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MattJ at 12:29 PM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
I can't claim that this article proves my guess was right, but it does encourage me to believe the guess I made a couple of years ago: if there is a successful "geo-engineering" project to save the world from the worst of AGW, it will be accomplished not by spraying aerosols in the air, but by manipulating ocean currents so that the oceans can absorb more of the heat. That said, I still believe that we do not know enough to embark on ANY geo-engineering project yet, we might not know enough for decades to come. We could easily end up just making things worse. -
ejo60 at 12:16 PM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
The NIPCC project aims raise doubt about climate change, it contains a lot of misinformation, therefore nobody in climate science believes the NIPCC report. But this is different outside science, many folks out there believe the Heartland message that climate change is a hoax. And in this sense the NIPCC has been successful. Also, I can confirm that one of the Dutch authors on the NIPCC report attempted to get more scientists involved. It all fits in the strategy of the Heartland institute, namely to discredit science in order to gain a strategic advantage in a public debate. Last year Nature had an article with since remarkable statements made by Joe Bast, in my opinion most information was known before the documents leaked. link On my blog I keep a collection of articles related to leak at the Heartland Institute. -
scaddenp at 12:01 PM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
And another point about the estimation of geothermal energy... the petroleum industry invest heavily in understanding this. It is a crucial input to sedimentary models used for determining if and when a basin could be generating oil and gas. I think they would have noticed and reported loudly if there was any suggestion that the accepted geothermal heat flux rate were underestimated. Volcanoes and associated events are extremely localised heating. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 11:20 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
wrt to Geothermal Energy, the following from Wikipedia gives some sense of its relative magnitude: "The Earth's internal thermal energy flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 terawatts (TW),[33] and is replenished by radioactive decay of minerals at a rate of 30 TW.[34] These power rates are more than double humanity’s current energy consumption from all primary sources, but most of this energy flow is not recoverable. In addition to the internal heat flows, the top layer of the surface to a depth of 10 meters (33 ft) is heated by solar energy during the summer, and releases that energy and cools during the winter. Outside of the seasonal variations, the geothermal gradient of temperatures through the crust is 25–30 °C (45–54 °F) per kilometer of depth in most of the world. The conductive heat flux averages 0.1 MW/km2. These values are much higher near tectonic plate boundaries where the crust is thinner. They may be further augmented by fluid circulation, either through magma conduits, hot springs, hydrothermal circulation or a combination of these." 0.1 MW/km2 is 0.1W/M2. Contrast this with Solar absorbed by the surface at around 161 W/M2, back radiation at around 333 W/M2 and the forcing due to a doubling of CO2 of 3.7 W/M2. Geothermal is present but it is 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the main components of the energy balance in the atmosphere. And while it is conceivable that a major subsea volcano might put out enough heat to cause a circulation, heat flows from diffuse sources like vents are pretty unlikely to to contribute much. And the key issue with Geothermal energy is that, apart from major eruptions, there is no sensible mechanism for why the output wouldfluctuate significantly. What must also be remembered is that when we look at the major ocean currents, they may move slowly but the water volumes are massive. So there is a huge amount of kinetic energy in them that can then drive all sorts of complex circulation behaviour. So secondary circulations like gyres aren't really surprising in the context of the whole ocean, and that their behaviour can change from time to time isn't really surprising either. Matt Arkell. The important issue with the geothermal flow is not just its magnitude which is part of the normal energy balance of the planet, but how much that flux could change because it is that that would be the driver of any contribution it might make to change in the ocean heat content. -
skywatcher at 11:15 AM on 18 February 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
