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Doc Snow at 05:04 AM on 20 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Done--and I'm reminded that there is no surviving image of Wells himself, either (though there is a drawing of one of his sisters.) -
Doc Snow at 04:57 AM on 20 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Thanks, Dave. I'll update the caption as you suggest. -
davesouza at 04:45 AM on 20 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Nice article, interesting and informative. I knew of his contribution on natural selection but didn't appreciate Wells had worked in these other areas. A quibble: you show a nice picture of the dome of Edinburgh University's Old College, but the foundation stone for that building was only laid in 1789, after Wells had left, and due to wartime delays building works continued until 1840. The dome itself was left out at that time as a cost saving, and was only built in 1887, as shown at Edinburgharchitecture. So rather an anachronism. Unfortunately the earlier university buildings were demolished and I don't know of any sources for pictures, but perhaps the caption could indicate that the picture shows the university after the time that Wells was there. Wikipedia has an image of the Old College before the dome was built, but not of the earlier buildings. -
actually thoughtful at 04:44 AM on 20 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Wild claims aside, an interesting question has been raised, specifically, is heat in the deep oceans a long-term issue, and not short term? Is this a notable deferral of global warming, or a minor side-note. We might benefit from a SkS post on this, or at least a cogent Tom Curtis reply (as if there such a thing as a non-cogent Tom Curtis reply...). While I suspect this is a non-issue from the big picture that the world is warming (now), and man is to blame, if it comes up here, we will certainly see it out in the wild soon. -
GaryB at 04:08 AM on 20 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
Nicely written, although a bit beyond the reach of most people's conscience. It's nice to see a pro-science blog from the Canadian prairies - an oddball within the heart of Canadian conservatism and anti-science. -
Doc Snow at 03:56 AM on 20 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Thanks, Neven, soo. It is rather amazing to find how deep the roots go for some of this knowledge. And as for the "horrible wordplay"--all I can say is "GOL"--groan out loud! -
Doc Snow at 03:53 AM on 20 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
Excellent. It is far too easy for humans to ignore what is real, but far off. I know, there are reasons for this. Sometimes it's even adaptive--as when we focus on what we can control, and ignore what we have no influence over. But the current situation demonstrates that this tendency can also be horribly dangerous. -
tmac57 at 03:27 AM on 20 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
I walk my two dogs everyday in and around my neighborhood.As I walk I tend to look down a lot,and very often I find nails,screws,etc. (hundreds over the years)that can cause a flat tire.I pick them up despite the fact that I have a bad back,and sketchy knees.I do this,because I would want someone to do the same for me. I have had flat tires (usually caused by nails and screws) many times in my life,and it is always a pain in the neck.It can also put people in a life threatening situation,for example on a busy highway trying to change a tire,or sudden loss of control resulting in a serious or fatal accident.So with those thoughts in my mind,I cannot pass up those potential hazards.I pick them up. You could use a nail left on the road as a metaphor for the carbon footprints that we leave for future travelers on our planet.Let's not leave them something that might be the final nails in their coffins. -
Composer99 at 03:06 AM on 20 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
I suspect the ancient Greeks didn't put a lot of thought into their descendents 3,000 years into their future (e.g. today). However, it must be noted that they and their fellow humans did not possess the means to radically alter the living conditions of their distant successors - whereas we do, and indeed we are doing just that (in addition to radically altering living conditions in our own lifetimes). -
soo doh nim at 03:00 AM on 20 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
To quote Plato, "It is right to give every man his dew". Horrible wordplay aside, that was a most enjoyable read. -
Tom Curtis at 02:27 AM on 20 March 2012It's not bad
Sphaerica @212, I think the map is suspect in sustaining your point. The distribution of rice, wheat and corn production are clearly heavily influenced by demand side economic factors. Further, they clearly take a nation wide average so that Australia's vast deserts result in low or medium productivity despite Australia having some of the richest and most extensive wheat growing regions in the world. Transferring this to Canada, it means the current limited arability of the Canadian Arctic is averaged with the southern wheat growing areas of Canada, and are not indicative of grain productivity in those southern areas. Having said that, your more general point is well taken. With a six month growing season, it is difficult to imagine corn prospering within the Arctic circle, not matter what the temperature. Never-the-less, a there is substantial room for a northward shift in Canadian agricultural production before the Arctic Circle is reached. The projected 2050 wheat production areas below are well south of the Arctic Circle:
