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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 64551 to 64600:

  1. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Bernard J @ 12 I am frustrated by my lack of the maths knowledge to answer your questions, but they seem to me to be interesting.
    can you tell us what period of time is required to discern from the short-term noise in the global surface temperature record, a warming signal of, say, 1.0 C/century? What period of time would be required to discern a signal of 0.75 C/century, and what period of time would be required to discern a signal of, say, 1.25 C/century? Conversly, and importantly in the context of your fixation with periods of approximately a decade, what rate of temperature change would be required to discern a signal from noise over a period of ten years? What rate of temperature change would be required to discern a signal from noise over a period of five years, and what rate of temperature change would be required to discern a signal from noise over a period of fifteen years?
    I imagine the answers would involve quantifying the average magnitude of the observed noise over the periods in question and then establishing the magnitude of signal required to skew the slope of the total data (noise + signal) by a statistically significant amount. It is so frustrating to be able to frame such problems, but not have the education to address them. If only I could go back to about year 10 at school and have teachers who could inspire me with the enthusiasm for math and physics that I have now, in later life. As it is, I have to rely on other minds to spoon feed me. So much to learn, so little time. To put me out of my misery, are those questions valid and are there answers to them? (And where can I go on the web to study high-school math and physics at my own pace ... I wish.)
  2. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    Camburn @4, the abstract of your cited paper reads:
    "Examination of records of fast ice thickness (1936–2000) and ice extent (1900–2000) in the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas provide evidence that long-term ice thickness and extent trends are small and generally not statistically significant, while trends for shorter records are not indicative of the long-term tendencies due to large-amplitude low-frequency variability. The ice variability in these seas is dominated by a multidecadal, low-frequency oscillation (LFO) and (to a lesser degree) by higher-frequency decadal fluctuations. The LFO signal decays eastward from the Kara Sea where it is strongest. In the Chukchi Sea ice variability is dominated by decadal fluctuations, and there is no evidence of the LFO. This spatial pattern is consistent with the air temperature–North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index correlation pattern, with maximum correlation in the nearAtlantic region, which decays toward the North Pacific. Sensitivity analysis shows that dynamical forcing (wind or surface currents) dominates ice-extent variations in the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas. Variability of Kara Sea ice extent is governed primarily by thermodynamic factors."
    (My emphasis) How small are the long term trends, to 2000, can be seen by noting the ice extent trends across all all four Russian Arctic seas of -0.5 thousand km^2 per decade. That means, averaged across all four seas Arctic sea ice extent fell by about 5 thousand km^2 over the twentieth century. In stark contrast, August Arctic sea ice extent has fallen by approximately 2.3 million km^2 over the last three decades: That is not an apples and oranges comparison in that it compares the entire Arctic to just the four Russian Arctic seas. Comparing summer Arctic extents over the 20th centuries show those seas to have been unusual in their limited reduction in August sea ice. That calls into question your extrapolation from a regional study to the full Arctic. Never-the-less the full comparison still shows Arctic summer sea Ice Extent to have fallen almost as much in the 21st century as it did throughout the twentieth. It is interesting to note that all of the fall in the twentieth century is post 1950. In other words, the clear pattern is that while NAO may influence Arctic sea ice extent, that influence is now imposed on an unprecedented (in modern times) long term decline in sea ice extent which is a consequence of global warming. Put differently, the difference between the 2011 and 2012 sea ice extent near Novaya Zemlya may be due to the NAO, but the difference between 2012 and the 1976-2006 mean is due to global warming:
  3. CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
    Layzej: You have come to the right place for answers. All you need to do is read the opening post for the thread you have posted on and you will find Skeptical Sciences response to your question. If you have any more questions after you have read the opening post feel free to post them.
