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Dave123 at 04:49 AM on 25 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
I've been wondering why there hasn't been a denier meme that runs like this: So 90% of the heat goes into the oceans and may be melting glaciers... that saves us from global warming. We'll run out of fossil fuels before we can overwhelm the natural buffers to the system. You warmists are worried for nothing. (these being the people who are happy watching other people drown). -
WheelsOC at 04:43 AM on 25 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Sounds like critical information for AR5. One of the early caveats about AR4 was the lack of information about how melting ice would impact sea level rise, keeping their projections for the future relatively low. Just be sure I've got this totally straight. Over the study period: *Globally, the net change in land ice is about -500 billion tons per year? Every couple of years we wound up with a trillion tons of total glacier mass less than before? *The Antarctic as a whole is undergoing a net loss of land ice at a pace that's very similar to Greenland? -
Scafetta's Widget Problems
Ron Manley - Very nice. Did you run a regression including the AMO and ENSO (plus solar, aerosol, and CO2), out of curiosity? Scafettas inclusion of a quadratic term essentially renders his cycles meaningless WRT anything but variations - the quadratic term is an unacknowledged stand-in for CO2. -
RonManley at 03:55 AM on 25 February 2012Scafetta's Widget Problems
It's only natural that those who are antagonistic to the very idea that GHGs play a role in AGW should look at cycles. Firstly they exclude any influence of GHGs and secondly they realise that climate models currently are not very good at modelling cycles such as the AMO and El Niño. Without expecting much to come out of it I tried two simple regression models. One regressing temperature against three independent variables: sunspots (as proxy for solar radiation), optical depth (as a proxy for aerosols) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The second model was the same as the first but I included CO2 as a fourth independent variable. The fist model was poor with an r2 value of 0.19 and no representation of the increase in temperature. The second model, including CO2, had an r2 value of 0.89 and performed quite well. You can see more details at: Climatedata opinionsModerator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Nice, especially the caveats at the end. The key with regressions is to remember that they can only tell you what might be explained by some factor, not what is explained by that factor. It would be interesting to see the difference adding ENSO into the model as well. -
actually thoughtful at 03:48 AM on 25 February 2012Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
Wow the takeaway of 2C from just 8 years of ice melt is actually the scariest number I've ever heard about actual climate change (as opposed to predicted). At some point the ice will be gone, or reduced so much it doesn't act as the flywheel of temperature stabilization. -
Bob Lacatena at 03:46 AM on 25 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Yogi, You are having trouble because you are applying a grossly oversimplified model to a complex situation. More specifically, you are treating the atmosphere as one, homogeneous slab, simplifying emissions to "up and down," and honing in on particular wavelengths. In reality, the atmosphere is a body of continuously varying density and makeup (for example, CO2 concentrations are relatively, proportionally consistent throughout the atmosphere, but water is not). As such, the radiation at 1 km differs from 2 km differs from 10 km or 1.5 km or 1.25 km. One cannot simply treat the entire thing as a solid, homogeneous block. Radiation is emitted in all directions, so you must consider geometry, which affects how much goes up and down, and how much atmosphere each particular photon must navigate before being observed, absorbed, or escaping to space. So at every conceivable altitude the emissions are affected by the density, temperature and makeup of the atmosphere at that altitude. In addition, between you as an observer (whether on the surface of the earth, up in space, or in a weather balloon in between) and the emitting layer under investigation, emissions may be absorbed or not by intervening layers (again, dependent on density and makeup), so what you see has some radiation filtered by intervening layers, some passing through, and some radiation added to it by intervening layers. To get a hint at some of the complexity involved, play around with this page, which uses a complex computer program to band by band, altitude by altitude, go through computing what is probably happening in order to project the probable observed emission spectrum given an observation point and specific atmospheric conditions. -
