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Bob Lacatena at 15:28 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
218, primespot,A simple look at the data...
An overly simplistic look at anything will lead you to wrong conclusions. Your "look at the data" is so far off the mark it suggests that you haven't looked at the data at all, you've listened to others, or presumed that the data says what you'd like. An intelligent and informed look at the data will show you that your statements are false....shutting off all carbon generating activities...
No one is saying this except for fear-mongers who want to scare other people out of thinking things through. What is necessary is aggressive but moderate action now, rather than complete lethargy and inaction. Failure to act now will simply require more desperate measures later, measures that will hurt society and economies, because they'll have to be too radical and too aggressive....find ways to live on a warmer planet?
No, because it will be more expensive to do so, and the planet will not simply "be warmer." That's a gross misunderstanding of what we're facing.Why do we assume that...
It's not an assumption, it's an understanding based on knowledge and facts.Like so many dialogues in our society today - this one is taken over by biased people trying to shout over one another, rather than starting with facts and ending with a course of action.
And finally, in conclusion, you say something sensible. Now that you have all of that shouting and lathered up umbrage out of your system, welcome to Skeptical Science! This site has a wealth of information which will help to educate you on the issues so that you can understand them, rather than shout platitudes based on ignorance and a complete misunderstanding. Please use the search box in the upper left hand corner. Many articles are presented in beginner, intermediate and expert versions, whichever best suits your own personal starting point and level of understanding. When you have learned more, and are able to actually make supportable statements, then we can talk. Until then, standing up and shouting as loudly as you can that you are right and everyone else is crazy will not be nearly as effective as first learning and then starting with facts and ending with a course of action. -
primespot at 14:56 PM on 29 March 2012Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To say that the levels of CO2 before the Industrial Revolution remained static is just wrong. CO2, temperatures and water levels have fluctuated quite dramatically for a long time. To have a serious debate, we must start with known facts - not a bunch of hypotheses inferred from data. We all know that data can be used to support any bias. There is simply no evidence that shows absolutely that carbon dioxide levels are the root cause of the phenomenon known as "global warming." It is a fact that there is a "greenhouse effect" taking place, but is higher carbon dioxide levels the root cause or just a symptom? A simple look at the data could also suggest that long cycle changes in ocean currents or a cooling/shrinking planet or some other factor could just as easily be the culprit - and, of course, it could also be mankind. There is no evidence that proves that shutting off all man-made sources of carbon output - even if it were possible - would alter the changes taking place. There is an abundant supply of common sense that says shutting off all carbon generating activities by mankind would cause a great deal of hardship to a lot of people! Wouldn't our energy be better spent trying to find ways to live on a warmer planet? Why do we assume - with some arrogance - that mankind has all this power to affect global temperature? Why do we assume that mankind is some non-natural force? Isn't mankind just another part of nature? Like so many dialogues in our society today - this one is taken over by biased people trying to shout over one another, rather than starting with facts and ending with a course of action.Moderator Response: [Sph] Other mods, please do not delete this comment for being off-topic. Please leave it as a testament to how much passion, intensity and surety a person can put into a position as long as it is based on assumption and hearsay rather then investigation, education, and understanding. -
markx at 14:06 PM on 29 March 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Thanks scad. I’ll have good look at that. Yes, I have a copy of "Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly" Mann etal 2009. It worries me a bit in that it is a modelled set of data (world temperature anomalies: see Fig 2) for which there are only 6 available proxy sources in the southern hemisphere, and four of those (at least) show a warming signal, yet the SH hemisphere is largely mapped as having cooled during the MWP. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 13:22 PM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Chriskoz @4 The link to Adam Spencer's interview is interesting. Mockton identifies the professor at Rochester as David Douglas, of Douglas & Knox fame I presume, who gave Monckton a Nobel pin because he had supposedly edited a table in the report and was entitled to a prize just like all the other scientists involved. Whether those scientists are actually Nobel Laureates is dubious since they aren't on the Panel, they are advisers to it. Thats like saying that Al Gore's press secretary is a Nobel Laureate because Al is. Interesting comment further on. Monckton refers to himself as "...we on the Centre Right..." Centre. Or Far Right? -
muoncounter at 11:16 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb#11: "But you do no analysis here, and you ignore the actual analysis and results of the authors’ work." So let's look at those results, thoughtfully presented in consistent graphical form in their figures 4-19. For example, their fig 4 (Tromso, Norway):
Note the rate of temperature increase at this location: 0.36 deg C per 100 years. Most of the following figures are locations that show similar temperature increases. However, we see rates of 0.18 deg C per decade in much of the northern hemisphere. In other words, the authors have selected locations that show minimal warming. They are effectively analyzing the noise, rather than the signal.
However, figure 13 (Archangel, Russia) shows the most significant warming, at 1.4 deg C per century.
In the upper panel, the temperature is 'corrected' for this sunspot cycle length. Despite that 'correction,' the upper panel clearly shows additional warming of more than 1 degree C since the 1970s. In that time period, figure 1 (posted by Tom C above), sunspot cycle length has no discernible trend. How, then does cycle length explain away that warming?
