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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.

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Comments 60901 to 60950:

  1. Doug Hutcheson at 16:04 PM on 23 March 2012
    Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    owl905 @ 17 and R. Gates @ 18, thank you both for the clarifications. I'm relieved to see that I was not the only one suffering AD (Acronym DissonanceTM). For SSL, I should read "Solar Cycle Length"; For SWAG, I should read "Scientific Wild Assed Guess". R. Gates, for EUV, should I read "Emitted UltraViolet" or "Extreme UltraViolet"? Perhaps you could shine the the Solar Spot Light on this for me "8-)
  2. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    Daniel @6, Indeed, there is some degree of similarity between Monckton & Singer, expressed recently with Singer's shifting his goalposts or regurgitating his "theories" when he cannot find any evidence for his original claims. With respect to Singer's "skepticism", it's worth remembering the opinion of Carl Sagan, who was arguably the best advocate of quality assurance in science. "If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress." - Carl Sagan. That "crotchety old person" characterises Singer very well: even though he is able to accept some basic century-old knowledge (i.e. that CO2 acts as GHG) but because he remains "only skeptic" he's unable to accept other consequential facts that follow. I think there is too much appreciation attached to the word "skeptic" in our society: "skeptic" means "brave challenger". And I'm sure Singer is drawing his personal pride from such meaning. If we point out the opposite spectrum of this word, as described by Sagan quote above, people will figure out that skepticism is indeed nothing to be proud about.
  3. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    I hope this does not sound like an ad hominem attack on Fred Singer but he did take money from tobacco companies and clouded the truth about tobacco smoke and the addictive nature of nicotine. It's a fact that he has received money from Exxon/Mobil. In my opinion, (snipped)
    Moderator Response: TC: The comments policy forbids both accusations of dishonesty and all caps. Please review it.
  4. Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    Yes, of course SSL was a typo in the context of this post and how rightly embarrassed I am. Just goes to show what happens when you deal with two somewhat related acronyms at around the same time! Our neighborhood is thinking of installing some of these in our park, and I'm on the committee looking into them: http://www.clean-energies.org/SSL-Solar-Spot-Light_p_108.html Solar Spot Lights, which I would take it, have no relationship to the past climate, nor would show covariance with past temperatures...but who knows, someone could probably find a correlation to Solar Spot Lights and global temps, or perhaps there is as much correlation as SCL's have!
  5. CoalGeologist at 10:49 AM on 23 March 2012
    Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
    I'm generally a fan of Rachel Maddow, but feel she did a poor job handling this interview, particularly in allowing Senator Inhofe to persistently play the "two-sidedness" card, where he presented the "two sides" as is they were more-or-less equivalent in their approach and methods, but differ only in their conclusions--one "side" accepting AGW, the other "side" rejecting it. Forget about the "details" of whether he was right or wrong about this or that. He won simply by staking out a "side" in the "debate". In actual fact, there is very little equivalency between the two positions. One is borne of a more than a century of accumulated scientific evidence, while the other is borne of politics and ideology. One is built principally on a foundation of peer-reviewed publications, while the other is built upon op/eds published in ideologically friendly newspapers, politically-infused web sites, pseudo-academic journals and technical meetings, and an army of Angry Bird Bloggers who fling themselves against the pig-infested institutions of science, intent on bringing them down. In other words, there's very little equivalency, yet in Sen. Inhofe's version, it comes down to a question of which "side" you happen to prefer. One of the great ironies of the "debate" over AGW is that those cleaving to the premise that AGW is wrong, have the impression that since their own conclusions are linked to politics, and since (in a disturbing application of "circular reasoning"), they have the impression that the "other side's" conclusions must be based on politics as well, that the two positions are fundamentally equivalent in stature. This is essentially what Senator Inhofe conveyed, and my impression was that he 'got away with it'.
  6. Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
    Sphaerica wrote : "As far as Lindzen's opinions and disinformation, they are a crock (and you will find that much of what he presented to members of the House of Commons was false)." It must be remembered that Lindzen did not actually speak to members of the House of Commons - he actually spoke in a Committee room, privately hired, in front of a mainly public audience of those who were already convinced by what he was going to talk about. There may have been two MPs there at most - one who booked the room and an ex-Tory minister.
    Response:

    [DB] Intermission is over; let us all return to the central premise of this thread.  Thanks!

