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Comments 59001 to 59050:

59001. dana1981 at 03:51 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 2: Risk
       BWTrainer @3 - I do think that accounting for all of the economic consequences of future climate change is a major challenge. It's hard enough to predict those changes, let alone their potential costs. Considering how risk averse people normally are, our cavalier attitute towards climate change is really uncharacteristic and bizarre. I think some of it is due to the fact that it's a long-term problem, as Rob noted. Some of it is just disbelief that the risk could be as high as it is. A lot of it is probably the effectiveness of the disinformation campaign as well. There's also the fact that most people do support reducing GHG emissions, but politicians are beholden to corporate interests, which are focused on their short-term profits. People don't see the problem as a high enough priority to force their representatives to act on it for the reasons noted above. There are a lot of factors behind our faiulre to mitigate this risk.
59002. Albatross at 03:42 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 2: Risk
       Right now the odds of future generations emerging from this global experiment are becoming lower with each year of inaction. Rob, makes some good points. The problem with governments is that they typically work on a four year election cycle. This is a problem that requires vision, prudence and being altruistic. Sadly, much of what I see at work is myopia and greed. For future generations to stand a good chance of not having to pay an even heftier penalty for our actions, we need two things to hold true: 1) We need to reduce emissions as rapidly as possible. 2) Climate sensitivity needs to be on the very low end of the IPCC range. Arguing that climate sensitivity is "low" as an excuse to delay taking action, or not take action at all, is foolhardy, as we may very well already be locked into dangerous warming. Moreover, if little or no further action is taken because of this false sense of security, we could be headed for over 1000 ppmv CO2 by 2100, and in that situation even if climate sensitivity is "only" 2 C, we would still be potentially looking at warming on the order of 4-5 C, perhaps more. And that does not include the potentially disasterous impacts of ocean acidification associated with CO2 levels > 1000 ppmv. So, from my perspective, the pros of taking meaningful and prompt action on reducing GHGs far outweigh the cons, regardless of the value of climate sensitivity.
59003. BWTrainer at 03:40 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 2: Risk
       To make matters worse, I wonder if the future cost estimate is drastically understated. As shown in the bullet points, several negative consequences of 3-4 ° warming are amplifiers that are only going to make matters worse. As Joe Romm and others have pointed out, 4 may be just a stopping point to even more warming. Am I correct in thinking that economic models don't account for that?
59004. dana1981 at 03:09 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 2: Risk
       Good point Rob. People naturally have a harder time with risk management the further into the future the threat is posed.
59005. Rob Honeycutt at 03:08 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 2: Risk
       The other challenging part of this issue is that we are doing something that is somewhat unusual in terms of risk management. We are looking to insure future generations. It's one thing to pay for car insurance just in case you have a wreck. It's another thing entirely to say we should be paying auto insurance on our grand children's cars and homes. This is precisely why this has to be a governmental issue. Individuals have individual responsibilities that span their lifetimes, and to a lesser extent, their children's lives. Corporations are worse. They have to deal with quarter to quarter issues bordering with the span of time key executives are in charge. Governments operate in generational timeframes. They establish laws and structures that are intended to apply for the long term and ensure the security and prosperity for their people. The challenge is balancing the needs and responsibilities of corporations and individuals with the needs of nations over the course of generations. It's what makes this issue so incredibly challenging.
59006. MarkHoofnagle at 02:47 AM on 9 May 2012
       The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
       Thanks for the attribution on the tactics, however, it should be noted though that Diethelm and McKee used our definition of denialism as well.
59007. MP3CE at 02:11 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       #23 @dana1981 and #24 chriskoz: Thank you both for clarifying me my mistake.
59008. muoncounter at 02:07 AM on 9 May 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #18
       Here's one from 2004, although there's no direct quote. That points to one reason the world should pay attention to this week's report. Like a canary in a coal mine, the hyper-sensitive polar regions may well experience the full force of global warming before the rest of the planet does.
59009. dana1981 at 02:00 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       alexharv074 @26 - apparently we agree on the substance of the post above, which is that Lindzen is wrong. It's true that by neglecting the global energy imbalance, Lindzen's "model" would effectively have zero 'unrealized warming'. However, since we know there is a global energy imbalance, we know his "model" is wrong (which is simply another way to describe the third Achilles' Heel from the post above). As for recent sensitivity estimates, that's a different subject. Some recent studies put it towards the lower end of the IPCC range, some in the middle, some towards the higher end. I'm not aware of any that put the value outside the IPCC range, except the flawed Lindzen and Choi papers. As for ad hominem, a couple of comments including CBD @30 have explained why you are incorrect on this point. Saying someone is wrong, or consistently wrong, is not ad hominem.
59010. John Hartz at 01:40 AM on 9 May 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #18
       I posed this question because over the past few years I have seen a number of climatic events declared to be the "canary in the coal mine" by scientists and journalists. Does anyone happen to know who was the first prominent scientist to describe a climatic event as "the canary in the coal mine"?
59011. Albatross at 01:24 AM on 9 May 2012
       New research from last week 18/2012
       Hi Ari, Great papers this week-- I can't keep up! ;) Not looking good for the biosphere that sustains us is it?
59012. Albatross at 01:10 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Alex@26, I'm sorry but your entire post is essentially off topic and not relevant to the main post. Dana noted @4 that "...you're not addressing the point of the post", and you are still continuing to do so by presenting what could be construed by some as a Gish gallop of irrelevant and/or off-topic statements. Doing so is not helping your nor Lindzen's case. All that needs to be said/acknowledged is that Lindzen was wrong when he claimed "Yeah, and we should have seen 3[°C]".
59013. Utahn at 00:43 AM on 9 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Kevin C, I think it's Crook not Cook. Also Andrews 2012 I think estimates best guess around 3.4K equilibrium sensitivity. FWIW Gillett was an estimate of transient sensitivity, not sure there's an easy "conversion" factor for equilibrium sensitivity... Overall I agree that none of this impacts the basic point that Lindzen was wrong to suggest we should have already seen 3C. Alexharv074 said: "Thus, if Lindzen was right, the system would already be virtually in equilibrium - the timescale for a sensitivity of 0.7 K is just a few years." But Lindzen was referring to what we should have seen if he was wrong, i.e. if sensitivity was 3K...so, he's still wrong!
59014. Daniel Bailey at 00:03 AM on 9 May 2012
       New research from last week 17/2012
       I am...skeptical...
59015. les at 23:06 PM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       hummm... all a bit confusing. Much other stuff from Cole seems to have the same, or similar, origins. e.g. 30 Cole. Shouldn't there be a moderation policy that posts with substantial cut-and-paste from other sites, without links / attribution, should be deleted?
       Moderator Response: [DB] Revisions to the Comments Policy that cover this aspect are under consideration.
59016. muoncounter at 23:05 PM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       This paper appears to have slipped by without note. Kazil et al 2011: The decadal solar cycle modulation of Earth's radiative forcing via ionization of the atmosphere by galactic cosmic rays, aerosol formation from the gas phase, and the response of clouds to aerosol is quantified for the first time with a climate model that represents and couples the relevant processes. ... Globally and annually averaged, the solar cycle modulation of Earth's radiative forcing, arising from the increase in atmospheric ionization by galactic cosmic rays from solar maximum to minimum, via charged nucleation of aerosol, the direct aerosol effect, and the cloud albedo effect, amounts to -0.05 W m-2. A limited relevance of this variation for the Earth's atmosphere and climate can be inferred, given that Earth's radiative forcing changes by -0.24 W m-2 from solar maximum to minimum because of a decrease in total solar irradiance. -- emphasis added This result shows that rumors that 'climate models can't include cosmic ray->cloud effects' and "... solar-mediated variations in the intensity of cosmic rays bombarding the earth are indeed responsible for the temperature variations ..." are much exaggerated. Or perhaps it's all been Much Ado About Nothing: Marry, sir, they have committed false report...
59017. Tsumetai at 22:40 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       