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scaddenp at 10:13 AM on 29 March 2012There's no tropospheric hot spot
Responding to this post by tompinlb. In addition to the discussion in the Advanced tab of this article, issues over errors and biases in radiosonde data are discussed here with references to the relevant papers. -
bill at 09:15 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
I think there's a good case for 'Lord Mitty', but perhaps I'm showing my age and my fondness for Thurber! Stephen M, I found a similar example, from an interview of his on the dreadful Infowars.com the other day, where he refers to himself as an economist -what is happening is that Economists the world over, from President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic to Bjorn Lomborg to me in the United Kingdom, to Nigel Lawson…
(These 'economists' all know, of course, that any attempt at pricing Carbon will bring about Calamity, Anarchy, Penury, Usury, and Tears Before Bedtime. You have to wait 'til 2 hours 16 mins for this gem, and there were many others - those curious about what His Lordship said to Prince Charles at his birthday soirée can find further material here.) Wow, Dana, if you publish at Watts that means you get to be in the in-crowd, and can even call the delightful James Delingpole 'Dellers' as the rest of them do! I believe this makes His Lordship 'Monckers', and with the change of only one letter... -
Doc Snow at 08:45 AM on 29 March 2012New research from last week 12/2012
Love those "Classics," Ari! I wrote about Angstrom 1913--and Wells, Pouillet, and Dines, and Callendar, and Elsasser in this article: http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Fire-From-Heaven-Climate-Science-And-The-Element-Of-Life-Part-Two-The-Cloud-By-Night Angstrom does deserve to be better known. -
tompinlb at 08:43 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Dikran@13, I appreciate the suggestion that it may be more productive to consider one matter at a time. Let's start with the tropical hotspot. I have read the Skeptical Science postings on the tropical hotspot. My understanding of the theory is that the tropical hotspot, if it were to exist, would be an indicator of the amplification of surface warming by water vapor in the upper troposphere. It would be an indicator that the positive feedback mechanism of water vapor, hypothesized by mainstream AGW theory, is significant. And I agree, as you say, that according to this theory, the tropical hotspot would be the expected result of any surface warming, not just that driven by CO2. The absence of the tropospheric hotspot would imply that the hypothesized water vapor positive feedback mechanism does not work as AGW theory, as embodied in climate models, assumes. This goes to the heart of the dispute over climate sensitivity. I think you are mistaken when you draw the conclusion that because everyone agrees the surface has warmed, then there may well be a problem with the radiosondes. Is there any published evidence for the actual existence of the tropical hotspot? Radiosondes measure temperatures with resolution of 0.1 degree. Now rather than conclude that there is a problem with thousands of readings from hundreds of radiosondes, over many years, I would suggest that an alternative hypothesis is that there is, indeed, no tropical tropospheric hot spot, and that the AGW hypotheses about the mechanisms and the magnitude of water vapor amplification / positive feedback are in error. In the face of the radiosonde evidence, does that not seem to be a reasonable alternative hypothesis? Which is the more reasonable conclusion, that all of the radiosonde data is in error, or that the AGW water vapor amplification hypothesis is in error?Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Discussions at SkS are kept focussed on specific issues and off-topic posts are normally deleted. Please could you re-post your comment on the thread about the tropical hotspot and I can delete it from this one to keep things tidy. Any responses to this post should similarly be made on the thread indicated (I'll look in tomorrow - its past my bed-time already! ;o) N.B. I have now posted a response on the appropriate thread. -
John Mason at 08:42 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Geoff, Hopefully I was the "always polite" one, though in retrospect I cannot guarantee that. I was often as robust as some of the opposition, and I think you know who I mean - we have both been bashing along on those threads for years and have seen most things! However, I am always more willing to debate the science rather than rake over bits of hacked private correspondence. My article there was on the drought as it was in February and the interesting problems of perception and instinct that brought with it: droughts are normally connected in a visual manner with heat, when in fact the simple lack of average rainfall over many months is what sets them up. It was a well-received piece, but I wasn't awarded the "Blue C"! WRT your remaining BH comments about me, yes GM and I keep in touch, but only occasionally when there's something of especial interest to us both, and now that he has moved back to England I guess even that will be less frequent. What I will say having got to know him is that he is genuine in what he writes, as I hope you understand I am, too, although clearly we take a different approach. Climate science fascinates me, not just the now, or the future, but the past. Is it not something that I and others should be blogging about, and why? Why not talk and write about what the folks doing the science are finding? Cheers - John -
Chris G at 07:35 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Simpler: Think of the sheet as a piece of mylar with a positive charge, and the measured anomalies as negatively charged points - no nails or other mechanical suspension. -
Chris G at 07:32 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Glen, We have similar thoughts; though, I think you might be thinking of the sheet as having mass, and therefore an attraction to the sphere, which would give the overall surface a low bias. Think of it as only having an attraction to the measured values (anomalies). Rigidity and stretch matter a lot; if you have a low point entirely surrounded by higher points in close proximity, do you use the measurement at that point as the elevation of the sheet (nearby stations are weighted 0), or do you use some relative weighting based on proximity? Reverse the situation, suppose there is a high point surrounded by low points? They have to be treated the same or a bias is introduced. (Anybody confused about anomalies should read Glen's posts, but, loosely, an anomaly is a difference between a measurement and a mean of some set of measurements. Using anomalies clarifies between warming and cooling immediately at any locale; positive is warmer, negative is cooler. That removes all sorts of problems; including temperature differences between stations that are nearby in lat and long, but separated by altitude.) I did not have time to more than skim the Hansen and Lebedeff paper, just enough to see that the algorithms were indeed essentially the same, and that they had worked out (fleshed in) weight relationships by distance, based on correlations between stations, that were still nebulous in my mind. However, pretty sure that the result is that a value on the sheet is not necessarily identical to a value of a station at the same point. Flexibility of the sheet is logically equivalent to the decline in correlation between stations with distance, which was reported in the paper. A rapid decline in correlation would indicate physics that created a more flexible sheet metaphor. -
