Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings


All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  1189  1190  1191  1192  1193  1194  1195  1196  1197  1198  1199  1200  1201  1202  1203  1204  Next

Comments 59801 to 59850:

  1. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Uncle Ben - "KR: That charge has been answered quite often. It show a complete miunderstanding of the paper." I'm afraid I take Argument by Assertion as a logical fallacy. If you are referring (I'll note that it would help if you were more specific) to the extremely short time scales, I believe Tom Curtis has more than adequately pointed out Spencers flaws. The time frame used is simply inadequate for climate sensitivity measurements. If you are referring to Spencers conclusions regarding climate sensitivity and models, and Spencers egregious failure to present all the data he ran (including those that weakened his conclusions), you're going to need more support for your statements than simply asserting a "misunderstanding".
  2. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    KR 51 That charge has been answered quite often. It show a complete miunderstanding of the paper. Bob Loblaw 52 Thanks for the reassurance that I understand the process. The first few times around this merry-go-round is enough to establish the rate at which it is going. That is enough to permit measurement of the feedback sensitivity, since equilibrium is quickly established in the atmosphere within a month. No more posting for me, please. If you think I am wrong, let me live in my fantasy world in ignorance. Time will tell who is right.
  3. funglestrumpet at 07:40 AM on 24 April 2012
    2012 SkS Weekly Digest #16
    You ask what quotes we live by. I particularly like the work entitled 'Desiderata'. I know that there is a dispute about who wrote it, but I couldn't care less. I resolve that issue by turning to one of the main tenets of logic: The veracity of a statement is independent of the person who states it. If I had to single out only part of Desiderata, it would be: “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” Seeing as we are in poetic mode, I will pass on some advice that someone once gave me about how to deal with anyone in a senior position who was behaving as a 'Little Hitler': "Imagine them sitting on the toilet." He did also advise that it is essential to only laugh inwardly. Somewhat circuitously, that brings me back to another saying to live by, this time from Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
  4. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Don9000 - "...people will be more prone to remain inside or inactive, and thus obesity rates will tend to increase. Or perhaps people will be more likely to remain prone in the heat? With the same effect on obesity?
  5. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Of course, if all the people in regions experiencing more frequent and severe heatwaves go out and buy air conditioners, this will increase the use of electricity, and in most instances the production of Carbon Dioxide, since fossil fuels will often need to be burned to power them. Similarly, people will be more prone to remain inside or inactive, and thus obesity rates will tend to increase. Of course, it won't surprise me if I read a skeptic argue that the air conditioners will contribute to global cooling, and that inactive people generate less heat through work . . .
  6. Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
    Chris, Nice hypotheical explanation, but ultimately in the real climate you can't arbitarily separate the water vapor feedback from that of clouds and the latent heat of evaporation. All three of these physical processes are interconnected, and act together in a highly dynamic manner to maintain the current energy balance from the forcing of the Sun.
  7. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Ben@52 Increasing CO2 causes radiative imbalance. After X time, temperature rises. With higher temperature, atmospheric water vapour content increases, stablizing in a time period measured in days. That causes another radiative imbalance, which takes X time to cause another temperature rise, which leads to another increase in water vapour, ad infinitum. Now, Ben, are you really so poorly informed that you think that the "few days" it takes water vapour to adjust to a new temperature is the same length of time that it will take the earth-atmosphere system to adjust its temperature to the radiative imbalance? Or are you just trolling? [Hint: the time X is what you need to know before you can use observations to determine the long-term sensitivity to CO2 changes.]
  8. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Realist - I'm from NZ. Domestic electricity charges are around NZ$0.24 kWh. A bit of 50% is from hydro, ~11% from geothermal but wind is fastest growing sector. Gas is biggest part of the remaining thermal generation. For a country that espouses the free market so much, it's amazing the amount of subsidies that US citizen's tolerate.