  7. Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
    West129, Your failure to understand the meaning of the quote you posted, as well as your need to quote from an 11 year old version of that report, speaks volumes for your level of understanding of the issues. Your first failing is your complete misunderstanding of how climate models work and what their limitations are. As far as research continuing in all directions... well, what do you know, it is. As far as Lindzen's opinions and disinformation, they are a crock (and you will find that much of what he presented to members of the House of Commons was false). All in all... you so far have nothing to say except for utterly vacant falsehoods. Your lofty, arrogant tone is belied by your complete and total ignorance of the issues.
  8. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    Daniel J. Andrews- So what you are saying is: "Same old Singer,with a different song?"
  9. Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    @Paul 15 - Doug H @ 11, first interpretation of SWAG is the correct ... G ... .
  10. Daniel J. Andrews at 07:59 AM on 23 March 2012
    Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    So Singer's unstoppable global warming every 1500 years is now over? Already? Seems rather a short time frame. I would have thought such a small handful of years of warming would be difficult to pick out of the paleo-records dealing with millenia. Mind you, he wrote his book Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 years 30 years after he said warming stopped in 1978. I think a good post/video would be Singer refuting Singer, similar to what was done for Monckton.
  11. Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
    West129 - I would strongly suggest taking your arguments against models to the appropriate thread, How reliable are climate models, where these points are rather extensively discussed. And, I will note, generally debunked. It's quite off-topic here.
  12. Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
    West129 "eloquently expressed" ?? If you look at the left hand column you'll see one of the more recent posts is titled Lindzen's Junk Science As always, when you want to make a point in discussion here, check for the appropriate thread. In this case, I strongly recommend reading that particular item and commenting there if you still feel that you would want to.
  13. funglestrumpet at 07:30 AM on 23 March 2012
    Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    70rn @ 12 I couldn't agree more. It would be nice to have a glossary of all the abreviations, argot, etc. found on this site that one could turn to in order to clarify matters.
    Response:

    [DB] Glossary functionality nears completion.

  14. Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
    Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory not supported by science but by crude climate models. I accept the reprimand from your blog. (-snipOn the other hand I appreciate the honesty reflected in the official IPCC documents which were arrived via “scientific consensus” and “rigorous peer reviews”. In multiple places the documents clearly admit that at the current state of the art the climate cannot be fore- or back cast. The admissions bolsters the much needed credibility for climate scientists: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” IPCC-III-2001: 14.2.2.2 (Page 774), http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/tar-14.pdf IPCC, AR4 reports re-confirms that all the answers are not in: “.... However, the relationship between the isotopic records indicative of the Sun’s open magnetic field, sunspot numbers and the Sun’s closed magnetic field or energy output are not fully understood ...” This is in conjunction with Fig. 6.13. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6-3.html ). “...the complexity of the climate system and the multiple interactions that determine its behaviour impose limitations on our ability to understand fully the future course of Earth’s global climate. There is still an incomplete physical understanding of many components of the climate system and their role in climate change. Key uncertainties include aspects of the roles played by clouds, the cryosphere, the oceans, land use and couplings between climate and biogeochemical cycles. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-1.html Therefore, one should not overestimate the capability of models because they are just models and are not proof . Ignoring the distinction between a scenario run by model and a forecasts may lead to and has been used to assert conclusions that may be base on incorrect/incomplete concepts/models. To claim “peer reviewed”, “scientific consensus” and “indisputable fact” does not advance science but are stifling. Research has to continue in all directions, because what we ”know” today might be looked at differently tomorrow. This was my point and it is more eloquently expressed very recently by Richard S. Lindzen, Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, MIT: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02148/RSL-HouseOfCommons_2148505a.pdf-)
    Response:

    [DB] "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory not supported by science but by crude climate models."

    There are two problems with this statement.  The first is the reliance upon a vaguely defined fake-skeptic term ("Catastrophic").  The second is the gross mischaracterization of models as being "crude" (another vague term).

    You then proceed to erect straw man arguments also built on ill-defined premises and fake-skeptic talking points, the main thrust of which are off-topic on this thread.  Please keep in mind that this thread is about Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science.

    Off-topic portions snipped.