Dikran Marsupial at 07:16 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
@geoff I've had a look at recent threads and they don't seem that different to me. As I said on the other thread on the SkS hack the topic of PCA came up (as Eric says an important topic at BH), but important points countering the arguments against Mann were glossed over and there was too much personalisation for a sensible discussion to prosper. But if the topic of the anthropogenic component of the rise in CO2 comes up, let me know and I'll pop over an test the waters again on a topic I have researched myself (might well happen if Murray Salby's paper ever sees the light of day). -
muoncounter at 07:00 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb#11: "for a number of stations in Norway and the North Atlantic, temperatures do in fact significantly track solar cycle length. " You omit a significant detail: No significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the average temperature in the same cycle, but a significant negative trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. --emphasis added What is the mechanism that allows temperature to lag the sunspot cycle by 11 years? How can that be, given other research showing no evidence of such a lag? The temperature anomalies in the Northern and Southern hemispheres show similar statistical relations with the solar and geomagnetic indices. The cross-correlation analysis shows no statistically significant global temperature lag behind the sunspots as well as behind aa-indices. -
Doc Snow at 06:43 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Yeah, this is a depressing video, for the reasons above. But--discouragement is just part of the human condition, and despair is not adaptive. Gotta keep on slugging. -
geoffchambers at 06:35 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dikran Marsupial #123 Thanks for the reply. I’ll take you up on that. You say later at #119 that at BH you “found there was no willingness to discuss the science, just rhetoric”. The subject of the thread was not the science but the SkS leak or hack. Try a different thread. John Mason #118 I was the one that brought up your two user names. Those who have had articles published at the Graun normally have a big “C” next to their below-the-line comments, to indicate that they are contributors, and not just run-of-the-mill readers off the street. Neither of your names had that. Also, I was banned from CiF for a long time for using two user names (not concurrently) on the grounds of impersonation. It took me a long time to persuade them that changing from gmchambers to geoffchambers did not constitute astroturfing. -
scaddenp at 06:16 AM on 29 March 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Markx - see Chpter 6 of AR4, WG1 ("Paleoclimate"), for compilation of modelling that had been done at time of publication, compared to proxy reconstructions. Have you read Mann et al 2009? -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:14 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
@tompinlb It is not an insult to the authors to bein by assuming it isn't astrology. Sadly there are a number of papers on similar topics that are little more than climastrology. The assumption was that this wasn't one of them. There are several posts on SkS about galactic cosmic rays and their influence on climate. You will find that the evidence for GCRs having a large effect on climate is rather slight. It would be a good idea for you to familiarise yourself with the existing discussion. Your post also includes some incorrect ideas (e.g. the tropical hotspot) which is the expected result of any surface warming, regardless of whether it is due to CO2 or not. I rather doubt that anyone seriously questions the fact that the surface has warmed so that would suggest that the problem may well lie with the radiosondes. Arguing with good natured humour is often a good idea, and pointing out problems (in this case correlation is not causation) using a simple analogy similarly helps to get the point accross. I don't think anyone has been insulted so far, so please try not to escalate any misunderstanding. We are happy to discuss the science here. The best thing to do is to raise a single point in each post as that facilitates the discussion reaching a conclusion on that issue, rather than get lost in a broad multi-branched discussion. -
scaddenp at 06:08 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics? They also published Scafetta's climatastology paper. Did they publish Humlum's 2011 nonsense too? What's intriguing here is the idea that a very small forcing in sun can account for temperature variation, yet much larger forcings do not. However, like Scafetta's curve-fitting, it makes predictions that can be quickly refuted. However, because of the nature of curve-fitting, I am sure some new and exciting other variable will found by skeptics when these have failed. -
tompinlb at 06:04 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
The authors of the paper discuss in some detail the method they use to calculate the length of the solar cycle. If you wish to criticize their approach, it would be more helpful if you raised specific objections to their method. You state that their method yields different results than Friis-Christensen 1991, but you do not address the substance of the authors’ method. You make a comment that we must “assume the theory is not simply astrology.” The authors are respected scientists, not astrologists. Is this an ad hominem criticism? There are various theories that posit causal relationships between solar activity and changes in global temperature. One of the more interesting posits a relationship between solar magnetic flux, the incidence of cosmic rays in the earth’s atmosphere, and the formation of low level clouds especially in the tropics. The research exploring these relationships is a work in process, but there are clear theories of causality that are being investigated. This is hardly astrology. You say that “we expect temperatures to significantly track solar cycle length if the theory is true.” And then you proceed to say what you think this would mean, and how it would show up, peaking in 1930, etc. But you do no analysis here, and you ignore the actual analysis and results of the authors’ work. In this paper they demonstrate that for a number of stations in Norway and the North Atlantic, temperatures do in fact significantly track solar cycle length. Do you take issue with their methods and their statistical analysis? When skeptical scientists point out that global temperatures in the last ten to fifteen years have not risen as