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BaerbelW at 16:12 PM on 29 February 2012German translation of The Debunking Handbook
chriskoz - Actually, we had already almost finished the German translation when we learned that the iPad app of a big German newspaper (Süddeutsche Zeitung) published an article about The Debunking Handbook. The article was therefore based on the English version as the German translation wasn't quite ready yet for publication. -
owl905 at 16:01 PM on 29 February 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
Site lists are about the same here, with some daily visits to: Current Global Temps Solar Activity Arctic Ice (30% concentration) Arctic Ice (15% concentration) currently offline -
owl905 at 15:55 PM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Doug H @19 "What I am missing is why the top of atmosphere does not warm as well" Just to hit the spin button, the outer atmosphere actually cools during the early imbalance. Wundergroun NOAA Straosphere Chart It's coupled to earlier research that showed a connection to solar cycles and stratospheric temperatures. It doesn't "warm as well" because the same amount of heat is ... (drum roll) ... being trapped at the (near-)surface. -
gallopingcamel at 15:19 PM on 29 February 2012Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
Chris @43, During our debates on "Science of Doom", Leonard Weinstein and I pointed out that for Venus it would make little difference to the surface temperature if the CO2 were replaced by an equal mass of Argon or Helium. In case you have forgotten, here are the links: http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/12/venusian-mysteries/#comment-2949 http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/12/venusian-mysteries/#comment-2953 The DALR depends on efficient heat transfer processes. In the troposphere of rotating planets heat transport is primarily achieved through convection and baroclinic eddies (mixing). Radiative processes are important only in the stratosphere where the lapse rate is usually of the opposite sign (temperature rises with altitude). Like Weinstein and this camel, N&K conclude that gas composition has an insignificant impact on planetary surface temperatures. Observations support this idea. As this thread includes "Runaway" warming let me say that if such a thing were possible it would surely have occurred during the last billion years and we would not be having this discussion. Here is a comparison between the IPCC's models that include strong positive feedbacks with one that places more emphasis on natural processes. Please note that Scafetta is making some progress on quantifying the processes that support his model using the ACRIM satellite: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/scaffeta-on-his-latest-paper-harmonic-climate-model-versus-the-ipcc-general-circulation-climate-models/ I must confess to some bias as Nicola Scafetta and Robert G. Brown are members of the Duke university physics department as I was for many years. We don't always agree but they have my respect and admiration. Jose_X @48, The references I provided are from physicists who are applying thermodynamics, Stephan-Boltzman etc. To dismiss this as "curve fitting" tells me that you need to take another look at the equations. -
Doug Hutcheson at 15:13 PM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Tom, thank you for this post, especially the list of points:- That if you reduce the escape of heat, but do not reduce the incoming heat, things warm up;
- That the atmosphere contains molecules that absorb Infra-Red radiation;
- That radiated energy depends on the temperature of the radiating object; and
- That the atmosphere gets cooler as you get higher, so that the Infra-Red absorbing molecules in the atmosphere radiate less energy to space than they absorb from the surface.