  15. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    "Yes, historically temperature changes have been initiated by orbital cycles approximately 800 years before an atmospheric CO2 increase." Actually, that's not a fact - it's a plausible theory with missing pieces. The kickstart-trigger that caused CO2 levels to initiate a 30% increase in a millennium is the actual start of the Ice Age Death Spiral. Best candidates on the table (not mutually exclusive at all) are Milankovitch plus dust-storms plus ocean-current re-arrangement. The supposed lag then becomes an artifact of observational bias with a topping of pro-pollutionist 'butwattabout'. The Southern Ocean CO2 glacial period research: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025161152.htm (Snipped)
    Moderator Response: TC: Ad hominen snipped. The comments policy states that:
    " Links to useful resources are welcome (see HTML tips below). However, comments containing only a link will be deleted. At least provide a short summary of the content of the webpage to facilitate discussion (and show you understand the page you're linking to).
    The bolded section should be understood as applying to all links, and where it is not obvious that they provide supporting evidence to your direct claims, their content and relevance should be at least summarized. Thank you for your future compliance.
  16. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    "unsolicited and unexpected donation of $10,000 from Exxon Mobil". This doesn't happen to me very often... maybe he was just lucky?
  17. Sascha Tavere at 07:01 AM on 23 March 2012
    Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
    This is probably the one and only chance I'll ever have of voicing my extreme irritation about the Inhofe quote of Lindzen's saying: “He who controls carbon controls life. It is a bureaucrat’s dream to control carbon dioxide.” This is true of all primary needs and all those philosophically challenged. It echoes on and on and on ...
  18. Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
    Dana1981 @1: Yes, all regulations affect life, but full-blown regulation of CO2 will affect more aspects of life than most (if not all) other regulation programs Albatros @5 Yes, I have been strongly skeptical in the past, but this website has made me acknowledge that maybe the alarmists have a point. BUT...what I am discussing here is that I have problems with are writers who say plainly wrong things, like “Perhaps the implication is that CO2 limits will regulate breathing“. I hope you have problems with statements like that too. The ramifications of the laws will affect so many different aspects of life that we need to take the discussion seriously. Philippe Chantreau @7 Here are newspaper articles that are the foundation of what you consider to be my scare tactics. Food control: (-sniphttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/30/food.ethicalliving People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns. The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially "low nutritional value" treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.here-) Population control: (-sniphttp://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438 In an article in the Financial Post, Tuesday, December 8, Diane Francis called for population control as a means of fighting global warming. “The 'inconvenient truth' overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.” She goes on to the extol China's one-child policy - a policy of forced abortions and mandatory sterilization - as the only way to halt the impending climate catastrophe. “None [of the solutions proposed in Copenhagen] will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed.”here-) Person fuel control: (-sniphttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/moving_toward_rationing.html: Just Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe. There’s no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.here-) Vacation control: (-snipFrom http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=783 Lord Turner wants the Government to restrict the number of flights individuals can take each year Millions of families could be barred from taking holidays abroad under a proposal to ration flights. Gordon Brown’s ‘environment tsar’ is calling for limits on how many plane journeys travellers can take each year.here-) Television control: (-snip(from 2007, so it’s a bit dated and the weakest of my arguments) http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/268295/Plans-to-ban-plasma-TVs.html (from the Sun in the UK) THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week. The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by.here-) John Hartz @10 I use this website as my main source of clear understandable pro-AGW arguments. This website has actually moved me from being a scoffing adamant denier to one who is now willing to admit that the case is not so clear cut and the pro-AGW may be right. I will engage in meaningful conversation. My only point in my comment is that the authors statement of “Perhaps the implication is that CO2 limits will regulate breathing” is NOT meaningful conversation and seems to be made in a disingenuous way. Composer99 @15 What claims are you referring to? I have no problem with the legality of the government imposing cap and trade taxes, My problem is with people claiming that legal limits on CO2 mean that the government will regulate breathing.
    Response:

    [DB] Skeptical Science keeps the focus on the science of climate change.  Typically this means an emphasis on peer-reviewed published studies appearing in reuptable journals to support one's position.  A reliance on newspaper articles to support a position far off-topic to the OP of the thread is a call for moderation.  This thread is on Inhofe's Myths on Maddow.

    Off-topic snipped, as applicable.