       For contrarians like Lindzen, climate sensitivity must be low, or they have no case to make. They have acknowledged that GHGs will cause warming, and their only argument against taking serious action to reduce GHG emissions is this premise that the GHG increase won't cause very much warming. That is why we described this argument as the 'skeptic' endgame, and Gillis accurately described it as the dissenters' "last bastion."

       Sadly, no. There's also:
       • Climate scientists are right about how much warming to expect, but warming is good.
       • OK, it's bad, but anything we do to stop it would be worse.
       • OK, it's worth stopping, but we'll never get international agreement to do so.
       • OK, we could have stopped it, but it's too late now. If only those damn climate scientists had done a better job of warning us!
       Could probably fit a few more steps in there somewhere, too.
59018. chriskoz at 22:28 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       alexharv074@26, you said: Posts here at SkS are filled with personal attacks. I could give you plenty of examples, the most obvious being the graphics at the left hand side of every page - "Christy Crocks", etc. "Christy Crocks" is a personal attack. You know that right? Your assessment of the nature of SkS articles is false and indicates that you likely misunderstand the meaning of "personal attack". Therefore, please take a note of the correct meaning of the term you are using, i.e. in wikipedia: ad hominem [...] is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it The characterization of someone's discourse as "Crocks" (slang term for "foolish talk, nonsense") does not imply "personal attack". It may be considered verbal abuse if it is not justified, however IMO it is justified and understood if you click at "Christy Crocks" button and read the author's debunking of various arguments by prof Cristy. Please also note that verbal abuse is not ad hominen. A hand waving statement "You know that right?" is the only support of your assessment. It is not only meaningless but can be considered the form of "shouting" similar to "upper-casing" prohibited by the comment policy on this site.
59019. CBDunkerson at 21:48 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Alex #26 wrote: "That is, indeed, an ad hominem attack" In reference to: "[Lindzen] is one of the relatively more credible climate contrarians (although he has a long history of taking contrarian positions on nearly every climate-related issue, and being almost universally wrong on those issues)". 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers to a claim that a person possesses some negative trait completely unrelated to the topic of discussion in the hope that this will lead others to disregard that person's position on the topic. Lindzen's history on other 'climate-related issues' is certainly not completely unrelated to his 'cloud iris' position. Saying 'Lindzen does not make his alimony payments' (note: I have no idea if Lindzen has ever been married / even has alimony payments) would be an ad hominem argument to raise in regards to his stance on climate science. His previous stances on climate science are not. You seem to be redefining 'ad hominem' as 'said something bad about a person'. Skeptical Science does indeed say negative things about people... but that is not 'ad hominem' as the term is commonly understood. Rather, it is known as criticism. These people have said things about climate science which are provably untrue. Identifying these false climate science positions and explaining why they are wrong is basically the purpose of this web-site. Thus, you'll see plenty of criticism, but it will be on topic (i.e. relevant to climate change) and thus not 'ad hominem'.
59020. Daniel Bailey at 21:25 PM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       