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skywatcher at 14:58 PM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
#17 heijdensejan, hmmm, the skeptic choir clearly does not read any literature, where there is ample empirical evidence. Tom's OP provides one part of that evidence, but there's plenty more: 10 indicators of a human fingerprint on climate change Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming And will it be a lot?: Empirical evidence for positive feedback lots of evidence for high climate sensitivity Two of the 10 human fingerprints in the first link show increased downwelling longwave radiation and reduced outgoing longwave radiation at GHG-specific wavelengths, which are direct observations of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Skeptics don't mention them too much... -
Composer99 at 14:44 PM on 29 February 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
I read Deltoid regularly because I read a bunch of other ScienceBlogs blogs. Not much else on climate science. I live in Eastern Ontario. Incidentally, in this comment I linked to a report by CFI-CASS in Canada documenting a course taught at Carleton University recently which featured a great deal of climate science misinformation. Interestingly, the CFI-CASS report links to a lot of Skeptical Science posts on climate science as additional reading. -
Albatross at 14:40 PM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Prof. P. Body @95, I'd like echo/second your thoughts. Additionally, first people should use the correct nomenclature, traditionally "THC" refers to the thermohaline circulation. Second, the oceans are obviously significantly deeper than 700 m. Third, it is strange how fake skeptics continue to focus on statistically insignificant short time periods when we know the increase in temperature and OHC is not going to be monotonic-- they will still be playing that game when knee deep in water. It is called denial. Fourth, as I show below, you are correct, the links provided do not support their claim. One wonders whether or not they will cede that fact? So, regarding this as yet unsubstantiated claim. "The rate of SLR has slowed down over the past 5 years. ARGO data, while short, shows a reduction in THC of the oceans in the 0-700M volume." This is a badly worded argument. They speak of last 5 years of sea-level (since 2007), but then go on to mention the ARGO data which has been providing more-or-less uniform global coverage down to 700 m since the beginning of 2005 (see here), so let us use those data. I downloaded them from here. So the fake skeptics can check the numbers themselves. Since 2005 the 0-700 m global OHC has been increasing at a rate of 0.28x10^22 J/year, or increase of about 1.97x10^22 J between 2005 and 2011. So the claim that 0-700 m OHC is decreasing is demonstrably false. Further, since 2005 the 0-2000 m global OHC has been increasing at a rate of 0.732x10^22 J/year, or an increase of about 5.13x10^22 J between 2005 and 2011. But this is all for a very short period, so caveat emptor. -
scaddenp at 14:27 PM on 29 February 2012It's not bad
Reiterating skywatcher - its not whether warming is better or worse, but the rate at which change occurs. Rapid change (and this is very rapid change in geological terms) is associated with mass-extinctions. I doubt very much that humans would go extinct but the disruption to our agriculture will be very considerable. The question to ask is with the cost of mitigation is less than the cost of adaption. Studies so far say better to mitigate. -
scaddenp at 14:23 PM on 29 February 2012It's the sun
ShadedX - sorry, but it not clear what you do mean then. The statement "Since the sun has loss heated mass, it has less to burn and therefore less heat " does not follow. Since the CME happen all the time, if your statement were true, the sun should be gradually cooling which it is not. -
heijdensejan at 14:12 PM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
The skeptic choir is preaching this typical line Arthur Rorsch issued a new report here where he specifically states in this he states "The IPCC asserts that dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) is occurring, and that this is caused by the accumulation of human-related CO2 in the atmosphere. As yet, however, no indisputable scientific proof, or even strong empirical evidence, has been provided for such an effect, which therefore remains a matter of speculation." Simple explanations are required.... -
Albatross at 14:02 PM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Tom, Camburn needs to learn above a little concept known as "non-contributing areas" and infiltration (that is how aquifers are recharged). There seems to be an assumption that all the incident precipitation becomes runoff. That is obviously not what happens. -
New research from last week 8/2012
It would be interesting to see more detail of the Cohen et al paper. Do you know what temperature series they used?Response:[DB] An open-copy of the paper is available here:
http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_GRL12.pdf
Datasets used were CRUTEM3 and NASA MERRA. -
Composer99 at 13:16 PM on 29 February 2012DenialGate - Highlighting Bob Carter's Selective Science
