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funglestrumpet at 09:02 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
After posting the above comment I found that this week's New Scientist has a Thorium article in it. I have yet to read it, but a quick skim leads me to think that it is not LFTR based, which is the design that I find impressive. After that, I found on TED an excellent talk by David MacKay: A reality check on renewables. Well worth watching. (Hope I have not breached the new comments policy.) On the subject of discussion issues, I think this site needs to consider some direction issues. We are at the fag end of the science debate on climate change (with 97% of the world's leading climate scientists in support of the central issue of cause and predicted consequences, how else does one descibe it?) I know that some will never be persuaded, and I guess they comprise the 3%. (By way of example take Lindzen and his recent talk in the British House of Parliament where he repeated long debunked myths. I doubt that he will ever change.) So what now? I personally don't trust Greenpeace as far as I can throw them as I think they are as bad as the Heartland Institute, but in the other direction. I am looking for some way that I can get active that is going to do more than just sort out the science. I want something that is going to actually make the world a better place than Monckton, Lawson (both of them), Hitchens, Philips etc. want it to be (and that is only the British buffoons). Perhaps it is not to be found here, but reading between the lines I suspect that many of the regular scientists posting on this site are motivated by what they see as the future for their spouses and children to some extent and a considerable extent in some instances. We don't want to win the scientific debate with a 'told you so', do we? That would mean that in reality we lost. -
Tom Curtis at 09:00 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Eric (skeptic) @21, I disagree with your final conclusion. If you look at the rainfall anomaly for South Western Australia during the southern wet season (April-November), you will see that not only are the extremely wet seasons absent in later years, but dryer than average seasons become more frequent, whereas wetter than average seasons were more frequent in the early twentieth century. Further, very dry seasons (> 100 less than average) are more frequent toward the end of the twentieth century as well. If you look at the 15 year average, it shows a steady decline approximating in slope to the linear trend. This to me suggests a more or less consistent decline with increasing global temperature. The apparent dominance of a few very wet years in the early record that you see is just a product of the variability which follows from extreme events in a region with low average rainfall (around 700 mm per year). -
funglestrumpet at 07:57 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
Issue of the week How about designating a day of the week to particular types of post e.g. Mondays - Myths, Tuesdays - Technicals etc.? If you have nothing in the category for a particular day, take a break. At least it would allow some of the hardworking regulars to catch up with replies to their posts. Sometimes I suspect that you desperately scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to have something to post. You are not a newpaper with a daily print run to maintain. I would like to see one day where anything goes (within comments policy, of course), such as if someone has discovered a particular piece of information (obviously that is legitimate and relevant to Climate Change) that they think the community would should consider, then that day's comments column (Sundays?) would be the place for it. For instance, I have recently come across LFTR nuclear reactors (Google 'Thorium'). Because they have so many advantages over uranium reactors they seem like they just might be the way nuclear can be developed as a replacement for coal, which seems to have a lot of pollutants that I did not realise it had) that would be publicly acceptable. Unless we ditch coal, then we can forget limiting warming to 2C. I guess this comment is an example of what I think Sundays could be used for. -
Bob Lacatena at 07:50 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
1, chriskoz, The policy has primarily simply expanded to more explicitly cover some undesirable behaviors that have become tiringly repetitive and yet were not explicit violations before. Other aspects of the policy were merely better qualified. Basically, the goal was to allow moderators to think less by making moderation more objective than subjective, by better defining some gray areas. -