On the other hand, a similar northward migration of wheat production between 2050 and 2100 would bring the northern regions of production within the Arctic Circle and a possible hard limit on northerly extent on production. As you say, the situation is complicated, but clearly the notion that a northerly migration of agriculture under business as usual will compensate for loss of productivity in tropical and temperate lands is not sustainable (either intellectual, or into the future). The situation is worse in the Southern Hemisphere with a definite hard limit on production in the form of the southern coast lines of the continents.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:26 AM on 20 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
West129... Just to reinforce Sphaerica's comments. I think you're misreading that passage of the IPCC TAR. First, it's probably a good idea to move on past the TAR and read from AR4. And bear in mind even that report came out in 2007 and was based on science that was current in 2005. They are starting up work on AR5 now. Second, what they are saying they can't do is predict exactly what parts of the planet are going to be affected in what ways. This is what's important for individual countries in how they will each respectively deal with mitigation efforts. The overarching science is settled. There is a greenhouse effect. Adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will warm the planet. We are the cause of most of the current warming. Things are going to get warmer if we continue to add GHG's to the atmosphere. There are also uncertainties but they are pretty well constrained. Climate sensitivity is likely somewhere between 2C - 4C. The difference being, we have some time to bring out GHG levels down or we have very little time to bring our GHG levels down. As Dr Stephen Schneider said, "'Good for you' and 'end of the world' are the two lowest probability outcomes." There is a legitimate discussion to be had about how long we have to get the problem under control. Whether this is real or not is not a legitimate discussion. -
michael sweet at 02:13 AM on 20 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Eric: You are shifting the goal posts from your previous wild claim. The paper you have cited is the equilibrium time for the abyss. Most of the energy does not go into the abyss. You claimed: "considering the entirety of the oceans, the equilibrium time you are talking about is 1000's of years, simply not worth caring about. The oceans are sinking heat that won't come back (i.e. water is being warmed from 35 to 35.1 or something along those lines). If that water comes back to the surface it will cool the atmosphere" This is simply untrue. The great majority of the heat in the ocean is currently interacting with the atmosphere and melting ice. About 80-90% of the ocean warming occurs in 40 years. It will be 800-1000 years (not "thousands") until equilibrium, but the surface ocean is currently warmer. The warmer ocean affects current weather: have you noticed the unseasonal tornadoes this year in the USA? We need to care now about the heat in the ocean now. Your claims recently have been wild and unsupported. For example here when you suggested poor countries could shift to manufacturing when their agriculture was destroyed by drought. What will they eat? Please start citing scientific studies when you make a claim. You will then reduce the number of wild claims. -
Bernard J. at 02:04 AM on 20 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #11
Still curious if a debunking of Plimer's latest book is still on the cards? -
Tom Curtis at 01:26 AM on 20 March 2012It's not bad
Mohyla @214, how can it be a sincere question when the question has already been answered? -
mohyla103 at 01:03 AM on 20 March 2012It's not bad
Tom Curtis @ 207 "Mohyla has mistaken a simile for a literal description. As the "mistake" involves a typically ridiculous interpretation, there was IMO no basis for it." You said that glaciers act as "natural dams", so I thought you meant: natural - it's a glacier, not man-made, therefore it's natural dam - something that holds back liquid water in a river system Please explain how my interpretation was "typically ridiculous"? It seems like quite a reasonable, if incorrect, interpretation to me. "Therefore I presumed the "mistake" to be a debating technique and discussion with Mohyla to necessarily to be fruitless in that once people start to intentionally misunderstand you, they are not interested in sincere discussion." I most certainly did not "intentionally" misunderstand you and to suggest I did is rude and debasing. Thank a lot for simply ignoring my mistake and assuming I was just out to cause trouble for the sake of trouble, instead of trying to further clarify your meaning first. It seems you have overestimated my intelligence here. I will ask once more, this time to the correct person. Please understand this is a sincere question: Did you mean: 1) that glaciers act as true barriers that hold liquid water back behind them, and prevent/control its release downstream? or 2) that glaciers act somewhat like a dam in that they hold precipitation (in the form of snow and ice) at a higher altitude? or 3) something else? -
mohyla103 at 00:30 AM on 20 March 2012It's not bad