#85, a single site is not a good measure of global sea level rise, I'm sure you know that. Global sea level measurements are running at the top of the IPCC projections, showing they most likely underestimated sea level rise. Recent papers support this conclusion, and the IPCC SLR figure is likely to be revised upwards in the next report. So I don't believe your last para unequivocally, I think it is an underestimate! You include a couple of irrelevant points. The 120m SLR that concluded in the Early Holocene is as irrelevant to recent sea level as sea level rise in the Jurassic. Although it has some relevance for showing how much oceans can rise (and how fast - Meltwater Pulse 1A) when you melt ice sheets. The Little Ice Age is similarly irrelevant - what on earth do you suppose is the main reason temperatures have risen ~1C since the LIA, and especially since the 1960s? -
Stephen Baines at 10:44 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
To emphasize KRs point, one need only look at the fact that temperature within tens of meters away from those vents is back to 3-4C. The vastness of the deep ocean provides enough heat capacity to easily dilute that geothermal heat and maintain a very constant temperature. For those geothermal vents to force upwelling through the permanent thermocline, they would have to exert a wide ranging and persistent effect of temperature that would be very obvious. We simply do not see that. -
Matt Arkell at 10:43 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
I read this line: But the absolute clincher is that the amount of heat going into the oceans is so great that no other source of heat here on Earth could supply it and was curious to know the numbers. While I had an intuitive sense the statement was correct, having studied geothermal heat as a power source in the past, I felt interested to see just how different the heat fluxes from above and below are, just in case I ever get asked. Now obviously I'm comparing apples and oranges to an extent, there isn't much mixing between the parts of the ocean where these heat flows wind up, but the numbers are interesting nonetheless. The heat flow into the top 700 m from 1993-2003 averages out at 257 TW (from the IPCC report graph), while the geothermal heat flow from oceanic crust is 35 TW (from Pollack, 1993; heatflow of 97 mW/m2). So the geothermal flow is only ~13% that of the additional heat being pumped into the top 700 m, which is quite a small amount. In fact I'm a little surprised that no-one I've ever talked to has asked whether the OHC anomaly could be coming from the bottom up instead. Of course, for this to be the case, the oceans would have to operate on a vastly different mechanism to how they are known to operate, even if the heatflow was sufficient. -
Rob Painting at 10:35 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Guardianista2012- "I don't think my suggestion should be dismissed out of hand" Why not? There have been decades of research on this topic. Has it not occurred to you that this may have been seriously considered decades ago and found wanting? It simply does not gel with the observations. I suggest you watch that animation to gain a better understanding of ENSO. And for your information, the tiny contribution of geothermal heat in the very deep sea, the abyssal ocean, is responsible for the upwelling arm of the Thermohaline Circulation. It's not exactly like scientists don't know this. -
Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Guardianista2012 - The amount of energy released by volcanic activity, and in fact by all heat percolating out of the Earth's core, is tiny with respect to the observed heat changes in the climate. Also note that modeling the physics of aperiodic circulations such as the ENSO shows such variations emerging from wind and circulation as we understand it - in other words, the physics of atmospheric and oceanic circulation show ENSO type variations as emergent properties of the system. No need for warming the bottom of the pot whatsoever. Given the stratification shown in ocean temperatures, heat coming from the ocean floor or vents would be easily discernible as warm layers on the ocean floor. No such evidence exists to support your hypothesis. So: there's insufficient energy available from geothermal activity, and no evidence for vents driving circulatory changes. -
Guardianista2012 at 10:17 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
I don't think my suggestion should be dismissed out of hand. I've found this article, which confirms that geothermal vents do exist:- http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/exploring.html ENSO may be just in the tropics, but there are other less significant upwelling phenomenon all over the world. -
Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
skept.fr - "There are no other ways for dissipating energy?" The only way for the Earth climate to dissipate energy (if you correctly delineate the system boundaries, as Glenn Tamblyn has done in this post) is by radiating it to space. The heat content is the total of atmospheric, surface, ocean, and cryosphere segments, with the oceans representing by far the largest portion. Increasing heat content in the oceans isn't dissipating a heat imbalance - it's simply going somewhere in the climate that's harder to directly observe/experience than the atmosphere. And that total imbalance is what is changing our climate over the long haul. That's the entire point of this thread! -
Rob Painting at 10:03 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