Andy Skuce at 07:27 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist: I agree that "fake" may be a little strong since it implies deliberate deception. It's not an unjustified charge but it might nevertheless contravene the comments guidelines here. But that's not to argue that Carter actually has any worthwhile credentials at a paleoclimatologist. I'm a geoscientist myself and I am frustrated by many of my colleagues claiming that they have professional insight into paleoclimate because they are aware that climate has changed in the past. It's true that you simply can't do sedimentary geology unless you have some notion of what the climate, geography and sea levels were when the rocks were deposited. Paleontology is very closely linked to the study of past climates as well. However, to call yourself a paleoclimate expert requires that you understand why and how the climate changed and many geologists don't have a better understanding of that process than the average non-specialist scientist. Once I started studying climate change a few years ago, I was amazed at how much was known about paleoclimate, much more than was ever taught to me in my university courses. Frankly, it makes me cringe when some geologists claim that anthropogenic climate change is impossible because "climate has changed in the past". The gross logical error is common enough but what irks me is the arrogance of thinking that because they know a few factoids--eg the existence of Ordovician glacial tills in West Africa, or Zechstein sabkhas in the North Sea-about the climate of the past, that that somehow gives them the authority to dismiss a whole subject, climatology, about which they are manifestly ignorant. -
Eric (skeptic) at 07:20 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
A potentially relevant study attempting to determine cause of declining rainfall in SW Australia is here: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3817.1. The model matches temperature trends when anthropogenic forcing is included and does not when it is not. So the model seems valid enough. But the rainfall decline is much more difficult to attribute. My conclusion for that location would not be that the "dry get drier". That truism will only apply in some cases (perhaps not even 50%?) . A more fitting conclusion for SWA is that this area with highly seasonal rainfall got drier, consistent with anthropogenic influences added to the model. My best guess comes from some hints here: http://www.oceanclimatechange.org.au/content/images/uploads/Leeuwin_Current.pdf In particular the weakening of the westerlies and decrease in intense rainfall events. Eyeballing some of the data from bom.gov.au seems to show that what is missing now is the really wet winter months that used to show up regularly at the beginning of the 20th century (with all other months staying about the same). So perhaps it is actually the extremes that used to bump up the yearly average are missing now. -
Composer99 at 07:00 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve: muoncounter's comment was not about Eastern Australia in and of itself, and neither is the OP. Rather, muoncounter's comment was criticizing exactly the sort of thing your comment on Eastern Australia rainfall appears to be doing: obscuring a small-scale phenomenon (the projected drying up of specific regions whose primary source of rain comes from the westerlies) by pointing at other, unrelated information (large-scale rainfall anomalies in other countries/regions). The OP was not claiming that Australia, as a whole, was going to suffer drought as a result of warming. As such your interpretation of the OP smells of straw. -
dana1981 at 06:54 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Clyde @7 - I'm not really sure what you're asking. Climate scientists who build climate models are modeling experts. Climate scientists who use climate models don't have to be climate model experts, just like I don't have to be an electrician to turn my lights on. -
dana1981 at 06:52 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist - the problem, as noted in the post, is that since Carter provides zero evidence to support his assertions, the reader is expected to believe him because presumably he's an expert and knows what he's talking about. To gain that supposed credibility, Carter is listed as a paleoclimatologist. I've read a lot of stuff written by Carter, and this is the first time I've seen him referenced as a paleoclimatologist. He hasn't published anything related to the field in 7 years, and few papers in totality. He may have some knowledge of some areas of paleoclimate, but that doesn't make him a paleoclimatologist. The only reason we raise the issue is that his Financial Post and WUWT readers are expected to take him at his word because of this supposed expertise. If he had tried to support his claims, I wouldn't have even mentioned the fake expertise, but we are clearly expected to believe his nonsense because he is supposedly a paleoclimatologist, which is not a title he has earned, in my opinion. I think Composer @11 has a good analogy on this matter. -
Jim Eager at 06:21 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Clyde, you seem to be assuming that climate scientist's who work on and with climate models are not experts in doing so. Do you have any evidence to support this assumption? Or that they do not work with competent computer modelers when constructing the models? In any case, greenhouse theory and how human actions are changing the greenhouse effect doesn't depend on computer climate models, it depends on basic physics and chemistry and real world observations. The climate models are just a tool used to better understand how that physics and chemistry interact compared to what is actually observed in the real atmosphere. In other words, you're barking up a tree of your own making. -
Geologist at 06:18 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