  4. CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
    lazej#76: Curious that you omit Fact #1: A small concentration of CO2 is a big deal. and Fact #2: The fraction of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere that were produced by man is different from the fraction of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere that are there because of man. He goes on to say that man-made CO2 is indeed causing warming. Both of these are part of the same litmus test. If you hear or read somewhere that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so small that it must be unimportant, your source is either too naive to know better or trying to deceive you. ... If you hear or read somewhere that the amount of man-produced CO2 in the atmosphere is only a small fraction of the total CO2 in the atmosphere and that therefore man is having a small effect, your source is either too naive to know better or trying to deceive you. Further comments on JNG's post take issue with his dismissal of SkS' argument.
  5. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    I'm curious to know what the pro ice-watchers think of this: NASA Finds Russian Runoff Freshening Canadian Arctic Increasing freshwater on the U.S. and Canadian side of the Arctic from 2005 to 2008 is balanced by decreasing freshwater on the Russian side, so that on average the Arctic did not have more freshwater. Here blue represents maximum freshwater increases and the yellows and oranges represent maximum freshwater decreases.
  6. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    "Well of course it should be. When you are on a plateau, the height sort of 'plateaus'." There is, of course, another way of looking at this, in a situation with a trend and variation, the most likely place to have a new high, is following a new high. Random means up and up is as likely as up and down.
  7. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    Philippe, I was thinking in terms of total global sea ice area. But you are of course correct, even with low ice in the Kara and Barents, there isn't much in the way of solar insolation hitting those areas right now. That open water is probably losing more heat than gaining I would guess (neglecting inflows of warm water through currents). Still, if the Kara and Barents remain ice-free until the traditional melt season really kicks in, it could portend 2012's summer sea ice minimum really smashing 2007's mark.
  8. CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
    John Nielsen-Gammon has thrown down the gauntlet! (http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2012/02/three-simple-facts-about-carbon-dioxide/) He says that "Some things about carbon dioxide in the climate system are so firmly established and fundamentally important, you can use them as litmus tests to determine whether the person you are listening to is honest and knowledgeable." Fact #3 in his list is "Carbon dioxide is good for plants, in the sense that it makes them grow more rapidly. If you hear or read somewhere that man’s addition of CO2 to the atmosphere has been generally harmful to plant productivity, your source is either too naive to know better or trying to deceive you. He says of this site: "Unfortunately they can't bring themselves to admit that the evidence, while complex, does point to a net overall benefit to plant growth for the next few decades" Is Skeptical Science ignorant, [-snip-] or has JNG overstated his case? I very much respect both the Skeptical Science team and JNG. I look forward to seeing this apparent disagreement reconciled. P.S. possibility #4 is that it is me who is overstating his case, however he says that he "had looked at the (skeptical science) site" - presumably before writing the piece. So while the statements aren't targeting SS directly, SS had at least been considered. P.P.S. Interestingly JNG is typically very conservative with statements regarding what the science can tell us. Skeptical Science on the other hand is often addressing the "We don't know everything therefor we know nothing" crowd. In this case the roles appear reversed.
    Moderator Response: [JH] The correct acronym for Skeptical Science is "SkS".
  9. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    At this point there is probably no chance to build up anything but ephemeral ice thickness.
  10. Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
    JMykos that's an interesting point you make. My understanding is that while China implemented an official one child policy, western cultures such as Australia haven't ever attempted an official birth control policy of any kind. Are you suggesting that China should be rewarded with more of the carbon pie than Australia, as a reward for their population control policy?