Bernard J. @ 205 You're right, of course, that question should have been directed at Tom Curtis. I didn't notice a third person had entered the glaciers as natural dams discussion. Sorry to you and Tom Curtis for the mixup. I am all for clearing up misunderstandings, which is precisely why I asked the question. It wasn't until I read your post saying glaciers "do not impound water" that I realized there must be some misunderstanding because that is exactly what a literal dam does. My misunderstanding was not intentional. "...much of your scepticism appears to originate from a confusion over the actual science, and/or about what people mean when they report it." I'm not sure what other cases you're referring to? I will refer you to post 199 and the discussion with JMurphy leading up to it, where I showed that in fact my reading of the original sources was correct and it was Barnett who was confused and/or did not report data accurately in his paper. Clearing up misunderstandings is a good thing, be they my own or ones in published papers. -
Neven at 23:57 PM on 19 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
Thanks for a thoroughly enjoyable read, Doc. It's these looks into history that make me realize how long human knowledge on weather and climate has been accumulating. -
Bob Lacatena at 23:47 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
211, Tom, While Manny's (and your) argument concerning sunlight versus temperature (i.e. multiple limiting factors on growth) is applicable to the case of plant life in general, we are talking specifically about crops that are useful for agriculture, and that produce a reasonable yield. Both yield and crop type are dependent on length of growing season among other factors. If you reference this map you can see that productivity for all northern latitudes is severely hampered (note that the coloration for Alaska is certainly wrong... it's been colored as a part of the USA, I'm sure, and not relative to its own actual crop yields). In particular, you will note that corn is never grown at northern latitudes. It must generally be planted in May and is not ready to harvest until October. When you add the problems with soil (much of the soil in northern latitudes having been scraped clean by glacial action, with no chance for later plant growth to replenish the soil), chances of achieving "good" crop productivity in northern latitudes due to climate change do not look promising. In my own direct experience, some years back I had a tremendous tomato garden on the south side of the house, despite being too far north to really expect to get good tomatoes. Being right against the foundation and chimney, the ground got very warm, and it was the one part of my property (ringed by trees) that got good sunlight through the growing season. The only drawback was that as the sun moved further south in August (just as the fruit should be reaching maturity), it would begin to dip below the tree line and shorten the length of the day. After about five years, my tomatoes wouldn't ripen. The trees at the south side of my property had continued to grow taller and to encroach over my lawn, with the end result that they cut off the sunlight too soon. I had lush, wonderful plants covered with fruit that never came close to maturity.Moderator Response: [JH] Fried green tomatoes? (: -
Doc Snow at 22:30 PM on 19 March 2012The History of Climate Science - William Charles Wells
You are most welcome, Steve. And I know just what you mean! Though I think it's folks like G & T (who claim to have "falsified" AGW without actually reading any scientific literature on the topic) who are seriously a couple of centuries behind Wells. -
Eric (skeptic) at 22:12 PM on 19 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
michael sweet, my claim was not wild or unsupported, but it was extreme, and it turns out, inapplicable. This paper https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2004.deep_T.pdf mentions a 2000 year time constant for warming (1000 years for cooling) in a simulation. But it also points out that methane clathrate releases make that time constant moot due to positive feedback. -
michael sweet at 21:04 PM on 19 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
OWL: The reference (from Eric) that I challenged claimed that the heat going into the ocean would be gone for "thousands of years". It does not mention the thermocline or claim only heat going into the deep ocean will disappear. You are changing the goal posts. Please read the original comment and stay on topic. Eric is making wild unsupported claims. My statement is still correct: the majority of the heat going into the ocean will come back in 40-50 years, or less. This weekend I went diving and the ocean was 3C above normal. That raises the temperature where I live today. -
Neven at 19:52 PM on 19 March 2012Declining Arctic sea-ice and record U.S. and European snowfalls: are they linked?
John, thanks for another great article. I've linked to it in a short overview I wrote concerning the WACC phenomenon. -
Tom Curtis at 19:41 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Doug H @210, it struck me the same way. That does not, however, it did not hit the target. -
Doug Hutcheson at 19:11 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Tom Curtis @ 209, thanks for the extra info - I am always confronted with just how little I know about anything! I must admit, I had never given a thought to the low entropy/high entropy energy source argument, so I have learned something new today - thank you. On the other hand, I was responding to Manny's dismissal of this:"the amount of sunlight reaching the ground in summer will not change because it is governed by the tilt of the earth."
by saying thisYour argument is simply wrong.
