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Comments 56751 to 56800:

56751. Bob Lacatena at 14:17 PM on 12 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       dissembly, I have no idea how your ideas would go over in Australia, but they'd never, ever get past square-one in the USA. We have quite a different view towards "nationalization" (some of it appropriate, some of it fabricated by extreme-right-wing free-market-fascists). Similarly, you will never, ever get such a tax in the USA. Ever. The Republicans are still pushing to lower taxes on the rich, and you want to add one. It will never, ever fly, probably not even a flat tax and particularly not a progressive tax. I'm not saying either of those is right or wrong (although I certainly don't believe that nationalization can work as efficiently as you claim, or that the free market is as inefficient as you claim), just that they will never even be given a chance in the nation that absolutely must engage if the problem is going to be solved (the USA). [As a side note, my references to Soviet style 5-year plans were purposeful hyperbole. I never meant it literally. What I did mean is that nationalization is inefficient. It is more prone to corruption and waste than the free market, because when you remove the profit incentive, people just stop trying, or start trying in in favor of the bribes that give them personal profits. The free market profit incentive siphons off resources, yes, but not as badly as the government controlled approach of simply investing those resources in the wrong directions and without adequate perseverance or commitment.]
56752. dissembly at 13:40 PM on 12 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       @ #36 scaddenmp; "Working properly, a carbon tax should be redistributed back on a pure per-capita basis." In an idealised, textbook-model world - which we don't occupy. "If you are using less carbon than the average citizen (by, for example, buying electricity from renewable generation or using non-carbon methods of transport to commute), then you should be better off under such a system. Australians should be pushing for that." People want to know that they'll be able to support their families and live a decent life; they want to be able to do this while also addressing climate change, but the carbon tax doesn't provide an avenue for this outcome. It neither guarantees constructive change nor addresses quality-of-life issues that are already impacting on people. "Blaming carbon for price rises is only a viable business option if every competitor does exactly the same thing. Otherwise the consumer buys the cheaper product and you lose market share." And every competitor is incentivised to do exactly the same thing right now. "Using wartime spending has a model has the problem that Americans are still paying for it. The money has to come from somewhere." And I've outlined at least two substantial sources for it, in a more robust version of the mining super-profits tax and a more progressive income tax regime.
56753. dissembly at 13:19 PM on 12 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       @Tom Curtis, perhaps you should re-read your own comments. I have never been dishonest in this conversation, and the written record is pretty much there for anyone reading this to see for themselves. You have continually approached my comments by assuming bad faith, and do so in your most recent comments as well. You seem to think that because someone disagrees with your political assessment of the compensation packages, they must be some sort of dishonest propagandist. In fact I have made my arguments, in good faith, and I stand by them, not yet having seen any counter-argument that I believe challenges them. I'm happy to let that stand. But I certainly am not walking away from this feeling that you have responded to my views with the assumption that you're talking to a real human being who is presenting his honest point of view.
56754. dissembly at 13:15 PM on 12 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       @Sphaerica; - "you write so much with no clear statement of point or purpose that it's hard to follow exactly what you are arguing for" Well, to be honest I don't understand how that's possible, but I take you at your word, which is more than some other people have done for me in this discussion. Here is my clear statement of point or purpose: I initially posted to argue that: a) Opposition to the carbon tax is not simply a conservative plot, but something that touches average people, regardless of political persuasion, b) Most Australians are neither conservative, nor global warming deniers, but still have serious problems with the carbon tax, c) Objections to the carbon tax are valid, and not a result of short-sightedness or AGW denial. In the course of discussion, I expanded on my point of view, and argued that: a) The carbon tax has hurt the environmentalist movement; where once we had tens of thousands of people rallying, forcing governments into making promises on climate change that they didn't want to make, we now have almost nothing, with very little-to-no pressure on the government to act on climate change; b) A real solution involves public investment and infrastructural change to convert ours into a low-to-zero carbon economy, c) This solution can be achieved by returning to the state of the movement only a few short years ago, but this cannot be done by pushing the carbon tax. That is my clear statement of point and purpose. That is where I stand on these issues, what I have presented arguments for, and contains a practical statement of what I think is the way forward. You write: - "to allow the free market the