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Comments 55701 to 55750:

55701. Tom Curtis at 13:40 PM on 6 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Krisbaum @81, I have challenged you to show an example of inappropriate use of non-peer reviewed literature in the IPCC, and you have declined to take up that challenge. The challenge included a specific element of showing were major conclusions of the IPCC were derived from grey literature of any sort (not just the non-peer reviewed grey literature). Yes, it is true that the IPCC uses grey literature. Some of that literature may even be considered inappropriate. For example, the IPCC AR4 WG1, Chapter 1 cites Gwynne, P., 1975: The cooling world. Newsweek, April 28, 64. On its face, citing an article in Newsweek is a classic example of use of inappropriate sources. However, consider the context in which it was used:

       "Not all theories or early results are verified by later analysis. In the mid-1970s, several articles about possible global cooling appeared in the popular press, primarily motivated by analyses indicating that Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperatures had decreased during the previous three decades (e.g., Gwynne, 1975)."

       So, an article from a popular news magazine was cited to demonstrate that articles about possible global cooling have appeared in the popular press. In history, that is called consulting primary sources, and is considered far preferable to consulting secondary sources, eg, a peer reviewed article about popular publications on climate change in the mid 1970s. Despite this being excellent academic practice, you want to cite this as an example of poor academic practice by the IPCC. What is more, you want to do so purely on the basis of the presence of the citation with absolutely no examination of the actual use made of the citation. Another example of grey literature in Chap 1 of WG1 is Hawking, S., 1988: A Brief History of Time. Bantam Press, New York, 224 pp. Technically, A Brief History of Time is not grey literature because it was published by a commercial publishing house. That your primary source classifies it as grey literature simply shows them to be incompetent at their self appointed task. But I will grant that it is a popular book, and probably not peer reviewed. So how was it used?

       ". It is not the belief or opinion of the scientists that is important, but rather the results of this testing. Indeed, when Albert Einstein was informed of the publication of a book entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, he is said to have remarked, ‘If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!’ (Hawking, 1988); however, that one opposing scientist would have needed proof in the form of testable results."

       Well I'm just devastated. Clearly this hugely inappropriate use of an Einstein quotation completely overthrows any basis of confidence in IPCC reports! /sarc I say end sarc, but my sarcastic comments in fact represent your actual case. Chapter 1 of WG1 was given a grade of B for the use of non-peer reviewed sources from your favourite source. Now, first it should be noted that the majority of "grey literature" cited in the IPCC is extensively reviewed by peers of the authors before publication - as for example with white papers, or reports from scientific organizations, or indeed IPCC reports themselves. They are not grey literature because they are or are not peer-reviewed, but because of their method of publication. Second, it should be noted that your favourite sources have listed as grey literature many items which, while not peer reviewed, are in fact not grey literature. An example, the article by Agassiz, was given in my prior post. But the fact that it was not peer reviewed before publication no more makes Agassiz ground breaking work inferior science than the same lack of peer review makes Einstein's seminal papers on relativity inferior science. So, bearing in mind those two fatal flaws in their classification system, the appropriate question is how many poor quality sources have been used by the IPCC. In chapter 1 of WG1, so far as I have been able to determine - just two. The two quoted above. And as demonstrated, their use was entirely appropriate. It becomes blatantly clear that your entire argument depends on your not examining details. As an argument based on not examining details is always a con job, I would recommend that in future you only present detailed examples which are shown to be sources of poor quality (not just grey literature, and not just non-peer reviewed, but of a genuinely questionable quality) and which you show significant conclusions to depend upon, ie, the significant conclusion cannot be drawn from other sources of high quality also cited by the IPCC. If you are unwilling to take up that challenge, you show thereby that when examined in detail, there is no basis to question the IPCC's use of sources. You will also show by your failure that your entire case consists in sloganeering. Finally, you keep on coming back to quotes by Pachauri as if they somehow prove the IPCC has said it does not use grey literature despite the direct statement by the IPCC documents that they do. However, I'm game. If you want to prove Pachauri wrong, all you need to do is prove that a questionable source is relied upon by the IPCC for a main conclusion. After all, Pachauri does not say that the IPCC never cites grey literature. He says that they do not rely on non-peer reviewed literature for their findings. And that is only the case if the IPCC has a major finding which they would not have reached without the citation of dubious quality. Put simply, showing that the IPCC cited Newsweek did not prove Pachauri wrong, for no substantive conclusion about climate science was reached from that citation. PS: Given your thesis, in future I will not accept any citation by you of grey literature as evidence. You may find that embarrassing as the only evidence you have cited has all been from grey literature; but better to be embarrassed than hypocritical as you are currently being.