       "Is there some kine of Associate 'skeptic' Press that provides text for folks to use in their blogs?"

       Yes. (needless to say, that was the right question)
59021. pauls at 21:19 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lessons from Past Predictions: Hansen 1981
       Bob Loblaw, I've found a nice, simple description of slab-ocean models: http://www.boinc-wiki.info/Slab_Model The ocean heat transports are the currents moving heat around the planet. Prescribing them means the model doesn't have to calculate dynamically, another reason ocean modelling doesn't have much influence on measured ECS on GCMs. The point I'm making about the shallowness of the slab-ocean is this: 'As the ocean is simplified it does not take a long time for the ocean to fully adjust to the new forcings and therefore the climate does not take anywhere near as long to settle down into its final pattern. (Like 20 model years instead of over 200 model years.) You can therefore get a reasonable idea of the overall effect of a forcing like an x% increase in CO2 in a shorter amount of computer time.'
59022. les at 21:10 PM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       50 - Skywatcher.. I know this is off topic (so, fine if this post is deleted) But, Do you know how that works? The phrase is, e.g. both by A. Watts and the Site Admin of climate realists and else where Is there some kine of Associate 'skeptic' Press that provides text for folks to use in their blogs? There's no copyright or attribution on those sites...
59023. Cole at 19:49 PM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       (-Snip-)
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Inflammatory snipped.

       Please note that you have already been warned and counseled about the requirements to adhere to this site's Comments Policy. Posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

       Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive, ideological or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

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

       Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter, as no further warnings shall be given.