  9. Daniel Bailey at 05:21 AM on 24 April 2012
    Weird Winter - March Madness
    Alas, poor TOP! Once again you get things wrongeth! Not only doth thee misapplyeth the term ad hominem (Note: My noting your wont of making assertions proven time and again to be wrong without owning up to the error, thus constituting a lack of credibility on your part, is hardly ad hominem; it is on a par with saying that since the sky is blue, it is not green), thou dost err in in saying that I cannot proveth thee a denier (straw man argument: I said, quote "The credibility of denial is always zero")! Hadst thee but said that I had intimated thee to be trøll then perhaps there maight be substance to thy yon gossamer rhetorical bones thee jangleth. While unintended, the maladroit malaprops are appreciated.
  10. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Daneel @6 - not predicted by 2100, no. As the post says, we're talking a few centuries in the future. That's the relevance.
  11. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    What's the relevance of the Sherwood & Huber? I mean, 10ºC is a huge increase in temperature, not even projected by the most extreme climate models.
  12. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Tom 50 Thank you for contributing to my education (sincerely). You say that equilibrium of water vapor effects are reached in a few days. That is the effect that amplifies CO2 warming, is it not? So where is the absurdity? I will once again say goodbye and thanks to all who have contributed useful eedback to me.
  13. Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    As to climate questions, especially global climate, I'm not only not qualified, but absolutely unable to gather data, test & qualify, discuss & describe, interpret & model or combine & evaluate within in even one single field of the broad spectre of relevant sciences. This situation is nothing unusual for me - in a highly specialised modern world there are very few areas where I myself have enough knowledge, experience and practice to come by with at least educated guesses. Heck, I can't even repair the damned car anymore because of the load of built-in electronic components today. But I've also learned - as anybody else - to delegate the workload to specialists. And here in Germany, there are a lot of great institutions bound to climate sciences - for decades now. If those "specialists" publish through formal channels and their findings are based on empirical data and their findings have a reasonable and coherent outcome, I trust them. Why shouldn't I? And then it really helps to consider between right and wrong when you permanently find those ad hominem attacks on denier blogs (e.g. calling Drs Rahmstorf and Schellnhuber "... so called climate scientists ..." on EIKE - don't look for it, it's WUWT, only worse).
  14. Weird Winter - March Madness
    In addition to Dr. Masters appearing in this video he has made an addition to his wunderground website allowing viewers to plot a line on temperatures showing temperature rise or fall anywhere in the world where records have been kept. Climate Change
  15. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Uncle Ben - "My understanding is that Spencer is looking for the sensitivity of temperature to the feedback from CO2" As Tom Curtis noted, what Spencer presented does not address anything commonly defined as climate sensitivity, due to the time factor. What he is looking over these short terms is the noise, not the signal - short term cloud variability is strongly affected by many variables, and climate sensitivity will be lost in the variability on these time scales. This inappropriate use of short term variations has been a pattern in a number of these studies, such as the various Lindzen and Choi papers. Spencer has, in addition, misrepresented the data - presenting the 6 models with the least and most sensitivity, claiming that lower sensitivities are closer fits - when he did not show additional models he had run, models with intermediate sensitivities but that better tracked the data. His test was in reality not of climate sensitivity, but of ENSO replication, a different question entirely. Not showing data in hand that contradicts his hypothesis is more than questionable. I would strongly suggest you read Dessler 2011 and Trenberth 2011 (links in my previous post) before claiming that Spencer is correct.
  16. Weird Winter - March Madness
    @8 Michael Sweet Which post on a denier blog are you attributing to me? This is the only climate blog I hang out on. @8 Daniel Bailey As usual the ad hominem attack. He can't even prove I am a climate denier. I wonder if apophenia can be treated? Maybe I should post a copy of my heating bill when it arrives. Of course Summer in March was a phenomenon affecting an area in the Midwest United States in which I live. (Courtesy of WunderGround for Niles, MI) Effect of blocking system on SW Michigan temperatures followed by below normal temperatures. Other nearby locations saw far lower (hard freeze) temperatures. #12 Killian It is typically touch and go with fruit trees the last few years. This year was really bad, but I think my orchard may have squeaked by except maybe the fact that the bees may not have been as busy as they should have been in March. Ants and wasps are very confused right now.