My primary objective is not defending Bob Carter, his article is obviously full of nonsense, but as I generally consider SkS to be of the highest standard I get disapointed when I believe that it is making poor arguments. Geology is a rather small and young subject and I believe that the subfields are a lot less distinct than in most other fields. People therefore often move between subfields and you may readily find your self doing research that could be considered to be within three or four different subfields at the same time. On the other hand each subfield can be quite diverse, working with Ordovician ice ages is obviously quite different from studying Holocene lake deposits but you might still both be working with paleoclimate. For example there isn't (or at least very few) educations or PhD-programs in paleoclimatology, instead your overall field is normally Quaternary geology, Marine geology, Sedimentology or even Ecology and then you specialize. This means however that if you want to define whether someone belongs to a subfield or not the only reasonable way is to see if they publish in the field. I would say that if you have published articles corresponding to a PhD (a few articles)in a certain field you may claim to belong within it. We can argue whether this is still on the low side but it is not "fake". Of course before you deserve to be called an expert you need more. Carter has published several articles in paleoclimatology. It is not that he isn't a paleoclimatologist that is the problem it is that he is in the wrong part of paleoclimatology and obviously haven't educated himself about the rest. Thus it isn't by calling himself a paleoclimatologist that he is mistaken, it is by moving outside his own area of expertise without realizing that he is no longer an expert. And if I, who really like SKS, thinks that calling Carter a fake is unfair, it is likely that a somewhat "skeptical" geologist would conclude that SkS is calling anyone who disagrees a fake no matter if it is correct or not. -
Albatross at 05:43 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Composer @12, I concur with your assessment of climate scientists and computer modelling. Additionally, we scientists do not simply "...accept a climate scientist's work on models" as Clyde suggests. -
Composer99 at 05:37 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Clyde: I do not see how your question is applicable. On the topic of Bob Carter (whose Financial Post column is the topic of this post) while Dr Carter sets himself up as an expert in paleoclimate, his post is full of factual errors pertaining to paleoclimate, misrepresentations, and logical fallacies. As several of the errors & misrepresentations pertain to paleoclimate, they bely his claim to expertise in this field. It is these errors &c which allow his critique to be dismissed, and not his lack of expertise, in and of itself. Speaking more generally, I suspect you will find that other attempts to critique the mainstream findings of climatology will tend to fall on similar grounds (factual errors, misrepresentations & sloppy logic). The climate scientist vs computer modelling question is unclear. As far as I am aware, some, perhaps even most, climate scientists use computer models as part of their work, but only a few climate scientists would be accurately described (or characterize themselves) as expert computer modellers. Since the mainstream findings of climatology depend on an intertwining web of physics theory, empirical findings, and experiment, and computer modelling is but a small part of this web, I do not think there is a double standard in play. -
Composer99 at 05:02 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist: I played trumpet in the final years of primary school. Although I am now a semi-professional musician (singer & composer) I would not go so far as to call myself a trumpet player. By analogy, Bob Carter may have published some work on paleoclimatology, but if that is not a primary focus of his research & other professional scientific activities, I think it is too much to classify him as a paleoclimatologist. -
Albatross at 04:47 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist@9, You are missing the point. Publishing one or a even few papers on paleoclimate does not make on an expert in that particular field. And again, in his own bio he does not refer to himself as a "paleoclimatologist". It is really quite that simple. Now why should someone listen to the musings of Carter on the subject of paleoclimatology when a there are real, practising paleoclimatologists such as Mann, Bradley, Ammann, Wahl, Ljungqvist, Briffa and Moberg et cetera out there? Carter is not a paleoclimatologist-- and from his comments in his editorial, he does not even seem to be well versed in the paleoclimate literature-- hardly what one would expect from an expert in the field. That he stated so in public is disingenuous and misleading, and inconsistent with his own online biography. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts Geologist. -
Geologist at 04:32 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
I am not calling him a climate expert, he clearly does not give the impression of being one. But from what I can tell he did not claim to be a climate expert, he claimed to be a paleoclimatologist. And if you publish scientific articles on past climate, which he has, it is correct to call youself a paleoclimatologist. This article: http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/Carter&Gammon-Science-04.pdf with Carter as first author is for example clearly whithin the field of paloclimatology (as well as the fields of marine geology and stratigraphy). Many paleoclimatologists today work with proxies and time periods relevant to the current warming, making them real climate experts. Carter is not one of them but his correct description of himself as a paleclimatologist does not make him a fake climate expert either. -