skept.fr - "For example, I don't figure clearly why an energy imbalance would imply just a heat content change in oceans. There are no other ways for dissipating energy?" Increase the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and less heat escapes to space. The double-whammy is that greenhouse gases trap more heat in the ocean too. The combined effect is less heat being lost to space, and the Earth warms. This warming causes an energy imbalance at the top-of-the-atmosphere (less energy in the form of heat is radiated out to space). The current imbalance is, in effect, future warming in store for us. Where else do you propose energy can be stored on Earth? -
Rob Painting at 09:52 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Guardianista2012 -Is there any problem with my suggestion that ENSO events could be sourced from below, though? Yes. ENSO is a tropically-driven phenomenon, is it your contention that these mysterious geothermal vents straddle the equator in the Pacific? Actually there are so many problems with your assertion that it's better you watch this animation and understand how ENSO operates, rather than put forth "what if......", and "maybe......" There is a vast body of scientific literature on ENSO, and there was a recent (2012) review at NCAR which deals with the various proposed mechanisms - I'll see if I can track it down, if you're interested. -
Bob Lacatena at 09:48 AM on 18 February 2012Climate sensitivity is low
Stephen, I didn't even notice that the graph had upped it to 3.25. SirNubWub, I'd almost think you were a denier-in-disguise, playing hard-to-notice tricks with your audience. The number is 3 (or better yet, the range between 2 and 4.5). And transient sensitivity is around 2. And there is absolutely nothing at all behind any such denial argument (and please don't call them skeptics, because they aren't, if they were skeptical they would have researched the issue well enough to figure this out for themselves and not bother to make such a specious argument). -
Stephen Baines at 09:24 AM on 18 February 2012Climate sensitivity is low
It should also be pointed out that the IPCC quotes 3C/doubling as the most likely sensitivity. The value of 3.25 used above is a slight misrepresentation that overstates the mismatch. It is the average of the upper and lower extremes (2 and 4.5 respectively) cited by the IPCC, but the probability distribution is not symmetrical between these extremes. -
Bob Lacatena at 09:08 AM on 18 February 2012Climate sensitivity is low
269, SirNubWub, First, for a high school text I suggest you use log2 rather than natural logs. If you do so, then your constants will actually be the climate sensitivity (3, 1.85 instead of 4.7, 2.73). For the discrepancy, the short answers: 1) The model as described is far too simplistic. For instance, it presumes that the only influence on climate in the past 100 years has been CO2. More specifically, it ignores the opposing anthropogenic negative forcing of aerosols. Unfortunately, as we work for cleaner air we are reducing the aerosols without reducing CO2 emissions. And if we were to stop abruptly, the added aerosols would quickly fall out of the atmosphere while the CO2 would stay active for hundreds/thousands of years. See this page of the IPCC AR4 report and more specifically this diagram. 2) The model presented only measures transient, not equilibrium climate sensitivity. The first is what you get from fairly fast feedbacks, while the latter is what you get if you wait long enough for the system to stabilize (which includes all ice sheet melting, ocean warming, ecosystem transitions, permafrost methane releases, etc.). Transient climate sensitivity is estimated to be about 2˚C per doubling, and equilibrium sensitivity about 3˚C, so your 1.85˚C/doubling number is pretty close, especially after you consider the negative influence of aerosols. Sadly, the ice on Earth is far from finished melting, the carbon cycle is far from equalizing, and the oceans are far from absorbing as much heat as they can. 3) The model presumes that warming is instantaneous. Honestly, very few times in the history of the earth has a forcing of this magnitude been applied this quickly. It is very hard to predict how long it will take for the forcing imbalance to raise the planet to new equilibrium temperatures, even without considering the slow (equilibrium) feedbacks. -
SirNubwub at 08:29 AM on 18 February 2012Climate sensitivity is low
Hello First of all, hats off to this website for its clarity and ease-of use. It has been a great source of information for me. I am developing a high-school physics chapter where I show the back-and-forth debate on AGW. Here is a skeptic's graph that they say shows that observed temps/CO2 levels of the last 100+ years indicate a climate sensitivity of about 1.85. Can you please tell me how the skeptics have their data/graph/conclusions wrong? (please remember that the audience is going to be high-schoolers). the graph can be seen more clearly at http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6972/zoominco2logwarmingwp3.png I am not here to debate the issue, just to get information and to move on to the next topic. I thank you in advance.