  11. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Hansen's Figure 14 "Current Contributions to Sea Level Change" in Earth's Energy Imbalance and Implcations shows his latest assessment of the literature which is just prior to the publication of the Jacob, Wahr, Pfeffer and Swenson Nature paper under discussion. If you add the Hansen Greenland and Antarctica middle of the error bar values (0.85 mm/yr) and compare to Jacob et.al. data (1.06 mm/yr) for those areas you see that one thing Jacob et.al. discovered is that more ice may be melting in the places where most of the ice on land on the planet is than a type like Hansen thought. Hansen commented on the error bars in his Figure 14 by referring to sea level data, i.e. his Figure 12 saying "the recent measured sea level rise favors the lower estimates of ice sheet melt". So if you add up his "lower estimates" for Greenland and Antarctica from Figure 14 you get an even lower total, 0.44 mm/yr in comparison to Jacob et.al.'s 1.06 mm/yr. A wild headline could have read "Ice sheet disintegration doubles at poles - scientists stunned!" which might have as much basis in reality as some of the headlines on articles about the Jacob et.al. paper. All of Hansen's low estimates add up to a low estimate for total global ice on land melt contribution to sea level which equals 1.27 mm/yr. The Jacob et.al paper finds the total to be 1.48 mm/yr. Pfeffer, in his Nye Lecture presentation to this years AGU commented that observation of glaciers has tended to be in areas that are easy to get to, as opposed to a representative or comprehensive set of glaciers someone knowledgeable might choose for a dataset.
  12. 2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
    Camburn - Truly a fascinating link there. I particularly appreciate the authors statements that the ice ages are caused by nearby supernova, rather than the Milankovitch cycle of insolation changes. Perhaps next time you could try actual science, rather than, well, tin-hattery?
  13. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    It has been documented for quite some time that the NAO and the AO play a role in the level of ice in the Arctic Sea. Long Term Arctic
  14. Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
    I understand the requirement of reducing CO2 emissions globally. But why is the CO2 quota budget "per capita"? Why should a country be rewarded with a higher CO2 budget because they allowed and continue to allow their population to grow uncontrollably?
  15. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Further to Robert Murphy's response at #16 (and on topic this time) the ENSO acts to relocate heat around the planet; it does not generate net heat. As Robert notes, removing the confounding influence of this oscillating phenomenon does not affect detection ofunderlying warming trends.
  16. Philippe Chantreau at 09:30 AM on 12 February 2012
    Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    Do your own homework
  17. Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 1
    Monckton spend the first part of the speech (which is all I saw) speaking as if virtually every single accepted theory is to be doubted. This is a reasonable approach to take initially as an honest skeptic or if you are in a debate and really are skeptical about every such point, but then he treated as a matter of fact virtually every point he put forward. This is an approach taken in debates not in science. If he treats the majority of research as doubtful, it does not follow an honest skeptic would then treat as a matter of fact a bunch of side research, for, if the research paper itself is good enough to allow one to take it on faith as he did, then he should have accepted everything. To me this looks like dishonest scientific skepticism. It looks like professional debate.. like what you might see in US trial courts by opposing trial lawyers (whose goal isn't usually to get to the truth but to convince a jury to side with their client).
  18. 2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
    Normal@418: I didn't see any mention of the storm in 1944, or 1970 at Tuktoyaktuk. Flood Hazard Delineation at Tuktoyaktuk
  19. 2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
    Here is an interesing bit of research on long time weather extremes: Weather from aprox 1AD to 1900
  20. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    Phillippe: IF you know of anything on the horizon, I am all ears to learn.
  21. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    Philippe@61: The internal combustion engine was used on farms in the late 1800's. The power was there, the engineering was not but came very shortly thereafter. Right now, there is no alternative power, so the engineering can't even adapt to that.