Albatross at 04:26 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist@3, "I strongly object to characterizing Bob Carter as a fake climate expert." That is not a "characterization" but a statement of fact. Also, the reality is that it is Carter who is characterizing himself in the media as something that he is clearly not. James Cook University does not list him as a "climate expert" or "paleoclimatologist", and even Carter's online bio states that: "He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist..." Regardless, as this post demonstrates, Carter's claims are at complete odds with the data, the science and the facts. Sadly, this behaviour is par for the course for most "skeptics". -
Steve Case at 04:23 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Daniel Bailey #17, What I amply demonstrated with all of the data 1900-2011 not merely 1970-2005 is that rainfall in East Australia has trended upwards contrary to Muonconter's post. I object to your assertions without supportive basis. -
Clyde at 04:12 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
This question may have been answered before. I'm new to the site & not real smart on the science. Why is it that folks who critique AGW are dismissed if their not experts in climate science, but we should just accept a climate scientist's work on models when their not experts in computer modeling? Have a nice day. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:11 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
I find it fascinating how Carter avoids citations. The piece that I wrote on Carter points out where he does use a citation but in relation to nothing found in the the actual paper being cited! Worse than that, the paper he cites directly contradicts the claim he's making. It seems to me that Carter employs the same technique that Monckton relies on: Say whatever you like and assume that the people you're trying to convince are never going to check your facts. -
dana1981 at 03:43 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist - while Carter has a couple of papers related to paleoclimate, he is certainly not a climate expert, as is evidenced by his constantly incorrect claims on the subject. -
michael sweet at 03:28 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
bath ed, Do you have similar maps that show where wheat is grown in Australia?Moderator Response: TC: Wheat is grown in Australia in both winter rainfall, and summer rainfall regions, with different times of planting. Consequently I cannot see how your request can be on topic. If you have a specific on topic point to make, then make it. Otherwise discussion of wheat growing in Australia is off topic on this thread. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:21 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist... An "expert" would suggest someone has specific expertise in the field, someone who can impart accurate information. Carter makes so many incredibly elemental errors in regards to climate change it is a stretch to call him an expert. Carter is a stratigrapher and a mining expert, but with regards to climate, I would suggest, he is less informed than a large number of readers of SkS and therefore not an expert. Carter can call himself whatever he likes. He can call himself the Queen of England if he likes, but that doesn't make it so. -
Geologist at 03:02 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
I strongly object to characterizing Bob Carter as a fake climate expert. The field of paleoclimate is rather wide and much of the IODP research (International Ocean Drilling Program), where Bob Carter has been involved and published (eg. Carter 2005, Land et al. 2010), can very well be included. In my opinion he is perfectly entitled to call himself a peloclimatologist and even if you prefer a stricter definition it is still highly unfair to call him a fake expert. That of course makes it worse that he is arguing such nonsense. -
Bernard J. at 02:52 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
I'm loathe to draw attention to this on the more focussed threads, but I thought that there might be a few folk here with a perverse fascination for how Tim Curtin is currently butchering over at Deltoid the fundamental physics of Tyndall and Arrhenius. It truly has to be seen to be believed, and even then it's difficult. I keep trying to put fingers to keyboard to address the pseudoscience, but it's as futile an exercise as is harvesting a vineyard one grape at a time. Strong, strong, strong keyboard/beverage warning - you'll discover that greenhouse gases aren't, and that nitrogen and oxygen are. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:25 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Once again, we see amply demonstrated the factual impoverishment of denial's meritless arguments. Devoid of supportive basis, denial relies upon strawman arguments, goalpost shifting and the ol' reliable misdirection ploy to advance their agenda. -
bath_ed at 01:54 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve Case @ 15: This article is about declining rainfall due to weakening/poleward retreat of the westerlies affecting the winter rainfall region of South Africa and by analogy Australia. The winter rainfall regions of Australia, like South Africa are in the far south on west facing coasts. You can see them and their relative small size here shown in blue and blue-grey:
Eastern Australia is a red herring as it doesn't get its rainfall from the westerlies and therefore is of little relevance to the issue.
