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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 55901 to 55950:

  1. Surface Temperature Measurements: Time of observation bias and its correction
    Not to mention the famous claim that CO2 falls as snow in Antarctica (was that what got him banned from WUWT?).
  2. Surface Temperature Measurements: Time of observation bias and its correction
    ditto what michael said @5. Goddard doesn't provide a reference for where he's getting his data, so we can't verify if he's plotted it correctly, or correctly labeled what he's plotting, or why he chose Oklahoma (how many different regions did he have to plot before he found one that looked problematic, I wonder?). Let's just say Goddard is not known for his stellar data analysis skills, to put it as kindly as I possibly can. If Goddard says something, odds are the opposite is true.
  3. ‘It’s not looking good for corn’ - new video from Peter Sinclair
    The biggest impact this drought will have on people in the USA is the price of meat. Corn is primarily used as feed for animals. First the price of smaller animals (chickens, pigs) will rise, then cattle. Beef Poultry Pork
  4. michael sweet at 05:48 AM on 8 August 2012
    Surface Temperature Measurements: Time of observation bias and its correction
    Shoog, Stephen Goddard was banned from WUWT because he made so many false and unreliable claims. Imagine being so unreliable that you are banned from WUWT! I agree there is not enough information to evaluate his claim. You will waste your life trying to find the actual data to show Goddard is wrong. It only takes a moment to make up this stuff and it takes hours to find the real answer. In any case, it is a blog post (cherry pick) about a single location out of thousands in the USA. All the adjustments have been fully documented and passed peer review.
  5. citizenschallenge at 05:40 AM on 8 August 2012
    Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    FYI, I’ve linked to this excellent post over at SkepticForum Why Dr. Lindzen is mistaken re. CO2's 'climate sensitivity' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks for all these incredibly informative articles you folks have written and posted.
  6. ‘It’s not looking good for corn’ - new video from Peter Sinclair
    Out where I live, I am surrounded by thousands of acres of corn, most of it irrigated (by center-pivot irrigation, draining the local aquifer, but *don't* get me started....) but some corn is dry land; I can confirm that that corn is in really bad shape. Our (Colorado) precipitation is down by 50% over last year, which wasn't a great year, and in a average year, we'll see ~26 cm of precipe per annum. It has been so dry that my weeds have literally died from lack of moisture. It could get *interesting,* sez he who depends on a well.....
  7. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #31
    Close: they didn't *quiiite* get the ostrich correct. I submit a more accurate version... Our ostrich be *cooked*!
  8. Surface Temperature Measurements: Time of observation bias and its correction
    Hi there, First post here so go easy. I have a goof handle on the TOBS issue but was countered in a discussion with the following blog by Steve Goddard; http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/smoking-gun-that-tobs-adjustments-are-garbage/ The jump in the graph at around 2000 seems real enough, but there doesn't seem to be enough information to assess the validity of his claim. Can anyone take a look and tell me what is going on. Stephen
  9. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    I don't know how Christy selected his baseline period - it's probably a poor choice. That's why I discussed the trends in the post, which I don't believe he mentioned in his testimony. It's very easy to make a misleading graph, but trends are much more difficult to manipulate, other than by cherrypicking start and end points. Martin - I'm sure the politicians who invite Christy to speak (Republicans) know exactly what they're going to get. From the question and answer session when Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat from California) was peppering Christy and exposing some of his myths, it's clear that the other side was not fooled.
  10. ‘It’s not looking good for corn’ - new video from Peter Sinclair
    The corn crop quality graph in the video was not a good sign at all.
  11. Jeffrey Davis at 23:48 PM on 7 August 2012
    Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    H2O is plant food, too. So, apparently according to Christy nobody can drown.