IanC at 03:28 AM on 25 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Yogi, "Your lower CO2 should radiate at 265K upwards too apparently." Just to make sure I understand you, do you mean the CO2 near the surface radiates at 265K upwards? If this is what you mean, you'll need to remember that the CO2 higher up absorbs at the same wavelength, and hence masks the signal from the surface CO2. As for your question, in the OLR (20km looking down) graph and at regions without atmospheric absoprtion, you will be seeing radiation coming from the surface, which is ~265K. For the DLR in the 600-750cm-1 band, the radiation is coming from CO2 near the surface, which is again close to 265K. -
YOGI at 03:10 AM on 25 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
IanC, Your lower CO2 should radiate at 265K upwards too apparently. And on the downward view, on regions free of absorption bands, the OLR is the same temp as the DLR in the 600-750 band on the upward view. How can that be ? -
tmac57 at 02:46 AM on 25 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Barry Bickmore has weighed in on this at RealClimate -
Stephen Baines at 02:35 AM on 25 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
I want to reemphasise the following comment "Climate science would be a field of study whether or not global warming was an issue, and, believe it or not..." The idea that scientists are somehow wound up in a self-perpetuating "climate change industry" seems crazy to me. Scientists have no vested interest in whether climate change is happening. It doesn't lead to more research dollars on average -- it just changes research priorities and the distribution of dollars. Some win in that redistribution, and some lose to some degree, but most just adapt. If climate change were not so obviously happening, the priorities would be different and we would adjust accordingly. But climate is so central to so many environmental, economic and societal issues and there is still so much to learn that I doubt funding levels would change. -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:01 AM on 25 February 2012The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
Ken Lambert wrote "However you can't pin ENSO for the recent (up to 14 year)stasis in surface temperatures where there are several cycles of La Nina and El Nino in that period - unless there is a longer cycle of asymmetry of heat loss verses heat gain involved - ie. it becomes an external forcing." So his claim was clearly about the recent behaviour of ENSO and its possible effects on recent climate. Hence his claim that "ENSO has not been accurately measured for much more that 50 years if that. It requires accurate spatial measurement of ocean temperatures." is clearly an attempt to move the goal-posts as it is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether ENSO averages out to a zero trend on decadal timescale or whether ENSO can explain the observed recent "stasis". -
The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
An addendum to my previous post: Those claiming that the ENSO (or PDO, or ...) has long term cyclic (or acyclic, for that matter) imbalance have never been able to answer an additional very important question: If such variability exists, why have we not seen such warming before? Even beyond the energetic impossibilities of the observed energy coming from nowhere (if it's not from GHG entrapment), why are there no indications of such excursions in the past? Some have claimed that the resolution of paleo data is insufficient to show such spikes in the past (I would disagree) - never speaking to the point that if such occurred an equally strong immediate downspike would be required in order to reset the climate state so that it (potentially) didn't show in the records. That's a great many "what-ifs", with zero supporting data. Again, assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence... -
The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
Claims of Mysterious Unknown Cycles (MUC's, for the purpose of this post) are one of the more frequently invoked claims made in objection to current consensus theories on greenhouse gases and climate change. But without evidence for MUC's, Occams razor indicates that GHG theories that are supported by the evidence are far more likely to be the case. To quote Christopher Hitchens: "Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Ken Lambert - You have now clearly stated that there is no evidence, there is insufficent data, to support MUC's for the ENSO. I believe such claims can now be dismissed. -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:50 AM on 25 February 2012The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
Ken Lambert Just go and perform the analysis and demonstrate that your inference of a longer cycle is actually warranted. Either you can demonstrate that ENSO cancels out to a zero trend over a decadal period, or you can show that ENSO+solar+aerosols don't adequately explain climatic changes. Either way, the onus is on you do demonstrate the valdity of your assertions. Like it or not, that is the way science works. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:44 AM on 25 February 2012Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
14, Tom, Interesting! I never knew or considered that (the fact that a day/night "average" must be done more carefully by considering radiation and Stephan-Boltzmann, not by mere add and divide)! I can make use of that in a blog-post-project I've been working on... if life ever allows me to return to it. -