59024. Kevin C at 19:29 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Alex: I think you have still misundertood or misread Dana's argument. The first half of the article, whose conclusion you quoted and objected to in your first post, is not about the value of the EQS. It is about the fact that Lindzen either misunderstands or misrepresents the very meaning of the term. Dana's argument would stand whether the actual value is 3.0C, or 2.3C, or even 1.5C. Thus, arguing about the value is a strawman. In the second half of the article Dana discusses what is, as far as I am aware, the most recent comprehensive review of climate sensitivity in the literature. If you know a more recent one, then please tell us. You mention some recent papers, but I notice you don't mention Kirk-Davidoff (2009) or Tanaka (2009). There are many other recent works you've missed, off the top of my head Padilla et al (2011) and a 2011 paper by Cook? at Leeds. Given the different definitions of EQS as highlighted by Hansen & Sato's 'Paleoclimate implications', a comprehensive review is non trivial, and probably worthy of another Nature paper rather than half a blog post.
59025. garethman at 19:13 PM on 8 May 2012
       Why Are We Sure We're Right? #2
       @Dragonwyst. excellent post. Your skill at observation and analysis of a situation gained from your nursing profession shines through. Only issue I would dispute is that there is no such thing as ‘only’ a nurse. All nurses are stars in their own right and have a lot to contribute to the methodology of climate science.
59026. Glenn Tamblyn at 18:07 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       To follow up on Rob P's comment, let me put up a simple analogy that explains why a suggestion that we can determine longer term CS from what has transpired to date is wrong. I own a swimming pool complex made up of 3 toddlers wading pools and an olympic size swimming pool. These pools are all connected by modest size pipes so they share a common water level. For convenience I label the toddlers pools A, I & L, and the Olympic pool O. I have a simple float valve system that maintains the overall water level - if it is a bit low the float valve starts to let some water in and brings the level back up until the float valve shuts off. I look at my pool complex and decide that the overall water level is being maintained too low so I adjust the float-valve to maintain a higher level. So water start to flow in. The float valve is located in my 'A' toddlers pool so this starts to fill. And the level in A starts to rise compared to the other 3 pools. As a result of this flows start to happen in the pipes connecting all the pools, transferring some water from A to I, L and O. So what will happen eventually? The levels of all the pools will reach a new equilibrium and the float valve will close. But what happens in the short term? Initially the level in A starts to rise because water is being added to it. So now it is higher than the other pools, so this start to create flows in the pipes across to the other pools. Eventually the flow out of A in the pipes matches the flow rate being added to A by the float valve. At this point the water level in A can't rise until the water levels in the other pools rises. This would only matter a little if we were just dealing with 'I' and 'L'. They are similar sizes to 'A' so the net impact of their presence would be to reduce the rate at which A is filled to one third. But O is an Olympic size pool. It is huge compared to the toddlers pools. So in the end, the rate at which the water level rises is limited by O. To raise the level of A by 1 inch, I have to add enough water to also raise I, L and particularly O, by 1 inch. So if I sit there with a ruler measuring the rise in A every 10 minutes after I start I will completely underestimate how long it will take to fill A because the volume of O is the main determining factor. So how does my analogy relate to Climate Change? The water is Heat. The water level is Temperature. A is the Atmosphere, I is Ice, L is Land and O is the oceans. The relative size of my 4 pools? A is 3, I is 3, L is 4, O is 90 - these proportions come from the last IPCC report. And the Float Valve? That is GH gas levels. Adding GH gases is akin to adjusting the float valve to raise the water level. So we add some GH gases, adjust the valve for a higher water level, then sit back and watch. At first Air temperatures rise. Then Ice melt and Land temperatures start to follow. And the Ocean starts to warm - slowly. So if we add some GH gases; adjust the float valve, the first response we see is that the water level in 'A' starts to rise. This is the transient climate response, the Transient Climate Sensitivity (TCS). Then the drain of water (heat) across to I, L & O will start to slow this rise and impose a slower rise rate, driven mainly by the size of 'O'. Eventually, over a much longer time period, all 4 pools will reach balance. This is the Fast Climate Response; remember, climate is about Mother Nature's timescales - decades are fast! The long term Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity over centuries and millenia is the equivalent of remodeling the swimming complex, changing the pumps and putting in different sized pipes. But there is an additional wrinkle to this. We haven't adjusted the float valve once and that's it! We keep on adjusting it every single day. Every day we add some more GH gases we are giving the valve another 'tweak'. So the level in A - the Atmosphere - will keep rising a bit because of our continual tweaks. When we eventually stop adding GH gases, the slower equilibration from I, L and O will produce a balance. Decades or centuries into the future. This is obviously a simplified description but it is still broadly valid.