  19. Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
    Scaddenp - Thank you very much for the site reference. It led me to a spreadsheet version of the Dice program C – 1 on http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/DICE2007.htm . After review of this spreadsheet I feel there is good agreement between the portion of his model dealing with abatement/preventative costs and mine. Of course his model is much more comprehensive but because his “abatement cost equation is a reduced-form type model in which the costs of emissions reductions are a function of the emissions-reduction rate.” It tells us nothing about how those reductions are to be achieved. Based on total carbon emissions for his base case he expects energy usage in 2055 to be 166% over current and 233% in 2105. Based on total carbon emission for his “optimum” case he expects energy from fossil fuels to be 126% of today’s values in 2055 and 140% in 2105 He projects total abatement costs for his optimum case to $1.6 trillion by 2055 and $12.3 trillion by 2105. If you plug his constraints into my spreadsheet you will find that although fossil fuel usage increases by 40% the energy supplied as a percent of the total drops from 86% to 51%. Holding nuclear and Hydro at current levels, Solar and Wind must contribute 44% by 2100 with 35% from wind and 9% from Solar unless the price of solar drops significantly. On the other hand, if you assume the price of solar does not drop and only 50% of the energy required to make up for limitation of fossil fuels can come from the wind with the other 50% coming from solar, the preventive costs jump to $65 trillion in 2050 and $373 trillion in 2100. That is why it is important to look at HOW we get from here to there. I am only trying to verify the assumptions Nordhaus and others are making with respect to abatement/preventative costs over the next 38 and 88 years. That is why I requested the latest information available on the inputs to my spreadsheet as I only have information that is available for free on the web. What is the latest thinking on future energy usage and fossil fuel limits? Is nuclear usage to be expanded? Can we expect significant reductions in solar PV costs in the next 38 years? Etc. With respect to your final comment, while my costs are report in US $, as are Nordhaus’s, we live in a global economy, the price of coal and oil is the same around the world. Most of the components for a power plant will be built by the countries that can supply them for the lowest costs. There might be some differences in construction labor costs and operating labor costs. But capital and fuel costs are the largest factors. Finally I must say that my faith in economists has been shaken. Despite the fact that it is well known the excessive private debt in the form of leveraging caused the depression the economists failed to warn us when the private debt as % of the GDP exceeded the levels reached in the late 1920’s in 1987.and went on to be almost twice as high in the early 2000’s. Nor did they attach any significance to the fact that it had taken 34 years US home ownership to grow by 3% but in 10 years starting in 1994 it grew by 7.8%.
  20. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    "American Thinker" = "carboxymoron" :-)
  21. Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
    NickBoyce#58: Why are you assuming that all of the heat warms all of the ocean volume? The second figure in this post clearly shows indicates it is the heat content for water depths 0-2000m only.
  22. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    We should remember some funding details for Singer: "Last year, he admitted that he had received from Exxon Mobil "an unsolicited and unexpected donation of $10,000 more than a decade ago." The Heartland leak shows that he currently receives "$5,000 per month, plus expenses" from the institute." http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/climate-sceptics-pai-heartland-institute So $5K per month - plus expenses... has anyone put that onto a graph?
  23. Fred Singer Debunks and then Denies
    Singer also misrepresents the fact that proxies show warming as well: Proxy evidence for recent warming.
  24. New research from last week 11/2012
    OK, I remembered an old bibliographic trick: when in doubt, search by date. Sure enough, it's Volume 18, not 15--though chalk one up for my memory; it really was p. 409. And the author was: S.A. Andree himself! Seems the intrepid balloonist wasn't content to leave publication to others, and wrote up his own data. V. 18, for any who may be interested: http://www.archive.org/details/forschungenaufd06wollgoog
  25. Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    I believe EUV is Extreme UV which means the high energy/short wavelength portion of the UV spectrum. I believe that there is some research linking variations in the sun's EUV emission with weather on Earth. SSL - I agree it is likely solar cycle length. Or alternately SunSpot Number. Either way, I'm pretty sure it's a typo. SWAG - I have no idea....
  26. New research from last week 11/2012