Tom Curtis at 01:41 AM on 25 February 2012Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
Sphaerica, the Moon has an albedo of 0.136, slightly less than half of that of Earth. Therefore high albedo is not the cause of its lower mean surface temperature. Rather, that is the consequence of its uneven energy distribution. Because radiation to space increases with the fourth power of temperature, a body with very high and very low surface temperatures at different locations radiates energy to space far more efficiently than one with a constant surface temperature. Consequently its mean surface temperature will be lower, even though it radiates the same energy to space. This means that, given Earth's albedo, 255 K is the maximum Global Mean Surface Temperature for the Earth if we ignore the greenhouse effect. Because the temperature of the Earth's surface is not uniform, in practice it would be lower than that. The often quoted 33 degrees C increase in the GMST as a result of the greenhouse effect is, therefore, an underestimate. Of course, these facts in no way help Rosco's case. Rather they undermine it. They show why comparisons between the Earth and the Moon are misleading if not carefully done, viz, the Earth has a very even surface temperature, while the Moon has a very uneven surface temperature. They highlight his cherry picking by quoting daylight temperatures for the moon instead of the Mean Surface Temperature. And they highlight is stunning inability to comprehend the meaning of the word "average", as in "Total Solar Insolation averaged over the surface of the Earth", or the "average surface temperature". -
DSL at 01:37 AM on 25 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR: ""I believe the "truth" is generally found some where in the middle..." I'm sorry, CraigR, but I'm going to have to join the dogpile. Any sentence that starts with not just "I believe" but also "the truth" is bound to end badly. Following such a beginning with "generally" and then "(is) found" (passive -- someone else is doing it, not you) and then "somewhere" (bring that together with "generally," and you have exactly nothing) and you end up pointing precisely to the universe as a whole. And then we have "in the middle" applied to science . . . These comments (the last few in reply to you) should be read as a sign that you are misreading your audience. Your audience clearly expects a level of precision that you felt was unnecessary in your first series of comments. That's not to say you shouldn't continue with the discussion, but without any changes you risk talking to an empty room. To continue . . . you say, "I doubt that an organization would pick a path that would see it's demise on purpose (both sides)." Not true. Organizations that have a limited lifespan are constantly being formed. I've said this before, but I suspect that John Cook (and most of the usual posters) would drop SkS in a heartbeat if denialism suddenly vanished or the world decided to put serious and sustained effort into mitigation. He certainly wouldn't manufacture controversy in order to drive up interest in the site. As far as scientists go, people don't get into an area of science because it's the hot ticket right now. The process of developing as a scientist is too slow for that. Climate science would be a field of study whether or not global warming was an issue, and, believe it or not, the actual specific discipline is not well-populated. It looks well-populated because science being done by thousands of researchers in other fields is supporting the conclusions of climate scientists (thus, everyone looks like a climate scientist). It's not as simple as saying "this side" and "that side." True, there are people who want to turn everything into a series of commodities, but these people are not generated by climate science. Rather, they are encouraged by the current economic mode (so, yes, you'll find them everywhere). CraigR: "I think declaring someone anti-science or pro-science in an effort to discredit them or place them above others is simply wrong "science" is to broader a topic for such generalizations." Heartland will continue to manufacture its primary product--doubt--as long as it has a market. If you have evidence of another primary product for Heartland, let's have it. Existing evidence supports Heartland as a doubt factory. Since science is all about eliminating doubt, Heartland is anti-science. Blah blah blah. I need to get back to work. -
Ken Lambert at 01:32 AM on 25 February 2012The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
DM "The beginning of true skepticism is self-skepticism - please go and test your understanding of trends in quasi-periodic signals, it is clearly faulty at present." (-Snip-) ENSO has not been accurately measured for much more that 50 years if that. It requires accurate spatial measurement of ocean temperatures. Earlier ENSO cycles are estimated or inferred and the neutrality of their energy balances similarly little known.Response:[DB] Inflammatory snipped.