muoncounter at 08:15 AM on 18 February 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Camburn#33: It is also helpful if you note the age of your cites. These papers are from 2009 and are therefore not news; they may not even be shedding any valid light on current trends.Stephen Baines at 08:01 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Dennis, I believe all those societies have produced statements that clearly indicate that the position of the NIPCC is incorrect, without naming it directly. Societies like AGU, AAAS and ESA have been increasing their efforts to communicate, but the fact is that there are no "PR machines" to put into gear and there won't be anytime soon. In fact, I'd argue the mission of these organizations makes them uniquely unsuited to doing this task. They do not have the resources to even identify, much less debunk all the misinformation out there. That's why I come to this site! Heartland's sole purpose is to promote positions that are at odds with the science, without concern for whether those positions are correct. They don't have to do the peer-reviewed research, they don't have to administer to the million and one other obligations facing a scientific society. They don't even have to follow the rules of logic or evidence! All they have to do is craft a message and plug into a preexisting echo chamber that has been constructed over a long period of time to amplify messages from other like minded think tanks. The scientific societies do not have access to that echo chamber -- it was not built for them. Places like Sks, or RealClimate go some ways to filling that role.skept.fr at 08:00 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
The point by #14 Glenn is interesting. Is there an educational web source which explains and if possible quantifies the different exchanges in the oceanic "energy system" (inside ocean, between layers, and also with atmosphere). For laymen, it is quite obscure: there's much attention for atmosphere mechanisms (3% of heat content) and few explanations for ocean (90%). For example, I don't figure clearly why an energy imbalance would imply just a heat content change in oceans. There are no other ways for dissipating energy?Guardianista2012 at 07:52 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Thanks Glen, I can see what you're saying there now. There's still a puzzle in my mind why the warm water would get drawn down in the first place, though. Is there any problem with my suggestion that ENSO events could be sourced from below, though? We know there's heat down there, so why wouldn't it permeate to the sea floor and heat the water from below? Obviously, we're talking subtle temp changes but over a whole planet could explain the variable temps we see.Glenn Tamblyn at 07:39 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Guardianista2012 Heat will only rise back towards the surface if the water below is warmer than that above. This will depend on how much mixing occurs when the warm water from the surface meets the cooler water at the bottom of the gyres. Just because the lower waters have been heated doesn't automatically mean that they will be warmer than the water above. The heat figures just mean that they are warmer than they had been previously.Stephen Baines at 07:39 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
WheelsOC, I take your point that disengaging is not the correct thing to do. But scientists do engage quite a bit through the IPCC mechanism. Every 5-7 years scientists donate thousands of hours of time to the purpose to providing the clearest view of the consensus. A number of them spend inordinate time addressing public pseudoscience. My point was that you have to pick your battles given these other laudable efforts. I personally don't feel that engaging in report battles is the best way. They reach a limited self-selecting audience and their impact can be manipulated easily. There is no gaurantee that such a report will get the attention it deserves. It's not as if every reputable scientific society has not made a clear statement on the issue and members of the NAS have not chimed in with a letter that got largely ignored. One can make the case that if the IPCC report did not work when addressing the same issues as the NIPCC, why would yet another report succeed? I think Dana's approach here and Sks in general are far better suited to handling the debunking of the NIPCC for truly inquisitive people like yourself. In addition to these debunkings, Sks makes an effort to show how current research keeps showing us over and over that real climate science is moving forward. On the other hand, a good public forum like the Dover trials would be an excellent place to have a give and take about climate pseudoscience. Scientists would gladly participate in that as the ground rules are clear and the aim of the court is to get at the truth, not to press an agenda. Those kinds of fora have been few and far between in the "climate wars" though. It seems to me its a deliberate tactic by those disputing the consensus to avoid such exposure. After all, many on the ID side thought the Dover trials were a clear tactical error.Guardianista2012 at 07:14 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Thanks Rob Painting, actually my question was, I can see how an ocean