Here are the winter rainfall zones of southern Africa, (top left) with estimated distributions in past glacial periods. Note how they were more extensive when the Earth was cooler:-
Moderator Response: [Sph] Image widths adjusted. Please remember to keep images to 450 pixels wide or less. -
DSL at 01:41 AM on 29 May 2012Why I care about climate change
Agreed Billy52, but what do you suggest should be done? Deniers will always set the agenda for discussion if they are provided the means to pursue their agenda effectively. As long as 1) the general public does not understand how its opinions are formed, 2) opinion-makers are given scientific authority on par with the consensus understanding of working scientists, and 3) we live in something that resembles a democracy, where the education of the public is essential to the ethical/moral success of the democracy, then the deniers will always set the agenda for discussion. As it is, all one needs to do is sound sciency enough for the general reader to be dulled toward fact-checking, and one can then claim just about anything and have it believed. The comment streams on news sites are evidence of that. Despite Dan Kahan's findings, I am still convinced that one the roots of the problem is comprehension. Undoubtedly, one's cultural surround makes strong and persistent demands on one's set of beliefs, and Kahan's study confirms this for climate risk:CCT [Kahan's cultural cognition theory] posits that people who subscribe to a hierarchical, individualistic world-view—one that ties authority to conspicuous social rankings and eschews collective interference with the decisions of individuals possessing such authority—tend to be sceptical of environmental risks.
And, according to the results of Kahan's study, that stands fairly well for people who have the proven technical skill to understand the science. However, I posit that few people are capable of totally ignoring evidence-based reasoning. Cultural factors may severely delay understanding (and effectively prevent it, given the circumstances and issue), but eventually some minds are, in fact, changed. I've seen it happen on this website. One of my jobs as an educator is to reveal to individuals explicitly the cultural factors that influence those individuals. For me, that is the first role of higher education toward young people stepping into their adulthoods. Once the mechanism is revealed, competing epistemologies are truly on level playing ground, and science is pretty strong. However, the effectiveness of this revelation is diminished by the force with which the message is delivered. You can lead the horse to water, but if you try to force it to drink, it'll die of thirst first. The only force I apply in this "debate" is gently telling people to put up or shut up. I ask people how their beliefs were formed, and then I ask them to come discuss the science with an open mind. Invite deniers to ask questions and engage in open discussion (or be revealed as uncritical and gullible) on a site like SkS (where commenters, more than at any other site, are allowed to speak without being subject to intimidation). I think John's methodology with the site is effective in that respect, as it allows people to approach the science via their own beliefs, rather than being confronted by an unfamiliar staging. Unfortunately, though, learning through open discussion seems like a painfully slow process, and most people aren't allowed (explicitly or implicitly) to engage in that type of learning (and even when they are, the death of the humanities in higher education will eventually remove or severely diminish the opportunity). In my more cynical moments, I think it's all a waste of time, and that people aren't going to truly believe until it bites them in the posterior on a regular basis. -
muoncounter at 01:19 AM on 29 May 2012CO2 was higher in the past
Responding to a comment here: The geocraft cartoon graph rises again, with its ominous "... consternation of global warming proponents". And once again, there is no such consternation. The timing of high CO2 and glacial stage onset is critical - and that was always very tough to do on samples that are 450 M yrs old. So one has to wonder about the accuracy of the chronology shown on the geocraft cartoon. Especially in light of Saltzman 2005: ... the evidence suggests that the ice began to build up some 10 million years earlier than when volcanoes began pumping the atmosphere full of the CO2 that ended the Ordovician ice age. Abstract here. Young et al 2010 adds more to this consternation-busting line of research: The integrated datasets are consistent with increasing pCO2 levels in response to ice-sheet expansion that reduced silicate weathering. Ultimately, the time period of elevated pCO2 levels is followed by geologic evidence of deglaciation. -- emphasis added Full paper pdf here. -
Steve Case at 01:12 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
#14 muoncounter, The graphs you picked to illustrate your point all end at 2005, over six years ago. And they show East Australia getting drier. So I thought I'd take a look at East AU and see if I could find up-to-date data and I found this page. So I graphed out the precipitation for East Australia for 1900-2011, 1950-2011,
1970-2011 and 1970-2005 and it looks like this:
Looks like precipitation is up overall in East Australia since 1900, but because of some spikes mid-century trends with start points at those times show a decline and if 2005 is picked as an end point, the decline becomes quite exaggerated.