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Bob Lacatena at 00:51 AM on 25 February 2012Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
1, Rosco, Just noticed your first post. Sorry I'm so late to the party, but it contains several errors which invalidate the whole thing. Your first and most obvious error is that you are comparing the peak daytime temperature on the moon with the average temperature on earth. 396˚K is the daytime maximum on the moon. 40˚K is the nighttime minimum. The average temperature on the moon is thus 218˚K. This is well below the 270˚K that you computed by (properly) distributing the incoming energy over the surface of the sphere (giving 301 W/m2, average). Why? Because the surface of the moon reflects a large amount of the light (as proven by how bright it is when viewed from the earth at night). [I find it interesting to note that you applied the albedo to the earth, and forgot to do so to the moon.] For the temperature of the earth, it is clear that something is heating the earth, because with it's albedo the average temperature should be 254˚K (-19˚C), and yet it is clearly warmer. This is from 1368W/m2, divided by 4, multiplied by the albedo factor of 0.7, then applied to Stephan-Boltzmann, as you've done. So something is warming, not cooling the earth. But the greenhouse effect, left alone, would heat the earth well past the 288˚K we see today. But it doesn't! Why not? Because convection and evapotranspiration, as well as the complexities of the absorption and transmission of radiation through an atmosphere of continuously variable density, add additional factors that moderate the greenhouse effect. Your effort at disproving the greenhouse effect through the simplest of math is a non-starter, because you included many logical mistakes in your calculations. Hint: A lot of really, really smart people have been thinking about this for over a hundred and eight-five years. If it were as simple to untangle as you'd like it to be (i.e. encapsulated in a short blog comment), we wouldn't be having any discussions about it. -
Alexandre at 00:19 AM on 25 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
Between the NASA version and the conspiracy theorists' one, the truth must be that astronauts went only halfway to the Moon. Between WHO's version and Dr. Duesberg's one, the truth must be that HIV causes only half of AIDS cases. Forget evidence. Forget about understanding physics. The average of all bloggers' positions is the most reliable proxy for truth. I notice I'm too sarcastic lately. Must be lazyness. -
JMurphy at 21:55 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR wrote : "I believe the "truth" is generally found some where in the middle..." As a matter of interest, what is the middle position, that presumably you find yourself in, with regards to Evolution and its Creationist opposite ? Or do you agree that the truth (without quotation marks) is generally found nearer to scientific explanations than to religious or political ones (such as expounded by Heartland). -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:06 PM on 24 February 2012The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
Ken Lambert Even for a perfect sinusoid it only has a zero trend if you pick the start and end points to give a cosine, rather than (say) a sine, so your assertion that a larger cycle were necessary is clearly incorrect. BTW, the "go on, I dare you" was intended as tongue in cheek, basically pointing out that you need to go and test the validity of your understanding of the maths and the data, as you don't appear to be willing to accept this fact when it is just explained to you. I'm sorry that this came across as being agressive; it was meant as a challenge, but not in bad temper. Please download one of the ENSO indices. You ought to be able to see just from the graph that it will not cancel out to a zero trend on a decadal basis. If that doesn't convince you, then go and actually compute the decadal trends. The beginning of true skepticism is self-skepticism - please go and test your understanding of trends in quasi-periodic signals, it is clearly faulty at present.Moderator Response:[DB] Please note that Ken Lambert is engaged in pointless trolling, for which his last comment (since deleted) makes clear.
[Dikran Marsupial] Thanks DB, I have moderated my post in response to make sure it is still fair to Ken following the deletion of his post. -
Rob Painting at 19:11 PM on 24 February 2012Search For 'Missing Heat' Confirms More Global Warming 'In The Pipeline'
skept.fr - we'll have a post on Douglas & Knox (2012). It's a hard read, that's for sure. And there are some rather obvious problems - such as including the geothermal constant in their calculations. -
CBDunkerson at 19:10 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR wrote: "I believe the "truth" is generally found some where in the middle" The middle of actual of scientific research yes... that's known as the IPCC reports with their finding of a climate sensitivity range likely between 2 and 4.5 C per CO2 doubling, most probably about 3 C. Somewhere in the middle between the scientific research which finds low (e.g. 2 C) climate sensitivity and the scientific research which finds high (e.g. 4.5 C) climate sensitivity. What you are arguing for is instead some sort of 'false middle' between the range found by scientific research and nonsense made up by propagandists. The Heartland Institute has never published even one peer reviewed scientific study. There is thus nothing to 'factor in' from them when calculating a 'middle'. Tell me, do you believe that 'the middle' lies somewhere between the overwhelming scientific evidence that smoking causes cancer and the Heartland Institute's position that it does not? -