fast as they had been projected to rise by the IPCC models, while CO2 continues to increase steadily, advocates of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming respond that other factors affect global temperatures, that the heat is hidden in the ocean, etc. So when you say that temperatures should significantly track solar cycle length, you do not allow for other influences. So this appears to be a straw man argument. The authors postulate a mechanism that solar influences affect the absorption of heat by the tropical oceans, and that this heat in turn affects surface temperatures as it is distributed through the oceanic circulation. They also acknowledge that the lag between solar heating influences and surface temperature varies depending on how many years it takes for these influences to reach various parts of the earth. These authors make specific forecasts that can be tested, and we will see whether temperatures do in fact decline in the areas they identify. I give them credit for that. It would be more helpful to the progress of science if those who argue for the singular importance of CO2 to global temperatures would make falsifiable hypotheses that can be rigorously tested. Many of us thought that the IPCC’s prediction of a tropospheric hot spot would be a testable hypothesis for the presence of water vapor amplification/positive feedback, which is assumed in their models, but instead it seems most defenders of the consensus science now argue that it is really there but there are problems with the thousands of radiosondes that can’t find it. Your criticisms and straw man argument do not address the substance of the arguments that are being made by the authors. And when you conclude that their work has no more substance than projecting temperatures based on hemlines, one must conclude that your prefer to argue with humour and insults rather than seriously address the paper. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:56 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
@geoffchambers applogies for misinterpreting the lack of response. I'm always happy to discuss the science. The problem with discussing the socio-politico-economic issues is that it must be based on a proper understanding of the science, so there needs to be a reasonable degree of agreement on that before any progress can be made on socio-politico-econimic issues. If we start the discussion from socio-economic or political considerations, we will be approaching it from the direction least likely to result in progress. "Mother Nature" is blind to politics or economics or social issues, we need to work out how "she" will respond to our actions to know what our options are and work from there. Sadly as far as I can tell from what I have seen at BH, there is a reluctance to discuss the science in a balanced manner, so I doubt I'll be posting there any further, but I will check my email. -
geoffchambers at 05:40 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dikran Marsupial #119 You quote my comment on the Bishop Hill thread in which I suggested a dialogue. When you responded politely offering to discuss on your private email address, I responded positively, since it seemed the decent thing to do. (I also asked if your offer to discuss science also included social science, but I don’t remember you replying. There was a lot going on on that thread so I may just have missed it). I may yet take up your offer. As I said in my numerous comments at BH, I appreciated the polite tone of your comments and those of Tom Curtis - not easy in the circumstances. You missed out the beginning of my comment though, in which I said: “I noticed the email addresses of some people I’ve had energetic (foul-mouthed even) disputes with at CiF...” . To be clear, I was thinking of two of your authors, regular commenters at CommentisFree in the Guardian, with whom I have had long and often interesting disputes in the past. With one of them, the discussion sometimes got extremely rude, though I appreciated his intelligent approach. The other author was always polite. My thinking in proposing a dialogue was this: the socio-political situation wrt global warming and the measures to prevent it has taken some surprising twists in the past few years. It may continue to do so (e.g. the weather might take a funny turn; so might electors). Reasoned discussion between the two “sides” is practically non-existant. A private no-holds-barred discussion now might prove to be interesting at some date in the future. The condition would be total confidentiality until or unless both of us agreed to make public our discussion. My promise here is my guarantee of confidentiality. I would trust him to keep his side of the bargain. If the author concerned (I’m sure he knows who I mean) wants to contact me, the administrator here has my email address. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:10 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Eric, you miss the point. It was a poster at BH that expressed a desire for a bridge building communication via email, not me. I thought that was a good idea and was willing to take part, but it turned out that the suggestion was not genuine, just rhetoric. The discussion of PCA on BH is similarly rhetorical, they even stoop to pointless spelling pedantry, while ignoring the point that centering actually doesn't make much difference and that a wide variety of other methods give similar results. There really isn't any point discussing the statistical subtleties to them if they can't even cope with the basics. Science is about truth-seeking, not winning the argument, and I am interested in science. -
Tom Curtis at 05:04 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Let's put tompinlb's new great hope into context. Below is figure 1 from the paper, showing solar cycle lengths since 1680:
The first thing you should notice is that it looks nothing like the solar cycle lengths from 1860 as shown in Friis-Christensen 1991, particularly in the early part of the 20th century. One or the other of these papers has got the solar cycle lengths wrong, and possibly both. Given the central role of solar cycle length in this theory, that does not inspire confidence.
The second thing to do is to assume that the theory is not simply astrology. By that, I mean that the theory must postulate some causal connection between solar cycle length and global temperatures. The connection may be indirect. It may be that some factor causes the changes in solar cycle length and also through an extended causal chain causes the changes in global temperature, but it must exist.
Given that, we expect temperatures to significantly track solar cycle length if the theory is true. That would mean that global temperatures peak for the 20th century in 1930 (remembering to allow for the lag). They would then have remained almost constant with only a slight downward trend until a very sharp dip in the 1980's, followed by a sharp rise, although not to temperatures experienced in 1930.
Now, we can allow that there is some general trend on top of that pattern, and some noise disrupting that pattern, but the pattern should still be discernible. So what do we get?
