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Comments 58901 to 58950:

58901. Tom Curtis at 15:42 PM on 17 May 2012
       Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
       Helena @63, "hysteresis" is not an explanation. It is merely the name for a class of explanations. Saying "What about hysteresis" contributes no more to explaining the event than a scholastic saying that opium induces sleep because of its " dormitive virtue". It is sloganeering, not discussion.
58902. Helena at 15:24 PM on 17 May 2012
       Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
       muoncounter55 : "Your proposed 'step change' has been discussed here before. The problem is that there is no physical mechanism that can make that happen." What about hysteresis ?
58903. skywatcher at 15:17 PM on 17 May 2012
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       Dave, did you read the 'comment' links next to each statement? There is a justification for each of their evaluations, and it's certainly based on a lot more than a photo of a polar bear cub. Do you really believe the world is "focusing on Polar Bear longevity when 250,000 children die every year from lack of a clean water supply"? Do you not think the world is trying to solve both problems?
58904. matzdj at 14:45 PM on 17 May 2012
       Polar bear numbers are increasing
       Below is the Polar Bear Population, by colony, from the Polar Bear Study Group site http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html. Third column from the right is the Status. 5 groups are Reduced, 4 are Not Reduced, and 10 are Data Deficient. But based on that and on assumptions about what will happen if there is major glacier melt, They identify 8 will be trending down, 3 will be stable, and one will increase. But the estimate of risk says 6 are at very high risk, 1 is High Risk, 1 is a Moderate Risk, and 2 are at low Risk. Note that in the Chukchi Sea, they claim to not know how many bears there are, but they report them as trending down. In the Norwegian Bay, the Status is Data Deficient but they are listed as being at high risk of future decline. I read their last full report and found that link between the data in this chart and the projections of extinction seem to be smoke and mirrors. In the 1950's the population was about 5000. Today the population is 20,000-25,000. How can we be focusing on Polar Bear longevity when 250,000 children die every year from lack of a clean water supply. Our concern about polar bear extinction, now that hunting is under control, seems to be totally misplaced because of a photo of a polar bear cub sitting on a tiny piece of sea ice. Dave
58905. skywatcher at 14:20 PM on 17 May 2012
       Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
       Dave #61: Heat content is a property, like many in the climate system, that has a variation (noise) about a trend of some magnitude. Some may be actual variation, some may be measurement errors, of a value not shown on the plot. These contribute to the fact that the heat content graph you show is not rising monotonically (though you might see that the 0-2000m heat content at NOAA does appear to be rising pretty smoothly). Consequently, it is not straightforward to determine whether the rising trend from about 1983 on your chart has actually abated in any way. You certainly cannot do it by eye, as your eye will be all-too-easily drawn to illusory patterns. Plot your NOAA data from 1983-2006, add a trend, determine if it is significant, examine the residuals, then add in the last five years of data. Are they close to the rising trend? Is there any evidence in that plot that what you are seeing is anything but noise about the rising trend? Have we departed from the trend? You can do the same with temperature data, as in Tamino's excellent Riddle Me This post. Plateaux are very frequently illusions - as Richard Alley and SkS' own Escalator show, you're always on a plateau if you allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that noise is signal. So far, from the evidence of that plot alone, I don't see anything that is unexplainable.
58906. matzdj at 13:35 PM on 17 May 2012
       Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
       DB, My apologies for that last long post. i won't do that again. It was all in response to comments made about my earlier post. All one subject - trying to understand the link between CO2 and Global Temperature that transcends observed correlation. I've seen some of the posts on the global heat content. The bar chart I showed: is from NOAA. Do you dispute their report? In the last 10 years, how is global heat content change consistent with any steadily increasing parameter - like atmospheric CO2. Yes it has increased. Yes it is higher now than it has been for the recent 30+ years. Doesn't it look like there is a flattening? Why is anything that doesn't meet the belief, always blown off as short term or anomalous or bad data or funded by big oil. If the experiment was good and the data reduction unbiased, it is unscientific to not consider it. Dave How long would this data have to not increase before there would be an acceptance that it is not increasing? The most important data is the data that doesn't fit your models. If you can't explain it, you need to change your model to incorporate it. Dave
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] "Doesn't it look like there is a flattening?"

       You rely on the fallible eyecrometer when in-depth analysis sheds a more accurate, and different, light on the matter. This has been studied thoroughly and is fully documented on this site.

       For starters, a select few may be found here, here, here, here and here.