59027. Rob Painting at 16:39 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       "In Lindzen's model, there is no unrealised warming." Yes, so it is clearly wrong. The Earth still has a persistent energy imbalance (Loeb [2012]) which means further warming is in the pipeline. In essence Lindzen's model assumes the oceans will not take up much heat and therefore the atmosphere warms much more rapidly. This is the basic gist of low climate sensitivity, the oceans supposedly cannot take up this extra heat so the atmosphere warms quickly instead, until the system is back in equilibrium. In contrast, mixing heat down into the deep ocean slows the response time and allows the oceans to store much more heat - much of which is eventually given back to the atmosphere. This would signify greater climate sensitivity, and greater warming in the long-term. The trouble with Lindzen's ideas on this issue is that the climate has been much warmer in the past, which indicates larger climate sensitivity. It is the No.1 climate skeptic argument at SkS. In 'Greenhouse' intervals in Earth's history, the oceans were considerably warmer according to paleoproxy data - sea surface temperatures reaching as high as 38°C in the tropics. As Dr Richard Alley would say "That's Hot!" Furthermore, the deep oceans were much warmer, as were the seas around both poles. All of this is consistent with the mainstream estimates of climate sensitivity, but incompatible with low climate sensitivity, such as that argued by Lindzen.
59028. Ari Jokimäki at 15:21 PM on 8 May 2012
       New research from last week 18/2012
       Note that the Chylek et al. paper has been criticized.
59029. alexharv074 at 14:51 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Dana #4, I don't disagree that Lindzen's estimate of climate sensitivity is an outlier. Lindzen is arguing that the cloud feedback is negative, and not many agree. On the other hand, the last couple of years has been exceptional in the number of papers that revise downwards the IPCC best estimate of 3 K per doubling of CO2. I mentioned Schwartz (2012), Kohler et al. (2010), Schmittner et al. (2011), Gillett et al. (2011). I mentioned Held's work. I could have also mentioned Loeb et al. (2012) that found a best estimate of the TOA imbalance of about half of what Trenberth et al. were requiring. Hansen et al. (2011) found the TOA imbalance just a bit higher than Loeb et al. Levitus et al. (2012) has also found the imbalance from ocean data lower than expected. Notice, these are all the most recent estimates. Are there similarly recent estimates finding higher than expected warming? You write that there are reasons to believe that Schmittner et al. might be too low, presumably echoing statements made at RealClimate. But how do you explain Kohler et al. (2010), who find the same sensitivity using a completely different method? Gavin Schmidt told me that he agrees that Kohler et al. is the best and most up to date treatment of paleo forcing. If so, one needs to see that to get a best estimate of sensitivity even as high as 2.4 K, Kohler needed to assume a "scaling factor" to increase sensitivity by some amount (10% or 15% I think), despite it being quite possible that the scaling should have been even negative (I think Hargreaves and Annan is the ref for this, I'll have to check). They also had to go with the highest value in the literature for global cooling - 5.8 K from Schneider von Deimling et al. (2006). I would forget about Schmittner et al. You need to explain why Kohler et al. is too low, if you really want to argue that 2.3 K is too low. Meanwhile I see you wrote, "first of all, we at SkS always keep our posts free of ad hominem attacks, so there is nothing unusual about this." I wish that were true. Posts here at SkS are filled with personal attacks. I could give you plenty of examples, the most obvious being the graphics at the left hand side of every page - "Christy Crocks", etc. "Christy Crocks" is a personal attack. (-snip-) In the case of the present post I contragulated you because this post is above average for this website. It still does, however, contain ad hominem attacks. The first one I find is: "[Lindzen] is one of the relatively more credible climate contrarians (although he has a long history of taking contrarian positions on nearly every climate-related issue, and being almost universally wrong on those issues)". That is, indeed, an ad hominem attack, and an extraordinary overgeneralisation. "nearly every climate-related issue" - really? Lindzen has published over 300 papers, and several books, including a widely-cited graduate textbook on atmospheric dynamics. Unless you want to claim that atmospheric dynamics is not related to climate it is nothing short of bizarre to claim that Lindzen has disputed and then been wrong "about nearly every climate-related issue". On the subject of atmospheric dynamics, Lindzen's argument for low sensitivity has always been fundamentally a dynamical one. He has argued since the late 1970s that the observed distribution of climate change during ice age cycles (e.g. in CLIMAP 1976) where the tropics cool just a little relative to the poles which cool enormously implies operation of negative feedbacks in the tropics (e.g. Lindzen, 1994, Ann. Rev. Fluid Dynam.). I look forward to a future post here where you have understood the actual history of Lindzen's thought and address his dynamical considerations too. Finally, in your post #14 you echo a popular internet confusion about the equilibration of the climate system. You write, "the timescale to equilibrium is something of an unresolved question, which I think we'll be addressing in a future blog post. Off the top of my head, I think that after 50-100 years, somewhere in the ballpark of two-thirds to three-fourths of the equilibrium warming is realized. It mainly depends on how efficiently heat mixing happens in the oceans, which is the somewhat unresolved question". It sounds like you think that the equilibration timescale can be considered separately from the matter of the climate sensitivity. However, Hansen et al. (1985) showed that the timescale for equilibrium is related to the climate sensitivity. Thus, if Lindzen was right, the system would already be virtually in equilibrium - the timescale for a sensitivity of 0.7 K is just a few years. Schwartz has also made the same point (e.g. Schwartz, 2008). It is, thus, a circular argument to say Lindzen has ignored the unrealised warming, and use that as evidence that his argument is wrong. In Lindzen's model, there is no unrealised warming.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] "Posts here at SkS are filled with personal attacks."