    Found that Wollny's has (mostly?) been digitized, and v. 15 is available here: http://www.archive.org/details/forschungenaufd08wollgoog However, it does not appear that the article in question is in V. 15, so probably my memory was faulty. But there are a couple of articles on CO2; the first offers voluminous comparisons of near-surface measurements and soil measurements in various environments by one Herr Puchner; the second, a short summary of previous research, finds atmospheric concentrations of around 290 ppm. It begins on p. 478, and may be of interest--especially for those with good skills in reading German. When and if the pdf starts loading properly again, I'll recheck the reference to see if I can find the proper article.
  27. New research from last week 11/2012
    Yes, the PDF loading seems to be 'stalled out' for me, too. But I'm not thinking of the primary author, who, as you say, would be the editor. The bulk of the article consists of a translation--set apart by the use of quotation marks--of an article (or maybe an excerpt from an article) from a publication called "Wollny's Forschungen," or more formally: Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Agricultur-physik: Bd. 1 15 (I *think* it's vol. 15; that's what my not-so-reliable memory is dredging up for the citation in the AmMetSoc article. I even think it may possibly have been p. 409.) Anyway, it's the 'secondary author'--the author of the underlying article--that I suspect may have been Ekholm. I may have found an online source for Wollny's, but I want to check out the site before I try such a large download. I'll let you know what I find out.
  28. Dikran Marsupial at 02:24 AM on 23 March 2012
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    @Tom, many thanks for correcting my intuition, getting things wrong and having ones understanding challenged is an excellent way to learn! Forgetting that the water vapour is in the lower trophosphere should have been obvious even to me. ;o)
  29. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    Ruffy @120, to put this into perspective here is a graph of the energy content of solar radiation to the Earth by wavelength, along with important absorption bands: As you can see, the 49% figure is about right. However, very little of that 49% is in the wavelengths of the outgoing radiation, as can be seen by this diagram: You will note that nearly all of the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by water vapour, or by the surface. As nearly all the water vapour in the atmosphere is in the bottom four km of the atmosphere, that means nearly all of the energy is absorbed at, or near the surface. Therefore I must disagree with Dikran Marsupial @124, not because his analysis is wrong, but because his assumption that the incoming energy is at frequencies where there is significant absorption by well mixed greenhouse gases (ie, GHG other than water vapour and ozone) is false. It should be noted that the energy absorbed by water vapour near the surface from the sun is very small compared to the energy absorbed from the surface. Based on the energy balance by Fasulo and Trenberth, the near surface atmosphere absorbs around 450 W/m^2, compared to around 80 W/m^2 absorbed in the atmosphere (as significant proportion of which is UV radiation absorbed by the ozone layer). Given this, and given that convection ensures a well structured temperature profile in the lower atmosphere, the energy absorbed in the lower atmosphere can be treated as being absorbed at the surface for nearly all practical purposes. That being the case, the IR radiation from the sun does not differ significantly in its effects from the visible light from the sun. It is absorbed at the surface. It is not directly reradiated but rather, redistributed as heat through the collisions of molecules, some of which then emit IR radiation at an entirely different wavelength, that radiation constituting the Earth's thermal radiation. And, of course, to maintain an energy balance, the energy received by the Earth must equal the energy which leaves the Earth. If the Earth's IR radiation came only from the IR radiation received from the Sun, then about 50% of the Sun's energy would not be reradiated back to space. The resulting energy imbalance would be a catastrophe worse than a full nuclear exchange, even if maintained for a single day. So, yes the Earth does receive IR radation from the sun, primarily at wavelengths where it is absorbed at or very near to the surface; but no it is not this component alone (or primarily) that results in the Earth's IR radiation from the surface or to space.
  30. Dikran Marsupial at 21:28 PM on 22 March 2012
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    @Sapient fridge, many thanks, Wikipedia is fine for me (where it has external references), at least as a start. I think the thing that Ruffy might be missing is that a lot of that radiation will be absorbed by the GHGs in the atmosphere before it gets to the surface (which will only see the IR that is not in the absorption bands of H2O, CO2 etc.). I suspect most of this gets re-radiated back out into space (at each "layer" in the atmosphere half is re-radiated up and half re-radiated downwards, so the amount heading downwards decreases logarithmically?). That would be my intuition anyway. The point still remains however, as CBDunkerson mentions, that increasing CO2 will still increase warming at the surface by absorbing the IR re-radiated from the ground from incoming visible, UV and unabsorbed IR (which will be re-radiated at wavelengths included those that are absorbed by GHGs).
  31. Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    Time for a new image to be added to the expanding list?
         - Global Warming -
    How skeptics blame the sun
    How realists observe the role of the sun
    