It turns out Bob Carter was a guest lecturer for a 2nd-year university course at Carleton University in 2010/2011 (see this report here). All I can say is that, while in general I'm sure Carleton has a strong science programme, this makes me ashamed to be an alumnus. -
Prof P. Body at 13:08 PM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Camburn old chap, you do realize, don't you that (even if on some ephemeral level) that you are just play-acting at analysis here. You specifically quote Mr. Rob P's graphic but miss-state what it shows. The referee called you one it and you just offer up bluster instead of substance. And now, without apparently even reading the study forming the basis of the graphic in question, you employ bravado and presumptuous hand-waving in your above comment. I do note your statement...and that your newer links simply do not support it. If you think analysis consists of "eyeballing" (as the Yanks seem to refer to it) a graph then you simply do not understand anything about science or statistical analysis (even my half-witted assistant Sherman gets this point). Fake-skeptic-fail. This august forum deserves a better class of troll. -
skywatcher at 13:04 PM on 29 February 2012It's not bad
ShadedX, the problem is that even if temperatures, say, in northern Canada or Siberia became suitable for growing wheat or whatever, or if it starts raining regularly in somewhere currently desertified (not generally forecast, but lets imagine for a moment)... you will not develop the soils required to sustain agriculture or forestry for many hundreds or more likely thousands of years. Soil development (pedogenesis) is a very slow process - a good example is the vegetation successions you see after ice retreat at the end of past glaciations - trees only thrive thousands of years after the first colonising grasses and shrubs. -
skywatcher at 12:54 PM on 29 February 2012It's the sun
ShadedX, coronal Mass Ejection (CME) activity varies with the activity of the Sun in it's approximately 11-year cycle, see for example this SEC plot. The ~2000 peak was reasonably large, and followed by the deepest solar minimum in many decades near 2009. The next peak is forecast to be much smaller, peaking in 2013 or 2014. The cyclicity does not explain long-term global warming, and the past decade has been dominated by the progression from the last solar max to the deep solar min. CMEs themselves have little to do with Earth's climate, except that there are more when the Sun is a bit more active. -
ShadedX at 12:21 PM on 29 February 2012It's not bad
I bet this has already been metioned, but what happens when the ice caps melt? Wouldn't high up northern places become habitable? How about the deserts , which will border the oceans, creating new forests for all. And most of all, wouldn't it be great for microorganisms (especially Archea) to live, therefore giving us new lifeforms that take the place of the old niche of the old lifeform -
ShadedX at 12:16 PM on 29 February 2012It's the sun
And as for you scaddnep, I am not talking about a star's lifetime. -
Camburn at 12:09 PM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Prof P. Body@ 92: Yes, Rob's graphic at 29 would have used the data that supports slide number one of the following site. NODC global ocean heat and salt content You will note that the graph confirms my statement concerning THC of the 0-700M volume of the ocean. The trend of surface sea temperature would also seem to confirm the 0-700M OHC. SST 2003-2012 -
Jose_X at 11:24 AM on 29 February 2012Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
That WUWT thread was closed, but it does present a number of questions to simpler radiative balance models. The main problem with the article is that it claims to present a model that is better than what climate science uses but it attacks a weak model that is not used by climate science. 2.1 A) The authors fail is to ignore an assumption of the model. Their criticism is thus not accurate. The 1-shell model assumes global surface temperatures are relatively similar. This assumption is why the simple model gets ballpark figures. This assumption implies that diffusion of heat through the atmosphere, wind/advection, and even side-to-side radiation together are highly efficient and help preserve the temperature everywhere on earth within a very "narrow" range. Because of this assumption implicit in the model, convection and 3D radiation need not be modeled explicitly, but their existence is leveraged as it is clearly a requirement for justifying using S/4. While observed temperatures around the world are not all even, these assumptions appear to be acceptable to first approximation. Note that clearly no significant chunk of earth's surface air temperature is near 0 K or near 120 C, the two extremes based solely on sun's irradiance. So the authors ignored this assumption of the model. Were it not that the model *does* consider convection indirectly, the points raised in this section would have merit. Their math is accurate. Although, the cs constant is virtually redundant (doing little beyond adding at least 2 extra irrelevant "significant" digits to a term). Yes, it is true that if you average many temperatures near 0 K as well as a few near 100 C and everything in between (weighted largely towards the low values), you get something rather different and significantly lower than the actual average. [I spent some time making sure the integral was set up properly (that the error from the strips making up the approximating polyhedron to the hemi-sphere did go to zero as the partition sizes got smaller). It was accurate (and I got to practice and gain insight into describing surfaces of integration). To come to that understanding, I first recognized that the outer integral with no phi dependence meant we were going around the circle adding up symmetrical "tangerine peel" slices. The d(cos (theta)) was also expanded to -sin(theta)d(theta), where theta varies from pi/2 to 0. We see that each differential (tiny) rectangle in a peel slice approaches the exact area of the underneath sphere (which looks like a flat plane). This is so because the sin (theta) factor makes sure the differential rectangles nearer to the poles are smaller exactly as dictated by the ratio of the minor circle at that latitude to the major circle at the equator (that ratio being sin(theta)/1). Since a tiny rectangle's % error goes to 0 as it gets teenier, we know the overall sum error also goes to 0 (eg, factor out the %-bounded error of each rectangle being added). With this verified, we return to d(cos (theta)) to enable a painless integration. The actual calculation is essentially K * integral (x^1/4 dx) = K*(4/5)*(x^5/4) to be evaluated from 0 to 1. Note that the dark side of the earth gets zero solar radiation, and this is accurately modeled since the integral approximating limit adds "tangerene peel" slices around only a hemisphere... yet then divides by the full surface area of the unit sphere, 4*pi.] 2.1 B) A few flaws exist in this section. First, we are adding convection to a model that already implicitly accounts for it in the lateral direction. This means that the conductance values given cannot be used since air cannot simply flow up and down at calculated linear rates while also flowing to the sides at possibly comparable rates. [Simple solution is to reduce the conductance value by 10-30%.] Second and most importantly, it fails to account for the gravitational potential energy cost of rising air, that is, for the natural equilibrium lapse rate. This mandates at least that Ta be made dependent on height (another change to the model). The simplest approach here is to set h to the height of TOA, but there are other possibilities (and emissivity would depend on height as well). Ts - Te will not be near zero but to first approx will be near the lapse rate requirements. Third, the equations solve for a steady state value. The equations are essentially devoid of a time dependency so assume S is constant. Since the earth rotates, the equilibrium values may not be reached, or at least S should be modeled as a function of time and other time dependencies should be introduced. [This point may be negligible. I haven't studied this physics, but I wanted to also list some *potential* flaws that have crossed my mind.] 2.1 C) This says very little. Keep in mind that it is criticizing what is known to be a weak radiation model. The model fails to explain the high DLR near the ground, true. One major reason for this is that H2O has a tremendous GHG effect here. A one shell model that is bound by TOA requirements obviously will fail. We would need a minimum of two shells (or a thick shell that has Te1 at the top and Te2 at the bottom). And the bottom layer would need to have an emissivity value to match the higher ghg effect of concentrated H2O. [Hottel, Leckner, and others have measured emissivity values. We can also use Beer Lambert law.] -
Camburn at 10:43 AM on 29 February 2012Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
Ok....I didn't miss that thread, but I didn't spend much time reading it either. Within a few paragraphs it got so silly that it wasn't worth wasting time on. Somehow, I don't think the Unified Theory of Climate is the deathbed of AGW. I could be wrong, but if I am I promise that I will buy back that bridge I am now offering to anyone who believes this theory. In fact, I will even buy it back at twice the purchase price. And this is one inexpensive bridge. In fact, 100K will make a downpayment on it. Please respond to this offer via this site. IF the site slows down because of the interest in the bridge, just give it time, and I am sure your offer will make it through. Good luck on the bidding. -
DrTsk at 08:40 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
KR correct ~0.4% change in area vs. 15% change in pressure -
GillianB at 08:36 AM on 29 February 2012Mythbusting with fewer explosions