       It is not a question of belief; the data is what it is and show the warming to be irrefutable. To maintain otherwise displays innocent ignorance or denial.

58907. Helena at 13:11 PM on 17 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       (-Snip-)
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Moderation complaints snipped. Please construct comments to adhere to this site's Comments Policy.

       Please note that simply disagreeing without then providing a foundation based in the science/literature is construed as sloganeering. As you have consistently been doing this it also constitutes excessive repetition.

       If you have something of substance to support your position then your are welcome to provide it. However, as it stands your position has been completely refuted on this thread.

58908. matzdj at 12:34 PM on 17 May 2012
       Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
       Repost 1 Gee Whiz! I'm glad that I got so many comment on my post. I haven't had time to go through them all yet yet, but I promise I will. Here are some of my comments so far: Sphaerica, I didn't said that there is no "global warming'. What I'm trying to understand is how you build a causal relationship between a steadily increasing parameter like atmospheric CO2 concentration over this last 40 years and what appears to be a step change in average temperature level. I've read the first two articles you suggested but the key thing that I gained from them was a set of temperature rise data that was quite different than my starting point, which as you know came from Roy Spencer. I recognize that there are lots of questions about some of this proposals and theories and analyses, but is there any argument about the data reduction he shows from the NOAA GISS data? (I'm just talking about the data points and not the curve fits of the 13 month averages). The original post in this thread started with that curve, using it without question. Is there an argument that the blue dots on this curve are not valid? http://home.comcast.net/~matzdj/SkepticalScienceNote051412/UAHRaw.jpg If it's considered good data and a proper reduction of that data to average monthly global temperature, my argument still stands. Global temperature is higher now than it was in 1979. We all know that there is more C02 in the atmosphere now than in 1979. But, if you think about it, there are also many more microchips in use today than in 1979. Which causal relationship would you like to draw? [You mentioned inappropriate data presentation. I've read the book 'Cheating with Graphs". I try to look past the curve fit and don't see any axis stretching on this chart. ] I am convinced that you you have to look at the data, not just statistically analyze it. Even something as simple as averages can be very deceiving. I went hunting last week. I fired at a duck and mssed by 6 in front. Then I took a second shot and missed by 6 inches behind. On the average, the duck is dead. You comment that a 10 year analysis is too short for climate. I agree. But the lack of temperature increase over the period 2002-2012 when there was accelerating CO2 emissions certainly doesn't do anything to confirm the CO2 vs T relationship. Is there any expermental result that would convince you that the theory of CO2 relationship with global warming was incorrect? Has anyone identified an experiment that could possibly show that? Is there anyone running experiments that could say the theory is wrong? It seems to me that the anthropogenic believers don't waste their time looking. It's not science any longer. It's now a belief and almost a theology. The post about Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 looks interesting, but I need to get the original article and try to understand it a lot better. From the "moving" curve posted by Dikran Marsupial. it appears their starting data was very similar to the UAH curve I started with, but they extracted out all the other effects. I hadn't seen this article and it looks interesting. As a general comment, it is very interesting that when Temperature was rising, it was used as the evidence of global warming, but now that it looks like that trend has flattened, all of a sudden, we need to find a new way to prove that our original theory still holds. You're not supposed to start with the answer and then search for some data that matches the answer. As I said in my post, I was intrigued by the thought that heat content is probably a better way to look at global warming. However the NOAA chart I showed in my post seems to say that it's recent trend has also flattened . You commented a) Don't use short trends. b) Don't assume that because the simple observations are noisy that you can't extract a clearer signal from the data. c) When you do look at the signal, and you also consider the complexity and other factors in the system, everything makes sense. d) Read and learn more before you adopt a position. I try not to use short term trends, but I also try to not to ignore the short term trend that doesn't fit the model, unless I can find a cause that was not in the model. Then I try to fix the model to include that effect. Why is there no global temperature or global heat content response to increasing CO2 over the last 10 years. Who in the IPCC is trying to answer that question? I can accept noisy data. What I can't accept is a 15 year set of data that is cyclical, but around a relatively stable mid-point demonstrating the low end and another similar set at a high mid-point being considered the high end and then having straight line being drawn between them. That is not good data interpretation. The correlation coefficient of a linear fit from 1979 to 2012 can't be very good - even if you ignore the El Nino and Mt Pinatubo anomalies. I can accept that the complexity of the system makes it hard to interpret. I will seriously try to understand Foster and Rahmstorf , but I would much