    I think you all can imagine what image fit's this description...
  32. Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
    By my calculations, an addition of (21)(10^22) joules to the world ocean's heat content should have raised the temperature of the the world's oceans by 0.0386*C. Maybe I'm mistaken. 10^9 = 10 to the power of 9, etc. (1) VolumeWorldOcean = (1.3)(10^9)((Km)^3) (Per Wikepedia). (2) 1 metre = 100 cemtimetres (cms). (3) 1 Km = (10^2cms)(10^3) = 10^5cms. (4) VolWorldOcean = (1.3)(10^9)((10^5cms)^3) = (1.3)(10^24)((cms)^3). (5) 1((cms)^3)water weighs 1g. (6) WeightWorldOcean = (1.3)(10^24)(g). (7) It takes (4.186)joules to raise the temperature of (1g)water by 1*C. (8) It takes (1.3)(10^24)(4.186)j to raise the the temperature of (1.3)(10^24)(g)water by 1*C. (9) it takes 1j to raise the temperature of (1.3)(10^24)(g)water by (1*C)/((1.3)(10^24)(4.186)) (10) It takes (21)(10^22)j to raise the temperature of (1.3)(10^22)(g)water by (1*C)(21)(10^22)/((1.3)(10^24)(4.186)). (11) It takes (21)(10622)joules to raise the temperature of the world's oceans by 0.0386*C
  33. Ari Jokimäki at 20:30 PM on 22 March 2012
    New research from last week 11/2012
    Doc Snow, see the TOC of the issue in question. The Author of the article seems to be the Editor of Monthly Weather Review at that time. I bet that the name of the editor is in that issue somewhere. However, conveniently the PDF loading from that site stopped working for me, so I have to get back to you on that.
  34. Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
    NickBoyce, see the SkS article on underground heat flow. The amount of heat traveling up from the planet's interior is very steady and very small compared to major surface heat fluxes.
  35. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    Ruffy wrote: "About half of the energy in sunlight is near and short wave IR, and surely it is mostly this component of sunlight which heats the planet and is rebroadcast as longwave IR." So what do you imagine happens to the energy from visible light? Does it magically cease to exist or 'go away' somewhere? If so, why is it that white objects (which look white precisely because they reflect most visible light) do not heat up as much as black objects (which absorb most visible light)? Why does electromagnetic radiation in the range that we have arbitrarily labelled 'infrared' behave differently than that in the range we can see?
  36. Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
    NickBoyce That may be interesting to some people. The one I really, really want to know about is temperature changes in ice. We all know there's a huge difference between the ice in our domestic refrigerators and the same ice in an industrial scale freezer. What I'd like to get a handle on is how much and how fast the internal temperature of icesheet ice changes in the years before it finally gets to zero and is available for melting. I have an uncomfortable feeling that some of that 'missing' heat could be concealed in still frozen ice where the temperature has changed by 10, 20 or maybe more degrees C. But it hasn't yet reached melting point. It's just weaker and more susceptible to variations in the wind, the weather and any meltwater from other ice that has passed that point.
  37. Sapient Fridge at 19:30 PM on 22 March 2012
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    Dikran Marsupial, I know it's not a science paper but Wikipedia puts the sun's input to the planet at about 1 kilowatt per square meter of which "527 watts is infrared radiation, 445 watts is visible light, and 32 watts is ultraviolet radiation". There is also a graph showing the ultraviolet, visible and infrared boundaries linked to the "Sunlight" page. The source looks credible and contains a spreadsheet of the wattage values for each wavelength. Significan energy in wavelengths longer than 0.74µm is also shown in the blackbody emission graph of the sun and earth on the Science Of Doom's excellent page on back radiation.
  38. Doug Hutcheson at 18:52 PM on 22 March 2012
    Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
    The fossil fuel suits are laughing all the way to the bank.
    I hope they're stacking all those dollar bills in a vault that's above the new high tide line "8-)
  39. Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
    Does anyone have figures on revenues by that industry? I know the profits of numerous individual firms are gigantic...
    The apocryphal figure is one billions dollars profit globally per day. At first blush that might sound an exaggeration, but when one starts to look at the profits of individual companies, it suddenly becomes very reasonable. So, for every day that action is delayed, that day's one billion dollars is added holus-bolus to the profit pile. It's no wonder that the industry seeks to stir FUD where it can - and there is no end of ignoramus prepared to do the grunt-work for free. The fossil fuel suits are laughing all the way to the bank.