skept.fr at 19:03 PM on 24 February 2012Search For 'Missing Heat' Confirms More Global Warming 'In The Pipeline'
#42 neil : ocean transfers heat to the atmosphere by three way : latent heat of evaporation (~78W/m2), radiation (~66W/m2) and conduction (~24W/m2). Orders of magnitude here. The latent heat for evaporation is mainly extract from the liquid state (the ocean surface layer). On average, oceans skin and subsurface layer are a bit warmer than the air (1-2 °C, same source). So, in the hypothesis of a "stop" forcing, I guess oceans would still release one part of the excess heat accumulated during the forcing period (the other part being transferred to deep layers), and they would do so by evaporation, radiation or conduction. What I ignore is the relaxation time for this exchange ocean-air persisting after the forcing had stopped. It probably depends on how the upper layer of ocean is stratified (or, to the contrary, mixed with sub-layers by turbulent exchange). That is the way I figure the proximate mechanisms of "pipeline" as long as ocean alone is concerned. But there are other mechanisms too. For example, if the forcing period had reduced the sea ice extent and thickness, when the forcing stops, sea ice is more prone to melt (less thick) and to absorb subsequently the incoming solar radiation. This loss of albedo /accumulation of heat would last even after the forcing has ceased, it is caused by the fact that the system before and after the forcing is no more the same. -
Rob Painting at 19:02 PM on 24 February 2012Search For 'Missing Heat' Confirms More Global Warming 'In The Pipeline'
Neil - sorry but I don't have the same reverence you have toward the scientific literature, there is plenty of junk in there too - check out Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen's work for instance. A far more realistic scenario is that considered in Armour & Roe (2011) - Climate commitment in an uncertain world: They state: "Turning now to the case in which all anthropogenic emissions cease, there is an immediate unmasking of greenhouse gas forcing as aerosols are quickly washed from the atmosphere. The effect is an abrupt rise in climate forcing (Figure 1a) to a peak value of around 2.7 W m−2 , which is relatively well constrained as it depends only on greenhouse gases. The response is a rapid warming (Figure 1b), with a transient commitment of up to 0.9°C above the modern temperature. Thereafter, forcing declines over the next few centuries as greenhouse gases are partially, but not completely, removed from the atmosphere" Neil -"This is is all consistent. If emissions "stop" the surface does not warm, but the ocean continues to warm" That makes no sense at all. How can the ocean warm without eventually exchanging that heat to the atmosphere? -
Doug Hutcheson at 19:00 PM on 24 February 2012Monckton Misrepresents Specific Situations (Part 2)
idunno @ 16 The Monckton attack at the link you posted is typical of the chappie. In this case, he is not only an expert on Climate Science, he is also a consultant on American state and federal law. His degree is in what? Classical Basket-weaving? He certainly weaves an impressive fabric from broken threads of logic. It is a shame that a facile mind like his cannot be directed to a pursuit more likely to benefit his fellow man. Oh, I forgot, that is not his agenda, is it? -
Tom Curtis at 18:17 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR @62, the truth is not identified by finding two factions and looking for a middle opinion, it is identified by examining the evidence and seeing how various theories stack up. As it happens, one side spends almost all of the available money to it doing just that. The other side pays people money based on the conclusion they reach, not on the evidence they supply or the rigorousness of their approach. Describing the first as an "industry" misses the essential differences between their approach. If you disagree with this assessment, you are more than welcome to take up the cudgels and show how Christopher Monckton (closely associated with the Heartland Institute) has not serially misrepresented, scientists and scientific data. Until you do, you have no business representing the sides as being equivalent when clearly they are not. -
Doug Hutcheson at 17:42 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR @ 62"I believe the "truth" is generally found some where in the middle"
What truth is in the middle of which extremes, precisely? Either Heartland financially supports groups and individuals in efforts to undermine the greater body of established climate science, or they don't. There is no half-way. Your stance is akin to saying "the truth about CO2 is half-way between 'it is a greenhouse gas' and 'it is not a greenhouse gas'" i.e: a logical impossibility. -
CraigR at 15:56 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