55702. caerbannog at 12:41 PM on 6 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Caerbannog: I presume the comparison you are making is against the GISS dTs (land station) 1200km dataset? Yes, that's correct. The results were so similar to the NASA land station results that it was quite striking. In which case that seems reasonable (except the comment on memory - that should go down with a coarser grid, and should be pretty minimal anyway. Something is fishy. I'm gonna take back the comment about memory usage. The first time I ran the script with the 20x20 deg grid size, my laptop went into a 10-minute "swap-fest", where it was completely unusable. Assumed that was due to memory consumption (was reluctant to run the script again to verify that). After seeing your reply here, I decided to reboot my system, and run the script again. This time, it ran w/o any problems.
55703. DSL at 12:09 PM on 6 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       krisbaum, where did Michael say "leader of their field"? He said "lead writer" or "lead author." You also say that the IPCC reports are not based on peer-reviewed literature. That is not true. They are based on both peer-reviewed literature and grey literature. The quantities of both categories have been amply given. If a building rests on a foundation of 4000 blocks of granite and five blocks of sandstone, is it fair to say that the building does not rest on granite? The people on this website find the IPCC to be an excellent resource, because the IPCC has gathered and summarized published climate research. Why wouldn't the IPCC be a good resource? It's a huge, multifaceted project. You use the nitpick of Pachauri to cast doubt on the whole enterprise. It's like me saying, "Well Anthony Watts' new study did not take time-of-day into account. Therefore, all 'skeptics' should be ignored (because they're frauds, man!)."
55704. michael sweet at 11:46 AM on 6 August 2012
       ‘It’s not looking good for corn’ - new video from Peter Sinclair
       Camburn had a post that was deleted claiming the current drought is not as bad as the 50's and 30's. Jeff Masters here summarizes the current state as the drought and gives figures to compare to the historical record. You can decide how the current drought compares to 1934 and 1954. Scroll down past the hurricane data to see the drought.
55705. krisbaum at 11:39 AM on 6 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Tom@77; ' Your attack on the IPCC's integrity is based on the fact that the IPCC uses grey literature, and indeed it says it does.' Tom, I have repeated the point a few times now. Pachauri and the IPCC boast that their reports are only based on Peer Reviewed literature. If the reports are not baed on Peer Reviewed literature, it should be made completely clear. eg. “People can have confidence in the IPCC’s conclusions…Given that it is all on the basis of peer-reviewed literature.” – Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chairman, June 2008 “The IPCC doesn’t do any research itself. We only develop our assessments on the basis of peer-reviewed literature.” – Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chairman, June 2007 “This is based on peer-reviewed literature. That’s the manner in which the IPCC functions. We don’t pick up a newspaper article and, based on that, come up with our findings.” – Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chairman, June 2008
       Moderator Response: [DB] You even quote Tom Curtis who points out the IPCC says it uses grey literature. Without further equivocation, please show via link to credible source where the IPCC states it only uses peer-reviewed literature. It is patently, completely clear your issue is with Pachauri, not the IPCC.
55706. John Hartz at 06:17 AM on 6 August 2012
       Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
       NASA’s Joel Plummer does a nice job of putting the brouhaha over the Greenland ice melt story into proper perspective in When It Comes to Greenland's Glaciers, Precedence Doesn't Matter, The Huffington Post, Aug 3, 2012 Plummer ends his article with: “Currently, Greenland and Antarctica contribute approximately 1.3 millimeters to sea level rise each year, but this rate is increasing. Under the current rates of acceleration for ice sheet loss, we could expect 56 centimeters of sea level rise by 2100, from the ice sheets alone. Whether this month's extreme melt event was truly unprecedented, or part of a larger cycle, is not really the point. There exists many years of data, from multiple sources of sea level rise, to justify concern. We need not glob onto (nor dismiss) one extraordinary number to come to that conclusion.”
55707. shoyemore at 06:07 AM on 6 August 2012
       ‘It’s not looking good for corn’ - new video from Peter Sinclair
       Good video from Peter, as usual. I must add that I do not like the technique of repeating clips of an opponent that he has used a few times now - like the "laughing denier" at about 1:38. Sinclair did the same with his interview of Marc Morano - showing Tony Soprano repeatedly seemed to me to be a ham-fisted way to make a point. My view, Peter, is that you are much better when you use a rapier instead of a club. Any semi-smart viewer knows what you mean so keep the message plain. If deniers destroy themselves out of their own mouths, viewers can get it.