maximum flexibility in addressing the problem (rather than the government-bureaucratic-5-year-plan-Soviet-style solution)" I don't think anybody has ever advocated a "5-year-plan-Soviet-style-solution". I advocate nationalisation and public investment, with democratic ownership, not bureaucratic dictatorship. You correctly wrote "In the USA, people are programmed to shake in fear at the word 'tax.'" - in the USA, people are also told to shake in fear at the words "nationalisation" and "public ownership". You responded to my suggestion by invoking a nightmarish dictatorship - I don't think that's a measured response at all. The only aspects of the "5-year-plans" that resemble what I argue for are the raw facts of national ownership and planning (as distinct from the massive top-down bureaucracy, complete lack of democracy, and horrific working conditions imposed on the people made to carry out the plans - contrast this with the fact that Australia is not a totalitarian dictatorship, and that I am arguing for this push to be made in the community upon the government, I believe i even specifically mentioned trade unions) - the only aspects of the Soviet system that actually had a constructive economic influence. As for allowing the free market to address the problem, i've given quite a few reasons why this is a bad idea. The free market encourages artificial price rises (we've seen it already with leaked information from three separate businesses in the first weeks of the carbon tax in Australia), it dis-incentivises investment in long-term, large-scale infrastructural projects (thus rendering global warming the textbook example of a problem that cannot be solved with a free market), it enables large-scale fraud with the trading of derivatives (and the idea of carbon permit trading is really a striking recreation of the sort of derivatives trading invoplved in the GFC), it is incapable of operating efficiently (with large-scale losses from the market in the form of profit), but particularly in times of recession (which encourage profit-hoarding rather than 'risky' investment). The various carbon market schemes suffer from specific problems in the nature of the schemes themselves, most obviously in the nature of purchase-able "offsets", but also in the fact that the very people who are currently blocking action on climate change are the ones who this scheme utterly relies on to 'do the right thing' in this very corruptible carbon market. The rest of your posts, I beleive, responded to arguments that I did not make - you are preaching to the converted! On taxes; I believe in taxes, so long as they are progressive taxes (not flat taxes). It is absolutely unnecessary for the poor to pay disproportionately to support our roads, public transport, welfare system, power grid, etc etc etc. And it is absolutely unnecessary for the poor to pay disproportionately to support real action on climate change. I've given some figures already. We recently had a mining super-profits tax implemented - a watered down version of an earlier proposal, which was killed because, rather than the government using this money for any public purpose, they simply advocated using the money raised to ease taxes on companies (Australia already has one of the lowest company tax rates in the developed world) - so nobody really bothered to defend the government when they came under attack from the mining companies. We should be pushing for that tax to be implemented, in an even stronger form - but for the revenue to be used to address global warming. That would get peoples attention. (Even better, we should calling for the nationalisation of the mining industry - but even without going this far, tens of billions of dollars would become available for new alternative energy infrastructure.) A recent study found that even a modest progressive alteration to our tax system - bringing it into line with the tax system in the decidedly non-socialist UK - would net a further $108 billion per year. The idea that any sort of flat tax is necessary to make this sort of thing happen is simply, factually, not true. On the impact of global warming; Yes, it would disproportionately affect the poor. I'm sold! Trying to convince me of this is like carrying coals to Newcastle, as they say.
56755. Tom Curtis at 13:05 PM on 12 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       dissembly @40, I have not at any stage impugned your honesty, and resent the accusation that I did. But I guess that is par for the course from a person who has continuously misrepresented my opinion; as indeed you continue to do in the final comment. I will note that had I chosen to impugn your dishonesty, you have certainly given me grounds to do so. Misrepresenting a tax plus compensation package that over compensates the poor, and leave the wealthy ($80,000 plus income) without any compensation, and hence facing the full burden of the tax as "resembling a flat tax" and saying that it will "affect you more by a disproportionately greater amount the further down the income scale you go" certainly represents either dishonesty or massive confusion. You give me no reason to give you the benefit of that doubt.
56756. Composer99 at 12:31 PM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       I think it's worth nothing that realscience has agreed here with the essential conclusions of climate science (essential in terms of informing present & future policy) before piling on too much over medieval temperature anomalies.
56757. Daniel Bailey at 10:07 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Aside from the Holy Hand Grenade, what other sacred relic proxy's are out there? How about Martín-Chivelet et al 2011? Abstract:

       Remarkably, the presented records allow direct comparison of recent warming with former warm intervals such as the Roman or the Medieval periods. That comparison reveals the 20th century as the time with highest surface temperatures of the last 4000 years for the studied area.

       

       Fig. 7. Synthetic time series of relative δ13C values for the last 4000 years, based on the three stalagmites. The curve is based on the deviation of each δ13C value from the mean calculated in each stalagmite for the 1570–670 yr BP interval (i.e., the longest interval of coeval growth in the three samples). The smoothing curve is based on adjacent averaging (n=10) of the stacked relative δ13C values of the three stalagmites. The temperature scale is based on the linear model correlation obtained from the cross-plot of Fig. 6. According to that model, the error of the temperature estimates is ±0.26 °C.

       [Source] Proxy, proxy, my kingdom for a proxy...
56758. skywatcher at 09:51 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       And to add one more to DB's list, 'realscience' continues the erroneous accusation that Mann's group somehow wished the MCA away because they didn't want it. Lets think about that for just a second. In real science, who, exactly, whould benefit from a small, invisible MCA? Why, those arguing for low climate sensitivity of course! If Mann et al had an agenda, as has been insinuated, they would not have produced a 'hockey stick'. They would have produced a graph with very large wiggles for every significant natural climate event. That would be a graph supporting high climate sensitivity, and thus very great concern for the magnitude of our current anthropogenic forcing of climate. Fortunately, Mann and all the dozen or more others that followed him had the integrity not to do that - they followed the data and produced reconstructions that best suited their data. It supported slightly lower climate sensitivity! A large MCA = high climate sensitivity. There is so much irony in the fact that so-called skeptics ought to be lauding Mann, when instead they chosen to maliciously attack him. But then nobody ever said skeptics were actually rational in their arguments about climate! [and for those that don't know, it's "Medieval Climate Anomaly", rather than MWP, to account for the fact that there are precipitation changes in the time period, and regions with cool episodes, not accurately reflected in a 'Warm' name. Something else that has come out of deeper understanding as the science has advanced beyond the thinking of the great H H Lamb.]
56759. Daniel Bailey at 09:48 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Additionally, using the same logic, the warmth of the MCA should also be obvious in the global methane record. From Mitchell et al, 2011: Oh, there it is.
56760. Tom Curtis at 09:37 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Rob Honeycutt @151, how true your words are is revealed by this comparison of MBH 99 and Mann et al 2008 CPS method: As can be seen, MBH declines from a high point in the MWP which is about as high as that found in other more recent proxies. While there is some substance to the claim that MBH 99 does not show the LIA, there is no substance to the claim that it does not show the MWP. That it is the later, not the former claim deniers continuously shows well the substance in their arguments.
56761. Daniel Bailey at 09:36 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Of course, if one could somehow find a reconstruction of Arctic Sea Ice levels for, say, the past 1,400 years or so, surely that would help prove the non-regionality of the MCA. After all, Arctic amplification will help magnify any warming present during the MCA, so any reduction in sea ice cover should stand out like a sore, throbbing thumb with respect to the years between then and now. What's that? We do have such a reconstruction? Oh, yes, SkS covered Kinnard et al 2011 here, Arctic Sea Ice Hockey Stick: Melt Unprecedented in Last 1,450 years Pretty bleedin' obvious, I'd say.
56762. Bert from Eltham at 09:08 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       As an ignorant physicist that worked in structural biology I have met Nobel Laureates in our field. My boss used to bring his international mates into the lab and then have to leave because of some administrative problem. They all asked more questions than even offering any advice or pontificating. They were genuinely interested how we did things in our lab. I was only introduced to them by name and had no idea who they were. It was only later at lunch or dinner I found out who they were. These were all very humble men who knew their limitations in spite of their success and obvious talents. I can only suppose that if the deniers cherry pick data they will cherry pick Nobel Laureates. Bert
56763. Rob Honeycutt at 08:11 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       realscience... Your original comment was that the MWP didn't appear in MBH98, which is obvious because the data didn't go back to medieval times. MBH99 added 400 years to MBH98 and took the data back about the peak of the MWP. Mann's 2009 work of course went back even further and showed the cooler period prior to that. You are making an erroneous inference that somehow the MWP magically "came back into view." It didn't come "back" into view, it merely came "into" view.