We get an early temperature peak a decade too late, 1980's temperatures above that early peak and a continuing sharp rise in temperatures. That pattern is almost completely dissimilar, with the only thing in common being a rising trend over the 20th century.
In other words, this paper is arguing a connection between temperature and solar cycle length on a basis which would equally well establish a connection between global temperatures and the hemlines of skirts. We better hope we have no return to Victorian mores, or else we'll have a little ice age again ;)
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Eric (skeptic) at 04:59 AM on 29 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Dikran, you have received zero emails out of a very small sample size on a wide variety topics while you admit your expertise is specialized in statistics. You might get a response by helping KR defend Mann's HS statistics on the new "tree hut" thread. That is more in line with Montford's reasons for creating that site. -
mohyla103 at 04:47 AM on 29 March 2012It's not bad
JMurphy, First, thank you for taking the time to continue the discussion. Unfortunately, the misunderstanding appears to be yours and I will explain it in detail below. See especially (2). 1. "…so certain of those yearly rates can easily be over 50% at times during summer." You mention yearly rates, during summer. This is a logical contradiction, please restate. If you're talking about something being over 50% in the summer, then you're not talking about a yearly rate, you're talking about a summer rate or summer amount. If you're talking about a yearly rate, then it's not just during summer and summer peaks are irrelevant as a yearly rate is, by definition, averaged over the year. I do agree that the percentage of meltwater in the river can be over 50% at times during the summer. Is this what you meant to say? That may be true, but remember that this still refers to all meltwater, and we have no specific figure about glacial water to go by. In addition, please note Barnett cites "flow" for the Chenab not "summer flow" as you're talking about. 2. "Also, that 49.1% contribution is concentrated in the four (mainly summer) months of June to October….Combine that with the 51.1% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months, not all of which, of course, is due to glacial melt…" You're comparing apples and oranges here once again. Take a closer look at what these numbers represent. 49.1% refers to an amount contributed yearly by a source without mention of seasonal breakdown, whereas 51.1% refers to a fraction of yearly flow during one season without mention of flow source composition. There simply is no way to accurately "combine" these 2 sets of data to interpolate a summer glacial melt fraction, as you have tried to do, as their domains and ranges (?) are different. The data sets are, in fact, almost entirely independent of one another. Theoretically speaking, I could "combine" these two figures and get a percentage of meltwater in the summer river flow that is anywhere from 0.4% up to 96%! (I can show you the calculations if you so desire) Of course there are constraints due to known trends in timing of precipitation, but no definite numbers are presented. With a possible range like this, how you or Barnett could reliably determine not only how much of the summer flow is specifically from meltwater but also how much of that meltwater is specifically from glaciers is totally beyond me. We don't know how the 49.1% meltwater total breaks down season by season (let alone how it breaks down to glacial melt vs. snow melt within each season), as it is a yearly average. We only know trends. The seasonal values presented in the graph and table refer to total flow, not specifically to meltwater so are not helpful here. We also don't know how the 51.1% summer flow total breaks down source by source, i.e. how much of the 51.1% is from rain and how much is from meltwater. We know even less how the meltwater portion of 51.1 breaks down into snow vs. glacial. Only if we knew all of these things could we actually put a figure on the glacial melt contribution in the summer. For Barnett to concoct a figure for glacial melt like 50-60% when it's not present in the source is not very scientific and I don't believe he did this. Your point about variability from year to year is well taken! However, there is simply no way to assign a number, or even range of numbers, for meltwater percentage in exceptionally wet summers, at least according to this paper. It's even more ridiculous to try to put a figure on glacial melt alone during these periods, when the total meltwater amount isn't even known. 3. "…but more than 50% of which could quite easily be due to glacier-melt during certain summer months of certain of the years of the study." You said "50% of which" in the above sentence. When I look back I see the referent of "which" is the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months. So what you meant is: …but more than 50% of the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months could quite easily be due to glacier-melt during certain summer months of certain of the years of the study. Doing the math, this means: …more than 25.55% of the yearly flow from the summer months could quite easily be due to glacier-melt during certain summer months of certain of the years of the study. Even if you can back up your use of 50% (?), how does 25.55% from glacier-melt support Barnett's figures? This statement of 50% of 51.1% does not support your argument at all. Perhaps this arises from a misreading of the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from the summer months as the 51% contribution to the yearly flow from summer meltwater? Once again, this paper did not present any figures about glacial melt alone, so it would take me quite a leap of faith to believe that Barnett somehow deduced them out of thin air with enough certainty to publish them. You're piling presumptions upon educated guesses here trying to explain where Barnett could come up with 50-60% but I don't see the evidence in the source anywhere for these particular figures. You've also misunderstood and/or misused the 49.1% and 51.1% figures in the source while making your educated guesses, as explained above in (2). The simplest explanation is that Barnett simply took the figure 49% for glacier and snowpack melt, rounded up to 50% and mistakenly cited glacial melt instead of glacier and snow melt. It seems he made the mistake of just dropping one word: snow. This is supported by the fact that in the abstract for his article, he actually does mention snowpack and glaciers together, and it's only in the sentence citing 50-60% that he seems to have forgotten to mention snow. 4. "and then considered that you know more than Barnett" Nope, never said that, don't claim that. I'm sure Barnett's knowledge of this field is vastly superior to mine, but when we're talking about something as simple and limited in scope as checking a source and reading a plain English explanation of the figures, I do feel I'm on equal footing with Barnett and have the right to point out mistakes. But since when does pointing out someone's mistake mean that you think you know more than them? It just means you're observant enough to have noticed a mistake. I don't believe Barnett did this intentionally. 5. I will not withdraw: "Considering the same kind of wording and figures appear in the abstracts of the other 2 papers cited by Barnett for this claim, I strongly suspect he and the reviewers committed the same error there." The reason is that this is not an "accusation" as you said, but a suspicion, and I worded it as such. A suspicion is unproven, but may be something worth looking into. It is a suggestion to others that the sources might be worth double-checking. 6. Your point about the little remaining snow cover is well taken, and it's true that the ratio of glacier melt to snow melt would increase throughout the summer. However, since no figure was given in the paper about this, further discussion of this point will be fruitless with respect to the Barnett paper. -