  17. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    There are three commonly used definitions of climate sensitivity. The slowest is the Earth System Sensitivity. The Earth System Climate Sensitivity is the change in temperature for a given forcing once equilibrium has been reached for all feedbacks including slow feedbacks. As slow feedbacks include the melting of ice sheets (with a time scale of thousands of years) and the equilibriation of atmospheric and deep ocean CO2 concentrations (time scale in the hundreds of years), ESCS measures sensitivity in the long term. More commonly used is the Charney Climate Sensitivity, which is the temperature reached for a given forcing after equilibrium is reached including all fast feedbacks, but no slow feedbacks. "Fast feedbacks" include such things as the watervapour feedback (time scale to equilibrium of days), changes to the cryosphere excluding ice sheets ie, snow and sea ice (time scale to equilibrium - decades) among a host of others. The short term climate sensitivity is the Transient Climate Responce, which is defined as:
    "The transient climate response is the change in the global surface temperature, averaged over a 20-year period, centred at the time of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubling, that is, at year 70 in a 1% yr–1 compound carbon dioxide increase experiment with a global coupled climate model. It is a measure of the strength and rapidity of the surface temperature response to greenhouse gas forcing."
    (My emphasis) So even the most rapid of the commonly defined measures of climate sensitivity is a response over decades. But by fiat, Uncle Ben declares that "... effect of feedback from CO2 warming does not involve the slow process of ocean waming ...". From that he concludes that measuring the sensitivity to only those processes which reach equilibrium in a matter of days measures the Charney Climate Sensitivity which is known to take decades, indeed up to a century or more, to reach equilibrium. It is amazing what absurdities you can believe when you allow yourself to use false premises asserted by fiat anytime they are needed.
  18. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    muon counter 46 KR @ 47 Many thanks for the link to the part of Tamino's treatise that you find most relevant. The beginning is quite clear, something that Spencer might have written. He supports the importance of speed of the process being discussed, including the fact that warming of air by ocean surface is fast and warming of ocean by the sun is slow. Where he diverges from Spencer is his undertaking to compute the sensitivity of the composite process from the jagged line. He says that to take the slope of just the jags is an error if you want to measure the sensitivity of the entire system to radiative forcing. My understanding is that Spencer is looking for the sensitivity of temperature to the feedback from CO2, which is what Hansen and others blame for the total strength of global warming. Since the effect of feedback from CO2 warming does not involve the slow process of ocean waming, it is quick, as acknowledged by Tamino. That is why the use of the slope of the jags is not a mistake but is added information. In Spencer's plots, showing short-term effects, the curvy parts show the ocean surface not in equilbrium. That is why one does not attempt to fit them with straight lines. The critics are right that to include everything in these short-term plots would be a mistake. But the parts of the plots that Spencer uses are straight, which indicates that the cause of the change happens quickly, reaching equilibrium in weeks, not years. So I think Tamino is correct up to the point where he objects to the use of the jags.
  19. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    45 - Ben. Ummm, ahhh... eh? Anyway. I had thought, with your history in statistics etc. maybe some detailed discussion... I'll leave it at that.
  20. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Since, as the article points out, we can't evolve to deal with the increased heat, the answer is going to be running energy-burning air conditioning to deal with the problem (which will be fine for those of us in First-World cities, I suppose). And that's just going to drain more energy and require investment in infrastructure that may not be the most economically advantageous place to be putting our money--and, since we don't know where the electricity will be coming from, we may be making the matter worse by firing up more fossil-fuel powered plants or bringing old plants back on line to meet the ever-soaring demand for electricity (energy that's not being used to produce goods and grow any economy, but just to keep us from dropping dead). Many major cities already experience brownouts or blackouts during the hottest parts of the year. For all the shrieking the deniers do about correlation not implying causation, you'd think they'd do better than this.