56764. Daniel Bailey at 08:11 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       You are still calling for an "audit". Feel free. Still off-topic, so let it go on this thread. Or I will have to drop out of discussion into moderation for the remainder. Other moderators are of course free to step in right away & excise the offending bits as they see fit. The facts: -You opined that the MCA was global. -You were called on it & challenged to present evidenciary support. -You presented three sources. -You received strikes on all three. -You continue to ignore those strikes. -You continue to opine that some places today are cooling while some are warming, thus painting a picture inconsistent with the modern record. All without evidenciary support. -You still fail to provide a cohesive, evidenciarilly-supported framework that the MCA was global. You furnish ample rhetoric. Substance is needed to constitute intellectual victuals, however. No matter the spin, calling a dog's tail a 5th leg does not make it so.
56765. Hyperactive Hydrologist at 08:08 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       It amazes me how a scientist from any field can not grasp the basics of climate science. Does the scientific process work differently in other disciplines? All that is required is to pick up a copy of International Journal of Climatology, or similar standing climate publication, and read. You probably don't even have to read much more than the introduction to each article to realise the climate science community is well beyond the "is it us or not?" question.
56766. realscience at 07:56 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Rob, Mann himself in 2009 produced that multi-proxy work, that had the MWP come back into view. It is in the front page of this discussion. There has been new proxies since then that look like they raise the temperature of the MWP. Daniel, I did not say I wanted an audit of mann, I said that like the earlier work, 2009 needs to be redone. It certainly does not need to be done by mann. That later 2009 work was actually put up for real peer review in a timely manner, and did not have the math errors of previous work. No trolling going on, simply statements that say new evidence seems to point to a hotter more global MCA. As to peer review working fast for M&M, that is doubtfull, but those doing the new construction are inside the climate community. IMHO the best course is to be open to new information. Some recent mann research says that some of the cold is not csptured well in the tree ring studies, as no rings grow in these years. Esper's criticism of previous TRW proxies has to do with underestimating cold years. There is room in science. A hotter MWP does not mean that today's hot temperatures do not have strong correspondence to ghg, and the sensitivity appears to be 2.5-4 degrees c for a doubling of concentration of carbon dioxide. Nailing down solar forcings, volcanic forcings, and ocean oscillations is helped not hindered by better historical models.
56767. realscience at 06:41 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       "[DB] Please note that the graphic given to you above is from Oppo's own study, showing that today's SST's are unparalleled in the reconstructions. The point is not there there wasn't a MCA (the appropriate term that the science uses for your MWP). It's that today's temps are global, are well above those of the MCA and are driven by mankind. And that a warmer and more synchronously warm MCA means a much higher climate sensitivity than is the current understanding. And that spells disaster." Did you look at Oppo's data points. Some are clearly at this level, meaning that it is within the margin of error that sea surface temperatures could have been higher. That is far from the certainty of unparrelleld. Have you read the text of the paper? Since we have many places hot during the MWP or MCA, and some colder, how is this different from today's climate anomaly, where some places are warmer and some are colder? There certainly is reasonable doubt that today is significantly warmer than the MWP. As to your later statement that this would mean ghg forcing would even be higher, that does not follow. What follows would be a more refined model based on better historical data. Higher variability does not at all require a stronger forcing. When looking at new evidence isn't it important to incorporate it instead of rejecting it out of hand. Is not the science more important than the politics? Certainly the existence of a MWP, does nothing to say today's temperatures are natural. There is strong evidence that they are not, that there is a forcing from ghg and feedback. But really, this thread is about the MWP, or MCA, as some that would like to erase the concept from history would call it. I am merely presenting the current evidence that the MCA was global in effect. That is unless you think Lapland, England, Indonesia, and Antarctica responded to the same local only warming. A MWP says nothing about the climate change we are going through now. There is strong evidence that ghg are a major component of that. But having good scientific, non-political, historical temperature reconstructions is important to accurately model future change.
56768. Rob Honeycutt at 06:33 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       realscience @ 142... You know, McIntyre has had over a decade to produce a multiproxy reconstruction that shows something different than Mann's work. Nearly a dozen other multiproxy reconstructions have been produced in the interim, all confirming the conclusions of MBH98/99. I just don't believe that the peer review process works any slower for McIntyre or anyone else (the Idso's also seem to have taken a long term interest in the MWP) than it does for the other scientists doing the same work.
56769. Tom Curtis at 06:28 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       BC @12, Anderegg et al state:

       "The UE group comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups (Materials and Methods). This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that ≈97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of ACC (2). Furthermore, this finding complements direct polling of the climate researcher community, which yields qualitative and self-reported researcher expertise (2). Our findings capture the added dimension of the distribution of researcher expertise, quantify agreement among the highest expertise climate researchers, and provide an independent assessment of level of scientific consensus concerning ACC."

       That is entirely consistent with the graph shown, with the only group containing more than 10 scientists in which the ratio of UE (Unconvinced by the Evidence) to CE (Convinced by the Evidence) is better than about 3% is among those researchers having published between 20 and 50 papers on climate science. The total ratio is irrelevant. Anderegg et al composed their list of UE and CE scientists by looking at lists of names from various publications supporting, or dissenting from the IPCC AR4 concensus. There is no reason to presume the numbers from each group are representative of the proportion among all groups. For what it is worth, there where 904 CE and 472 UE scientists from the initial lists, and yes that does mean that nearly all of the scientists CE had published more than 20 papers on climate science, while only about 20% of scientists UE had.
56770. Rob Honeycutt at 06:26 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       realscience @ 140... "Magically the MWP reappears, but following the old line of defense it is now called MCA and down played as being local." And here we have another erroneous assumption that barely skirts the commenting policy here at SkS.
56771. Rob Honeycutt at 06:23 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       realscience @ 140... "The removal of the MWP seemed key to mbh '98..." How could that possibly be when MBH98 only went back 600 years?
56772. Daniel Bailey at 06:20 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Now you stray away from the science into trolling. The point was that you wish an audit of Mann. And that the peer-reviewed science has been waiting on McI to much the same for years now. The Muir-Russell commission did so in essentially 2 days, pronouncing it a "not difficult" task. All of this is off-topic anyway. Please return the discussion to your supposed evidence regarding the MCA. Or lack thereof, as we are finding from the peer-reviewed literature.
56773. Rob Painting at 06:12 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       The global sea level trend is another approach to constraining global temperatures during the Medieval Period: This reconstruction isn't quite accurate, the trend was actually much flatter until the 20th Century, but it does give a good indication that the Greenland & Antarctic icesheets were stable during the Medieval Period, whereas melt is rapidly accelerating today.
56774. realscience at 06:12 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Daniel, Reconstructions are being done, by those more skilled than I as we speak. Peer review takes time. I hope you anticipate better temperature reconstructions and follow the data, not just the personalities.
56775. Tom Curtis at 06:07 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       As an addendum to my 40, from my memory (which isn't the best) the formula for the means surface temperature of a planetary body with no atmosphere is (((1-albedo)*(Insolation/2)/(2*5.67*10^-8)^0.25)/2), which for a presumed albedo of 0.2 would yield an expected mean surface temperature for the Earth with no atmosphere of 160 K. For comparison, the Moon has a mean surface temperature at the equator of 220 K, and 130 K at 85 degrees North. It has an expected mean surface temperature of 200 K using the above formula, and an albedo of 0.14. Edit 13/7/12, 8:00AM - corrected bracketing in formula and the result; edited text noted in bold.
56776. dana1981 at 05:54 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       BaerbelW @ 39 - interesting point about the videos and views and ratings on that website. I guess that shows Giaever was right about one thing - you get a whole lot more attention for contrarian views on climate change(even if that contrarianism is based on total ignorance of the subject) than mainstream views (even if those mainstream views are based on sound science). But you don't just get criticism, you also get a lot of positive attention (hence Giaever's video's wholly undeserved high rating), which I suspect is why Giaever continues to speak on the subject - I suspect he likes the accolades from climate contrarians. This reminds me of curiousd's comment @9, where certain individuals would prefer to take a contrarian stance because it increases their odds of having a groundbreaking opinion. It also increases their odds of being very wrong, as Giaever is here.
56777. Daniel Bailey at 05:46 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       "These data points disagree with those in mann 2009 reconstruction, so it needs to be redone." Feel free. We're still waiting on McI...
56778. Tom Curtis at 05:39 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Various, when discussing the temperature of an Earth without an atmosphere, it is important to remember that in that case it would have no means to redistribute heat on the surface (the oceans would either freeze or boil away). As such, it would have both much higher and much colder temperatures than at present, as indicated by CBDunkerson @22. However, because energy radiated increases with the fourth power of temperature, that would make it much more efficient at radiating energy to space for a given global mean surface temperature. Therefore its global mean surface temperature would fall by at least 60 degrees C to be comparable to that of the Moon, and probably lower because the Earth would probably have a higher albedo than the Moon (although possibly lower than at present). Therefore Giaever's claim as stated is simply false.
56779. realscience at 05:37 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Composer99, The removal of the MWP seemed key to mbh '98, but they had serious doubts about the proxies. Some excuses were made that it was really local. There was some bad math. Mann 2009 corrected the bad math, and used some better proxies. Magically the MWP reappears, but following the old line of defense it is now called MCA and down played as being local. These new studies seem to have more reliable proxies, and cast doubt on some of the proxies used. Certainly not using SST, when it is a major part of warming is a problem. The work needs to be redone with the new data. Certainly any good scientist would incorporate new data into the model, would they not. These data points disagree with those in mann 2009 reconstruction, so it needs to be redone.
56780. realscience at 05:31 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       For those interested in a blog from Duke on the SST reconstruction mentioned above http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/hockeystick-revisited Virtually all the proxies used to reconstruct temperatures over the past millennium — the proxies that yielded the hockey stick — have come from land-based sites. But what about the ocean? With oceans covering some 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, how can we infer global temperatures without using sea surface temperatures? These were just the questions asked by Delia Oppo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and colleagues, and they decided to do something about it. They analyzed sediment cores lying beneath the Indonesian Seas in the so-called tropical Indo-Pacific Warm Pool. Using the ratio of magnesium to calcium in the sediments as a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST), they found that “reconstructed SST was … within error of modern values from about AD 1000 to AD 1250, towards the end of the Medieval Warm Period.” In other words, temperatures during the MWP were comparable to today’s temperatures, putting a significant bend in Mann’s hockey stick stick just above the handle. and further comment about this means about ghg it does not follow that the current warming also must be due to natural causes even if MWP temperatures were comparable to today’s. Regardless of the cause of the MWP warming, the preponderance of the evidence is that the current warming cannot be explained by natural causes and is due to greenhouse warming from emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Please note that the graphic given to you above is from Oppo's own study, showing that today's SST's are unparalleled in the reconstructions.