  12. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    Excellent analysis as usual but, exactly how much notice do policymakers take of Christy? Are they fooled by him? Do they still see this as a debate? As well as the incredible spectacle of a "distinguished professor" (of the FFL-funded University of Abdication) asking politicians to rely upon Anthony Watts, I found his endorsement of the "we skeptics are like Galileo" fallacy and/or victim mentality astonishing. As for claiming that fossil fuels are good for us and/or that mitigation is hurting the poor; this is quite simply reality inversion: The problem with inverting reality (31 March 2012).
  13. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    It would be interesting to see what the surface temperature results would look like with the 'corrections' in the Watts/Christy paper... and then compare that to Christy's UAH satellite record and ask him to explain the discrepancies.
  14. Lars Karlsson at 21:13 PM on 7 August 2012
    Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    Regarding the model vs observation comparisons, notice that Christy writes: "The two satellite-based results (circles, UAH and RSS) have been proportionally adjusted so they represent surface variations for an apples-to-apples comparison."
  15. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    #2 and #4 KevinC and skywatcher, I can see why Christy would choose to start the baseline in 1979. It seems a reasonable thing to do as the measurements start then. But a bit of thought and some further looking would point out that choosing a starting point for comparison where the multi-model mean ENSO would be zero and the observations are net positive is poor analysis. Similarly if a 7 year mean were baselined using a 4 yr average. I suspect that because it helped give Christy the answer he was looking for, he didn't bother to look into it much more - simple confirmation bias. At least I hope that's what he did, rather than actually doing tetests and choosing to mislead Congress.
  16. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    #2 Kevin C - I think you're right about the baselining. If the 1979-83 observations are aligned with the 1979-83 model mean, the graph is skewed. By selecting just 1979-1983 as the baseline, Christy is able to align the model mean with a period (1979-1983) where UAH and other temperature series was running distinctly above the 1979-2012 trend. In the graph, there is also the question of how Christy calculated the 1979 datapoint for his running UAH mean. Given the UAH dataset runs from 1979, a centred average on 1979 will only have four points (1979, 80, 81 and 82), instead of the seven that most of the other points would have. The same issue is at the end of the dataset (How many datapoints contrinuted to the 2011 point?) That's a real problem in a graph presented as "7-year running averages". You should only have averages from 1982 to 2008 (Lowess smoothing can fill in the ends, but that's not what's presented). Consequence: The observations will run well below the model mean for the entire series, as the baseline period has a disproportionate influence of "El Nino" on the series. By setting the baseline to a peak in the observations (a peak not present by design in a multi-model mean), there is an offset of ~0.1C between the multimodel mean and the observations. Aligning the baselines properly over longer periods (at least through a couple of ENSO cycles), and I suspect this offset will disappear. The above graph is thus very deceptive. I can think of many descriptions for people who would produce a graph like this and present it before lawmakers, but I would fall foul of the Comments Policy.
  17. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    Is it easy to get the CMIP5 data for that figure? It would be interesting to look at longer timespans to address the baseline issue, and also to include my new HAD4krig reconstruction (a global version of HadCRUT4 using Kriging).
  18. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    Looking at the model-data discrepancy figure, Christy also seems to have done something odd with the baselines. The surface temperature records are lower than the model values for the entire (and ridiculously short) 1979-1983 baseline period. I'm guessing that the reason is the 7 years smooth. If those 5 years were hot (80, 81 and 83 were), and the years around them were cool (74-76 and 84-86 were cool), then the 7 year smooth will produce lower values. However it's looking as though the baseline period was a careful cherry-pick.
  19. Christy Once Again Misinforms Congress
    Forwarding this article to my senators. Every politician needs to see this, just in case they aren't already aware of Christy's bias.
  20. IPCC is alarmist
    This has to be the most pointless discussion I've encountered in several years, and that includes the engagement with Tim Curtin at OM, the SLoT thread, and everything Dan H has started at RC. What will be the ultimate bottom line if krisbaum is correct in feeling misled by Pachauri? Would it mean anything where WG1, WG2, or WG3 are concerned? And although it's probably against comment policy, I'll wager krisbaum has no problem with (-Snip-), and those are much more damaging than anything Pachauri has to say about bloody grey literature (as one can see from the variety of mainstream media outlets that are seemingly plugged directly into WUWT).