  21. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Arguably, the rate of change is the strongest factor creating an imperative for action and negating Knappenberger's arguments. As noted in the discussion of the PETM, those changes took place over a period of ~200,000 years (a temperature shift of 2.5*10-3 to 4*10-3 °C per century given a temperature change of 5 to 8 °C). In contrast, the shift in modern times thus far ends up being about two orders of magnitude more rapid (if memory serves).
  22. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Uncle Ben - You have now been pointed to multiple issues with Spencers work. These criticisms include some peer-reviewed papers: Dessler 2011 - "It is also shown that observations of the lagged response of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy fluxes to surface temperature variations are not evidence that clouds are causing climate change." Trenberth et al 2011 - "...some efforts have been shown to contain major errors and are demonstrably incorrect. ...cloud variability is not a deterministic response to surface temperatures...many of the problems in LC09 have been perpetuated..." They also include Taminos analysis, comments here, and the noteworthy problems in many of Spencers works with basic statistics. If you continue to hold to Spencers work without considering or addressing these issues, I would have to suspect you are suffering from confirmation bias.
  23. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Uncle Ben#40: "He did it by utilizing periods of time when clouds were heated more by some non-radiative forcing, such as ocean currents, than by the sun." That's quite a trick! If the figures posted above are representative of this great work, where are the gaps between monthly observations that represent months when the sun was doing the heating? As far as 'heating clouds by some non-radiative forcing,' that mechanism needs a bit more substantiation. FYI: tamino's analysis was linked here.
  24. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Les, (44), my reply was that the post I referred to was not signed, and I relied on commenters to say who wrote it. It may have been someone else. You may be right.
  25. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Since these plans seem be over the longer term such as several decades, is it really a myth that "renewables can't provide baseload power" since they can't provide it now or in the short term? There are exciting new technologies coming out like vanadium redox batteries that seem to have the potential of solving the indeterminacy problem of wind and solar (and traditional power generation sources as well).
  26. Cornelius Breadbasket at 23:06 PM on 23 April 2012
    Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    Why do I think I’m right? I don’t know if I do. I’m a layperson when it comes to science, so I feel that it is possibly harder for me to ‘know’ I’m right than many others who post here. I apologise if my reasoning and arguments are simplistic, I am not a complex thinker. What does ‘right’ mean? Throughout my life I’ve learned that in order to make informed decisions you have to continue to question everything until you perceive a balance of evidence. ‘Right’ about what? Right that human activity is warming the planet, changing the climate and could be dangerous. The evidence that I have seen and the experts that I trust help me to make decisions about AGW. Again, the following list is extremely simplistic but it is genuinely part of my personal decision-making process. Personal experience:
    • I’ve been a gardener/small farmer for 30 years. Food production is becoming harder because of recent weather pattern changes
    • I live in the UK and we are seeing new species of insects migrating to the UK from southern Europe
    • Occasionally there are Daffodils at Christmas – in my childhood and youth they came in March and April
    • Garden birds are nesting in March instead of April and May
    • There have been more extreme weather events than during my childhood and formative years. We are currently experiencing a drought
    • I have had dramatic personal experience of a near-fatal flooding event in 2007 (I understand that this was a one in a thousand year event. We have had two more similar flooding events in the UK since then)
    • Insurance premiums increasing because of increased flood risk
    • I have seen that human activity can have a detrimental effect on landscapes, levels of pollution and biodiversity so it is probable that human activity has an effect on the atmosphere of a finite planet
    Informed sources I also look to experts to help make informed decisions. This is how I choose the experts that I feel I can trust:
    • People with qualifications in the field in which they speak
    • People who admit if they are wrong and re-evaluate their claims based on evidence
    • People who have access to the latest and most up-to-date equipment and research methods
    • People who are open about any political, corporate or financial motivations that may influence their opinions
    • Those who are not motivated by fame or notoriety
    Using these points as a filter I rule out the opinions of Gore, Michaels, Lovelock, Lindzen, Spencer, Singer, Christy, Watts and Monckton. I rule in the opinions of Mann, Hansen, Briffa, Jones, Trenbeth, Schneider, Schmidt, Alley and Abraham. The balance of my own experience is that the climate is changing and that the world has become more populous and industrialised. The balance of opinion of the experts that I trust is that human activity is warming the planet, causing climate change and is likely to be dangerous. So, in summary, I think I am right because of personal experience combined with the opinions of experienced expert sources in areas in which I am not qualified.