I went to the session in Lane Cove's fabulous new library (it's gorgeous!) and found it to be an interesting evening. Most attendees were already concerned about climate change and no diehard deniers were vocal. The format was fun because it promoted active learning by putting the audience in charge. Most of us learnt something new, or were reminded of things we had forgotten. What do I remember 12 hours later? Two things stand out.. I remember John's fridge door analogy that explains why a warmer arctic can lead to a colder Europe. I remember a couple of the graphs... the graph of 20th century temperatures is memorable because of John's explanation for why temps were stable in 1950s and 60s. That's a good example of the point in John's ABC article that it is memorable when a 'knowledge gap' appears and is filled. (John gave industrial sulphate pollution in the 1950s and 60s as the reason. Which leads me to wonder how much MORE warming we would see now if Chinese/Indian industry was clean.) All in all, it was very worthwhile. It's great to see John developing these excellent communication skills. I hope he continues to speak out, and that he can withstand the garbage thrown at effective communicators in this field. -
skywatcher at 08:30 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
And Steve Case, perhaps you could educate GallopingCamel (comment #40 on this thread) as to the greenhouse effect operating. GC believes some crackpot theory about gravity he read on WUWT... Very few people, indeed, disagree with the basic radiative forcing properties of CO2 that have been demonstrated for many decades, yet there are still enough to sow all sorts of confusion and misinformation. -
skywatcher at 08:23 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Lovely post Tom, very nicely explained. Steve Case, so you accept the fundamentals of CO2 causing warming (which puts you in a different league to Yogi, who clearly does not think this), but you don't accept the feedbacks. Some reading for you, then. Read the following post, the sixteen peer-reviewed papers that are referenced therein, and the five linked blog posts with further references to the literature: Empirical evidence for positive feedback. If you doubt the evidence presented there, maybe you could comment over there as to why positive feedbacks don't exist. And also then give us your hypothesis as to how we had ice ages... -
Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
DrTsk - Given that the radius of the Earth is ~6350km, and changes in top of troposphere are <1km, effective area changes are a trivial influence. And more than balanced by the fact that lower pressure requires a slightly higher temperature (as there are fewer molecules) to emit the same energy. However, those all represent very small changes in the spectra. -
Kiwiiano at 08:15 AM on 29 February 2012Mythbusting with fewer explosions
owl905: Neville Chamberlain knew damn well what he was up against, he also knew that the British military were woefully wound down and ill-prepared for the inevitable. The "peace in our time" was a charade to give them time to frantically remobilise and rearm. back to the topic.... ;^) -
DrTsk at 07:57 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
@11/boba/Kevin As the altitude increases the effective area increases and so the same amount of energy can be radiated at a slightly lower temperature -
scaddenp at 07:55 AM on 29 February 2012Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
Camburn - it is GC's link unified theory of climate. Spenser has take on it by the way too - see his 30 Dec 2011 article. -
Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
boba, Kevin C - As the effective emission altitude increases, and given that the lapse rate means cooler air at higher altitudes, the amount of energy radiated to space will (initially) decrease. That means less energy leaving the atmosphere, and the climate warms. To a first order approximation, the atmosphere warms enough that the effective altitude is emitting same amount as the incoming energy - so it ends up near the same temperature (although pressure effects play into it as well), radiating away the same energy as before. -
scaddenp at 07:47 AM on 29 February 2012It's the sun
ShadedX - sorry but it doesnt follow. The path for stellar evolution is that heat from the sun will rise very very slowly (and has been doing so through geological time). As fuel is spent, it will expand and eventually engulf the inner planets, including possibly earth. But not for a few billion years. -
Kevin C at 07:41 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
boba: I believe that is the case. My crude explanation of the effect is that the increase in CO2 content increases the opacity of the whole column of gas. However the gas gets thinner as you go up, reducing the opacity. At some point the opacity gets low enough that a good proportion of the IR photons can escape without further re-absorption. As the opacity of the whole column increases due to increasing CO2, that height gets higher. I think it must be rather more complex than that though, because the emitted radiation higher up is at a lower temperature. Which means there are different number of photons being emitted in the transparent and opaque bands. I presume that codes like MODTRAN have to deal with that. -
RonManley at 07:40 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
It was predicted that one of the fingerprints of climate change would be warming of the troposphere at around 10 km altitude. I did my own analysis a few years ago and showed that this was indeed the case. -
New research from last week 8/2012
keithpickering - Good references. One important point in the discussions of those threads is that a step-change (although easy to fit to the data) is not meaningful unless the underlying physics would include such a step change. The model fit to the data has to make physical sense - and 'step changes' with large instantaneous energy changes really do not. -