55708. Kevin C at 05:47 AM on 6 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Caerbannog: I presume the comparison you are making is against the GISS dTs (land station) 1200km dataset? In which case that seems reasonable (except the comment on memory - that should go down with a coarser grid, and should be pretty minimal anyway. Something is fishy.) For my latest GISTEMP-like land/ocean calc, I have a more advanced version which (optionally) uses a constant area grid (a few lines of code) and a 1200km area of influence with conical weight function (rather more, especially if you want it to run in a reasonable time. Python is slow, unless you can do everything in SciPy classes). I do the calculation twice, once using land stations, and once using pseudo-stations generated from the gridded HadSST2 data (Nick Stokes' trick). Then dump the maps and use land/ocean masked average of the grids (a separate program at the moment). The main aim of this code was to be able to turn on and off different options to go stepwise from CRU to GISTEMP and find out where the differences came from (which turned out to be less interesting than you would expect. It's just coverage). It would have been nice to do the calc at #1 using Clear Climate Code, but I've never got it working on GHCN3 data, and I'm not sure they are maintaining it. Your original SkS post and comments gave me the leg up I needed to get started on this. Thanks again for that.
55709. Mal Adapted at 04:59 AM on 6 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Moderator, is it against the comments policy to point out evidence of motivated reasoning on Krisbaum's part?

       It [an IPCC report] is used to decide the fate of trillions of dollars of investment through carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes.

       It appears Krisbaum is concerned about the cost of mitigating AGW, and is really making an argument from consequences . If so, perhaps he should be directed to The economic impacts of carbon pricing thread.
       Moderator Response: [DB] It is always welcome to suggest more appropriate threads for portions of discussions, if applicable. The one you suggest would indeed be a valid thread to continue that portion of the discussion.
55710. caerbannog at 02:41 AM on 6 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Just a couple of quick notes (and something interesting to try) re Kevin C's python script. It turns out that if you modify the script slightly to generate average annual (instead of monthly) anomalies and compare your results with the official NASA/GISS meteorological stations index, you will see that there's a pretty decent match, albeit with the python script output showing a bit more warming than the NASA/GISS results do. This is most likely due to the fact that the GHCN network samples that SH more sparsely than the NH, and as a result, you have more empty 5degx5deg grid cells in the SH than you do in the NH. Since the script does not interpolate to empty grid-cells, this causes the NH (which has warmed more than the SH) to be overweighted in the global averages, with the result being more apparent warming than the NASA/GISS results show. You can get around this by adding grid-cell interpolation code to the script (way too much work) or simply by increasing the grid-cell sizes from 5x5 to 20x20 degrees (a lazy boy's approach that works surprisingly well). If you plot the output of the script with the above mods (annual instead of monthly anomalies, 20x20 grid-cells) along with NASA/GISS results, you will see that the python script results match the NASA/GISS results ***amazingly closely***. A quick word of caution: Memory consumption with 20x20 grid-cells goes way up -- the run brought my old laptop w/1G memory to its knees. Make sure that you have at least 2G of memory (and no other memory-hogging apps running) before you try this.
55711. michael sweet at 02:23 AM on 6 August 2012
       Tar Sands Oil - An Environmental Disaster
       Jyushchyshyn: I am sorry, when you said "James Hansen also says that we should never build anymore coal fired power plants. But does this mean that we should shut them down before zero emission replacements come on line?" here I must have misunderstood you.
55712. DSL at 02:19 AM on 6 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       I think it's simple question time: What does the IPCC's use of grey literature mean for you, krisbaum?
55713. michael sweet at 00:25 AM on 6 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Tom @ 74, Your point that lead authors are part of a team is well made. I reviewed the CV of the author that Krisbaum linked to. Apparently he had received a MS in Geology shortly before the 1994 IPCC report and received his PhD in 2004 after he was a lead author. He remains an expert in the field. I noticed in his list of publications an unusually large number of book chapters. From this I conclude that the author is an exceptional writer and summarizer of others work, just what you need for a lead author of a summary report. It is typical of fake skeptics to make mountains of nits that are irrelevant to the point. In any case, if you have to go back to 1994 to find an author that you think might have been inappropriate for an unpaid position writing a report that was not very important at the time you are looking very hard to be disappointed. When did you last cite the 1994 report? Where I live it is 2012. This shows that all of the writers for the third and fourth IPCC reports were qualified.
55714. jyushchyshyn at 00:07 AM on 6 August 2012
       Tar Sands Oil - An Environmental Disaster
       michael sweet I never claimed that James Hansen or anyone else advocated shutting down coal plants before zero emission replacements come on line.
55715. jyushchyshyn at 00:05 AM on 6 August 2012
       Tar Sands Oil - An Environmental Disaster
       michael sweet I never made any such claim.
55716. michael sweet at 23:58 PM on 5 August 2012
       Tar Sands Oil - An Environmental Disaster
       jyushchyshyn, If you "respect James Hansen" why are you making obviously false assertions about what he says? Please provide a reference to support your outrageous claim that Hansen supports shutting down coal plants before zero emission replacements come on line. Hansen says we should build replacements as fast as we can but does not support shutting down plants and causing blackouts. Straw man arguments are easy to make and easy to show are false. Why should I listen to anything you say when half of your post is obviously bunk? As for building more coal fired plants, look at India's power blackouts for a quick lesson. It is very difficult to obtain enough coal for plants already built. Where are you going to get the coal for new plants? Renewables can produce large amounts of energy if carbon is made to reflect its true cost.