which seemed like a drive-by pot-shot. -
Tom Curtis at 18:33 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Doug H @202, I believe Manny has raised a legitimate point. The issue is that more than one factor can limit the growth of plants. With regard to energy, plants have two important sources of energy. Like all "cold blooded" creatures, the energy which drives the brownian motion within their cells, and hence powers the chemical operations of life comes from the environment, and is a simple consequence of the local surface temperature. As the temperature rises, the brownian motion becomes more vigorous so that chemical reactions (and hence growth) proceeds faster. Of coure, the characteristic of energy from the environment as heat is that it has a high entropy. Life cannot proceed without some reactions that result in a lower entropy than their surrounds, so all life also requires access to a low entropy energy source to drive these reactions. For plants, that is the energy from sunlight which they convert to low entropy sugars or starches. This does mean that at higher latitudes, available sunlight becomes a restriction of plant growth no matter what the temperature, because without sunlight there is no low entropy energy to drive the low entropy reactions that life needs. What Manny has pointed out is that, given that there is extensive forestation in western Europe at the same latitudes as the Canadian sub-arctic, it is the high entropy energy from the environment (warmth) which is the primary limiting factor at those latitudes. The assumption it was lack of the low entropy sunlight that restricted growth was not warranted. Indeed, given that plants do not just lie flat to the surface, but deploy their leaves to gain maximum sunlight, it is not clear that the geometric argument about sunlight carries any weight. Given that in a past era, there were forest at the South Pole, I would suggest that lack of direct sunlight is only ever a seasonal limitation of the growth of plants. -
Tom Curtis at 18:19 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
DSL @203, interesting about Plasmodium vivax. That it was not Plasmodium falciparum is made clear by the death rate of just 3% of those hospitalized with an infection in 1823. In contrast, Plasmodium falciparum that it creates a selective advantage for the sickle cell anemia gene which, though fatal if received from both parents, grants resistance to malaria if received from just one. The result is the strong correlation between Plasmodium falciparum and frequency of the gene for sickle cell anemia in the population (see maps below).
Of course, the concern with global warming is not the spread of vivax but of falciparum.
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Tom Curtis at 18:02 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Bernard J @205, Mohyla has mistaken a simile for a literal description. As the "mistake" involves a typically ridiculous interpretation, there was IMO no basis for it. Therefore I presumed the "mistake" to be a debating technique and discussion with Mohyla to necessarily to be fruitless in that once people start to intentionally misunderstand you, they are not interested in sincere discussion. -
owl905 at 17:49 PM on 19 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
@chriskoz 33 You disagreed,and then commented about unrelated matters. The 0-700 metre layer isn't the issue on the table. Similarly, the response about 'other impacts' is off-topic about the heat returning. The issue of ivory tower and OHC is not my misunderstanding at all. The misunderstanding appears to be yours - thinking that geological age problems, and/or deep ocean heat that will partially return over the next millennium, is a concern that needs focus and will get any concerted action now. -
RonManley at 17:43 PM on 19 March 2012New Research Lowers Past Estimates of Sea-Level Rise
One useful rule of thumb relating to ice is: if all the glaciers melt sea levels will rise by 0.7 m, if Greenland melts by 7 m, if Antarctica melts by 70 m. Different sources give slighlty different figures but it's accurate enough to put things in perspective. -
owl905 at 17:35 PM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
@Sceptical - Inhoffe didn't personally question the science. He used his political power to ridicule it, slander it, and disrupt it. He's one of the ringleaders that has steered the USA towards the intelligence desert. Here's the bottom line on his judgment - "Global warming is the greatest hoax of all time." There's no 'question' in that - only judgment of the biggest pair variety. -
scaddenp at 17:29 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
I think Manny is confused as to why you have latitudal variation in climate. It is not due to differences insolation but to the many local influences on climate. For northern Europe, the warm Gulf Steam is the major factor. -
Bernard J. at 17:22 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Mohyla103:Bernard J.: "Glaciers do not impound water, they hold it as frozen mass." Did you mean that glaciers can be actual dams that hold liquid water back behind them, or that glaciers act like a dam in that they hold precipitation (snow, not rain) at a higher altitude? If it is the latter, then I misunderstood the phrase "natural dam" in your original statement.