  27. Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    So I'm a skeptic. I find it hard to believe that warming of 2 or more degrees will happen this century. But that seems to be what the smart people are saying, and you'd be a fool to ignore them and just hope it won't happen. But as with many other commentators here, its the "skeptics" themselves who make me feel more confident that AGW is a problem. The "skeptical" position is totally undermined by their own arguments. Once you've seen a "skeptic" embrace a particularly silly idea (Salby's is just another one), it is very hard to take them seriously on anything else they say. Their weird ideas on economics and government also make it hard to give their views on climate any credence. It is worth noting that extreme environmentalists are the same as "skeptics". They are only too willing to incorporate the latests silly idea into their world view.
  28. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Wow, I thought the "heat waves are good for you" argument was relegated to the amateurs in the blogs. Thanks for pointing to and explaining some of the peer reviewed literature on the subject. Sad that some will so callously be willing to burden the future with such a risk as reduced inhabitable areas.
  29. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Michael Sweet Thats a quote and obviously meant to be millions. My point is that virtually all electricity is subsidised. You cheery-picked that nuclear was uneconomic without a subsidy in Florida, when Florida ONLY pays 10 cents per kwh retail. But did you mention which sources of electricity would be economic at 10 c/kwh retail? No conveniently ommitted. Here is a link to Wikipedia for the cost of generation for the various sources. This is wholesale and excludes the costs for transmission, distribution, billing, marketing and profit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
  30. Michael Whittemore at 20:10 PM on 23 April 2012
    Shakun et al. Clarify the CO2-Temperature Lag
    The next comments in a numerical order that William has to answer is 100# which asks if William understands that "surely the [temperature rise of] 7% proposed by Shakun et al for the initial, pre CO2 warming includes any feedback due to water vapour". Only if William had the ability to read a couple of comments ahead.
  31. michael sweet at 19:58 PM on 23 April 2012
    Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Realist: "The federal government provides hundreds of billions for renewable energy projects". It is a waste of my time to argue with someone who contradicts his own posts. What is your point? I have made mine that nuclear is uneconomic.
  32. Piet R. Zijlstra at 18:24 PM on 23 April 2012
    2012 SkS Weekly Digest #16
    "Take one risk per day" becomes with our global carbon management "Take every day the biggest risk"
  33. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Even in areas accustomed to high temperatures, the effects can be devastating. Everyone knows the high number of spectacularly awful deaths by bushfire in Victoria a couple of years ago. What they overlook is that more people died, quietly and unspectacularly, in the heatwave that made the fires possible.
  34. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Michael Sweet If Florida pays $1bn subsidy to build a power plant, well that is only $52 per person living in Florida. I would be happy to pay a $52 subsidy if I could then get electricity for 10 cents per kwh like you do. I would recoup the $52 in about 2 months as I pay 21 cents per kwh.
  35. Doug Hutcheson at 17:43 PM on 23 April 2012
    Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    the costs of losing the habitability of large regions of the planet are incalculable.
    Incalculable, eh? Right there is another reason for not acting too soon, until we can calculate the cost. Those warmist alarmist greenie pinko world dominators are just tryin' to scare ya Mabel. Gimme another beer! </sarc>
  36. Global Surface Warming Since 1995
    #8 KR, #9 Sphaerica and #10 dana1981 Thanks for responding, and I'm sorry to be a little late getting back to you - I've been away for much of the last few days. Having looked at the matter again, I must say, yes, you are right: I had misinterpreted the Jones 1995 statement and he was merely concerned with the question of whether or not there had been warming since then. I still find the Santer paper somewhat ambiguous from the quote given above, since he refers to "identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature" rather than simply to "warming". As for Forster and Rahmstorf 2011, they show that when ENSO, solar and volcanic influences are removed from the temperature series there is still a warming trend. I cannot see how interpreting that by saying that the remaining warming trend cannot be attributed to ENSO, solar and volcanic influences is incorrect, though my final sentence in #7 went too far.