  40. Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
    "Big oil" isn't so big? Does anyone have figures on revenues by that industry? I know the profits of numerous individual firms are gigantic, and profits don't even include costs the firms may take to promote their causes and let their many employees know what is in their best interest. If you have such a sweet income stream on the line, what might you do with that money (assuming you did not want to know too much about "hypotheticals")?
  41. Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
    Why not have a Maddow page (and of any other interested media channels)? It would draw extra attention the the site and help Maddow and others who will not be able to do real-time correction of guests. She need only mention[*] that "as usual, our expert friends at sks will be documenting rebuttals and corrections to this and past climate interviews at http sks MoreMaddow." [*] I'm assuming certain details will be taken care of, such as how to refer to the site to limit everyone's liabilities, offer appropriate disclaimers, adhere to any legal restrictions, etc.
  42. Dikran Marsupial at 17:24 PM on 22 March 2012
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    Ruffy, can you give a reference to a reputable scientific source for the claim of half of the energy in sunlight being near and short wave IR?
  43. Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
    In the first paragraph Glen Tamblyn asks: ''how can you work out whether the Earth is warming if you don't take account of all the places where it may be warming?'' Does anyone know by how much the earth's mantle and core are warming or cooling? Presumably, if we wish to get an accurate picture of by how the temperature of the earth as a whole is changing, we should find out; otherwise we would have a very incomplete picture.
  44. Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    EUV is possibly 'emitted ultra violet' - but thats about all I can think of... But this makes little sense, as that's mostly intercepted high up in the atmosphere, and wouldn't play much of a role in observed ssurface temp IMO.
  45. Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
    @ Doug H Well I'm guessing SSL is Solar Cycle Length, but the author of that acronym tripped up phoenetically. As for the others? Well it's like lurking in millitary forums around here sometimes...
  46. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    From the introductory paragraph, surely this is incorrect: "The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiation, which is then re-radiated away from the surface as thermal radiation in infrared wavelengths." About half of the energy in sunlight is near and short wave IR, and surely it is mostly this component of sunlight which heats the planet and is rebroadcast as longwave IR.
  47. Sea level rise is exaggerated
    Henry J#192: "So, is there a slight increase in the bulge at the equator?" No. From NASA 2005: They found Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount. It decreased about one part in 10 billion, continuing the trend of earthquakes making Earth less oblate. The article details that there is a long term trend and thus cannot be responsible for recently observed change.
  48. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
    There are two ways to look at the effect of human breathing and CO2: 1) what we exhale, and how we acquired that CO2 - fixed from the atmosphere by plants, so not a net contribution to atmospheric CO2 2) don't try to estimate the fluxes in and out, and just look at the change in storage. On that basis, I'm fairly sure (99-44/100ths % pure) that the 7 billion people we have now store more carbon (i.e., weigh more in total) than the 4 billion in the 1970s, so humans represent a net sink of carbon, not a source. Once climate change is bad enough that we see large decreases in the human population, we'll become yet another source of positive feedback as the stored carbon is released back to the atmosphere.
  49. Sea level rise is exaggerated
    Henry Justice, satellite measurements are just that--measurements. They measure what is there, so they cannot "null this effect out." Do they measure with sufficient spatial resolution to detect the differences in sea level between the equator and other regions? Yes. When someone wants a single statistic that summarizes the sea level across all regions of the Earth, that statistic (e.g., a mean--an average) necessarily will collapse across the equator versus other regions.
  50. Henry justice at 12:03 PM on 22 March 2012
    Sea level rise is exaggerated
    Since the 2004 earthquake, the Earth's rotation has increased. So, is there a slight increase in the bulge at the equator? If so, the sea level will go down (except along the equatorial seas) until this effect is overtaken by ocean expansion and other factors. Or do the satellite measurements null this effect out?

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