Alexandre at 07:05 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Steve Case: don't know if you challenge the accepted climate sensitivity, but denialists claims don't really know many boundaries. They freely wander from denying the warming, to denying the causes, to opposing the policies... and back step 1. One claim can be refuted, but moving goalposts are impossible to catch up with, specially in the attention span available from the broader audience. Like the Denial Tango goes, "I'm skeptical of everything I just don't wanna know". -
keithpickering at 07:03 AM on 29 February 2012New research from last week 8/2012
Regarding Jones and step-change, Tamino has dealt with that pretty convincingly, here, here, and here. Basically, it's pretty easy to show that a step-change model is statistically better than a no-change model. It's a lot harder to show that it's better than linear, or that it's the best possible model. -
boba10960 at 07:00 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Tom Curtis: Thanks for the very helpful information! A related point has been unclear to me for a long time and I wonder if you can clarify it for me. Does the average altitude from which IR radiation is lost to space from the atmosphere depend on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? If so, then how does this affect the overall greenhouse process? There were comments at this site some time ago (too long for me to find them now) that led me to believe that increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere raises the average altitude from which IR radiation escaped to space. Ever since that time I have wondered how that works (if true), and your post has stimulated me to ask. Thanks, Bob -
scaddenp at 06:59 AM on 29 February 2012Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
So GC, as a physicist, how "skeptical" have you been of this unpublished work? And how do you reconcile it with say the standard physics of Grant & Petty? -
Alexandre at 06:58 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Nice post, Tom. It's an effective way to explain physics through the knowledge people intuitively already have. -
Eric (skeptic) at 06:51 AM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
CBDunkerson, thanks for the info on evaporation. I would argue that is part of the exponential decay of the bulk of excess rainfall measured in river levels (i.e. when the rains return, the preceding evaporation will dictate river levels.) Australia seems to have some fascinating exceptions in some cases being low and flat, I'll have to comment more in that thread. In the meantime here's the Mississippi which I saw in 1993 in St Louis; needless to say it left an impression. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv?cb_00060=on&format=gif_default&begin_date=1993-01-01&end_date=1997-01-01&site_no=07010000&referred_module=sw If the link above works it should show the relatively rapid decay of very large volumes of flow, but also a slow decay, on the order of a year or two from the enormous flood of 1993. I don't know how much of that is rainfall patterns and how much is water storage. But it does reflect both the direct runoff and the indirect evaporation (that lowers direct runoff); both of which lower the amount of water stored. -
Bob Lacatena at 06:40 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
1, Steve Case, Not to pile on too much, but... Very few people don't believe in the greenhouse effect. Very few people don't believe the earth is warming. Very few people don't believe that fossil fuels are the cause. Very few people don't believe warming will be bad. Very few people don't believe feedbacks will make it worse. Very few people don't believe that Arctic ice melt is related to warming. Very few people don't believe that... The list goes on and on. That's what is so wonderful about denial. There are so very many delicious flavors to choose from! And you can always couch your own particular passion with "well, yes, of course that's true, but..." And so there is a very, very large denial choir, all singing different songs, out of tune, at the tops of their lungs, and it adds up to inaction and ignorance. So every step along the way the most obvious things must be explained, as clearly and as simply as possible, so that bit by bit the cacophony of that very large and very diverse choir will slowly but surely, member by reluctant member, start to sing the same, harmonious song... and cut the crap and let us get on with the arduous task of fixing the problem rather than arguing about whether or not science is science. -
DrTsk at 06:26 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Steve Case, You are preaching to a very large choir. Very few people disagree that the green house effect operates But the choir must do its job too!! People, like YOGI, elsa, and their cohorts that are spouting their giberrish should be countered strongly and permanently. -
owl905 at 06:19 AM on 29 February 2012New research from last week 8/2012
