global warming simulation you may want to look at. It is at www.globalwarminginteractive.com Michael Hillinger
  47. David Archibald Exaggerates the Solar Influence on Future Climate Change
    Archibald is still clinging to his story, albeit in a slightly modified way: now he says cycle 24 is likely to be a long one, ending in 2026. Until then we should see a global cooling of 0.9º over the entire cycle. Article here: When will it start cooling? Suggestive title. I also ask that question...
  48. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #32
    Deepak's post is insightful with simple & delicate yet "deeply meaningful" words. You can apply them not only to AGW but virtually any env problem/tragedy of the commons.
  49. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    skywatcher @8 I used to play modded Civ3, and from memory I believe it did beef up the global warming concept. Chris @10 Only reason I mentioned FotW is because it's already being used in some education circles. It literally is your competition (since it's the ONLY game/app in that arena right now). Lanfear @11 Yeah Civ2 was pretty basic environmental models. Civ3 has the strongest environmental models out of the 5 Civ iterations. I know for fact it was basically removed from Civ4 (and never re-implemented in Civ5) for the simple fact the concept was totally negative for the player and deemed a "bad concept".
  50. A game designer's contribution to the climate solution
    Dale@4 That reminds me of this with the reoccuring icecap melting. Only mildly related to the topic, since obviously Civ2 only has a crude climate model.

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