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DSL at 00:34 AM on 29 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
curiousd, I'll second what michael sweet says: there is a wide range of opinion on the subject of mitigation/adaptation strategies. My opinion changes frequently, unfortunately. And it's very difficult to assess the science and economic analysis surrounding renewables, nuclear, and various mitigation schemes. Where CO2 is concerned, look at three papers: 1. Foster & Rahmstorf (2011) (discussed here by one of the authors), which removes solar, volcanic, and ENSO effects from the recent surface temp record to see what sort of trend might be left over. 2. Lacis et al. (2010) or Schmidt et al. (2010), which discuss the role of CO2 as the primary "control knob" of climate. 3. Puckrin et al. (2004), which compares modeled and observed radiative flux for various GHGs, including water vapor. Any further responses on the subject of "CO2 was higher in the past" really do need to go here. As for CO2 being the driver of climate, responses should go here. Any responses will be seen, since many (most?) of the regular posters check the recent comments thread regularly. -
Billy52 at 00:26 AM on 29 May 2012Why I care about climate change
I enjoy this site and you've assembled an impressive collection of sound arguments countering those promoted by the climate change deniers. But I question whether the "climate debate" is a proper focus for efforts to mitigate catastrophic climate change. In a world where average temperatures are 2 to 6 degrees C. higher than today, what difference will it make who was right or who was wrong about the climate? I don't believe deniers should be the ones setting the agenda for discussion. -
muoncounter at 23:21 PM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
The 'wet get wetter, dry get dryer' means that if you look at too large an area, you're averaging together drought and flooding: Trends in annual total rainfall for three time periods, 1900-2005, 1950-2005 and 1970-2005
-- source (2006)
It is clearly incorrect to look only at continent-wide averages.
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michael sweet at 23:15 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
curiousd, Welcome to Skeptical Science, As you thought, there has been a lot of discussion of nuclear power and a variety of opinions expressed. You should use the search button in the upper left corner to locate the threads you are interested in. My favorite is the thread on renewable baseload power, where nuclear was often discussed. This is a hot button issue and you are likely to see lot of difference of opinion. If you have substantial references to contribute the discussion will be better than if you just state your opinion. At 211, why do you suggest the two options are different? CO2 is the dominant factor, but there are a number of other factors, especially on a short term basis. -
bath_ed at 22:52 PM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve Case @ 4: The clue is semi-arid winter rainfall regions that the article speaks of. In South Africa (and Australia too I believe) there is a strong distinction between the winter rainfall regions of the far west and south west and the rest of the country which receives most of its rain in the summer. It is also important to note that the winter rainfall zones are small compared with the summer rainfall zones, so any rainfall trend for the whole country is going to be dominated by the summer rainfall regions; rainfall in the Western Cape has declined in recent decades. In the winter rainfall regions, rain is brought by the westerlies and cold fronts rather like in the Atlantic edge of Western Europe. Unlike Atlantic Europe, the southern tip of Africa is at a sufficiently low latitude that it only gets the westerlies in the winter and in the summer they retreat further south, while Atlantic Europe being nearer the pole stays in their path all year. Rainfall in the rest of South Africa (and Australia) has little to do with Atlantic (Indian Ocean) westerlies and falls mainly in the summer, which makes an enormous difference to the vegetation, agriculture and appearance of the country. You will find that in January the region surrounding Cape Town will typically be parched and brown while Johannesburg, Pretoria etc are green. By July the situation is reversed. Going back to the plants of the area, I believe sadly that they may be especially vulnerable to any changes. This winter-rainfall zone supports the Cape Floristic Kingdom, by far the smallest of the world's six floristic kingdoms. Covering only 0.5% of Africa it contains 20% of the continent's plant species and more than all of North America. As well as occupying such a small area, many of the plants had the misfortune of growing on land suitable for growing wheat and other crops, or land now taken for urban development. Some now grow only at a single site or a handful of sites, or even only in cultivation. Given this, it would be difficult for them to shift ranges in response to drying. -
curiousd at 22:47 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
As a Newbie here, I must say this is a wonderful site for learning about climate change science. Is it fair game to discuss, in this same site, remediation, or "What best to do about AGW?" I suspect here there would be more contention amongst site members. I happen to be of the opinion that expanding nuclear power and using that power to generate hydrogen would at the least buy time, and should be part of the remediation mix, but I am not sure if SkS is a proper forum to discuss this?Moderator Response: [DB] Please refrain from all-caps usage (cf Comments Policy), except in the case of acronyms. Convert all-caps to bold or underline for emphasis instead. -
curiousd at 21:34 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