AGW Observer is an excellent resource site. The draft of the Cohen et. al. is a clue in the puzzle. Right around the fastest warming subsystem on the planet is the Taiga bucking the global trend - Figure 3 after the body. The value is seeing it as a long-term exception and not just the headline maker of a few recent winters. The other early interest-point is the AO influence (Figure S4) - the MERRA re-analysis observation is strong negatives (high pressure) AO trends where the model ensemble reflects the current recordings of slight positive. It has no effect on the Taiga anomaly observation. It will have a strong influence on forming conclusions about the anomaly. -
Phila at 05:41 AM on 29 February 2012Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Steve Case, You are preaching to a very large choir. Very few people disagree that the green house effect operates Yes, very few people disagree with this. But unfortunately, they're represented in relatively high numbers in "skeptical" circles, which makes this post timely and necessary. Personally, I've debated "skeptics" who didn't know that there's a difference in seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres, and who assumed that snow storms are basically impossible on a warming planet. I've also dealt with "skeptics" who assume that carbon dioxide can't affect the climate because it's heavier than oxygen. And believe it or not, they don't necessarily back off when you point out that atmospheric gases don't form layers based on weight, as evidenced by the fact that we haven't all been asphyxiated. As we've seen again and again, this is what happens when a political movement exploits public ignorance for its own gain: After a while, no fact is too simple or obvious to require a clear explanation. That's why people on the scientific side of this argument have to work so much harder than "skeptics" who can spout any pseudoscientific gibberish that flatters people's prejudices. -
Prof P. Body at 05:39 AM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
@ Camburn Could you be a good chap and elaborate on your claim you made earlier that"ARGO data, while short, shows a reduction in THC of the oceans in the 0-700M volume."
Looking at the source you reference (comment 29)"DB@56: Refer to Rob Painting at 29 of this thread. He posted the temperature data of the 0-700M volume."
For the life of my sainted mother, all I see is the graphic Rob P. posted from Roemmich and Gilson 2011, but not any data. If memory serves, Roemmich and Gilson 2011 focus on the Argo 2005-2010 dataset, of which one might construe Rob P's graphic to be representative. Can you share with us the significance testing you used to examine the data from Roemmich and Gilson 2011? I presume you actually went back to the source data itself to make your claim...right? It would be a deucedly tight bit to have the stones to use that, what is it called again? Eyecrometer? In lieu of actual analysis, what? Also, when you impute that there is a reduction, to what are you comparing the 2005-2010 dataset? Because it would seem to either nothing or itself. Naught very scientific of you, old bean. -
Camburn at 05:38 AM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Tom@88: That you for the compliment. Always appreciated. The widget works well for areas that I know about. And I do know the Mississippi watershed veryyyyy well, as well as the Red River Watershed. Greenland is self explanatory. South America is in my farm news eyecromiter daily, as well as Asia because Asia is a large buyer of commodities. Thanks again. -
Camburn at 05:31 AM on 29 February 2012Radiative Balance, Feedback, and Runaway Warming
Chris: Can you post a link to the WUWT thread you are talking about? I go there on occasion, yet seem to have missed that thread. I would like to read what arguement is the deathbed of AGW. Thank you. -
Rob Painting at 05:28 AM on 29 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Tom Curtis - "With regard to the overall balance, unfortunately I do not have figures. The graph shown above was prepared by Josh Willis of NASA, who indicated that it at least partially explained the drop in sea level. I assume, therefore, that he has done a balance which shows a net accumulation of surface water in 2010. I am not aware of its having been published' A paper by Carmen Boening (NASA JPL) on this subject should be out soon. Last time I checked she informed me it should be out in the early part of this year. I'll incorporate it into the advanced rebuttal of: Sea level fell in 2010. -
Rob Painting at 05:17 AM on 29 February 2012New research from last week 5/2012
Rob Murphy - I'm writing up a rebuttal to that meme. The temperature of the troposphere has an effect on cloud formation and height - cooler = lower cloud top height, and warmer = higher cloud top height. The details are a lot more complicated of course. As you point out, the trend over the 'noughties' was weak ENSO (La Nina/El Nino) at the beginning of the decade, and strong ENSO at the end. The La Nina centred on 2008 was particularly strong and lasted for 22 consecutive months. So it's hardly surprising the trend over the decade was toward lower cloud height. There's no evidence this is a negative feedback, that's just a 'Chicken Licken' interpretation of the evidence.
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