       The point is not there there wasn't a MCA (the appropriate term that the science uses for your MWP). It's that today's temps are global, are well above those of the MCA and are driven by mankind. And that a warmer and more synchronously warm MCA means a much higher climate sensitivity than is the current understanding.

       And that spells disaster.

56781. BaerbelW at 05:29 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Thank's Dana for this comprehensive rebuttal! Ivar Giaever's presentation and accompanying video must be deemed a "special gift" for the "fake-skeptics" who just like to see and hear their misconceptions validated by somebody who is a Nobel Laureate, regardless of how wrong he is about the topic. A point in case are the video statistics on the Lindau Laureate website: If you look at the list of best rated videos, Giaever's video is currently at rank 10 with 183 ratings and an average of 4,64 and it even tops the list of most viewed videos with 3223 views. These numbers are quite the outliers compared to the other videos available on the website. Mario Molina’s talk (which was given directly before Giaever’s) is the second most watched video, but still only has 274 views and 8(!) ratings with an average of 3,88. Something is clearly “wrong” with these ratings – especially as it is a no brainer of which of the two videos is the factually correct one. So, how can it be that a factually wrong presentation has been viewed a lot more and rated a lot better than a correct one? Most of us here will have an answer to this obviously rather rethorical question I guess!
56782. Composer99 at 05:23 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       realscience: As far as I can see, nothing in those documents necessarily shows that the MCA was a monolithic global warm period. They do show that those regions had their own warm spells during the medieval era. I do not think these papers are enough to cast doubt on the conclusions of Mann 2009 and your suggestion that they should is IMO vastly overstating the "take-home message" the three documents present.
56783. Tom Curtis at 05:21 AM on 12 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Dikran Marsupial @46, the Mass Balance argument establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that net natural carbon sinks are larger than net natural carbon sources. That, however, is insufficient to establish that natural emissions are not the cause of increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Consider a situation in which an increase CO2 concentration in the atmosphere causes an increase in the rate at which natural sinks draw down CO2 such that, up to a limit, any increase in CO2 is completely drawn down within a year or two. Suppose also that the increase in rate of draw down is capped, so that a sufficiently large increase in emissions will result in an increasing atmospheric concentration. Let the maximum rate of draw down by natural sinks be equal to k. Thus if En+Ea k, Un = k. Suppose then we have the situation that Ea = 0 before 1850, and k/2 after 1850. Suppose also that by coincidence, En increased from k/4 before 1850 to 2k after 1850. In this situation, emissions would have been k/4 before 1850, so atmospheric CO2 would have been constant. After 1850, if there had been no increase in En, En+Ea = 3k/4 so there would have been no increase in atmospheric concentration. In contrast, if the increase in En had occurred but the increase in Ea had not, net emissions would be 2k, so k CO2 would accumulate in the atmosphere every year, increasing the CO2 concentration. Therefore, in this scenario, the increase in natural emissions is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for the increase in atmospheric concentration. That makes it the cause of the increase in this scenario (although anthropogenic emissions would be a contributing factor to the rate of increase). Although you can set up bizarre scenarios like this that are (counterfactual) counterexamples to the mass balance argument as an argument that anthropogenic emissions are the cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2, such scenarios are a small portion of all possible scenarios, and are complex (and hence relatively improbable). Therefore they have a low intuitive probability. Consequently the mass balance argument is a strong inductive argument to the conclusion that anthropogenic emissions are causing the rise in CO2, but it is not a deductive argument. (It is, of course, a deductive argument to the conclusion that net natural sinks are larger than net natural sources.)
56784. Daniel Bailey at 05:02 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       1. Your lead source has been misrepresented by the fake-skeptics (they studied 1 site in the Antarctic Peninsula), per the lead author (Li) himself. 2. Per your second source, todays temps are quite a bit higher than those during the MCA: 3. Your third source, the Esper study, delineates a long-term pattern of cooling that mankind has interrupted with the massive bolus injection of formerly-sequestered, fossil-fuel-derived CO2 back into the carbon cycle. There is nothing natural about that. Furthermore, given the already-realized warming and that yet in the pipeline (paid for but not yet delivered), there is little possibility remaining on resumption of that long-term cooling. Per Tzedakis et al 2012, “glacial inception would require CO2 concentrations below preindustrial levels of 280 ppmv” (for reference, we are at about 395 right now…and climbing). Earlier, Tyrrell et al 2007 examined this, concluding that we have already skipped the next glacial epoch. Furthermore, Tyrrell concludes that if we continue our present fossil fuel consumption, we will skip the next 5 glacial epochs. So no glacial epochs the next million years…now that's unnatural. We are currently at 395 ppmv CO2 and growing about 2+ ppmv year-over-year. No down elevators for mankind on this ride. Now a real skeptic would take pause and try to figure out why their understanding of the science was so out of whack with that of the mainstream climate science. Hmm, thousands of scientists (the real skeptics) devoting their lifetimes to studying something on one hand or some guy commenting on a blog on the other...tough call.
56785. tmac57 at 05:02 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       This article made me think of something that I had read on Wikipedia about the famous 'Monty Hall Problem' that gained much attention after being posed in Parade Magazine in Marilyn vos Savant's column. From Wiki:

       In her book The Power of Logical Thinking, vos Savant (1996:15) quotes cognitive psychologist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini as saying "... no other statistical puzzle comes so close to fooling all the people all the time" and "that even Nobel physicists systematically give the wrong answer, and that they insist on it, and they are ready to berate in print those who propose the right answer."

56786. Tom Curtis at 04:49 AM on 12 July 2012
       Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
       angusmac @23, if you are not suggesting that you agree with those other criticisms, your comment is an irrelevant smoke screen.
56787. Tom Curtis at 04:46 AM on 12 July 2012
       Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
       Angusmac @22, quoting my discussion of the 2 sigma range of Hansen 88 as evidence that observations are skirting the lower bound of the 2 sigma range of CMIP-3 (AR4) model predictions is disingenuous. Hansen 88 had a lower 2 sigma range, primarily because it did not include major forms of natural variability, in particular ENSO events and random (in time) volcanic eruptions. Therefore, that actual temperatures are skirting the bottom of the 2-sigma range for Scenario B from Hansen 88 implies nothing about their behaviour with respect to the AR4 models. The loose way in which you treat facts if they can be distorted to appear to support your position is very disturbing.
56788. realscience at 04:41 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Danial and DSL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659 http://www.whoi.edu/main/news-releases/2009?tid=3622&cid=59106 http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html 3 very geographically diverse sets of data, constructed with good scientific methodolgy that should make anyone take pause and think that mann might be wrong. If the south pacific SST, antarctic, and N Scandinavia show the MWP, perhaps it is the global phenomenon that was theorzed before 1998, and not simply some localized events. That should make anyone skeptical about the mann2009 temperature Reconstruction. Do you have information why these papers should not be given strong weight?
56789. vrooomie at 04:28 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       I think an important point, in this discussion of what the temp of an airless Earth would be, is that on neither side would there be conditions under which present-day life would exist. Dr. Giaever asks the standard deniers' canard, "What is the optimal temperature of the planet?", as if that has never been investigated...and it has, and it's well-known. Roger D@34: your points are well-made, and dead-on, IMHO. For what it's worth, I've gotten *really* good at quickly identifying which conversation with any given denier/skeptic is going to be worth my time, by paying close attention to how they respond to established scientific research: I'm not old, by any means, but 55 is old enough to recognize how much of my remaining time should be spent yelling into the void...>;-/
56790. vrooomie at 04:19 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Thanks, DB: I missed the black body data of earth when I looked first.
       Moderator Response: [DB] Anytime, glad to help.
56791. Roger D at 04:04 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Daniel J. Andrews: You wrote @28: “it seems to me that the energy accumulating here on earth is negligible”. I have to say that this statement could be used as a handy but misleading sound bite along the lines of one that Giaever made when he publicized his APS resignation: He said something like “temperatures have been remarkably stable”, indicating there was no concern regarding earth’s energy accumulation because after all, average global surface temp is only less than a degree Celsius different than it was a hundred years ago. OK, the rate of accumulation may be subjectively “negligible” in comparison to the output of the sun, or to an extraterrestrial studying the energy distribution of our solar system, but it is far from “negligible” with respect to the climates that a significant fraction of life forms on earth will have to put up with.
56792. Roger D at 04:04 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       I have a "skeptical" acquaintance that occasionally emails news articles me. He sent one when Giaever resigned his membership in the APS over their statement on AGW. I contemplated a response along the lines of "well, that's his prerogative but from everything I can tell regarding his reasons, it seems he doesn't really understand the scientific case in favor of AGW and therefore APS's acceptance of the case” – but in the end I just sighed to myself and never responded knowing from experience the attention span for meaningful drill-down into the heart of Giaever’s criticism was unlikely. I am convinced that most “skeptics” in the general public simply just aren’t that interested in the science. A handy but shallow sound-bite will do just fine, thank you. Basically, I think that much (most ?) of the public believe that when a “really smart noble prize-winning scientist” says he doesn’t believe AGW is a problem, then that in and of itself counts as valid counter-evidence against the science. …” I suppose we all use simplifications but in my experience listening to “skeptical” friends and acquaintances, there is little or nothing below the surface. If say to Frank “OK Frank, I agree, water does account for the largest part of greenhouse effect, please continue and tell why human generated GHGs are not important with respect to climate change”, I almost always get another sound-bite. So Dana, thanks for the post. I will politely bring it to my “skeptic” friends’ attention.