prefer to add all those exogenous effects into the model rather than trying to extract out the trend I was looking for to find an underlying trend. Data manipulation can lead the most sincere analyzer to put his biases into the manipulation. Finally (to Sphaerica) I am trying to learn as much as I can before adopting a position. My present position is that I don't have one because when I look I can't find "settled science". i'm not saying that there is no relationship. I'm saying that I can't see it in the data that I can find. To michael sweet, I agree with you that an eyeball fit is certainly not as precise as a good statistical fit. I got lazy. I can't disagree with you that the data might have a slight upward drift. But all the statistics in this world would not show the data from 1979 thru 1996 having a trend that would lead to a midpoint that is 0.3°C higher by the 2002 until 2012 period. If I have the time, I'll try to extract the data and verify how good my eyeball is, but I can't believe that it will lead to a different conclusion. You can only get a different conclusion by including the latter data and trying to fit these two totally separate data sets with a single line. Has anyone tried checking to statistically see whether these two sets of data (1979-1996 and 2002-2012) are likely to be from two totally separate data sets? To muoncounter and DSL Just because you don't know the physical mechanism, doesn't mean there wasn't one. If Einstein had looked at his data that way, he would never have come up with Relativity. Keplar 's would have been happy with the "known' model and never come up with ellipses for the planetary orbits. Since we know it's hotter and we know that CO2 is increasing and we know that CO2 is a global warming gas, we seem to have a definitive causal relationship. It seems to me that the AGW folks are using the the classical, " If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I refused to go to the graduate school that had the Philosophy that no experimental result was confirmed until you have a theory. That's nonsense. If the experiment is unbiased and data reduction is done without bias, then you cannot honestly discard the conclusions it leads to just because you don't understand the physics of might have happened. I agree that CO2 is a global warming gas, as are water vapor and methane and others. And clouds act as global coolers. The physics response of doubling CO2 calculated to about 1°C global temperature rise. It is only because of the projection models, with their assumed feedbacks, that leads to gloom and doom of 6° increases. How is the data we are discussing here consistent with that? Do any of these model predict what we have seen from 2002-2012? To Dana I need to spend a lot more time with the post that you described, but a quick glance seemed to once again be rationalizing how this result could occur, even if the answer that was posed was still correct. I can't buy continual rationalization. There was also a comment that the poster didnt' t like a lot of the data sets used that discussed the potential of a step change in Temperature. Well....what is the data set that everyone is willing to accept? Is there one? I've been following the UAH data for the last 10 years. When I started, I didn't notice the flat period from 1979-1996 and only saw the higher levels in the post-1998 period. Since then, temperature has been higher, at an apparently fixed level (with cyclical variations around it). What I want to know is, " how is that consistent with steadily increasing levels of CO2 causing increases in global temperature?" To Dikran Marsupial, Your curve without the El Nino anomoly makes an interesting point. I blocked out that region when I did my visual analysis in an attempt to not bias my eye. By any chance has anyone done a Student-t analysis of the data from 1979-1996 versus the population from 2002-2012 to see whether they appear to be data from the same population? Finally, Dikran, how did you have the two sets of curves flip up and back on your post. That's a great tool. Is this from the analysis of Foster and Rahmstorf ? I'm concerned about manipulating the heck out of data before trying to interpret it, but it is a worthwhile venture to try to find an underlying trend. I would be very interested in trying to understand what the causes of cooling were that masked the steady increase in temperature caused by CO2. Thank you all for you inputs, I will stay on my search Dave
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] "Why is there no global temperature or global heat content response to increasing CO2 over the last 10 years."

       Incorrect. Numerous posts exist on this website debunking this meme (this site's search function will reveal many). Multiple datasets covering your timespan all show no statistically significant deviation from the well-established long-term warming trend.

       Participants, Dave has posted a very long comment with multiple areas of focus that are better covered on other threads. Please take those individual discussions to those more appropriate threads lest we deal with a dogpiling response to a gish gallop. Thank you in advance.

58909. Composer99 at 12:12 PM on 17 May 2012
       Richard Alley's Escalator
       As usual, Dr Alley does a great job.
58910. skywatcher at 10:50 AM on 17 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       #56, afraid I'm choosing to remain anonymous for the time being, for my own reasons, but my example is hardly unique amongst the papers on CO2science.
58911. PT_Goodman at 10:24 AM on 17 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       50, skywatcher I'm interested in which paper of yours is described, with results misrepresented, at CO2 Science. TIA
58912. Bob Lacatena at 09:09 AM on 17 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       54, koyaanisqatsi, That's why they are not, in any reasonable sense of the term, "skeptics."