Although I know what his answer is, you'd best direct the question at Tom Curtis, as he was the one who originally used the phrase. For someone who said:It's this attitude of alarming the public with misleading claims that make me skeptical of AGW reporting accuracy in general.
it's important to ensure that you are not transferring your own misunderstandings on to those who are in fact reporting accurately. This would seem to apply more broadly to your commentary here, as much of your scepticism appears to originate from a confusion over the actual science, and/or about what people mean when they report it. -
adelady at 17:11 PM on 19 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #11
I'm with OPatrick here. The "Week in Review" and "Coming Soon" should be the last 2 items. Always easy to find regardless of the length of the other items. Having 2 SkS Highlights looks a bit odd. Perhaps the second one should be "Spotlights" :) Just like last week.Moderator Response: [JH] My bad. Will edit. -
OPatrick at 16:59 PM on 19 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #11
I'd move the issue of the week up above the break. There must be many regular visitors who don't check the digest, having already digested. -
DSL at 16:05 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
And, Manny, I agree with Doug. What you're trying to say with the comparison between Canada and Europe is as clear as mud. -
Sceptical Wombat at 16:04 PM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
J Murphy @23 I don't have a problem with Inhofe questioning the science because it implied the need for expensive action. If my child told me he needed an IPad for school and I thought it was some kind of exercise book I would probably say "fine." If he then told me it was actually a computer and would cost aroud $600 I might start asking questions. I do have a problem with the fact that Inhofe is very selective about who he asks and only listens to the answers that fit his world view. -
DSL at 15:59 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Manny, Charles C. Mann has a quite readable chapter devoted to the spread of malaria post-1492 in his recent book 1493. The story is a little more complicated than you indicate. There is a range of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. There is also a range of human responses, based on genetics. The Canadian malaria mentioned was probably vivax rather than the falciparum mentioned in Epstein. -
bill4344 at 15:58 PM on 19 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #11
Cartoonist link also ropey! Truly, when The Lorax is spruiking SUV's (and more than 70 other consumer products) we have reached a world where satire is redundant. Thneeds must when the Devil drives?Moderator Response: [JH] Link fixed. -
What's Happening To Tuvalu Sea Level?
Manny - I would suggest looking at Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling, where atoll formation is discussed. Basically, corals only grow up to the low tide point, but early Holocene sea levels were (effectively) higher in equatorial seas due to isostatic adjustment (glacial rebound) - giving them the chance to grow a couple of meters over current sea levels. When local sea levels dropped to the point where high tide didn't cover the coral, they accumulated sand and debris as loose top consolidate - and we get atolls. -
Doug Hutcheson at 15:30 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
Er ... Manny, can you explain your reasoning a little more? At a given latitude, on a revolving Earth, during a given 24-hour period, the amount of sunlight arriving will be the same at all longitudes, excluding the chances of a massive and short-lived sunspot occurring during that 24 hours. How do you work out that insolation will differ? The temperature difference you mention results form causes other than insolation, I would have thought. -
sidd at 14:58 PM on 19 March 2012Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
Thanks for the article. I posted a story of my own introduction to climate doom at the european tribune site a few years ago. www.eurotrib.com/story/2009/1/2/192917/8527 sidd -
Manny at 14:41 PM on 19 March 2012What's Happening To Tuvalu Sea Level?
Simple question: if atolls are composed of coral and if coral grows in the sea, why are atolls above sea level? -
Manny at 14:26 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
You write: Agriculture: "the amount of sunlight reaching the ground in summer will not change because it is governed by the tilt of the earth." All of Northern Europe, lush with agriculture and forests, is at the same latitude as the Canadian tundra where the brutal cold kills all trees, with only lichens surviving. Your argument is simply wrong. -
Manny at 14:14 PM on 19 March 2012It's not bad
You write: Health negatives. Spread in mosquite-borne diseases such as Malaria and Dengue Fever. The article you quote (Epstein et al. 1998) states: "the minimum temperature for P. falciparum malaria parasite development is experimentally between 16° and 19°C and varies among mosquito species (Molineaux 1988). In general, isotherms present boundary conditions, and transmission is generally limited by the 16°C winter isotherm." This is simply wrong: malaria was endemic in Canada less than 100 years ago. A recent Canadian editorial (reference and quote below) quotes several old medical articles on this subject. The recent recurrence of malaria in developed countries is entirely due to increased air travels and drug-resistant Plasmodium. It has nothing to do with climate change. J. Dick MacLean, MD; Brian J. Ward, MD. The return of swamp fever: malaria in Canadians. Can Med Ass J JAN. 26, 1999; 160:211-212. "Malaria is an old Canadian disease. It was an important cause of illness and death in the past century in Upper and Lower Canada and out into the Prairies.1,2 During the period 1826–1832, malaria epidemics halted the construction of the Rideau Canal between Ottawa and Kingston, Ont., during several consecutive summers, with infection rates of up to 60% and death rates of 4% among the labourers.3 Malaria also appears to have had an important effect on the health of the Northwest Mounted Police in the Prairies.1 When the Montreal General Hospital opened, in 1823, 3% of the first 3665 patients admitted were ill with malaria, and 3% died in hospital as a consequence. Canada’s own William Osler popularized the use of the microscope for the diagnosis of malaria in North America in the late 19th century.4 The endemic malaria in North America was probably reinforced each spring by waves of infected immigrants from Europe. Several of our indigenous Anopheles mosquitoes were, and still are, capable vectors of human plasmodia." -