"International Climate Denial Spin Machine" but yet a label like "The Climate Change Industry" some how is viewed as inappropriate, to each their own I guess. From my understanding most organizations would probably put forward plans, agendas and processes that would most benefit their organization. I doubt that an organization would pick a path that would see it's demise on purpose (both sides). I believe the "truth" is generally found some where in the middle, not unlike the current Labor leadership tussle, (maybe their just as bad as each other, sorry I digress) to much time and vested interests have cemented peoples positions. I fear that the "truth" has been lost sometime ago and the willingness to share openly, discuss respectfully and even the opportunity for some to say "I was mistaken" just seems to hard now to admit and we as a society are the poorer for it. -
DSL at 15:26 PM on 24 February 2012Models are unreliable
vor: "You do not use computers to do anything more than play games with role playing software, you do not pretend you can guess the future. That tends to come back and bite you in the tushy." What the heck is that? Are you saying that any attempt to predict the future is useless? Or are you saying that computer models aren't the best way to predict (if so, you got something better?)? Or are you saying that a specific model has problems, problems which you are able to detail/explain? Or are you saying that one person's prediction about climate refugees casts doubt on the scientific work of thousands? A little clarity, if you don't mind. -
muoncounter at 14:09 PM on 24 February 2012Scafetta's Widget Problems
dana1981: "... hold them accountable." Good luck with that. You're talking about the crowd that says 'we'll accept the BEST results even if they don't agree with our position' ... until the BEST results didn't agree with their position. The crowd that quickly 'changes the metric' when they don't get what they want. All Scafetta needs to do is add another cycle. -
scaddenp at 13:59 PM on 24 February 2012Models are unreliable
VoR - let me acquaint you with another way this site works. Your "model predictions are wrong" is list of cherry-picked, long-debunked guff from likes of Tisdale, Watts, CO2"science". This is not how it is done. If you want to contest model/observations, first you reference the published science source that makes the prediction. That takes case of the strawman arguments. Next you reference the published data that refutes it. That way we can see if it fair prediction or just cherry-picking. Also, models are tied to scenarios. Ie "IF the forcings are this, THEN the climate will this". That beats false prediction. Now the models stuff out miles of predictions and some are more robust than others. eg trends in global climate parameters are pretty robust. Regional prediction is less robust especially when it depends on how ENSO will change (if it does) with rising temperature. That is an open question. -
muoncounter at 13:45 PM on 24 February 2012Models are unreliable
Adelady#496 vor's objection to use of 2100 as an endpoint is also utterly without meaning. It's arbitrary. And vor provides a good example of the fact that everybody and their dog are checking those predictions at least annually. This is the real issue that vor doesn't want to face: What data do the checkers (and their dogs) use to check the predictions? Is it a carefully cherrypicked few years ('it hasn't warmed since last week!')? Is it just one parameter of particular interest ('it's snowing in Europe!')? Is it just one prediction ('my TV news said there aren't any climate refugees!')? Or is it the entire record (as F&R2011 analyzed, as BEST verified) and the entire spectrum of the evidence (as we see here)? -
IanC at 13:44 PM on 24 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Yogi 1286, The temperature lines in the graph indicates the emission spectrum of a black body at that temperature. By comparing the irradiance to these curves you can get a sense of which part of the atmosphere the emission is from. The reason why the emission in the downwelling is at 265K is because it will be from CO2 that is relatively close to the surface. Since it is measured in the arctic it sounds about right. On the other hand in the graph at 20km looking down, it will be from CO2 that is fin the upper troposphere/stratosphere, explaining the lower brightness temperature. -
muoncounter at 13:29 PM on 24 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
yogi#1276: "I`m more interested in ..." Sorry, I must have misread your comments here and here. An abrupt change in interest is usually a sign that the given answer was accepted and we're moving on. So the 'water is much more abundant than CO2 and should thus be much more of a GHG' issue is settled. Especially since it's off topic for this thread. Look here. -
YOGI at 13:27 PM on 24 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
sorry, another typo, that should have been.. The two plots show that in the 600 to 750 cm-1 band, 265K radiate downwards, but only 225K upwards. How is that possible ? -
adelady at 13:26 PM on 24 February 2012Models are unreliable
vor. Well here's the very latest data-model comparison for the completed 2011 year at RealClimate. I'm not sure how much effort should be expended on detailed projections for 100+ years. You can just see how much difference arises from using various scenarios. Climate might be difficult, but predicting what people might do and when they might do it is even more so. One question. Were you looking at the 'basic' or the 'intermediate' version of this post. And a quiet word in your shell-like "That's a fine parameter for a scientific experiment, setting the end point beyond observable time, possible a clue as to the general integrity of the whole project?" is as close to an accusation of fraud as dammit is to swearing. Don't be surprised if the moderators give you a hard time. -