58913. Tom Curtis at 08:49 AM on 17 May 2012
       CO2 has a short residence time
       Martin A @114, does your two-box model include a term for ongoing volcanic emissions of CO2, or does it tacitly assume that all volcanic activity ended with the onset of the industrial revolution?
58914. Tom Curtis at 08:41 AM on 17 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       Helena @119, as the graph was not present in the first and second drafts, it was obviously added in response to comments on the second draft (see section 4.2.5 of the IPCC procedures). As such revisions are explicitly described in the procedures, such revisions are part of the the full IPCC review process. Following that revision, the final draft is voted on and adopted by the panel (section 4.4). For the graph to not be a product of the full review process, it would need to have been added after adoption by the panel, a claim you have no evidence for. As it stands, a brief skim of early pages of the second round of review shows at least two reviewer comments that may have suggested to the lead authors the need for the revision. In particular, the reviewer for the US Gov suggested "more discussion of better characterized shorter period trends" (3.34), and the reviewer for the Australian government suggests that using simple linear trends obscures important details. (3-11) While neither reviewer requests the specific modification made, the addition of the shorter trend lines to the graph would certainly help satisfy each reviewers stated concern. Regardless, the issue here is whether or not an unjustified inference is made from the chart, and as clearly and repeatedly demonstrated above, it has not been. In contrast, Monckton not only makes unjustified inferences from his alternative chart, but grossly distorts the data in the chart to begin with.
58915. skywatcher at 08:18 AM on 17 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       Helena is that the best you can do? Nothing quantitative, no analysis, and a request that others should go away and do work for you? I think, from this, we can safely say that Helena has nothing to add to this discussion.
58916. Piet R. Zijlstra at 08:00 AM on 17 May 2012
       Richard Alley's Escalator
       How can we count the number of people who change their mind after seeing this video? I will help!! Pieter
58917. KR at 07:37 AM on 17 May 2012
       CO2 has a short residence time
       Martin A - You might want to look at some of the earlier discussions of this topic, such as Bolin and Eriksson 1958, where this theory is discussed/developed. You might also be interested in looking up the Bern model, also here, which was supplied to IPCC researchers for (relatively simple) mid-term carbon cycle modeling. Generally speaking, a two-box model will not be sufficient to examine ocean sequestration. The Bern model (not the most complex out there) uses one atmospheric box, four ocean boxes, plus an additional four for the biosphere.
58918. funglestrumpet at 07:14 AM on 17 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       Doug H @ 6 From what I can see we are already at Peak Oil, or rather the plateau at the top before the decline. The important point is that supply is only just keeping up with demand while the developing economies are building and buying more and more cars and other products which use oil, which can only exacerbate the situation. (China now buys more cars each year than America does.) An IMF research team is now warning of $220 oil per barrel by 2020, so I guess we will soon find out what happens when people cannot afford the stuff. As for unintended consequences, catastrophic collapse of food production might be another. It is obvious that growing regions will move polewards or upwards as the climate warms, indeed it is already happening. We can analyse the matter scientifically. If we plot food production on the ‘y’ axis of a graph, and put time on the ‘x’ axis, we can put rate of change on the ‘z’ axis. If this graph follows Catastrophe Theory, then we can expect a sudden and dramatic collapse in food supply to occur as part of the process. Perhaps not all crops, and not those that do collapse all at the same time, but catastrophic nonetheless. We might adapt to a gentle change, but hardly the almost complete loss of a staple food. Perhaps this has already been studied and all is well. But if it hasn’t, one wonders if those that are so opposed to taking action to combat Climate Change realise the magnitude of the risk they want us to take.
58919. Martin A at 06:31 AM on 17 May 2012
       CO2 has a short residence time
       "Individual carbon dioxide molecules have a short life time of around 5 years in the atmosphere. However, when they leave the atmosphere, they're simply swapping places with carbon dioxide in the ocean. The final amount of extra CO2 that remains in the atmosphere stays there on a time scale of centuries." Can you let me have a reference where I can look this up please? When I write down the differential equations for a simple two-box model, with an injected mass of CO2, in addition to an ongoing equilibrium exchange between atmosphere and sink, the result I get does not agree with your explanation. I want to resolve the difference.