Tom Curtis at 04:33 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Kevin C @20, would you do the same analysis, but separately for the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere? -
tompinlb at 04:22 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
I do not understand why this page includes the following statement for "What the Science Says:" The claim that solar cycle length proves the sun is driving global warming is based on a single study published in 1991. Subsequent research, including a paper by a co-author of the original 1991 paper, finds the opposite conclusion. Solar cycle length as a proxy for solar activity tells us the sun has had very little contribution to global warming since 1975. This is neither current nor accurate. -
tompinlb at 04:09 AM on 29 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
Doug H @6 and Tom Curtis @7: I believe the link provided by Tom Curtis is an early draft of the paper. A more extensive version and corrected proof of the paper is found online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612000417 This is in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. This version of the paper presents a more complete statistical analysis including an analysis of residuals that was not included in the earlier version of the paper cited by Tom Curtis. -
dana1981 at 04:08 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
I should also note that since WUWT posted Monckton's presentation (Watts was there in person as well), I offered him a version of this post for potential publication on WUWT (a version which wasn't so harsh towards Monckton - more WUWT friendly), since skeptics should want to get the correct information, and this is a real whopper. Watts said he would take it under consideration, but he hasn't posted it, so I assume he decided against it. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:56 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
How anyone can take this individual seriously is beyond comprehension. He is showing some cardinal signs of mental illness, not the least of them being the claims to belong to the House of Lords and to be a Nobel laureate. Isn't there a name for that kind of condition? On top of that, the egregious distortions, misrepresentations or inventions on which he builds his talks are edgeing toward the grotesque. I can not understand how anybody who can think rationally would give even the slightest credence to this ridiculous nonsense. Ideology does weird things to people. -
BaerbelW at 03:40 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
We knew a lot about CO2 already in 1982 and yet didn't really do anything about it since then - how stupid is that? And we think of ourselves as an intelligent lifeform - some rethinking in that area might be in order. -
Kevin C at 03:15 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Here's the anomaly difference using the HadCRUT3 datasets:
And here's the anomaly difference using the NCDC datasets:
In both the recent divergence looks pretty significant.
Oh, I see the difference, you are starting in 1880.
So lets go back even further, to 1850:
Now that's interesting. It looks like we have a big cooling event covering the period 1880-1900. Given the 60 month smooth, it would have to start around 1883.
May I present an alternative hypothesis: What we are seeing is land and ocean temperatures tracking very consistently (taking into account El Nino effects and additional noise due to poor coverage of the early data), but with an exceptional cooling event triggered around 1883, and an exception warming phenomena taking hold in the 1970s.
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dana1981 at 02:00 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
chriskoz @3 - the California state legislature is predominantly Democrats, and I think even contains a fair number of moderate Republicans. Thus the percentage of AGW denialists in the state legislature is relatively low. AB 32 was passed by a combined vote of 70 to 46, but a 'no' vote doesn't necessarily signify global warming denialism. -
Steve Case at 01:45 AM on 29 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Chris G wrote:- Your graphs seem to show a divergence becoming more pronounced about 1980, but that is just the old eye-ometer.
My eye-ometer sees the same thing you do. The question is, will the sea suface temperatures catch up? Kevin C Wrote:
- Since the temperatures are always converted to anomalies before averaging, the difference in the absolute values disappears.
Considering how heat flows through the system, sun => surface => atmosphere => out, the difference between the surface and the atmosphere is important and ought not be ignored. As the difference between the two becomes less, there should be less net heat transfer and the ocean surface ought to warm. That difference has narrowed by about (7.75°C - 7.5°C = 0.25°C) over the last 160 years and as Chris's eyometer points out much of that is in the last 30 years. I'm thinking that the 0.25°C is probably the signal from increasing CO2. If you plot out the difference using anomalies you get this one:
I doubt that the sigmoid shape is due to randomness and it shows the 0.25°C increase very nicely. It also shows that the eye-ometer increase onward from 1980 discussed above isn't all that unusual.
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Daniel Bailey at 01:38 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
I am 50 now and well remember the coursework I took in those early 80s. And the Hansen predictions. The more things change, the more human nature stays the same. I'm raising my children into a world which will be far different to that of 30 years ago. 30 years of inaction have consigned us to a mitigation/adaptation pathway. A pathway littered with an as-yet-untold cost in human lives. I may not live long enough to witness the truly horrific worst to come, but my children might. The winters of my youth (the 60s) are now but stories and live only in the 8mm tapes my grandpa recorded back then. These mild winters of my children's youth will be a thing of the distant past for their children. It didn't have to be this way. -
Bernard J. at 01:02 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
You can't take away my hope.