  22. Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 1
    Lord Monckton: Please, allow me to call you Chris as a way for me to more readily provide you with the human touch I like to give all my audience. I found myself agreeing with you on much, but a few things should be pointed out because I fear some audience members might be getting confused. For example, you stated the IPCC (the ih-pee-kak) obviously does not believe it can predict the future. Well, of course, they can't. Did you believe there truly were that many people in the audience who believed the IPCC or anyone can predict the future? That you decided to mention that widely understood point without a passing mention of what was really important in that section of the report, that the IPCC's job is to help manage probabilities and certainties, really confused me, and I think perhaps I wasn't the only one. So, yes, I agree with you, as does I believe almost every scientist of any variety. Scientists don't prove things. They try to discover the most likely options and quantify their understanding so that we can remove as much subjectivity from the process as possible. Now, that you next mentioned consensus was interesting. That did give me the impression for a moment that the actual target of your prior discussion were the many non-scientists out there who might have been tempted to think that having a strong gut feeling and banding together to tell each other their beliefs, for example, that man cannot much at all affect the climate or that basic concepts like the greenhouse effect don't exist, would be a reasonable substitute to doing science. They can have as much consensus as they like, but, in full and entire agreement with what you said, achieving a consensus of beliefs is not science. It never has been and likely never will be. This brings us to the next point. I entirely agree with you, again, and with Einstein, that it just takes one paper to show a bad theory for what it is. The slow consensus that has been building in climate science over the years has paralleled the reduction in the number of plausible theories. Sometimes a scientist has a hard time accepting that his or her theory really has very little chance of being accurate, but, on the whole, what survives and is embraced by those who practice science is what is sturdiest among the candidates. Consensus, while not being a requisite or a substitute for good science, tends to be a consequence of good science. I am not sure if I understood the evidence you presented for why you believe that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today. I think the question of whether it absolutely is or isn't is overblown by many, but I do find it interesting how people who cannot agree on the very temperature of the planet over the past 100 years or even the past 5 years, as demonstrated as recently as the uproar that led to the BEST project (which ultimately confirmed what climate scientists on the whole already accepted) could somehow believe they really can accurately know how warm or cold the planet was in Medieval times. At the risk of appearing to disagree with you, I'll say that I have seen no convincing evidence that the Medieval times were warmer than today. You stated some individuals were under investigation by legal authorities. Can you give us an update on how that turned out or is turning out? Chris, in the next part, you accused a single person of rewriting an important IPCC chapter in the 1995 report. Let me ask you, Chris, if you were present at the debates that ensued at the time, as they tried to build consensus and come to agreement on the wording of that study? I was not there. If you were there yourself or have video you can show us, would you please help me understand why the speaker in the first few minutes of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTsc3jV1Otw , provided courtesy of Standford University, is suggesting that the scientists who allegedly wrote the initial draft either agreed with the changes that were adopted by the IPCC or simply did not care about them? [In a world where politics sometimes trumps good science, I should point out that those initially objecting to the changes were all from a small group of major oil exporting countries.] Could you be more clear about the statistical fraud you had in mind. I would presume you meant McIntyre's criticism of Mann's statistics, but I don't think that counts as fraud. Of course, feel free to argue how fraud was proven. You go on to state that 1 degree Celsius is what is suggested by "all the science done by measurement and observation rather than by models." Allow me to be confused for a second. OK. I don't believe I have ever heard of real science ever done in any significant form that did not use models, that is, that did not use a physical or mathematical representation of objects and our world. Clever you are Chris. Surely, if science is always done using models to various degrees, then you were just stating, for our amusement no doubt, that while the majority of practicing climate scientists around the world (via the IPCC) agreed that 3 degrees Celsius is the mean value of warming expected from a doubling of carbon dioxide, that an alternative value of 1 degree Celsius is the conclusion arrived at by No One because no one performs science that does not use models. You clever logician. You almost had me thinking we would disagree. But to be serious, you were probably trying to make a distinction between theoreticians, such as Einstein, for example, on the one hand and those who work the laboratories but don't much manipulate the math and other elements of the models created by the theoreticians on the other. If this was your intention, would you please direct me to this long list of documents where I may witness how observation and measurement avoiding the use of physical and mathematical models suggest quality science and suggest 1 degree C. I want to research if perhaps a single paper for each such theory hasn't already been written up to put the theory to rest. Of course, I am sure I was not the only one confused. To many you probably appeared to suggest by your choice of words that scientists all pick either (a) to take the path of modeling with no observation or measurement or else (b) to take the path of observation and measurement without modeling. In reality, Chris, there really is a diverse middle ground where most scientists participate by making measurements and observations as they interact with the relevant models. At this point, I will take a rest, as I feel this reply has already become very long and the next section of the debate simply got me all twisted up out of the blue in a naught naught naught naught.