58920. PT_Goodman at 06:20 AM on 17 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       Thanks for the responses. The AGW skeptic in question claims to have read all--give or take--research papers. But when I pin him down on what any particular research paper actually concludes, he always provides links to CO2 Science and/or WUWT rather than to the supporting paper itself. I end up locating the article in question and provide him with a link, but he will not read it. he has no technical background, so it is no doubt difficult for him to comprehend most papers. That may make it necessary for him to depend on AGW entertainers (Limbaugh claims it be "just an entertainer" as will) such as Anthony Watts. There is a dishonesty to his debating. You can't debate someone who is not interested in the truth, someone who believes what they believe because they believe it. I think I'm probably done with him.
58921. Helena at 03:49 AM on 17 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       Tom : "The more interesting point is, was the graph a product of the full review process, and quite plainly it was." I cannot find any review comment asking for any kind of change to the original graph. I obviously cannot prove that i cannot find any, as it is impossible to prove a negative. Can you therefore provide me with any review comment(s) that would suggest that the final graph is "the final product of the full review process" ? Thanks.
58922. chriskoz at 00:19 AM on 17 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       Good point raised in this article. Thanks dana and Molly. I think more alike points will be raised in future. I begin to realise that our adaptivity to changing climate as the society is far smaller than our adaptivity as individuals. Deniers don't understand that: they will keep saying "1 or 2 degrees, no big deal, I can deal with that...". However, a society is as fragile as the echosystem within which it lives... I am waiting for more evidence of that type of vulnerability, which would eventually convince the contrarians that climate change is real and will affectr them, just like smokers are convinced that lung cancer is real and affects them (as the overal group, even though some narcistic individuals think they can escape it).
58923. heijdensejan at 23:12 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       CBDunkerson: Even with their deliberately biased results they still have a problem as some regions are warm around the year 1000 and others around the year 1300, from some they only use one proxy and other proxies in the same report show something completely different etc. etc. Also they do have a spacial issue as some regions are under represented. I'm sure they have tried one time or another in the past and the result might not have been "satisfactory" I'm also amazed that people "believe" them immediately and without any scepticism.
58924. Bob Lacatena at 22:59 PM on 16 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       This alone should be clear evidence of Monckton's ability to accurately present data. Compare his hand-drawn graph in Tom's comment to these... using the exact same time frames, with both the HADCRUT and BEST data. It should be noted that the GISTEMP data cannot be used, because they don't go back prior to 1880, deeming the data before 1880 to be to unreliable to use. Here is the same graph with one more trend added, for 1979 to the present... [Click on each to go to the original woodfortrees.org plot] Honestly, how can anyone trust his interpretation of the data when it is as sloppy as this?
58925. muoncounter at 22:57 PM on 16 May 2012
       It's cosmic rays
       Move over, galactic cosmic rays! Bring on the 'blazars:' ... black holes can emit high-energy gamma rays and are then called blazars. ... This particular radiation interacts with the optical light that is emitted by galaxies, transforming it into the elementary particles electrons and positrons. Initially, these elementary particles move almost at the speed of light. But as they are slowed down by the ambient diffuse gas, their energy is converted into heat, just like in other braking processes. The process of converting electron/positron kinetic energy into heat by 'braking' seems a bit mysterious. But have no doubt, the 'ABC' crowd will spin this into their next version of 'the answer.'
58926. CBDunkerson at 21:26 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       heijdensejan, obviously the problem is that no reputable scientific journal would publish the 'CO2Science temperature record' because, even ignoring the fact that the papers are misrepresented, they have specifically picked out only papers which show 'temperature increases' (though some are things like rainfall changes which they falsely claim to be temperature increases) around the time of the MWP. In short, they are deliberately biasing their results. Frankly, it always amazes me how many people can look at their collection of '100% warming data' and not immediately realize what a sham the site is.
58927. heijdensejan at 18:49 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       If the MWP was indeed warmer then today and the "evidence" shown by CO2Science would actually support this, then McIntyre should make a multi proxy analyses from the data and publicise this in a scientific journal (not E&E). The Idso's are already funded by Heartland, the data is already selected and gathered so the job to compile a global multi proxy analyses should not be to big / expensive. As they have not done so, it is clear that either they are not interested, or the outcome would undermine their conclusion. Of course then they would also have to face the fact that a warm MWP would also mean a high climate sensetivity
58928. missk at 17:32 PM on 16 May 2012
       World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
       Hi, I'm in a college Environmental studies class and for the term paper I wanted to write about Geothermal Energy and why my city should make the switch. Is there anyway to calculate seattle wa's current use of energy (which is hydropower) and see what the prediction of environmental damage avoided and money saved if we made the switch to relying on Geothermal 20 years from now? I'd appreciate any resonses, Thanks K
58929. Arnost at 15:18 PM on 16 May 2012
       Tiljander was flipped upside down
       No it wasn't. McIntyre is incorrect.