downwelling could momentarily draw warm water to the depths of the ocean, but convection should surely mean that the warm water would be drawn to the surface very quickly? I've been giving this conundrum some thought. Could it be possible that the ENSO events are actually being caused by geothermal activity from below? We know the earth has a molten core, so you'd imagine the temperature rising from the core to the surface would fluctuate, and this could explain ENSO events better than heat being drawn down from above. That isn't to say that I'm suggesting that the earth's temperature is entirely dependent on geothermal activity, just that it's a combination of heat from the sun and heat from below. Heaven and hell, if you like.Dennis at 06:55 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
I think what I'm getting at is that there need to be official statements by organizations like NAS, AAAS, etc. that unambiguously state that documents like the NIPCC reports are categorically not science. These organizations need to get their PR machines out there calling the media, reasserting what is and is not science when things like the Heartland leak hit the news. UCS does that, but they are a different kind of organization. Those that are responsible for policing the scientific process and publish the peer reviewed literature need to start pointing the finger at groups like Heartland. Anytime a fake expert appears on TV, a real expert should call him out as fake, and be able to say that's not me talking, that's the entire scientific community.tonydunc at 06:07 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Owl, of course we have already waited too long and their will be some level of hell to pay.Tom Curtis at 05:59 AM on 18 February 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Camburn @33, I notice that your "descriptions" of the content of your links is so uninformative it could have been written by a bot. As such I believe it to violate the comments policy, specifically the requirement that:"No link or pic only. Links to useful resources are welcome (see HTML tips below). However, comments containing only a link will be deleted. At least provide a short summary of the content of the webpage to facilitate discussion (and show you understand the page you're linking to). Similarly, images are very welcome as they can be very useful in explaining the science. But comments with pictures in isolation without explanation will be deleted."
(My underlining.) I therefore request that you provide a summary of the content of the two papers to which you linked, and how the relate to the ongoing discussion.Tom Curtis at 05:52 AM on 18 February 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Fred Staples @32, I notice that you: 1) You are asserting that a microwave channel which measure microwaves over a 20km altitude band accurately measures the temperatures of just an 8 km altitude band, and that the effect of the other 12 km in no way effects the temperature measured by that channel. That is a startling claim, but you sole defense of that claim is to insist that your protagonists have the burden of proof to disprove your claim; and that if they do not disprove it, not just on balance of probabilities which I have done, but beyond reasonable doubt, then you purport that the failure to disprove the claim beyond reasonable doubt establishes your claim as true. That does not constitute scientific argument on your behalf, but a silly rhetorical game for which I have no more time nor patience. 2) You are further asserting that temperature trends measured over 30 plus years using the TMT channel cannot be effected by stratospheric cooling because the stratospheric cooling is not statistically significant for periods less than 22 years. I note the obvious that 30 years is greater than 22 years, so that your point is in fact irrelevant. Indeed, it amounts to little more than a verbal shell game in which you raise any objection regardless of whether it establishes your case, or disproves your opponents argument. There is no point in discussing anything with a person who takes that approach. The relevant information has been sufficiently canvassed above. If anybody is uncertain as to whether the TMT channel gives an accurate measure of temperature changes solely over the middle troposphere (2-10 km altitude), they are welcome to reread it. But I am not going to endlessly reargue the case with you as you evidently have nothing intelligent to contribute to such a discussion.Camburn at 05:44 AM on 18 February 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
This paper may shed some light on the uncerainty of lower Trop and Strat temperature trends: Strat Trop temp trends etc Another paper to go with the above. I think a person needs to read the above paper first to understand the conclusions of this paper: Trends not matching CCM'sWheelsOC at 05:34 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