    Moderator Response: [DB] Comments policy violation snipped.
  21. Rob Honeycutt at 11:07 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    Very interesting, there are actually two different versions of this paper. The one that krisbaum cites includes the sentence about short atmospheric lifetime, etc. The version I found was published in GRL specifically has that line deleted. It looks to me like kris is citing from (maybe) a pre-press version of the paper (?). I find it interesting that that line was removed.
  22. Daniel Bailey at 10:52 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    It is duly noted that krisbaum blatantly is ignoring the tasks he has given himself in 81 and 94. Just as he ignored the text description for the animated GIF found on the host page:
    "The animation below shows the fire activity and smoke plumes in Russia and China in June/July 2012 and the consecutive transport of smoke across the Pacific. The MACC GFAS assimilation of Fire Radiative Power observations are superimposed over the combined organic matter and black carbon fields in the MACC global aerosol assimilation, which combines the smoke emissions calculated in GFAS with inventories of anthropogenic emissions and aerosol optical depth observations from space. Both types of observations are performed by the satellite-based MODIS instruments and NASA has provided the observation data."
    Also note that aerosols travel enormous distances across continents and oceans. And note that they are not evenly-mixed or distributed, unlike CO2: [Source]
  23. IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @106, I explicitly referred you to the top center image for the discussion of aerosols. You will notice that it is labelled "AOT", standing for Aerosol Optical Thickness. There are certain minimum standards of conduct necessary for any rational discussion - honesty, consistent standards for your self and others, a willingness to cite relevant information etc. You have shown yourself consistently unwilling to abide by any such standard. Consequently my discussion with you is over. Until you undertake to show why it was reprehensible of the IPCC to cite Agassiz as the originator of the theory of ice ages; or to cite Newton's letter to Hooke in 1675 as the source of the famous quotation about standing on the shoulders of giants (two more of the supposedly dubious citations according to your favourite source), or admit that the quality of citations cannot be determined simply by looking at the immediate source and that your favourite source used a massively flawed methodology which is completely unable to justify the conclusions you, and they draw from it, there is nothing more to say.
  24. Rob Honeycutt at 10:40 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @ 109... We are clearly not looking at the same paper. You said the title of the paper was, "Large historical changes of fossil-fuel black carbon aerosols." http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sb/July-2004/Historical-changes.pdf
  25. IPCC is alarmist
    Rob @107 - CO is not an aerosol.
  26. IPCC is alarmist
    @Rob 105 'Anthropogenic atmospheric aerosols are believed to be a significant climate forcing agent, probably second only to greenhouse gases in their effect on global temperature in the past century [Houghton et al., 2001]. However, the history of atmospheric aerosols is not nearly as well known as that of most gases because of the short atmospheric lifetime of aerosols and thus their very heterogeneous spatial distribution. Moreover, the climate effect of aerosols is complex, as some aerosols cause cooling while others are believed to cause warming.' page 3.
  27. Rob Honeycutt at 10:33 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @ 104... And so you think that the large spacial distribution of CO presented in DB's gif is... bush fires? Maybe I've not been watching the news closely enough. Are there massive bush fires occurring in Beijing and Tianjin?
  28. IPCC is alarmist
    Tom@103 I was talking bout anthropogenic aerosols not emissions. Why post a diagram of CO, CH4 etc when they are NOT aerosols?
  29. Rob Honeycutt at 10:29 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @ 104... Ummm... No. Just read page three and there is nothing there that talks about the atmospheric lifetime or spacial distribution of black carbon. They discuss accumulation over time. There is certainly nothing there to support your 10 km statement.