Thank you DSL and Tom Curtis. May I summarize your positions thus? If I were to use a "take home message" for undergraduate non science majors, I gather the message from DSL is: "Although CO2 is a key factor in controlling the climate, it would be a mistake to think it's the only factor" Whereas the message from Richard Alley would seem to be that, if one takes the most recent results into account, the CO2 level is, if not the only factor, surely the dominant factor. -
Tom Curtis at 20:33 PM on 28 May 2012Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Carbon500 @67, Beck took a large number of historical CO2 measurements from a large number of sites, including sites contaminated by local emissions of CO2. He made no effort at quality control, and treated contaminated samples as though they measured background CO2 levels. That makes his paper worse than useless, the reason, no doubt, it was published in Energy and Environment rather than in a scientific journal. -
Carbon500 at 19:48 PM on 28 May 2012Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Regarding CO2 measurement prior to Mauna Lau: Ernst-Georg Beck’s ‘180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods’ in Energy and Environment, Vol. 18 No. 2, 2007 will no doubt be of interest to some. -
chriskoz at 19:39 PM on 28 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
This time around, Carter's Gish Gallop does not include some of his stronger claims from some 1y ago: e.g."CO2 is elixir of life, and the base of most of the food chains on our planet". At least I don't see that in this article. Does it mean that Carter softened his stance or climbed couple of rungs on the ladder of denial (as Mike Mann would say) comparing to that summary? -
chriskoz at 19:17 PM on 28 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
I'd like to know what changes have been made to the commant policy. To be honest I haven't looked at the policy page before (cause I'm getting away with my comments so far) but just in case I want to know what recent changes made the moderator's life easier. The moderation cannot be disputed, so I'm not looking to judge it, just asking what was changed & why. -
jsam at 16:16 PM on 28 May 2012The Last Interglacial - An Analogue for the Future?
Typo alert "preceeding" should be "preceding". -
Tom Curtis at 15:41 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
curiousd @208, the short of it is that that persons geology is indeed out of date. Specifically, he used rather inexact proxies in the form of biological markers and stomata in fossil leaves to calculate both CO2 levels and temperatures. On top of that, he ignores the fact that geological strata going that far back typically have resolutions of around 5 - 10 million years. In other words, using typical strata it would be impossible to distinguish geologically between the Holocene, and the Last Glacial Maximum. More recently, a number of high resolution strata have been found which enable a more detailed examination of the record. The situation in 2006 was summarized by Dana Royer (PDF). Since then, even the few exceptions to no glaciation without low CO2 found by Royer have been found, with higher resolution data, to not be exceptions (although in some cases the interpretation of the data is still in dispute). Richard Alley gave an excellent presentation of the current information at the 2009 Fall meeting of the AGU. -
DSL at 14:29 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
Hi, curiousd-- Check out this SkS article and post any further questions or comments there. The short of it: the sun was much less active during that period. -
curiousd at 14:15 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
I have been teaching an elementary Physics of Environment college course for many years and agree that the scientific case for AGW is overwhelming. But one of the more apparently effective global warming skeptic internet posts can be found at http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html This person claims that "The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm." Has anyone else here looked at this? Maybe this guy's geology is out of date? I am not a geologist and I don't have expertise in the area of ancient temperatures versus CO2 levels. -
Bert from Eltham at 13:15 PM on 28 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
[snip]Moderator Response: [KC] Please no accusations of deception, whatever the source. The rest of your comment may have overstepped the ad-hominem criterion, although a more experienced moderator may overrule me on that. -
Bob Lacatena at 11:37 AM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
9, Steve Case, Your argument has been proven to be invalid. Regardless of what you believe or want to believe, the facts in this case seem clear. -
scaddenp at 11:10 AM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
"I know what the catechism is, I just don't believe it" Then you had better try harder in presenting us with some credible evidence why you don't (aside from ideology), rather presenting in effect disinformation. -
Tom Curtis at 10:45 AM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve Case @9, let me remind you that the hypothesis you were testing was:'Theoretical climate models have shown that global warming could push storm tracks southward "and away from the mainlands of southern Africa, South America and Australia"'.
Regardless of whether you believe it or not, there was no justification for using data which is dominated by northern, monsoonal rainfalls when testing a hypothesis about a shift of the prevailing westerlies further south. -
Steve Case at 10:04 AM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Scaddenp #8 Yes, I know what thecatechismis, I just don't believe it.Moderator Response: [Sph] Please review the comments policy. Subtle efforts to violate it are still efforts to violate it.
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