D'oh, make that Stephen Baines @25 of course!WheelsOC at 05:33 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Stephen Baines @21 Yes, it's the old problem scientists have faced with popular pseudoscience. By addressing it in-depth, they think it gives the pseudoscientists the public credibility they crave, and thus the appropriate response is to ignore them and get on with the real deal. But as we've seen with evolution, it doesn't exactly work like that all the time. There is a lot of utility in comprehensive rebuttals, i.e. the TalkOrigins archive, where laymen like me can get an accessible tear-down of the psueodscience and not come away thinking that the anti-evolutionists are more credible because they've been engaged with. The very public dissection of the Intelligent Design movement at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Board of Education trial was an enormous blow to the good PR that IDists had enjoyed until people got a close look at them. It was their own testimony that was the most damning, once it was stripped of the protective aura they'd built up by disallowing scientific rebuttals and only going after straw-man "science." When confronted in a truly neutral venue where both parties could introduce all the relevant evidence they wanted, the whole charade fell apart. That's one of the reasons I'm grateful for resources like RealClimate and SkS.Stephen Baines at 05:09 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Dennis @21 I think most scientists would think a response to the NIPCC report worse than a waste of time. That's because the rebuttal to the NIPCC report is the IPCC report. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but as dana points out all the issues raised in the NIPCC report were already dealt with in greater depth and more evenhandedly in the IPCC report. Responding to the NIPCC specifically actually emphasizes all those fringe arguments for low impacts of CO2. At the same time it generates the appearance that there is a tit for tat going on between a pro-IPCC crowd and and NIPCC crowd. People generally respond to tit for tats by thinking the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, when in fact the IPCC is the middle. It sounds crazy, but what may really be needed is an extreme environmentalist version of the NIPCC report (maybe the MIPCC for "more than the IPCC") that emphasizes all the fringe arguments for truly extreme and cataclysmic change in the short term (runaway greenhouse? short-term land ice collapse? Malaria pandemic? Nuclear armageddon?) that the IPCC correctly hedged against in its attempt to reflect the scientific consensus. Then the IPCC report would actually look like the conservative middle-brow consensus that it actually is, in a scientific sense.Philippe Chantreau at 05:03 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Fake skeptics have no interest in anything but to protect their worldview. Anything that threatens it is dismissed, anything that reinforces it is adopted unconditionally. NIPCC demonstrates nothing else than this basic principle. I recently witnessed a most amusing, extreme example of that, thanks to Tamino. The part where the poster suddenly attacks the graph that he previously misunderstood as "friendly" is especially revealing. I have not visited Icecap since this story came out so I don't know if D'Aleo realized the blunder yet. However, it is revealing that he put the graph up in the first place with such superficial understanding that he could not see it actually shows the opposite of what he thought. It also indicates what kind of scrutiny fake skeptics apply to information they perceive as reinforcing their views (i.e. next to zero). These people have no interest in reality. They are a threat to society and the fight against them is much rigged because for tehm anything goes, they will never put any limitations on themselves except for the ones not worth risking (grossly illegal actions or violent crimes, of non white-collar type). They are not bounded by consistency, logic or reality. It's like trying to have a rational conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic person: it truly is impossible.Fred Staples at 04:48 AM on 18 February 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Sorry, Tom, but you can’t make a trend significant by printing in bold. Over 18 years, the trend at 15.75 kms is warming, not cooling, but not significantly so. So, I ask again, on what grounds do we reject the mid-troposphere data.Jim Eager at 04:24 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Bast & Co and his donors don't want to completely undermine science, they just want to whittle it down until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub.Fred Staples at 04:16 AM on 18 February 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
“Dikran Marsupial, Captain Ross's benchmark at Port Arthur was examined byPugh et al, 2002. Based on that, they conclude that sea level at Port Arthur has risen 0.13 meters in the interval, or 0.8 mm per year.” 0.13 meters or 5” in 172 years. We are in an inter-glacial period with a rise of 120 meters (if I remember correctly) since the last ice age. We have been climbing out of the little ice age for more than 100 years since the Ross mark was placed. Do we believe the following, unequivocally?: In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that during the 21st century, sea level will rise another 18 to 59 cm (7.1 to 23 in), but these numbers do not include "uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedbacks nor do they include the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow".Chris Colose at 04:13 AM on 18 February 2012Tropical Thermostats and Global Warming