       Incorrect, as you are operating with a flawed definition of ad hominem (see below). If the focus is on the argument, and not the individual, it is not ad hominem.

       Please constrain your comments to the science. A continued focus on presumed ad hominems will be construed as tone-trolling; moderation will then ensue accordingly.

       Insinuation of malfeasance snipped.

59030. chriskoz at 14:30 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       MP3CE@23, "probability" is somewhat simplistic and incorrect word in this context, hence your confusion. In statistics, to indicate uncertainty, we are talking about "percentiles", which means "the fraction of the probability distribution that falls into a given range of values. So, the thick/thin bars represent 66/90 percentiles of sensitivity distribution (in common language "likely"/"very likely" outcome that the true value of sensitivity falls on the bars. 66 and 90 numbers correspond to 1-sigma & 2-sigma in normal distribution, that's why they are commonly used.
59031. jyyh at 13:59 PM on 8 May 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #18
       [JH] OK, fine if everyone posted something like that the thread would become rather tedious. My 'canary' would probably be the increase of double broods/year in moths/butterflies which (in here) has been going on since the early 1990s and became pretty obvious by the late 90s for active observers.
       Moderator Response: [JH] Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. It is much appreciated.
59032. dana1981 at 13:59 PM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       MP3CE - no, the thinner bars are wider, meaning they encompass a larger range of possible values, which is why we have more confidence (90% as opposed to just 66%) that they encompass the correct value.
59033. DSL at 13:29 PM on 8 May 2012
       New research from last week 17/2012
       Ari, ya got to hit this one this week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17953792 Then Daniel needs to do a post on it: "Waking the Caca(en)."
59034. skywatcher at 13:01 PM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       Speaking of dodgy blogs, I wonder which of the many skeptic blogs Cole is parroting, when he repeats the exact sentence

       "The paper finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC."