55717. Physicist-retired at 22:09 PM on 5 August 2012
       Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
       Many thanks for your efforts, and that link, Daniel.
55718. Tom Curtis at 18:17 PM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       krisbaum @76, "grey literature" is a term from library and information science and refers to the accessibility of the literature, not its quality, nor even the quality of the review process it undergoes. There are many examples of grey literature that undergo far more rigorous review than the normal peer reviewed literature - IPCC reports being just one example. Consequently your blanket condemnation of grey literature is misinformed. It is also evasive. Your attack on the IPCC's integrity is based on the fact that the IPCC uses grey literature, and indeed it says it does. That is a matter of complete irrelevance unless you can also show that the grey literature actually used by the IPCC is actually of dubious quality. To mount the argument that IPCC reports are dubious because they used grey literature, but then to insist that the dubious nature of grey literature be treated as an axiom is to beg the entire question. Here is the challenge you need to take - go through the 54 purported examples of grey literature in the IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapt 1 as identified by P Gosselin, and show: 1) Why the reference should be considered of low quality such that it should not be used in the report; 2) Why the use made of the reference in the report was inappropriate given its nature and low quality; and 3) What major conclusion, as identified in the summary for policy makers could not have been made without use of that reference. If you decline this challenge, you show your entire argument to be based on innuendo rather than analysis. At its best, it would amount to an argument from reverse authority - ie, the literature is classified as not authoritative (ie, grey) and therefore is automatically rejected on that basis alone. Personally, I am going to enjoy your attempts to explain why: Agassiz, L., 1837: Discours d’ouverture sur l’ancienne extension des glaciers. Société Helvétique des Sciences Naturelles, Neufchâtel. and Lorenz, E.N., 1967: On the Nature and Theory of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere. Publication No. 218, World Meteorological Association, Geneva, 161 pp. ought to be considered to be of poor quality and not worth referencing, even though they are undoubtedly grey literature. Finally, please note that if you cannot show for any reference point (3) above, you have not shown Pachauri's that the conclusions of the IPCC reports are based on the peer reviewed literature to be false.
55719. Bernard J. at 17:34 PM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Given the equivocation from some of the apparent co-authors, even the "et al" might be optimistic...
55720. jyushchyshyn at 17:22 PM on 5 August 2012
       Tar Sands Oil - An Environmental Disaster
       As much as I respect James Hansen's achievements as a climatolgist, to say that proceeding with the development of the oil sands is game over for the climate, is, to coin a phrase, alarmist. James Hansen also says that we should never build anymore coal fired power plants. But does this mean that we should shut them down before zero emission replacements come on line? If enough of us truly cared about future generations, the answer may very well be, "Yes!" But "enough of us" means enough of us to win elections. But in the real world, in which the general public has yet been asked to make even the smallest sacrifice, climatologist are already facing death threats. If people saw their lights go out because we stopped burning coal, "cold turkey," the coal plants would be back on line so fast that it would make our heads spin. And a whole bunch of new coal plants will be under construction. Global warming is not a production problem, but a consumption problem. If we do not want to avoid an ever increasing dependence on non-conventional oil, we need to focus on the engine of oil sands growth, the consumer. Alberta can not stop people from driving smaller cars, or using alternate fuels, public transportation or renewable energy. In addition, we should be thankful that the oil sands are in a place where a candidate who questions global warming could lose an election. And if the oil sands were in Oklahoma, would Senator Inhofe allow Tulsa to build a waste to biofuels facility?
55721. krisbaum at 16:57 PM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Tom; Grey Literature is a scientific term, your own liking of grey literature or unliking is just your opinion.. The IPCC through Pachauri have repeatedly claimed their reports are only based on 'peer reviewed literature' which is a false claim - ive shown why. I dont think this is the forum to discuss why grey literature is good or bad or what makes its referencing it dangerous - this is a topic well versed in scientific circles when producing scientific papers etc.