chriskoz, Equally interesting is why it took the skeptics 20 years to really talk about it (the Ramanathan and Collins paper was in 1991), since it means the temperatures in the tropics cannot change all that much.DMCarey at 03:52 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
Exceptionally well written article. Certainly on the concerning side however, seeing there sheer volume of energy that the Earth system has accumulated. P.S. Glenn, I actually laughed out loud at your response 16owl905 at 03:51 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
@ Nichol 13 "it seems that there must be something in their repetition." For some. For most it's from the same bucket as re-using cloth-eared insults about Gore, Suzuki, Mann, alarmists, religion ... it's dragging the discussion down by getting someone to 'swing at a pitch in the dirt'. Unfortunately, it's worked all too well, and every reaction has produced additional repetitions. The NIPCC was a perfect example of a document with well-worn glaring errors - begging people to give those errors endless attention. So far, the biggest pro-pollutionist flunkout was Son of Climategate ... too bad more of their message didn't get equal non-attention.Dennis at 03:38 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
dana1981 @ 15: I agree that from a scientific point it is a waste of time, but the audience I think a proper rebuttal would be aimed at is policymakers. I suspect that at some time someone like Inhofe has waved the report into a camera and called it "sound science." There needs to be a genuine scientific rebuttal that can be waved right back in his face, in front of the cameras. It won't change Inhofe's mind, but it may make others pause. I personally think it would go a long way towards exposing the fraud of groups like Heartland if there was a formal mechanism in the established scientific community, endorsed by groups like NAS, AAAS, AGU, etc. that says "this document is fraud, and here is why ..."citizenschallenge at 03:33 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Dana do you survive on two hours sleep a night? Fantastic work! Thank you. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ PS. if NIPCC did a broad overview of all the scientific evidence they would have to change their minds ~ NO CAN DO ~ Prime Imperative: never give an inch.Albatross at 03:29 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
There are some parallels here between the NIPCC report and the much discredited Wegman report. Fake skeptics like to (or at least used to) tout the plagiarised Wegman report which also inlcludes some wonderful cherry picking and misrepresentations, amongst other nefarious things. The same fake skeptics, not surprisingly, uncritically cite the incredibly biased, narrowly focussed NIPPC report, which like the Wegman report also misrepresents the science. Both were solicted by fake skeptics, not to advance the acience or improve our understanding of the science but to attack the credibility of the long-established climate science (and even scientists) and to fabricate doubt. Both fake skeptic documents are the very antithesis of science. I would not be surprised if some of the fake skeptics involved in producing the Wegman report were also involved in the NIPPC report. That is something that John Mashey could explore, if he has not already done so. AS noted by Dana, the NIPCC report does not undergo extensive and transparent external peer-review. Futher, the authors have very little experience in the field of climate science. Futhermore, unlike the IPCC assessment reports which require dozens upon dozens of governments to agree on and sign off on, the NIPPC report only requires the blessing of some right-wing lobby and think tanks. In short, the NIPCC report is nothing more than propaganda, advocacy and misinformation-- yet it is endorsed by the likes of Roy Spencer, Lindzen, and IIRC, Pielke senior. There maybe other prominent "skeptics" who endorse the NIPCC report, which would speak volumes about their scientific standards, or rather lack thereof.dana1981 at 03:22 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
Stephen - thanks. "Skeptics" like Roy Spencer have said the Heartland's NIPCC report is important because the IPCC report ignores "skeptic" arguments. This is both wrong and backwards. The IPCC summarizes all the science, but it's also a consensus overview document, and thus the fringe arguments made by "skeptics" are not featured as prominently as the points which are supported by a broad body of research. So the "skeptics" respond by doing exactly what they accuse the IPCC of doing - ignoring the research they don't like and focusing exclusively on their own arguments. Spencer says he "hearts Heartland" for this reason. But if the "skeptics" were really interested in producing a valid rebuttal to the IPCC report, it should be a broad overview of all the scientific evidence, and then show why their hypotheses are stronger than the AGW theory. Instead the NIPCC report reveals they're only interested in advancing their own long-debunked arguments, which is not surprising, since that's exactly what Heartland is paying them to do.owl905 at 03:20 AM on 18 February 2012Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still!