58930. skywatcher at 14:30 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       koyaanisqatsi, you are quite correct that CO2science misrepresents the results of papers in their database. Apart from the OP, I can say this from personal experience, as there's a paper of mine in their database, conclusions suitably misrepresented. The paper documented an observed warming of climate, CO2science suggest that this immediately means the climate is 'returning to normal' so there's nothing to worry about!! The paper actually made no discussion of the forcings involved (climate needs a forcing to change), and climate's not a pendulum, desperate to stay in one place, that will swing the other way when nudged one way. I asked them to remove the paper from their database, you can guess the result of that...
58931. KR at 13:46 PM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       I seem to remember the same issues in Pittsburgh, PA, in the 1980's-1990's - older sewage systems that shared overflow with storm drains, resulting in river pollution when overstressed. Just a fact of life for older drain systems - but unfortunately affected by changes in precipitation. Change always affects more than you expect, plus and minus - because nobody has a good grasp on all the side effects.
58932. scaddenp at 13:27 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       As far as I can see CO2 science depends on people believing their representation of the science papers, secure in the knowledge that their audience will not actually read the papers. Get him to actually read the papers instead. However, as to changing the mind of someone desperately looking only for confirmation of a bias, then good luck. We are all guilty and the only good trick we have against the bias is science. You could ask what data would change his mind. If he can imagine no data that would do that, then dont waste your time.
58933. Composer99 at 13:06 PM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       Pertinent to the points raised by Steve Case & dana1981, Skeptical Science has one or more posts discussing the ecological impacts of global warming in which a graphic is shown with relative current and projected future weight of global warming and other concurrent impacts. All of these impacts, of course, are in action at the same time, meaning that each is a 'force multiplier' of the others. The impression I get from such articles, which is an impression that crosses into the impact of global warming on weather and economic affairs, is that much of the damage from global warming is not really a result of its direct effects, but rather from its action as a force multiplier of other, concurrent events. The Moscow heat wave in particular springs to mind as an example.
58934. DSL at 12:58 PM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       colinc, whatever other reasons there may be, the use of all-caps is also an accessibility issue.
58935. DSL at 12:52 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       koyaanisqatsi, feel free to tell the interlocutor that SkS, one and all (doubters included, no doubt), say, "put up or shut up." That person will be treated with respect as long as the claims are evidenced and the mind is open. Evidence-free rants will be discarded or be the subject of mirth (and then discarded). As for me, I'd love to hear solid evidence for either "it's not happening" or "it's not bad." It would be the best news I've had in 16 months. I'm not holding my breath, though. People keep saying that stuff and they never deliver.
58936. dana1981 at 12:48 PM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       Steve Case @5 - the point is that due to the increased frequency of heavy precipitation events in the Great Lakes region as a consequence of global warming, the sorts of sewage problems you describe will happen more frequently. Nobody is claiming that the problem wouldn't exist in the absence of global warming.
58937. Paul Magnus at 12:32 PM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       Here something that may be unexpected... but certainly is shocking.... when we close the border what happens to the animals....? "While the fences around Israel are necessary, according to Soffer, so too are corridors to allow the free passage of animals. Such passages could be monitored by soldiers for days at a time to allow the animals, such as snakes, to cross both ways." Defending Israel’s borders from ‘climate refugees' http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=269948
58938. otter17 at 12:24 PM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       To me, I find mitigation worthwhile if just to prevent large portions of the Great Plains of my home country (USA) from turning into a desert climate. Though, I guess the regional research indicates we may be too late to prevent that, since the region is marginal prairie. Sad, but the farmers and ranchers will have to make due or quit, reducing America's proud farming heritage in the region (and food production). Aside from my sentimental value attached to that, I do not get the ridiculous risk management practices that some contrarians follow. We have a very manageable, human-controlled risk to the economy on one hand, maybe even a benefit to the economy according to some analyses. On the other hand we have a quite likely uncontrollable and irreversible risk to livelihood, ecosystem services, and economies. Sounds like a no-brainer unless you believe in a conspiracy theory that the whole climate change risk portion was made up (a position even my father took for a short while).