55722. IRTDave at 11:56 AM on 5 August 2012
       It's methane
       It seems to me that we have an opportunity to make serious reductions in methane emissions by using bio-digesters for most of our organic waste. Nearly all living things release methane as they decay. When our farm waste rots in the fields or our sewage decays in a treatment plant, most of the methane generated is released to do its damage. If we offer carbon credits at the rate of 21 pounds of CO2 to 1 pound of methane removed from our emissions, we would make methane production for fuel a profitable enterprise. Of course methane is basically natural gas, which is plentiful right now in the USA. There are, however, considerable benefits to making methane from our organic waste. A very significant one is the compost and fertilizer produced in the process. This adds fertility to our soils to help bring them back to life after years of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. The natural fertilizer byproducts of microbe digestion contain all of the micro-nutrients removed by the plants that were composted. The added organic material also allows our soils to support normal soil enhancing worms and insects like the common earthworm. As an important benefit, these organic elements will also help our soils retain moisture in the hot dry weather we seem to be creating by our bad habits. What do you think about giving power plant carbon credits for capturing methane? They could burn the methane also to assist in power production or sell it for transportation fuel. Should we encourage natural gas conversion for our cars and trucks? It could really have a low carbon footprint if the methane comes from micro-digester production by the power companies. At the present time around 50% of our natural gas is used to make artificial fertilizer. I understand that we can convert most cars to run on natural gas for under $1000. (That could employ a couple of hundred thousand people.) If the government wants to invest in infrastructure that will pay dividends into the long term future, why not build a natural gas distribution system? (Another couple hundred thousand jobs.) Our need for imported petrolium products would decline sharply and keep considerable fund here in the USA to finance needed investments. It is possible to affect methane levels if we look at data from China. They claim to have a 9% reduction in methane emissions in the last 5 years. The rice production has also gone up considerably from the use of the byproduct fertilizer from the process.
55723. Tom Curtis at 10:15 AM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Allowing Krisbaum his best argument, he relies on the "research" summarized at the inaccurately named NoConsensus website. Their "citizen audit", ie, a review by a group of biased, unqualified people, has found that a total of 21 chapters of the IPCC AR4's 44 chapters receive a failing grade of F, based on percentage of grey literature used. Of course, it is very clear that that is not a troubling statistic. To start with, something, they take great lengths to downplay is that WG1, as a whole receives an A (93% peer reviewed) in their arbitrary marking system. Based on their methodology, therefore, they should have every confidence in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report. Second, they entirely fail to adress the quality of the grey literature used. Among items listed as "grey literature" are academic monographs, academic books, CSIRO and other scientific institution reports, major government reports, and of course, anything produced by the IPCC itself. In fact, I have so far not come across a single item of "grey literature" that would not be cited without qualm in any academic literature. The website does mention citation of press releases, which would clearly be inappropriate - but do not give any indication of the frequency of citation of such dubious literature. I have heard of, but not investigated just one example of such dubious reference in 18,500 references (ignoring duplicate citations). The failure of the site to list frequency of citation of news releases, or papers by "advocacy groups" like the World Wildlife Fund suggests to me that such a listing would severely damage their case. Nor is it obvious to me why the IPCC should reject out of hand any information from such groups. Finally, the group provides no measure of reliance on grey literature. The IPCC must consider all views on the subject, and therefore consult (and hence include as references) some truly atrocious works. Therefore, the mere citation of a reference in no way shows that the views in that reference, or facts adduced in it, have been accepted by the IPCC report. A serious attempt to audit the IPCC on this point would need to not only show that the IPCC cited grey literature of dubious quality, but that facts contributing to the conclusions of the IPCC where obtained solely from such unreliable grey literature. No attempt to show such a pattern of reliance on dubious sources has been undertaken. Again, I suspect strongly that is because deniers have tried unsuccessfully to impeach the IPCC reports as generally inaccurate, and know the futility of such an approach. Consequently they take an indirect approach in which they can obfusticate the difference press releases and Academic textbooks to create a false impression of unreliability.
55724. Rob Honeycutt at 10:11 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Perhaps, "Watts et al, in shambles."
55725. dana1981 at 09:16 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Note that they could accurately call the paper "Watts et al. in preparation".
55726. dana1981 at 09:14 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Rob @53 - I agree, except that Watts et al. isn't submitted either! And frankly it's in such bad shape that if they were to actually put in the time to do the analysis right, I doubt if it would be submitted in 2012 either. We have discussed the Parker (2006) paper mentioned by neal @54 here.
55727. Tom Curtis at 08:56 AM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Michael Sweet @70, it is possible that Krisbaum's objection to a recent recipient of a doctorate becoming a Lead Author is an exagerated idea of what Lead Authors actually do. In the IPCC writing process, Lead Authors are one of a team of five more Lead Authors, each team lead be two or three Co-ordinating Lead Authors. Consequently, lead author does not get to write a chapter by themselves, and are not even the most senior people involved in writing a chapter. It is true that a Lead Author might be asked to write a particular section within a chapter based on particular expertise, but such a request would be decided upon by the Coordinating Lead Authors and other Lead Authors in a meeting, and the resulting section would be subject to review by the full authorship group prior to completion of the first order draft. The upshot is that a Lead Author, despite the exalted title is just a relatively minor member of a team. As such, objections to recent recipients of doctorates being Lead Authors just show a lack of understanding of the process involved.