  30. IPCC is alarmist
    Rob @101 - page 3 of the report Rob @102 - Bushfires for example generate huge amounts of carbon monoxide.
    Moderator Response: [DB] You have yet to fulfill the challenges you have assigned yourself in comments 81 and 94 earlier in this thread. You will be held accountable to fulfill those commitments.
  31. IPCC is alarmist
    To clarify, as can be seen in this image of various emissions with short dwell times in the atmosphere, they have, as Krisbaum puts it "a very heterogeneous spatial distribution": However, just because concentrations are strongest near there source, and fall of rapidly with distance does not mean emissions do not result in significant concentrations hundreds of miles away, or that relatively remote locations will not have sufficient concentration to track changes in emissions. Indeed, if you look at the record for aerosol emissions (center top), you will see that individual cities are not clearly delineated by the concentrations, as would be the case if their typical transit distance was limited to 10 kilometers. In that way, aerosols are different from NO2 (left top), where individual industrial centers are easily delineated. What is more, significant concentrations of aerosols are still found a couple of hundred miles of the coast, again showing the absurdity of the 10 km claim made by Krisbaum. So, once again, while Krisbaum purports to have a problem with the IPCC citing Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" on falsification, and Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" on paradigm shifts (just two of the very dubious claims of inadequate literature from Krisbaum's favourite source), he has no problem with citing non-academic websites and simply making "facts" up in support of his argument. Why then do we continue to tolerate his sloganeering? His own words have thoroughly discredited him; as has his refusal to look at the particular use made of particular citations for which he condemns the IPCC.
  32. Rob Honeycutt at 10:16 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum... I believe if you're talking carbon monoxide aerosols that would be generally accepted as anthropogenic, pretty much without saying. Unless you can think of other large sources of carbon monoxide.
  33. Rob Honeycutt at 10:11 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @ 95... Upon a quick read of the paper you cited I can't find any reference even to the atmospheric lifetime or spacial distribution of black carbon. I don't think you've read the paper.
  34. IPCC is alarmist
    DB: i'm pretty sure you just violated your own posting rules by putting up an animated giff without any references or source whatso-ever.. How do i know you didnt just draw that animation? Where's it from? whats it really mean?
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] The source website for that image is http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/. The image itself can be found here.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts, accuse others of deception and make personal attacks on other participants here, make things up and continually complain about moderation. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

  35. Rob Honeycutt at 10:07 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @ 94... Now wait a minute. When I read back on your quotes from Pachauri none of them includes a statement saying that the IPCC uses "only" peer-reviewed literature. Pachauri states that the IPCC reports are "based" on peer reviewed literature. As I tried to point out before those statements do not preclude the use of non-peer reviewed literature. And as I've pointed out there are specific IPCC rules for the use of non-peer reviewed literature that Pachauri is certainly aware of. I would suggest that you're getting worked up over a narrow semantical interpretation of Pachauri's words.
  36. IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @89, it is common knowledge that aerosols have a short atmospheric lifetime. It is not common knowledge, because it it not true, that that life time is so short that SO2 emissions in North America and Europe will not impact on SO2 concentrations in Greenland ice. Yet you quoted the made up figure of 10 km in order to rebut the evidence that relative SO2 levels neighbouring the North Atlantic are recorded by Greenland Ice Cores. Without your quotation of that extremely short figure (absurdly short, in fact), you would have had no argument. There is a name for people who make up facts in order to bolster their case. I am not permitted to use it here due to the comments policy.
  37. Rob Honeycutt at 10:00 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum @ 95... That's a paper on black carbon. Try again.
  38. Rob Honeycutt at 09:57 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum... I would suggest you read the rules established by the IPCC on the uses of non-peer reviewed literature. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf Do you think for some reason Pachauri would be unaware of these policies?