       . A quick Google search gives quite a few, including but not just: icecap, jo nova, hockeyschtick (and SkS's recent Comments page too of course!). This phrase misrepresents and magnifies the actual Solanki paper's conclusions, ingnoring the uncertainties. Now I don't mind debating sun and climate with real people, but Cole, if you're going to demonstrate the least bit of understanding of the literature, you could at least use your own words, not somebody else's?
59035. muoncounter at 12:05 PM on 8 May 2012
       It's the sun
       From here. "We all know a more active sun means a stronger magnetosphere... up until recently the magnetosphere (a la Sol), was extremely powerful." We all know... not a very scientific argument. Refer to this comment above for some actual data on the sun's mag field. Note the title: Overall Flux Reduction. 45 very flat years. See Arge et al 2002: Lockwood et al. [1999a , 1999b] conclude that the total open solar magnetic flux has increased by 41% from 1964 to 1995 and by 130% over all but the last 5 years of the twentieth century. However, solar data for more than two solar cycles ... show no secular trend in overall photospheric flux. More importantly, the magnetic flux open to interplanetary space ... fails to show evidence of a secular increase over the last two solar cycles. A final point about this vaunted solar 'aa' index increase comes from Russell and Mulligan 1995: -- source It looks like this increase ran during the first half of the 20th century - and then the index went flat. That is entirely consistent with Figure 1 above and the data presented above. This point is very clear: the early 20th century warming was solar in origin. The recent warming is not.
59036. muoncounter at 11:38 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       Now that we're talking about solar reconstructions, we're completely off topic. I'll reply here.
59037. Daniel Bailey at 11:13 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       

       "not just any blog, but CO2Science"

       Bingo. That is the question.
59038. Composer99 at 11:04 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       Adding a #5 to skywatcher's list: 5. You would also need to explain away the characteristics of the current warming trend, which are consistent with greenhouse gas warming (e.g. decreased diurnal temperature variation, decreased seasonal temperature variation, stratospheric cooling & tropospheric warming).
59039. Composer99 at 10:54 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       Curious that someone who would state the following:

       As for your Realclimate post, how would you like it if I started relying on blog-science? Maybe I should look up some denier sites and use their arguments? If you want to refute, please use a solid peer-reviewed science.

       with such obvious disparagement of "blog science" would then go quote from a blog, and not just any blog, but CO2Science.
59040. Cole at 10:50 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       "and BTW, your claim that it cannot be reliably measured is unsubstantiated." From Agee "uncertainty in the reliability of the ISCCP lower troposphere cloudiness to show the proposed correlations" Do you see a disconnect there? Aside from that ask any climate scientist if they can directly measure or observe a 2% change in GCC. This paper finds that solar activity has increased since the Little Ice Age by far more than previously assumed by the IPCC. The paper finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC. (We all know a more active sun means a stronger magnetosphere) Furthermore, solar activity has slightly declined since 1958 but was running in overdrive before that point. The sun has only recently really started to slow down, and up until recently the magnetosphere (a la Sol), was extremely powerful. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.4763 "It has been proposed that Earth's climate could be affected by changes in cloudiness caused by variations in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays " This isn't reporting a trend or a disconnect, nor does the paper purport to be able to effectively view changes GCC down to 2% (which is the difference we're talking about here). Solanki 2001, You've missed something, read it again... Straight from the abstract: A part of the Sun's magnetic field reaches out from the surface into interplanetary space, and it was recently discovered that the average strength of this interplanetary field has doubled in the past 100 years. There has hitherto been no clear explanation for this doubling. Here we present a model describing the long-term evolution of the Sun's large-scale magnetic field, which reproduces the doubling of the interplanetary field. The model indicates that there is a direct connection between the length of the sunspot cycle and the secular variations http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v408/n6811/abs/408445a0.html As for the rest I'll have to get back to you, I have practice.
59041. skywatcher at 10:35 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       Cole's carefully-selected list of papers is a lovely example of cherry-picking to give yourself a confirmation bias. What is missing from the long list of papers showing correlations between various aspects of the Sun's activity and century-millennial scale climate change is a mechanism by which this might work. [and it should be added that the idea that variations in solar output are connected with small changes in climate over the past few millennia is hardly a new one - you'll find detailed discussions in the IPCC AR4 report along with estimates of the magnitude of the forcing, for example in Section 2.7.1.] Which leaves us with a bunch of unknowns, if we are to believe Cole, or those who wish to see a GCR-climate connection: 1: First of all, we need to find a mechanism by which GCR's affect climate - so far proposed and observed nechanisms (e.g. Kirkby) are orders of magnitude too small. 2: We have to explain why palaeoclimate variations do not appear to show very large responses to big solar/GCR variations - a notable example is the Laschamp Anomaly (See this excellent Richard Alley video (after about 40 minutes in). Just before Alley talks about Laschamp, he has this good line:

       ...when you really take this apart you find that when the Sun changes it does seem to show up in the temperature record. It is very reassuring to know that if you change the Sun, the temperature knows this."