  37. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    35 - Ben "I am willing to try to answer your questions regarding Taminos post" I don't recall asking you any questions regarding that post other than how could you say that tamino denies dH/dt vs dT represents inverse sensitivity when he says explicitly that. You did not respond to my correction (which, itself could be wrong, and if so you could say why). I'm doubtful...
  38. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Uncle Ben @40, let me assure you that the x-axis represents temperature anomalies in degrees K, the y-axis represents TOA net radiative flux anomalies in W/m^2, just as in the previous figure shown by me, and as in the figure shown by muoncounter @26. Further, just as in the previous figure I showed you, radiative flux is the only source of heating (something which is not true in the figure muoncounter showed). Therefore based on the reasoning you stated in 5, and which is the foundation of your case, the slope of the lines which approximately parallel the red line must "give the sensitivity". If they do not, then you must provide a reason for the exception or admit the counterexample refutes your theory.
  39. Michael Whittemore at 14:47 PM on 23 April 2012
    Shakun et al. Clarify the CO2-Temperature Lag
    @ Sphaerica 146 I would have to agree, the paper by Clark et al. 2012 explains the H2O/CO2 aspect of the warming seen in the last glaciation.
  40. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    @52 Places without subsidies a few and far between in or out of US. Your lquestion implies you know some. Would you like to share including the price?
  41. Doug Hutcheson at 13:51 PM on 23 April 2012
    Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Uncle Ben @ 40, you ask:
    What hypothesis do you refer to?
    Earlier in your comment, you claimed:
    Spencer has discovered how to separate feedback from forcing in satellite data and has used it to measure the sensitivity of feedback to solar heating.
    Until Spencer's 'discovery' has been reviewed and validated, I regard it as only an hypothesis. Clearly, from comments here and elsewhere, there is a weight of scientific analysis suggesting that Spencer is wrong. In other words, Spencer's science is not yet independently supported. When there is a weight of scientific analysis that supports his claim, I will elevate it from hypothesis to theory. Does that sound fair?
  42. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    "Do you agree virtually all electricity is subsidized?" Can I assume that is this only talking about the USA?
  43. The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
    Could the next version of the document please NOT use the 2-column layout. It is a pain reading this on a screen or e-reader, you have to continually scroll up/down. The 2 column format is suitable for a magazine, and looks nice but it is impractical for electronic reading IMHO.
  44. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Michael sweet Florida has electricity at 10 cents per kwh. Believe it or not, you have subsidized electricity. Try joining the rest of us paying nearly twice that. I again make my single point that virtually all electricity is susidised to keep the price down for consumers. Do you agree virtually all electricity is subsidized? And please stop accusing me of claiming "hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies".I didnt say that. I think you have the posts mixed up.
  45. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    40, Uncle Ben,
    Spencer has discovered how to separate feedback from forcing in satellite data...
    No, he hasn't. Repeating it as often as you can does not make it so.
    He did it by...
    No, he didn't. He didn't succeed. His logic was grossly flawed, and your tacit and uncritical acceptance (acceptance? praise and worship is more like it) is singularly unconvincing. Your arguments to date amount to nothing more than "Spencer is great" and "I like what he said."
  46. michael sweet at 12:34 PM on 23 April 2012
    Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Realist, My point, as I stated in my first post, was that nuclear power appears to be uneconomic. You have not produced any useful references. Eric's post states that the entire wind industry in the USA receives less than 500 million per year. Your claim of 1Bn/yr for Texas alone is false (as was your claim of "hundreds of billions"). I cited a single nuclear plant that has received over 1Bn in subsidies (over several years). It is not clear what your point is. Renewables receive less subsidies than established power industries in the USA, which is backwards from what should happen. The OP in this thread discusses whether renewables can produce baseload power. You have produced nothing to support your apparent claim that renewables will not be able to handle all power needs in the future.