55728. Tom Curtis at 07:54 AM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Krisbaum @29, I grew up (mostly) in Mount Isa, Queensland. The ore in Mount Isa has a high sulphur content, a fact made plain to us when the prevailing easterly wind failed, and the plume from the copper smelter stack (red and white hoops) settled over the town, resulting our filtering out the SO2 inefficiently with our lungs. Occasionally it would rain with a westerly wind, in which case the SO2 was filtered out efficiently by the rain water, killing every rose bush in Mount Isa with a dilute acid. The effect of rainfall with the prevailing easterlies can be seen in the barren western hills behind the mine, stripped even of the hardy spinifex seen in the foreground. The reduced vegetation was apparent up to 30 miles west of the mines: The relevance of this? When I was relatively young I read of a study in Mount Isa Mines internal magazine, Mimag, which traced the flue gas from Mount Isa by its isotopic composition as far as the coast of Africa. I believe it was the west coast of Africa, meaning the gas had crossed most of Australia, the Indian Ocean, and then Africa itself to come to the Atlantic. I'm not certain about the west coast, however, although I am certain about it reaching Africa. Now, given one certain instance of industrial SO2 emissions travelling a third of the way around the world, are you going to seriously argue that industrial SO2 emissions from Europe or North America can't reach Greenland? Yeah, I know. Mimag is grey literate so any information in it can be ignored by you whenever you don't like the consequences - never mind that we take mere blog posts as law when they criticize the IPCC. So, how about we take a different approach. When you identify the major source of SO2 within 10 km of the GRIP drill site, and how that source miraculously synchronized its emissions with European and North American industrial emissions, I'll believe the SO2 in the ice cores did not come from industrial emissions. If you cannot identify that source, however, I will treat your suggestion that the ice cores do not provide a record of European and North American industrial emissions of SO2 with the scorn it deserves.
55729. Philippe Chantreau at 07:45 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Neal, the Parker paper was discussed on SkS literally years ago. But thanks for reminding us of its existence, as it is indeed quite relevant.
55730. nealjking at 07:42 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       About the UHI issue: Parker (2004) studied the question of the urban heat island effect and its impact on the temperature trends, by segregating the measurements into two groups: windy-day measurements and calm-day measurements. His conclusions: - On calm days, temperatures run higher than on windy days. The implication is that there is indeed a UHI effect, but a good wind blows it away. - Now if you study the trends for the windy days over the decades, and the trends for the calm days, they are essentially the same: the increase over the study period is the same. So the UHI doesn't seem to have been growing in coverage. For me, this seems to be pretty direct evidence that even though there really is a UHI effect, it is not contributing towards misleading us about temperature trends. Maybe cities are just not expanding fast enough.
55731. Rob Honeycutt at 07:10 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       ligne... I think it speaks a lot to Watts naiveté that you one would even refer to a just submitted paper with the year of publication attached to it. I think the normal nomenclature would be to refer to it as "Watts et al, submitted."
       Moderator Response: [RH] Didn't mean to infer that ligne was saying that.
55732. R. Gates at 06:50 AM on 5 August 2012
       BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
       Excellent post. Should be a must read for anyone still open minded about the extent of human impact on the climate. And regarding that, the discussion of what levels of CO2 is "safe", related of course to prevent some catastrophic breakdown in the biosphere, atmosphere, and ocean systems supporting both humans and other creatures, what is absolutely critical here is a wholistic approach-- true Anthropocene Management. Increasing CO2 levels are just one of the many ways humans are altering this planet, and have been for many centuries. In a wholistic approach, we would look at not just CO2 but land uses, methane, the nitrogen cycle, water use, etc. Thus, while it might be good to pick a general target of CO2, at say 350 ppm, it should be part of an overall Anthropocene Management effort that looks at all the ways humans alter the planet of which controlling CO2 levels is just one aspect. My bigger fear related to this is that things will get out of control faster than most might imagine, leading to ever greater instability in governments and societies around the world. You might see reactionary governments come to power who have no interest in climate control or the instability might cause some to "go it alone" in terms of attempting to geoengineer the planet. We could have geoengineering efforts that end up doing more harm than good. It would be like having 10 different doctors independently treating a patient without any consultation with each other. This all could be very counter productive of course.
55733. ligne at 06:36 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       Trent1492: one way to refer to a paper is by the author(s), and the year it was published. see for example the reference to "Schaal et al. 1977" in the article. in this case, Bernard is implying that they're somewhat jumping the gun when they assuming that 5 months will be sufficient to get this particular mess into a publishable state.