  23. Philippe Chantreau at 08:40 AM on 12 February 2012
    Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    Cambrn: "The cost of FF on a farm, transportation business ec is a huge component. It would be great to see an alternative, but as of right now, there just isn't. So, there is nothing to invest in." Transpose that about a hundred years ago or so: "The cost of horses on a farm, transportation business, etc, is a huge component. It would be great to se an alternative, but as of right now, there just isn't. So there is nothing to invest in." Meanwhile Mr Benz and Mr Ford were hard at work. I'm sure there were people to say that they did not have economically viable alternatives either...
  24. Philippe Chantreau at 08:26 AM on 12 February 2012
    A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    Winter albedo in the Arctic is not that much of a factor R.Gates, don't you think?
  25. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    Sphaerica@59: Note the "at present there are no economic alternatives." The economics of the current rise in price of oil has slowed economic growth worldwide. To invest in an alternative tech, you have to have the potential profits to do so. When I look at a tractor, I see no medium with current, and even projected battery tech, that will do the work of FF. The cost of FF on a farm, transportation business ec is a huge component. It would be great to see an alternative, but as of right now, there just isn't. So, there is nothing to invest in.
  26. Volcanic Influence on the Little Ice Age
    Large eruption database shows the 1600 Peru eruption at 3.0 x 1010 m3 of tephra, or 3x Pinatubo; this is 1.5x the 13th century eruption at Quilotoa. Buntgen et al 2006 show a glacial advance following the 1600 eruption. The upper curve is summer temperature from tree rings; the bottom curve is advance/retreat of the Great Aletsch glacier. At this level of resolution, the LIA splits into three mini-LIAs, making the 'recovering from LIA' meme even more of a stretch.
  27. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    Indeed interesting times in the Arctic. Without a late season freeze up in the Barents or Kara, if these stay open, we are going to see some very low summer sea ice extent Arctic wide as the conditions in the early melt season in both these regions have a high degree of success in indicating how low the summer sea ice extent will be. Globally, even though the Antarctic is slightly above average, the large negative anomaly in the Arctic still makes the global sea ice extent very low. It is in fact, quite possible that we'll see the lowest global sea ice area and extent in the modern satellite era in the next few weeks. Though most won't think of this way, but that would possibly mean that we'll be seeing the lowest planetary albedo during this era as well, meaning of course more solar radiation staying in the Earth's climate system.
  28. Volcanic Influence on the Little Ice Age
    For other reasons I just read this paper: Volcanic Ash as Fertilizer for the Surface Ocean (Langmann et al, 2010. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 3891-3899). At the end of the paper they mention Huaynaputina volcano in Peru in 1600 (cite de Silva and Zielinski 1998). They estimate that 9x10^15 g of Carbon were consumed by phytoplankton as a result, which they think reduced atmospheric CO2 by 10 ppm in Antarctic ice cores after 1600 (Meure et al 2006). It seems to me that a carbon pump effect (not to mention colder ocean surface absorbing more CO2) of volcanoes might help explain the persistence of the Little Ice Age. Is this already accounted for?
  29. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    The level of venom directed at Dr Mann has more than a hint of this about it
  30. A prelude to the Arctic melting season
    Your Ded Moroz link is not working. But if things do not improve radically over the next month the Svalbard polar bears are in for a long hard summer.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Thanks; fixed link(s).
  31. Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 2
    Nobody should debate Monckton. He needs to be debunked regularly because less-than-skeptical skeptics laud and praise him, but he is not anyone in climate science. His world is made of misrepresentation, distortion, fantasy and gamesmanship. There is no point to debating such nonsense. Debunk, and move on. Giving the man the credibility that comes with bothering to debate him is giving him far more than his due.
  32. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    58, Camburn,
    This will change, as the price of oil continues to rise, but it will come with a culture and economic shock as well.