  47. Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
    Tom 39, that is a curious plot. If it refers to a system like the ones we have been discussion, I can't imagine what process creates the bowing out of the nearly vertical lines. Assuming that the horizontal axis represents temperature and the vertical axis represents rate of heating, it is clear the temperature is being affected by something else and heating has almost no effect. Doug 38 You refer to Spencer's hypothesis. To my way of thinking, he has put forward no hypothesis. Feedback is the question of the century. Previously one could not measure feedback without including solar forcing. Spencer has discovered how to separate feedback from forcing in satellite data and has used it to measure the sensitivity of feedback to solar heating. He did it by utilizing periods of time when clouds were heated more by some non-radiative forcing, such as ocean currents, than by the sun. That eliminated the sun from the forcing leaving only the feedback radiation. What hypothesis do you refer to?
  48. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Michael sweet Just recapping:- Your post was that the florida nuclear plant was subsidized and you believed it shouldnt be. My point was that virtually all electricity is subsidized so that the electricity cost to consumers is kept down. Your point was that you didnt think wind in Texas would be subsidized. I came back with an article that the wind industry in Texas wants the $1bn in a year subsidy to continue. You have now read the link by Eric and quoted the subsidies for the different forms of energy. I take that as you acknowledge the subsidies for electricity are widespread and across the different forms of electricity production. I am not clear what your point is. Can you please be concise as to what it is?
  49. Doug Hutcheson at 11:37 AM on 23 April 2012
    Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    bill @ 63, I gave up reading the comments at JoNova, after finding this gem:
    It is probable that oil existed before plant life – that fossils found in coal are merely plant life enveloped in solidified oil.
    And this one:
    “‘controlling the natural flux of CO2 is ... a fool’s errand to try”" How do we get this message into the public domain after so many years of “scientific” indoctrination in schools??
    Sigh.
  50. Eric (skeptic) at 11:24 AM on 23 April 2012
    Weird Winter - March Madness
    Killian, for the record we agree completely that the crop losses can be blamed on anomalous warmth in March, not the normal April weather. Some trees in some places were as much as 3-4 weeks early. For that I blame AGW on top of a modified La Nina pattern which kept the eastern US much warmer and drier this past winter. More importantly (and on topic) we had a positive AO winter, except for February. This is consistent with the traditional theory of AGW, e.g. http://courses.washington.edu/pcc587/readings/Held1993.pdf that the relatively weak NH winter jet (compared to the SH) with more Rossby waves due to irregular land masses would become more like the SH jet: stronger polar jet, weaker meridional penetration and very cold polar temperatures. This Held reference is old, 1993, but I have yet to find a paper that disputes it or any of the many papers that followed the same theory up until about 2002. To me it looks like a common source of the change from the theory of stronger jets with AGW to weaker came from the Alexander paper (my last link in #5). I've been looking through the references in that paper, but many are paywalled. One that is not is http://acacia.ucar.edu/cas/cdeser/Docs/deser.arcticseaice.jclim00.pdf where they show that as sea ice decreases, NAO increases (see fig 5). Again as I stated above this means less blocking, stronger jet, less undulation, etc as sea ice decreases. I could certainly be wrong, but in order for me to be wrong there should be an explanation somewhere that the stronger jet (Held, etc) theory and weaker jet theory have been simultaneously investigated over the years and the weaker jet theory has been found to be more supported (or stronger jet less supported). I have yet to find such a statement in any paper and not for lack of trying. My conclusion until other evidence shows up is that the Alexander results are unsupported.

Prev  1189  1190  1191  1192  1193  1194  1195  1196  1197  1198  1199  1200  1201  1202  1203  1204  Next



The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us