58939. PT_Goodman at 12:24 PM on 16 May 2012
       Medieval project gone wrong
       I'm currently debating a Climate Change "skeptic" (denier would be the appropriate term). He has been using "data" from the CO2 Science web site. So naturally, I've looked at the graphs he links to at that site. [He dismisses SkS and will not read articles here.] My take has been that the CO2 Science misrepresents the data and research done by the actual researchers, such as Mann and Jones, Moberg, etc. I'm happy to learn, by coming to SkS, that I am not imagining things. Still, my skeptic acquaintance clearly will never change his mind about AGW. I'll read this article again; there a strategy for dealing with such people. This comment is no doubt OT. If so, move it.
58940. skywatcher at 11:37 AM on 16 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       Tom, points taken re FAQ, my bad! Not that I have ever suggested that the graph is anything but scientifically accurate of course. Monckton's chart, complete with its egregious line painting (the "1860-1880" line is particularly misleading as he's drawn a line from ~1852 to ~1885) ... is it the "anti-Escalator"?? According to Monckton's chart, global warming is almost always happening very rapidly (more rapidly than the long-term mean), and periods of apparent hiatus are mere illusions. We should be even more worried! Monckton is an alarmist!! Does Helena think Monckton's graph is better than the one in the IPCC report?
58941. Doug Hutcheson at 11:09 AM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       colinc @ 2, the irony is that your scenario also plays for Peak Oil: when energy gets too expensive for the average family to use, the outcome is the same as if that energy was not available at all. Perhaps PO, which is likely to be a creeping crisis rather than a crunch, will give us the incentive to progressively wean ourselves off the fossils and onto renewables, in a time and manner that gives us a better chance of survival. Having said that, your scenario of drought-induced blackouts is apocalyptic, but not unreasonable. This is just another negative impact that the nay sayers are happily blind to. The OP should be a wake-up call to the fact that AGW is likely to have profound and unpleasant effects that, at the very least, balance any possible benefits.
58942. Steve Case at 11:07 AM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       the 1993 Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee wasn't "Global; Warming" I drove by the Howard avenue purification plant every day on my way to work. And at that time there was a great deal of construction going on at the plant. I have no idea what it was, but the fact that there was never seemed to make it into the Milwaukee Journal. We talked about that fact at work. I live on the north side of Milwaukee and I wasn't affected. I don't recall that anyone at work was either. The reason for the overflow into Lake Michigan is that cities like Milwaukee have a combined sanitary storm sewer system and when it rains, shit flows into lake Michigan. It's been that way for years. We have the "Deep Tunnel" which is supposed to store water when there's a rain storm, but everyone knew that it really wouldn’t work for "cloud Bursts" which do occur "Global Warming" or not. I remember flying back to Milwaukee in 2008 the airline flew over the Milwaukee harbor on the approach, you could clearly see the sewage line spreading out into the lake. Local State and Federal government didn't want to spend the money to separate the storm and sanitary sewers and we got sold a bill of goods with the Deep Tunnel project which cost billions and really doesn't work. We all knew from the start that a few thirty foot diameter tunnels weren’t going to hold all the water from a big storm
58943. Tom Curtis at 10:41 AM on 16 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       skywatcher @115, while I agree that the graph was intended to summarize information in a simpler form, it was also in the Technical Summary of the IPCC report. Indeed, the version above is the version from the technical summary, which differs from that in the FAQ in the relative placement of the maps and line graph. Further, the FAQ is still intended to be scientifically accurate, with FAQ's being referenced by other parts of the report. Far more importantly, the IPCC explicitly discusses the rapid warming in the early to mid 20th century in the report. There is no question of their attempting to hide relevant information here. So the question of the appropriateness of the graph realy comes down to two issues - is the "inference" from the graph of accelerated warming justified; and is the graph simple enough to be understood by its intended audience of politicians and policy makers. Some of the utterances of politicians and policy makers give me reason to doubt that any graph could be simple enough for them to understand, but there is no doubt that the "inference", ie, the point it was designed to illustrate, is justified. It is interesting to note that Monckton has given us an example of what he thinks the graph should have looked like: This graph he calls "the unvarnished truth". Careful examination shows otherwise. To start, the three clearly marked lines, which are given as being "equal slopes" in the legend, are not