55734. Philippe Chantreau at 06:10 AM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Krisbaum's difficulty in obtaining reliable information is transparent in others of his unsupported statements: "it is fairly common knowledge that aerosols do not travel far from their source typically 10km or so. You need localised measurements to get any kind of global pattern." This assertion is not supported by any scientific reference in the post. Anyone looking at a satellite picture of China's dust traveling over the Pacific will come to the conclusion that saying "10km or so" is so removed from reality as to indicate deep ignorance of the subject. Earlier Krisbaum was mentioning the lack of a historical depth to the science of atmospheric aerosols. If one does explore the subject, however, one of the first things to be found is 19th century research centered on studying the reports of ships receiving dust from the Sahara while thousands of km away in the Atlantic. Not 10 km, thousands. This remains a common occurrence, that can easily be seen on satellite pictures. On this one from NASA, the dust crosses the entire Atlantic: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44169 Th entire Atlantic, not 10 km. It should be noted that this is dust picked up from the ground, not injected directly in the stratosphere by a volcano. How quickly that latter type travels around the world has already been studied extensively. I do not believe that it is even necessary to post any reference on that, as it takes only a few seconds on Google to find an entire list. The picture of Saharan dust above took me less than 10 seconds to find. In light of this, it is safe to say that this statement: "it is fairly common knowledge that aerosols do not travel far from their source typically 10km or so" is total nonsense that can not possibly form in the mind of anyone actually trying to get information on the subject. Now, let's examine this: "You need localised measurements to get any kind of global pattern." There is a contradiction of terms in the first place, but let's consider that what was meant was something like: you need many, gridded local measurements to get etc etc. It still makes no sense. Aerosols that do not reach the upper atmosphere have no global climate influence. The impossible-to-pronounce- Icelandic volcano that disrupted air travel not long ago did not create a real forcing because aerosols did not go high enough. Having a local record will tell only how some aerosols could have affected that local area. Records from Greenland, where there are no local sources, show the amount of well mixed aerosols, that are present in the atmosphere at large and can be a global forcing.
55735. Trent1492 at 05:50 AM on 5 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       @Bernard J, What does calling this paper "Watts 12" mean?
55736. Rob Painting at 05:47 AM on 5 August 2012
       Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
       John B - the Great Barrier Reef may be entering a time of great danger. Not only is ocean acidification bubbling away in the background, but a return to an El Nino-dominant period will probably bring on mass coral bleaching. Not good for a reef already losing coral cover year-by-year due to pollution, disease and crown-of-thorns outbreaks. You'd expect an Environment Minister to be.....concerned about the environment.
55737. krisbaum at 05:01 AM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Micheal Sweet maybe explain how you come to the conclusions that you have written above??? it looks like a lot of opinion to me....
55738. Daniel Bailey at 04:17 AM on 5 August 2012
       Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
       I did get a response back from Dr. Box agreeing that Greenland surface melt "150 year cycles" should be looked into. He further added that the 1 degree C summer temperature increase in the period of instrumental observations, continuous for west Greenland since 1840 (173 years), make melt episodes more likely. As an FYI, Dr. Box has a blog post update of relevance, here: http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=677. In which can be found this excellent graphic: The warming of the GIS during the 1930's is notably less than that warming being experienced by the GIS today.
55739. michael sweet at 02:21 AM on 5 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Krisbaum, It is difficult to discuss the IPCC with you because you appear to have no understanding of how the IPCC works and what its intended goals are. The Intergovernmental PCC was formed to inform the world's governments about the possibility of climate change. As such governments choose the experts who write the reports. Who do you suggest would be better to choose the experts- you? Your suggestion that someone else should choose the experts is absurd, there is no-one else who could choose them. In any case, if you do not like the experts chosen you can complain. While I have not heard of anyone replaced because they were complained about I would be surprised if no-one has been removed from a position. The experts include scientists from the oil industry. I am astonished that you complain that an expert had only earned his PhD two years before he was made a lead author. It sounds to me like he was a rising scientist who was willing to take on a job. Experts agreed he was qualified, what data do you have to contradict their assessment? I note this person wrote the 1994 report. If you have to look that far into the past to find a complaint the reports since then must be perfect. Your suggestion that governments should not have any involvement in the SPM is also absurd. The whole purpose of the IPCC is to develop a consensus report for governments to use. The SPM is a political document based on the underlying scientific report. It is the responsibility of the governments of the world to ensure an accurate summary is made. As I recall, the US representative was booed because of some statements he made. The USA generally tried to make the SPM less sure than WG1 and other , more progressive countries, fought to keep the SPM more true to the scientific report. Complaining that a political document was compiled by governments is just arguing for arguments sake. The scientific report has been drafted and reviewed several times before the SPM is written. Final edits are small. Changes are agreed on by expert reviewers. You are arguing that if the report is not perfect, by your ever changing standards, it is not dependable. You will never be pleased since you can just change your standards again. In many countries reports are written and published in different ways than we do in the USA, Europe and Australia. In these areas the gray literature is where the data is. When the IPCC experts used these reports they review them before citing them. You are insisting that the IPCC produce a perfect report, 3000 pages long, in a world that is not perfect. Why do you accept denier garbage that has errors in every paragraph when the IPCC must be perfect?