Albatross at 13:23 PM on 24 February 2012Uncertainty Is Not the Basis for Investment
Eric @53, Thanks for your point-by-pint reply. I still have some issues with your responses, such as citing a 20 plus year old modelling paper @#4. But I do not have time right now to address those concerns/issues. It seems though that we are in agreement that Meyer was either wrong or sloppy or too simplistic on numerous key points. -
Albatross at 13:20 PM on 24 February 2012Uncertainty Is Not the Basis for Investment
Pete @61, That Trenberth et al. (2003) paper that you linked us to is great, one of my favourites! -
Pete Dunkelberg at 13:04 PM on 24 February 2012Uncertainty Is Not the Basis for Investment
One other comment while I'm on the subject: We use the expression "The air holds water" but this is not quite right. Air is mainly oxygen and nitrogen and these do not "hold" H2O. From the point of view of a water molecule breaking free of the liquid surface, air is virtually empty space. The equilibrium vapor pressure depends on temperature. The space in a closed jar with some water at the bottom will contain the same amount of water in the absence or presence of air. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 13:02 PM on 24 February 2012Uncertainty Is Not the Basis for Investment
Glenn Tamblyn @ 51, I see your point. It's worth noting though that in the atmosphere there is not the straight line from evaporation to condensation to precipitation that happens in a closed jar. The column of air above an area may on average contain about 25mm, about an inch of water (if it all rained out). After a rain the air is still damp, missing only about 7 mm of the 25 it might have had. At the same time, over an inch of rain may have fallen. What's going on? You might enjoy this paper which starts out "Why does it rain?" -
Pete Dunkelberg at 13:00 PM on 24 February 2012Uncertainty Is Not the Basis for Investment
actually thoughful @ 52, "Protect yourself at all times." That's the first rule of boxing. It's true that Meyer mentions a possible water vapor feedback, but this is just to set you up. Read on and see that he delivers blow after blow against it (for a scientifically unsophisticated audience). http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/02/09/understanding-the-global-warming-debate/print/ If a climate change denier says the sky is blue, go outside and check. -
YOGI at 12:57 PM on 24 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
typo... The S.O.D. article does NOT answer my question -
John Hartz at 12:52 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR: The fossil-fuel industry collectively stands to realize billions of dollars in profits at stake if a "business-as-usual" emissions scenario is maintained over the next decades. It created and continues to fund the global Climate Denial Spin Machine whose sole purpose is to convince the general public and policymakers that taking swift and meaningful actions to reduce manmade GHG emissions on a global scale is not necessary. -
voice of reason at 12:43 PM on 24 February 2012Models are unreliable
I've been busy going through my own archives, someone here has taken the trouble to compare as many predictions from models with the following reality as possible, (-Snip-). But as people have incredibly short memories and attention spans unless recorded nearly everyone's off on a new trip (-Snip-), the more so the greater ahead they are predicted. 2100 would make a perfect one, as when picked by the IPCC no one on earth could fulfil the experiment as they'd have needed to be 110 at the very youngest. (-Snip-) http://www.c3headlines.com/predictionsforecasts/Response:[DB] Time to acquaint yourself with this site's Comments Policy. You should be familiar with it: that of the SkS FB page was modeled on it.
Multiple violations of the Comments Policy snipped.
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John Hartz at 12:42 PM on 24 February 2012DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine
CraigR: Thanks to the International Climate Denial Spin Machine created by the Koch brothers, Robert Murdoch, and their ilk, a propaganda generator like the Heartland Institute does not have to be large and have a big budget in order to impact public opinion and public policy. In other words, the Heartland Institute does not operate in a vacuum. -
John Hartz at 12:39 PM on 24 February 2012Denialgate - Internal Heartland Documents Expose Climate Denial Funding Network
@GreenCooling #54: You'll also be pleased to know that many SkS authors post on the comment threads to articles about climate change that are posted on Forbes. Unfortunately, James Taylor, is not the only climate denier posting so-called "op-eds" on Forbes on a regular basis. -
John Hartz at 12:34 PM on 24 February 2012Denialgate - Internal Heartland Documents Expose Climate Denial Funding Network
@GreenCooling #54: “Been their done that” The lead-in to Skepticism about Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data .reads as follows: “Note: This article was submitted to Forbes as a correction to the op-ed by James Taylor in question, but Forbes declined to publish it, so instead we're posting it here.” Dana’s article was posted on SkS on Jan 8, 2012. -
YOGI at 12:33 PM on 24 February 20122nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
The S.O.D. article does answer my question, it just says.. "The atmosphere, once heated up, radiates equally in all directions. Some of this is downward."
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