equal slopes, with the 1910-1940 line being slightly steeper than the 1975-1998 line. In contrast, the actual trend for 1975-1998 is greater than that for 1910-1940 (see table below). What is worse, the duration (length on the x-axis) of the lines do not correspond to their stated duration, with the 21 year 1860-1880 line having the same width as the 31 year 1910-1940 and the 1975-1998 interval. Further, although the 1975-1998 trend is only just greater than the 1910-1940 trend, the 1975-2005 trend, ie, the trend corresponding in duration to the actual "trend line" shown by Monckton is 0.188 C per decade, a difference from the 1910-1940 trend if Monckton had drawn in the actual trend lines. Being fair to Monckton, he does not call those bold pink lines "trend lines". But if they are not trend lines, then they can have no legitimate purpose on the graph. Their purpose is solely to deceive the eye, which is notoriously bad at estimating trends. By giving the eye a bold target, Monckton seeks to exaggerate the similarity between the three warming periods, both as to duration and slope. No doubt, as a fair minded person, Helena has noticed these "errors" by Monckton, and can point us to her public criticism of them? Or is she so busy trying to reheat false "skeptic" talking points that she has no time to criticize the genuine errors of fake "skeptics". HadCRUT3v +/- HadCRUT4v +/- 1860-1880 0.105 0.159 0.109 0.16 1910-1940 0.153 0.056 0.135 0.056 1975-1998 0.156 0.08 0.071 0.077 1975-2006 0.189 0.052 0.195 0.05 1850-2006 0.042 0.007 0.042 0.008
58944. Glenn Tamblyn at 10:35 AM on 16 May 2012
       CRUTEM4: A detailed look
       Thanks for this post Kevin. I knew CRUTEM3 didn't have as good station coverage in the Arctic, but I was flabbergasted by their land record not being hemisphere-weighted. This update was obviously needed.
58945. bill4344 at 09:45 AM on 16 May 2012
       New research from last week 19/2012
       Seconded. These compilations are greatly appreciated, Ari and co..
58946. Rob Honeycutt at 09:44 AM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       colinc... On SkS it's preferred if you bold or italicize your emphasis rather than using all caps. If you're not familiar with the techniques for doing this you can click on the "Click for tips on posting..." and it will show you the HTML tags.
58947. colinc at 09:36 AM on 16 May 2012
       Climate Change Consequences - Often Unexpected
       Pardon me, what do you (the "moderator") mean by "all-caps (now converted)"? I did not, and "your" [Preview]-button confirmed, that no more than a half-dozen words were "all-caps."
       Moderator Response: [Sph] The rule is not "too much all-caps." It is no all caps. If you follow the link to the Comments Policy you will find instructions for how to use bold and italics for emphasis.
58948. Tom Curtis at 09:05 AM on 16 May 2012
       101 responses to Ian Plimer's climate questions
       scaddenp @21, giving Carbon500 the benefit of the doubt, he (or she) has concluded that because "there are large regions where the oceans are cooling", that there are individual oceans which are cooling, while others are warming. If that is his/her conclusion, then it is false. Every ocean, and every ocean basin on Earth is warming, although small regions within each ocean basin are cooling. This confusion may have been aided by the fact that "oceans"can act as both a mass noun, as in the passage quoted above (in which it refers to all the water within the worlds oceans), and as a collective noun, in which usage it would refer to all of the Earth's oceans (ie, the Pacific, the Atlantic, etc). To suppose there is a contradiction between the quoted passage and the statement that the worlds oceans are warming, one must suppose that "ocean" is used as a mass known in the quoted passage, and a collective known in the statement.
58949. skywatcher at 09:02 AM on 16 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       Agreed Tom, Helena's post smacks of rather desperate trolling, as clearly she has no supportable quantitative substantive issue with the published graph, that was in an FAQ and is correspondingly uncomplicated. Recent warming is faster than earlier warming.
58950. Tom Curtis at 08:54 AM on 16 May 2012
       IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading
       Helena @113, while interesting that the second draft of the IPCC AR4 included a simpler graph than that included in the final product, your concluding question is simply fatuous. Any revision to the first or later drafts of IPCC reports, by there nature, have not gone full the "full review process". The only way to ensure that everything in the IPCC reports has gone through the full process is to avoid any revisions, so that the final report is identical to the first draft. The more interesting point is, was the graph a product of the full review process, and quite plainly it was. This attempt by you to beat up a fake controversy over the graph shows to my mind that your interest here is only in generating controversy, with the purpose of obscuring the obvious. Your comments are the result of deliberate trolling rather than genuine inquiries or differences of opinion. I suggest readers bear that fact in mind when reading any of your future posts.

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