55740. Tor B at 01:12 AM on 5 August 2012
       BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
       #23 ranyl pretty much speaks my mind. Human discontent, such as demonstrated by the Arab Spring, has already been connected to AGW. I once made a bumper sicker that read "Peace by 1927" because it sounded cool (I'd just read 1984, and like it's author, I reversed the current date.), and a history buff told me that it was about the right date to prevent WWII. So now, as a single issue voter, I might say "Peace with 350 ppm". At least this is something we can theoretically get back to. As it says in Deuteronomy "so that you and your children may live."
55741. Daniel Bailey at 00:51 AM on 5 August 2012
       Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
       Not yet. This is the height of the field research season, though. I counsel patience.
55742. Paul from VA at 00:28 AM on 5 August 2012
       Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
       @ 4 Chris G You're exactly right. In fact, massive ice loss due to darkening as the mixture between ice and dust (lag) becomes more dusty as ice melts has already been observed elsewhere in the solar system. This process is part of what is thought to have caused Saturn's icy moon Iapetus to have one side which is 10x darker than the other. ref: Spencer and Denk 2010
55743. Physicist-retired at 23:16 PM on 4 August 2012
       Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt
       Daniel, Regarding the '150-year natural melt cycle' - any clarification on this from Dr. Box yet?
55744. JohnB6223 at 22:04 PM on 4 August 2012
       Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
       On ABC radio PM program 4 Jun 2012:- MATT WORDSWORTH: The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority issued a report in 2009 citing anthropogenic climate change as a priority issue for the reef. But Queensland's Environment Minister Andrew Powell is not convinced about the role of humans. ANDREW POWELL: Look, I believe the climate is changing; I am still to be convinced of the degree to which we are influencing that. But having said that, are we polluting the environment? Certainly. Are we using a non renewable source of energy? Certainly. Do we need to address both of those factors? Most definitely. As environment minister he should be aware that scientists have positively identified (via carbon isotopes) the source of this additional CO2; it originating from the burning of fossil fuels.
55745. JohnB6223 at 22:00 PM on 4 August 2012
       Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
       The NSW Deputy premier ANDREW STONER: On ABC radio PM program 4 Jun 2012:- MATT WORDSWORTH: New South Wales' Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner recently voiced his concerns about climate science. Three weeks ago he attacked the Climate Commission's report, The Critical Decade, which predicted a rise in heatwave events and flash flooding. ANDREW STONER: This is alarmist, we've heard predictions of all our dams drying up in the past, we've heard predictions of the Central Coast and other coastal parts of the state going underwater, the polar ice caps melting. I'm sorry, none of this has happened so unless he's got some new evidence, I think the average person would be a little sceptical. An example of dismissing the issue by assuming an unrealistic timescale on the predicted possible occurrence of these dire events. He should be reminded of the planetary timescale on which climate change occurs.
55746. JohnB6223 at 21:05 PM on 4 August 2012
       Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
       Thanks 17, 18 and 19 for your reply. I consider it wishful thinking that "melting could stop"; especially in view of climate warming events over recent years. The adventurous statement by Kurt H. Kjær "the current thinning of the ice sheet is likely to ease within an 8-year period." will unfortunately be fodder for vested deniers.
55747. Rob Painting at 19:56 PM on 4 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       krisbaum - I counted 5284 citations of peer-reviewed scientific literature in Working Group 1 of the 2007 IPCC report (the physical science basis). The 10 citations of grey literature therefore equals 0.19 % of the citations in that report. This is in stark contrast to your claim @ 40: "Something like 1/3 of the references in the last report are grey literature - WWF reports, Greenpeace, news, un-peer reviewed.. etc.." Your claim is total bunk.
55748. Bernard J. at 18:09 PM on 4 August 2012
       Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
       One of the things that's been amusing me about this 'paper' is that it's being referred to as Watts 12. There's a huge assumption here that it will actually find publication this year. Given the extremely poor quality of the first draft, and the length of time it would require to salvage anything from it, let alone to re-write, submit, review, refine, accept, and print any future version, the '12' appellation is optimistic indeed.
55749. Bernard J. at 18:04 PM on 4 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Krisbaum. You appear to have a very serious problem with 'grey literature'. Given (conservatively) that more than 99.9% of the denialist literature is at best 'grey', what from that body of commentary do you accept, and why? On the matter of the IPCC's use of grey literature, with which of their references do you have particular issue? The most obvious one that I can think of is the 2035 Himalayan glacier melt gaff, which appears to have originated with a tyographic error in reproducing the date 2350. Tellingly, the offending paragraph did not alter conclusions elsewhere in AR4, and if this is as serious as errors go in a document of many hundreds of pages, then even the most stringent scientific publisher would be proud.
55750. Rob Painting at 17:16 PM on 4 August 2012
       IPCC is alarmist
       Source for grey literature claim here.

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