  39. IPCC is alarmist
    What kind of a claim do you want Rob? Go pick up a copy of 'Large historical changes of fossil-fuel black carbon aerosols' T. Novakov,1* V. Ramanathan,2 J.E. Hansen,3 T.W. Kirchstetter,1 M. Sato,3 J. E. Sinton,1 J.A. Sathaye1 1Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
  40. IPCC is alarmist
    ' Look, Pachauri is a smart guy. He's not going to make completely unfounded statements, especially in such a high profile position. ' Rob, I just showed you how he made unfounded statements, far reaching across the media. Telling the world the reports are only based on peer reviewed literature was misleading.
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "Telling the world the reports are only based on peer reviewed literature"

    Only? No more making things up. Support this statement with a link to an actual, verifiable quote; this is not an optional exercise.

  41. Rob Honeycutt at 09:53 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum... "...aerosols have a short atmospheric lifetime and therefore a very heterogeneous spatial distribution." Please back up this claim with some evidence.
  42. IPCC is alarmist
    Rob - maybe have a dig around the internet yourself, there's plenty of information about grey literature usage in quite important areas of the IPCC's AR4. Maybe start here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report
  43. Rob Honeycutt at 09:49 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    krisbaum... What? Are you looking for test scores to show that he's smart?
  44. IPCC is alarmist
    Rob; 'Look, Pachauri is a smarty guy. He's not going to make completely unfounded statements, especially in such a high profile position. ' Please back up this claim with some evidence.
  45. IPCC is alarmist
    Philipe; to expand; it is common knowledge anthropogenic aerosols have a short atmospheric lifetime and therefore a very heterogeneous spatial distribution. 10km is arbitrary, I used it to simplify my statement(s).
    Moderator Response:

    [DB] This image of carbon monoxide aerosols from Asia proves you, and common knowledge, very wrong:

    The source website for that image is http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/. The image itself can be found here.

  46. michael sweet at 07:10 AM on 7 August 2012
    An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
    Dvaytw, To further Tom's comment, on Mass's blog he criticizes the model Rupp/Mote used for the comparison. Hansen used only measured data (no model data) so Mass's complaint does not apply. Since Hansen and Rupp/Mote reach similar conclusions it seems like Mass is the outlier. Mass presents no peer reviewed analysis of his own. You have to decide who you trust.
  47. An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
    dvaytw @38, you should read more carefully. Cliff Mass does not discuss Hansen's study at all. Rather, he critiques a paper by David E. Rupp and Philip W. Mote which deals exclusively with the 2011 Texas heat wave. That study claimed that global warming had made Texas 2011 heatwaves 20 times more likely in La Nina years. As it happens, the Texas 2011 was very improbable on the assumption of no global warming as can be seen by this histogram of August temperatures in Texas by the Texas State Climatologist, John Nielson-Gammon: There is no doubt that such events have become more probable because of the warming of Texas' climate, as shown in the discussion above. Whether they have become 20 times more probable, however, is open to dispute.
  48. An American Heatwave: The United States Glimpses its Hot Future
    I'm not in the least an AGW skeptic, but would like some input. This atmospheric sciences prof. Cliff Mass claims there are serious problems with Hansen's study: "Texas Tall Tales and Global Warming" http://cliffmass.blogspot.tw/2012/07/texas-tall-tales-and-global-warming.html So far I haven't been able to find a response from Hansen or his co-authors. Any thoughts?
  49. Rob Honeycutt at 02:47 AM on 7 August 2012
    IPCC is alarmist
    Krisbaum... Think clearly for a moment. Is Pachauri saying that every single piece of science in the IPCC reports is peer reviewed literature. I don't think so. He's saying that the IPCC reports are "based" on the peer reviewed science. That statement does not exclude other sources. Look, Pachauri is a smart guy. He's not going to make completely unfounded statements, especially in such a high profile position.
  50. Philippe Chantreau at 01:55 AM on 7 August 2012
    New research from last week 31/2012
    As always Ari, your contribution is greatly appreciated.

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