owl905 at 14:05 PM on 19 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
@Michael Sweet - the reference you challenged was to the whole ocean sink. That was the response. The heat below the thermocline, based on present knowledge, is going into long-term sequester. As responded, upper-layer heat exchange may effectively be up-to-date. Your substitution of CO2 as the topic (unless you believe they're joined at the hip) may belong in an ocean acidification thread. NOAA estimated 16% of the total was below the 3,000 metre-mark, and the 2003-2010 stutter-stagnation of the active upper-700 metre layer raises that estimate. The reason the graph only measures the upper 2000 metres is because that's the range of the Argo floats. This highlights an issue that's been known since the early 90s - the "how long will it take" - is dependent on vertical heat transfer between ocean layers. -
chriskoz at 14:02 PM on 19 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
citizenschallenge @46, I hope Glenn does not mind if I speak on his behalf, because I think he does not make the claim that "the ocean heat content is the only significant measurement", at least he didn't say that. In my understanding, the point of his article is to make an average reader realise that AGW as measured by change of ST is just "a tip of the iceberg" of the overall energy imbalance in the system. It's only in my comment @24 (also precised @33) where I said that OHC is better than LST (although I didn't say "only significant") indicator of GW, because it includes the potential warming in the pipeline. The timeline of the air warming could be quantified depending on how deep the heat has been sequestered, and I'm looking forward to the research on that subject. I understand that we cannot measure OHC accurately enough yet, so I've looking forward to the article explaining current state of the methodology as mentioned by Glenn @23. But I'm confident that when OHC measurement accuracy improves and the historical data on that subject becomes larger, we will improve our climate models and be able to predict ensuing climate changes far better and in advance. -
Bernard J. at 13:57 PM on 19 March 2012New Research Lowers Past Estimates of Sea-Level Rise
Another prediction... ...somewhere a Denialatus - or several - will conflate the Carribean correction as needing to be applied to contemporary rise that presently occurs, and to future sea level that will occur in future, as a consequence of thermal expansion and ice melt. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:50 PM on 19 March 2012CO2 limits will harm the economy
Eric, Personal Housekeeping Robots. Flying cars. Jetpacks. Life on the moon and Mars. Are you really going to depend on predicted, timely advances in technology? With the exception of faster computers and mobile phones, how much has technology and life really changed since 1970? Even 1950. Seriously. What can you name that qualifies as a quantum leap from those time periods? You're putting all of your eggs into one basket that you don't have yet, and they've promised you the basket will be delivered within 20 years, or your money back... not. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:38 PM on 19 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
26, West129,...the whole climate science appears to be at a similar stage where e.g. chemistry was with alchemy.
This is not true. If you believe it's true, you've been listening to people who either don't know themselves or want you to believe it's true.Most likely the truth might fall somewhere in between both camps...
Um, no. That's like saying the truth between the earth and the sun being the center of the solar system must fall somewhere in the middle, or the truth between the earth being flat and round. There does not have to be a middle ground answer, and presuming that there must be, a priori, with no real reason to do so, is a huge mistake....scientists actually admit that they first, don't know what's going on with the climate...
Citation, please? Where exactly did you read this? Climate scientists know a whole heck of a lot, there is very little doubt on the issue, and for the most part the only people who think otherwise are very loud, very arrogant non-climate scientists. Please note that you are quoting from IPCC AR3... 2001, more than 11 years old. It refers to techniques and computing power 10 years ago. Do you think computers are a little faster now? Most of the models have advanced several versions since then. You are also misunderstanding what it is saying. The section in question is discussing the fact that because the system is chaotic no one model run is going to mirror events, but in the long run the averages will be the same. This is no different from writing a program to predict coin flips. The computer can't tell you the exact sequence of heads-tails that will turn up, but it can tell you the average number of heads and tails over a long enough period. The bottom line is that everything you believe and think you understand is wrong. Your perception of the state of the science is woefully incorrect. I'd advise you to make use of this site. Study things yourself. Learn for yourself what we do and do not know. Then make a decision. Right now, you're fighting a gun battle with no ammunition.
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