       Again, this is not new stuff, sun being a little connected to climate! It's just not as big a player as some would wish. 3: Perhaps most importantly, we have to have an explanation for why a large change in the concentration of powerfully radiatively active gases like CO2 (we've known the since the 19th Century) are not influencing climate, as physics expects them to do. And quite what is producing the observations (e.g. good articles here, or here) of decreased outgoing longwave radiation at GHG-specific wavelengths, and a corresponding increase in downward longwave radiation, also at GHG-specific wavelengths. 4: If you think the physics works OK, you then need an explanation for a hitherto unknown cooling mechanism, perfectly correlated with warming forced from CO2, which is conveniently masking the CO2-driven warming signal, and allows GCRs (whatever their mechanism of operation may be) to modulate climate. When you need multiple unknowns to explain something for which we already have a strong, straightforward observed mechanism, supported by physical and experimental data, you're really grasping at straws.
59042. muoncounter at 09:54 AM on 8 May 2012
       ConCERN Trolling on Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate Change
       Cole#42: I've certainly not been 'waving' Agee around (I mentioned it once before you dragged it back into the discussion after a lag of 5 months). It really doesn't matter whether you accept thier results or not, as there are a number of other references, which up to now you've ignored. But now you summarily dismiss them all as "innefectual" [sic] without any specifics. These papers do not rely on cloud cover measurements alone - and BTW, your claim that it cannot be reliably measured is unsubstantiated. But now your case seems to be made on references from 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. Let's look at a few (your links above): Kniveton and Todd (published ??): Using neutron data from only Huancayo, Peru (latitude 12 S), they discuss precipitation over oceans between 40S and 80S. Odd. Parker 1999 - (obtained from the blog CO2science? You've quoted their 'review' extensively). No mention of the fact that sunspot cycles have been getting weaker since 1958 - as temperatures continue increasing. Carslaw 2002: This paper appears to have no firm conclusions. It has been proposed that Earth's climate could be affected by changes in cloudiness caused by variations in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays ... Sounds like the same equivocal language you've objected to in Agee. Solanki 2001: This paper is about sunspots and the Maunder and has nothing to do with cosmic rays. ...it was recently discovered that the average strength of this interplanetary field has doubled in the past 100 years. One has to wonder how this was measured over a 100 year interval. Odd that actual measurements show the sun's magnetic field strength decreasing sharply. Face facts: the strongest thing you've got is the CLOUD experiment's preliminary results. Yet you dismissed this ("Kirkby is just a small example"). And until there is an accepted mechanism for these nano-sized cloud nuclei to form actual clouds before they disappear, that's an experimental result lacking a viable explanation. And this thread is about CERN's results, not about 10 year old correlation studies. However, it seems you cannot continue a discussion without resorting to accusation and innuendo ("You guys seem to be grasping at straws"). That is unacceptable (and no, we're not). You've already been advised (twice on this thread) that you must abide by the Comments Policy. Failing that, your behavior thus far has been worthy of this thread's title.
59043. MP3CE at 09:17 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Figure 2: Distributions and ranges for climate sensitivity from different lines of evidence. The circle indicates the most likely value. The thin colored bars indicate very likely value (more than 90% probability). The thicker colored bars indicate likely values (more than 66% probability). Shouldn'd second statement be: The thicker colored bars indicate very likely value (more than 90% probability). The thin colored bars indicate likely values (more than 66% probability) ?
59044. JoeT at 08:53 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Thank you all for your very informative responses. This site performs a very valuable service for those of us who just want to get a grasp on the basic science.
59045. Tom Curtis at 08:03 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Joe T @16, you have already received a number of informative answers, but I'll chip in as well to clarify a particular issue. Climate sensitivity is defined by three terms: a) The Transient Climate Response is the more or less immediate response to a new forcing. It has a technical definition, but can probably be best understood as the response that will be achieved in the minimum time it takes to measure an average climate state (a climatology),ie, within 30 years. It is dependent on a number of fast factors, including (most importantly) the cloud albedo feedback, the water vapour feedback, and the lapse rate feedback, but any factor which influences the Equilibrium Climate Response (or Charney Climate Sensitivity) will influence it. b) The Equilibrium Climate Response (also known as the Charney Climate Sensitivity,or the Fast Feedback Response) is the temperature change required to restore equilibrium assuming fast feedbacks but no slow feedbacks. Fast feedbacks include the cloud albedo effect, water vapour feedback, the lapse rate feedback, but also changes in albedo due to reduced sea ice or snow cover. They are characterized by feedbacks that reach an equilibrium state with temperature within decades. In contrast, slow feedbacks such as changes in albedo due to the loss of permanent ice sheets (Greenland Ice Sheet, West Antarctic Ice Sheet), changes in albedo due to massive changes in ecology (eg, the Amazon Basin becoming Savannah with isolated rainforest); changes in heat distribution due to large scale changes in ocean currents, and equilibriation of the partial pressures of CO2 in atmosphere and deep ocean. Slow feedbacks take centuries to millenia to reach equilibrium. As indicated, the Equilibrium Climate Response only accounts for fast feedbacks, and ignores all slow feedbacks. As a result, the time scale to the Equilibrium Climate Response is dominated by the time taken to establish equilibrium between the deep ocean and the surface in terms of temperature. As indicated above by others, that results in a rapid (less than 100 years) rise to about 66% of the response, followed by a slow movement to the equilibrium state (200 years or so). c) The Earth System Climate Response (or Earth System Sensitivity) is the response after all feedbacks, fast and slow have reached an equilibrium state. This takes centuries to millenia, and in the long term is governed by the glacial rate at which ice sheets melt. (OK, so I like puns. So sue me.) Because of this, we are unlikely to ever reach the Earth System Climate Response for the full measure of human emissions to the atmosphere. That is because while the ESCR takes millenia, over millenia the CO2 concentration will be drawn down. In fact, it will be drawn down to about 25% of the initial peak atmospheric concentration within a century or two, but take tens of millennia to return to pre-industrial levels. Therefore, unless the response to short term factors drives a release of natural CO2/Methane into the atmosphere of the same order of magnitude to total human emissions, our long distant descendants will face the Earth System Response to about 25% of our peak CO2 concentration rather than to the full peak concentration. That response will be about 60% of the peak warming (with large uncertainties). Given that the climate response predicted for about 2100 for BAU is about 60% of the Equilibrium Climate Response for the emissions, that is also the temperature increase we can expect for a period comparable with the entire extent of human civilization since the invention of agriculture, although it will peak at a higher level in the period 2100-2300 (assuming emissions growth is sharply curtailed at 2100 or earlier).
59046. dana1981 at 07:46 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       James Wight also had a very good post on the various measures of climate sensitivity (fast, slow, etc.). Rob Painting is working on a relevant post right now, and I might also do one on issues like 'warming in the pipeline', depending on what Rob covers in his post.
59047. tmac57 at 07:05 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       @Albatross #8- At least Lindzen is moving in the right direction. Maybe he just needs a bit more 'negative feedback' from his peers so that he can finally reach equilibrium ;)
59048. Bob Lacatena at 07:04 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       JoeT, You have to remember that in any case these are only very simple one-dimensional mathematical models of a real world situation. What really determines how large climate sensitivity is and how long it takes to reach a new equilibrium temperature is not determined by some simple physics equation like F=ma or e=mc2. As the Arctic summer ice melts, the open ocean absorbs more radiation rather than reflecting it. This is a positive feedback, but it depends on when the Arctic summer ice melts, and how soon in the year. It can also be a self-reinforcing feedback (sooner melt = warmer planet = sooner melt), as most are, but it is bounded by the limited summer season in the Arctic. Eventually the days get dark. How long will it take (if ever) until the ocean is warm enough to start releasing rather than absorbing CO2? How long will it take (if ever) for deserts to expand or for rain forest to turn into savanna (releasing more CO2 but also increasing the albedo of the land), and how large will the net positive feedback be? How long will it take (if ever) and how much methane will be released from permafrost? The reality of the situation depends on the slow feedbacks, but any one dimensional equation intending to model them is just a very rough approximation.
59049. Kevin C at 06:49 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       JoeT: I think this graph is what you are look for, from Hansen and Sato 2011. An exponential isn't a good model, because there are so many different timescales involved. Given that this curve is from a climate model, I have no real idea what the uncertainties are like. However you can also estimate the shape of the response function from past climate over various timescales. There's a nice paper by Padilla and Vallis (2011) on that.
59050. JoeT at 06:29 AM on 8 May 2012
       Lindzen's Clouded Vision, Part 1: Science
       Dana1981 Great piece, thanks for the response. Sorry to drag on about this, but I think the issue is very important, especially to neophytes like myself. An additional blog post would be great. I'm still trying to reconcile what you wrote with #2 and #11. In your example, if we choose a simple exponential and pick that in 75 years, 0.7 of the warming will occur, that gives us a time of around 60 years. That also means that roughly 99% of the warming will occur in less than 300 years. My question -- is there only 1 time constant as in this example, or is there indeed a fast and slow time constant such that additional warming due to CO2 alone takes place over millenia? Thanks!

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