@Glen 20 "If Mother Nature (not wanting to over-anthropomorphise here) wanted us to act on this 'She' would have scared the living bejeesus out of is ages ago." Over-Gaia'd is exactly the way your response sounds. It isn't a supernatural entity. Your argument doesn't work with either the planet mechanics or the human reactions. Tonydunc highlights the fallacy - you're seeking a 'significant increase in temps' on the absurd notion that it will wake up the world. Bad news - already had it (the 90s) and the world turtled on a response BEFORE the make-believe flatline. You guys simply don't get it - the only slack and delay is natural buffering from the biosphere. The world had it's pro-active chance two decades ago. The collective decision voted for the 'good' pollution. So check your 'I want a fire alarm' ego at the door, and start rooting for the biggest buffer possible - because tonydunc's if-then flunks on the 'then' and it only means more and bigger garbage dumps sooner.Stephen Baines at 03:12 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
dana...this is an excellently concise overview of the dramatic differences in approach and intent between the IPCC report and NIPCC "report." I think it's spot on in terms of focus and depth. And it points out why these two documents should not be considered on equal but opposite footing by anyone. They are two completely different animals entirely.dana1981 at 02:49 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
One difference between the NIPCC and IPCC I didn't mention in the post is that the IPCC report is extensively reviewed, and anybody can comment on its contents. Obviously neither is true of the NIPCC report.dana1981 at 02:48 AM on 18 February 2012DenialGate Highlights Heartland's Selective NIPCC Science
michael @12 - thanks. The 2011 interim NIPCC report is 432 pages. Dennis @14 - I would imagine that climate scientists would view rebutting the NIPCC report as a waste of time, since nobody outside climate denialists takes it seriously (for the reasons discussed in the post above, and because it's not a peer-reviewed publication). In fact I never even see climate denialists reference it, until now that is.Stephen Baines at 02:41 AM on 18 February 2012Denialgate - Internal Heartland Documents Expose Climate Denial Funding Network
Martin @219 This was carried in the NYT on page 12 or something a couple of days ago. Still, you're point is probably correct. My sense is that it isn't seen as news because most journalists and editors have always known what the true nature of HI is - that of a counter-information campaign whose purpose is to muddy scientific justification for regulation. It is an agenda driven PR effort, not an attempt to get at objective truth. The travesty is that, given that knowledge, credible outlets still give them a hearing as if they represent a valid scientific opinion rather than a partisan voice. This gives the impression that scientists also constitute a block of people with a similarly partisan voice, rather than a community of people following a completely different path -- simply struggling to understand the world using the scientific method. As a society we've been so entrained into he he said/she said, horse-race approach to describing conflict that most cannot see the difference. Re communication...The fact that the scientific community is actually a diverse hodgepodge of people that is not motivated by partisan issues is the very reason we are not good at communicating this stuff. Effective communication in mainstream media requires a coherent, sharpened message. The less nuance the better. Partisan or special interest groups simply have the advantage there because they can dispense with the nuance to serve a purpose. Our prupose is harmed by doing so. Now evolution and climate change should represent cases where the scientific community can unite to communicate better because the consensus is so overwhleming. However, the lack of a partisan agenda is something that filters down to the very structure of our institutions; the dearth of support for effective communication and the in consistency in messaging between institutions is a product of the scientific mission. That communication leadership will have to come from umbrella organizations or outside the scientific community.- The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
Ken Lambert - "You can't have both an increasing warming imbalance and a stasis in surface temperatures." Sure you can! Surface temperatures are but one (small) portion of the globe being heated. See the excellent thread for Breaking News…The Earth Is Warming…Still! - deep ocean temperatures are still rising, and the atmospheric and SST energies are only a fractional segment of the energy storage. Now, if the atmospheric, SST, and the deep ocean stopped warming, and loss of cryosphere stopped, then and only then, when considering all of the masses involved, the entire climate system, could you conclude that the warming imbalance has stopped.CBDunkerson at 02:23 AM on 18 February 2012The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
Ken wrote: "Trenberth's position on the stasis of surface temperatures conflicts with Hansen's position. It is not a minor factor as CBD is suggesting, because these two scientists are central players in the AGW story." Umm... both deep ocean heating and aerosol cooling are "minor factors" because they are small compared to other components of the ongoing temperature rise. I really couldn't care less how much 'political significance' you assign to them as theories held by "central players". That's a truly meaningless issue for purposes of understanding the science.
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