This is the reason that we need to keep pushing against recalcitrant human complacency (and plain intellectual maladaptation), even when pragmatism suggests that not only have humans already been far too slow to act, but that the final magnitude of the delay is nowhere near being reached. We can't take away their hope. We can't. -
funglestrumpet at 00:47 AM on 29 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #12
A thought has just come to me. Can we have a running count as to the number of days since Peter Hadfield posted his debunking of Viscount Christopher Monckton's presentation material on the WUWT website? It would keep our concern's with Monckton's contribution to the climate debate in the eye of all those visiting this sight. More importantly, it would also be a way of informing anyone looking up Monckton prior attending one of his presentations that they are about to see a lot of questionable presentaton material. If any of them raise the debate on WUWT and Monckton's failure to respond, it should spoil the good Viscount's day and stop a lot people swallowing everything they hear hook, line and sinker.Moderator Response: [JH] Thanks for your suggestion. We will take it under advisement. -
Doc Snow at 00:25 AM on 29 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
The "Nobel Prize claim" of Monckton is, to say the least, a stunning irony--kind of like a (hypothetical) Charles Taylor defender claiming a share of the Nobel Peace Prize that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf shared in 2011. -
Riccardo at 00:22 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Daved Green our only hope is that each of us does the right thing. Skeptical Science and the like are just part of it, you personally (and any other) are just as important. -
Stephen M at 23:51 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Here is another Christopher Monckton porkie. Remarking on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, at the 5:50 mark, he says: "The point is, these accidents will happen. As we scientists say, s--t happens." -
Alexandre at 23:08 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
California is a good example to be mentioned to those who say that US mitigation policies would lead Americans to some kind of caveman way of life. -
markx at 22:34 PM on 28 March 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Bern at 15:50 PM on 26 March, 2012 said: "..... It's about what caused those warmer / cooler periods...." That is indeed why these periods are of so much interest to many. scaddenp at 05:38 AM on 27 March, 2012 said: "...If it has unknown driver, then why do we see something like MCA in forcing-based models? (See the AR4 discussion)...." Thanks scad - I'd be interested to see the modelled MWP, and information on what the drivers were, but I wandered around those threads, most discussion is post 2000, with an occasional chart going back to 1990, and even one from 1900, but I found no mention of the MWP/MCA? Further comment: Recent research on the Antarctic discusses an MWP signal there as well? Again, timing is an issue, but it is still an interesting phenomenon. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2120512/Global-warming-Earth-heated-medieval-times-human-CO2-emissions.html Abstract here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659Moderator Response: [Riccardo] links fixed -
Daved Green at 22:01 PM on 28 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Dr Mike MacCracken is worried and disappointed , he is not alone when there is so many independently researched lines of evidence showing why its C02 caused and that events related are happening now . It’s going to be a rude shock in about twenty years time when we have decarbonise our lives and we can only hope that it happens that soon . Thanks contributors for your time and effort people like you are our only hope . -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:21 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Regarding the discussion at BH, I posted a few comments over there on the previous thread to show that SkS is interested in openly discussing the science. On Mar 25, 2012 at 10:44 AM, geoffchambers wrote "I thought of contacting them to see if any kind of private dialogue would be fruitful - a Christmas Day game of football in Nomansland. This would mean using their private emails which I shouldn’t be looking at, though." So on Mar 25, 2012 at 3:41 PM I said I would be willing to engage in an email discussion, and gave my email address so that anyone who didn't want to read the hacked post could email me as well. The number of emails I have recieved from BH contributors is so far precisely zero. Despite the fact that on Mar 25, 2012 at 5:00 PM geoffchambers said he would take me up on my offer and the fact that on Mar 25, 2012 at 5:09 PM I clarified that my offer was open to anybody at BH who wanted to discuss the science, not just geoffchambers. I repeated it again on (Mar 25, 2012 at 10:50 PM) when I dropped out of the discussion. So it seems to me that the interest in email discussion was not really genuine. Jonas N apparently rejected the offer saying (Mar 25, 2012 at 11:15 PM) "The "stick to the science" is a weasly condition. Because of the (not very scientifically literate) moderators are not trained or well versed in physical or other hard sciences. Because they equate 'science' with 'words found in published articles'. The method then is to demand that criticisms or any objection must be found in a publication, and also that the phrases and sentences found in the pro-AGW publications must be accepted at face value, and cannot be criticized for what they actually claim and for the actual (carried out, and presented real) science they supposedly draw upon says, shows and more importanly: what it doesn't show or support. " I don't really know where to start with that one. I also answered (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:11 PM) a question about the anthropogenic cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 from j. ferguson (Mar 25, 2012 at 7:10 PM). There was no acknowlegement of my answer nor was any counterargument made. I also answered a point by shub (Mar 25, 2012 at 8:29 PM) that "My opinion is that if you admit to the uncertainties publicly, your case will become stronger." by pointing out that mainstream science is very open in discussing the uncertainties involved (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:20 PM) and said that we would be happy to discuss them at SkS. AFAICS nobody argued that my comment was factually incorrect, but it did attract criticism of our moderation from Jonas N (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:36 PM) and shub (Mar 25, 2012 at 10:21 PM) Simon Hopkinson questioned the