56793. Daniel Bailey at 03:53 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Vroomie, the blackbody temperature of the Earth without atmosphere is essentially the same as that of the Earth with an atmosphere lacking in noncondensible greenhouse gases (assuming both are at thermal equilibrium). In addition to the Science of Doom resources I referred you to earlier, please see: 1. NASA Earth Fact Sheet 2. Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature (Lacis et al 2010) 3. Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect (Schmidt et al 2010) Not that it should matter, but I asked Dr. Mann for clarification on this and he indicated the above to be an appropriate response to this situation.
56794. DSL at 03:30 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       Esper et al. (2012) is getting serious play out in the trenches -- and being seriously misread. It's a strawman party: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/07/11/new-study-thoroughly-debunks-global-warming-will-media-notice
56795. vrooomie at 03:28 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Woops..sorry: I forgot to add to my prior post that I used the moon data because we're essentially in the same orbit as the Moon; there'd be some difference in albedo, but I couldn't find that data. Always learning!
56796. vrooomie at 03:27 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       I'll not pursue this much farther, in order to not stray too far off-topic but I believe an airless Earth would be MUCH hotter than 255K on the hot side. Source The bottom line that DOES relate is, Dr. Giaever's presentation was poor, at best, and deeply embarrassing, at worst. My point about having to battle "fake experts who happen to have a Nobel prize in some utterly unrelated field" stands....:(
56797. Composer99 at 03:03 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       Personally speaking, Dr Giaever's admission that his stance on global warming is the result of a few hours' work on Google makes me very embarrased for him. It puts him in such august company as anti-vaccine activist and not-quite-celebrity Jenny McCarthy, who credits "The University of Google" for her understanding of vaccinology and the aetiology of autism spectrum disorders. If your understanding of some subset of science ends up being functionally equivalent to Jenny McCarthy's, then "Google U" is not your friend.
56798. Daniel J. Andrews at 03:03 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       

       I knew you meant 'antidote,' but I think 'antidope' is *way* funnier....;)

       Agreed! Very much funnier. I'm going to incorporate "antidope" into my vocabulary now.
56799. Daniel Bailey at 02:42 AM on 12 July 2012
       Medieval Warm Period was warmer
       "It seems there is strong evidence that the MWP was glogal, not a local event" This is exceptionally vague (the word seems is the dead giveaway); you'll need to provide a link to substantiate what is effectively your personal opinion. While I'm pretty sure of both the source of your opinion, the blog you read it on and why both of you are wrong, the onus (i.e., homework) is on you to provide it for sensible discussion to ensue. And no, Virginia, regional studies doth not global make. Regardless of spelling. (BTW, a warmer MCA implies a greater climate sensitivity than is commonly accepted...do you understand the ramifications of that greater sensitivity?)
56800. Daniel J. Andrews at 02:38 AM on 12 July 2012
       Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
       

       In addition to this rapid surface warming, the global oceans have also been accumulating heat at an incredible rate - the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima "Little Boy" atomic bomb detonations per second, every second over a the past half century.

       Yes, but the sun produces the equivalent of 10^11 bombs going off every second, so if true, it seems to me that the energy accumulating here on earth is negligible. Just the part where he uses Kelvin to make his point is rather a boggling display of something not complimentary ( [-Snip-]). The lower parts of that scale aren't conducive to life, and don't occur here on earth anyway. On the other hand, that is an argument I hadn't yet seen so kudos for creativity?
       Moderator Response: [DB] Speculations on motive/character snipped.

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