way in which the IPCC describes uncertainty (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:38 PM). I pointed out that I found Curry's papers on this unconvincing (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:45 PM) and asked for a specific example of a problematic IPCC statement, but Hopkins merely said that he did not disagree with Curry, and so no substantive discussion of the issue was possible. I also pointed out that the form of statements used by the IPCC is very similar to the PAC bounds used in Computational Learning Theory (CoLT), so there was unlikely to be a problem with ambiguity. diogenes (Mar 25, 2012 at 10:28 PM) questioned whether we knew anything about sensitivity. Perhaps I should have answered that by mentioning estimates from paleoclimate data, but as he wrote "Buit since this concept of sensitivity is so badly defined, why debate it." there didn't seem to be much point. So, I went over there willing to openly discuss the scientific issues and correct any misunderstandings about comments from the hack taken out of context and I found there was no willingness to discuss the science, just rhetoric, which suggests there is not much point discussing things at BH. BTW I thought "opengate" was actually quite witty, assuming (incorrectly) that it wasn't a hack. -
bill at 21:13 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Did Monckton claim to have won the Nobel Prize? Yes. (Page 2) In an 'open letter' to John McCain. That's from the SPPI. Wriggle out of that, Your Lordship. (Students of overheated rhetoric should enjoy that particular piece of correspondence. McCain has always struck me as an eminently sane man - Sarah Palin notwithstanding; I wonder how he reacted to this fervent, unsolicited missive regarding 'the climate bugaboo' and 'the contemptible, fumbling, sclerotic, atheistic-humanist bureaucracy of the emerging European oligarchy that has stealthily stolen away the once paradigmatic democracy of our Mother of Parliaments from elected hands here to unelected hands elsewhere'?) See also the Press Complaints Commission's response to Monckton's complaint about this article by George Monbiot.The question of whether the IPCC had taken account of the complainant's ‘contribution' to its 2007 report was irrelevant - the blog was simply, and within the bounds of fair comment, taking a swipe at Viscount Monckton's claim that he could be reasonably termed a Nobel Prize winner because certain statistics in the report had been amended as a result of his intervention.
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Dikran Marsupial at 20:34 PM on 28 March 2012The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator
barry@24 Tamino is indeed a great educator on statistical topics, especially time series analysis. The key mistake the sceptics make is to assume that no statistically significant warming means that there is no warming. If there is no statistically significant warming, it means either there is no warming, or there is warming, but there is not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that it is not warming (loosely speaking). If you use too short a period, then the latter becomes more likely. The flip side of statistical significance is statistical power, which basically measures the probability of getting a statistically significant trend when it is actually warming at the predicted rate. However the skeptics never mention the statistical power of the test and generally refuse to discuss it when raised (see the discussion with Prof. Pielke at SkS). RC, OpenMind and SkS are also my top three sites, but not necessarily in that order. ;o) -
Paul D at 20:14 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Believe it or not, we hardly ever hear about Monckton in the UK. There was an unflattering documentary about him a year or two ago about his exploits abroad. That's all. The UK government do not take him seriously. I believe the biggest emission problem in California has been the use of road vehicles, which have a bigger impact on the states emissions than vehicles do in New York. I did have a look into US emissions a while ago, because California was mentioned. -
John Mason at 19:37 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I see that I am an Earth Scientist (correct) who posts as two usernames at The Guardian: I can reveal the shocking truth is that having had an article published there I changed to my real name so that readers would know it was the author taking part in the discussion. This was at the request of the editors. Made perfect sense to me. I like writing for SkS because a) it gives me chance to explore in great detail interesting palaeoclimate problems and topics with a big geological component - my folders of papers on such topics are starting to bulge alarmingly - and b) because the internal review procedure here has really helped sharpen-up my writing skills, which for anyone can only be improved. So in doing so I've learned a lot both ways. Anyone who has been involved in the management of any successful internet forum will know that there are tiers of management and moderation who have back-office areas, off-limits to ordinary members, in which to discuss financial support, action such as banning/unbanning disruptive members, reporting spammers and just letting off steam in private when the need arises. I would fully expect busy sites such as WUWT to have similar admin areas, but would be equally strongly against such areas being illegally made available to the public: it matters not whether we disagree severely over aspects of climatology. The reason that it matters not is because the bottom line is that without admin/modding teams being able to have such administrative areas, and thereby do their jobs properly, every single forum on the net would be jam-packed to the point of being unreadable with spammers and off-topic trolls, regardless of the subject upon which the forum was based. Given how useful forums can be as helpful information-exchanges on topics as diverse as fishing or gardening or motor vehicle maintenance, that would be a major backward step to the detriment of all. I am sure that those who are delighting in picking through our private conversations would realise that, if they sat and thought about it for a moment. Cheers - John -
Ari Jokimäki at 19:18 PM on 28 March 2012New research from last week 12/2012
Thanks for the nice comments everyone! Barry, I'm eagerly waiting for the new papers you have found for my site. I have really neglected my paperlists recently. There's just too much going on. I have loads of ideas for new lists and old ones could use updates. I hope I can find time for that soon. Doug, see where the Trenberth (2012) abstract link leads to... ;)
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