    An interesting observation. As an alternative to such shock, might I suggest investing heavily in the technology and infrastructure needed to supplant oil, but as a reasoned and concerted effort now, due to foresight, rather than as a frantic and haphazard effort later, due to extreme price pressures? Just say'n.
  33. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Ken - as CBD notes, this post is about McLean's failed prediction. If you want to argue about Foster and Rahmstorf, there is a comment thread on that post. If you want to make the 'warming stopped in [insert year]' myth, please take your comments to that post.
  34. wonderful world at 04:09 AM on 12 February 2012
    Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 2
    Why would anyone debate Monckton? He's not worth the time or energy. He's really only got his reliance on titles going for him and that only appeals to Americans (hereditary tiltes are good for getting into restaurants in the US but they're BS really) Don't give him air, he can preach to any idiot that wants to listen but most will realise its just guff from a nobody.
  35. Dikran Marsupial at 04:02 AM on 12 February 2012
    Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 2
    @MangoChutney The harm would be in it being a waste of time and energy (I suspect not quite as inexaustible as it would seem) that John could be using for something more constructive. I should add that Monckton is perfectly at liberty to debate his assertions on the relevant threads at SkS already.
  36. Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 2
    @Dikran I think we discussed this earlier - there's no harm in Cook asking for a written debate is there? The funny thing is I'm not entirely convinced Monckton would accept either
  37. Klaus Flemløse at 03:45 AM on 12 February 2012
    David Archer lecture series
    Dear David, I am following your video lectures on global warming and I have bought the text book. It has been a great pleasure for me. However, I have found one case where I do not think you are right, and where a corrections may be needed. In you lecture dealing with Chapter 9, after 21 minutes, you are talking about Danish wind energy. You mention that “50% of the wind power is exported …”. This figure is not correct. The information you are referring to originates from misinformation published by oil funded groups in USA via the Danish 3rd party organization CEPOS with links to Bjørn Lomborg. It is not possible to determine the share of exported wind in the way CEPOS does, simply because it is not possible to separate electricity produced by wind from electricity produced by coal. If one should give a figure using pro rata production it is around 20%. The CEPOS report can be found here: http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf A reply from a group of scientists from University of Aalborg can be found here: http://www.energyplanning.aau.dk/Publications/DanishWindPower.pdf The controversy is also discussed on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark The present Danish government wants to increase the share of electricity produced by wind from 20% today to 50% in 2020.
  38. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Ken @10 "And ENSO effects are supposed to be internal to the system and not relevant to underlying trends. Why then 'remove' ENSO effects?" So you can remove the noise and better see the underlying trend. Why is that difficult to understand?
  39. Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
    Elsa I know my comment is rather late but I wanted to address your objection to people using ocean heat content as a measure. Try this analogy: Imagine you are sitting outside in the sun and you want a cool drink, so you put ice cubes into your Pimms (or other favourite drink). Over time the ice cubes melt thus cooling the drink, but what is the best way to predict how cold your drink will be in the future? Clearly measuring the temperature directly will not do you much good because the temperature of the drink itself is not changing much while the ice cubes are still melting i.e. most of the energy is going into melting the ice, not warming the drink. There will not be much of a drink warming trend until the ice cubes have fully melted. Most of the additional energy from AGW is currently going into heating the oceans. The temperature of the oceans doesn't change much because water has a very high heat capacity so a lot of energy is needed to get a small amount of temperature rise. The rises we are seeing indicate a large energy increase, even though the absolute temperature has not risen much. If we only look at land temperatures and ignore the heat going into the ocean then we will have a very nasty surprise in the future once the oceans have warmed. Think what happens to your drink when the final ice cube melts...
  40. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    batsvensson@57: 1. Please verify your "the heavy use of pesticide which come with an agrictulre not aimed for food production". 2 Please do not ignore DDG. This is a superb byproduct of making ethanol. 3. As a farmer, the cost of fuel to my operation is tremendous. It affects each and every aspect of production. 4. At this time, there are no alternatives to diesel as a driver of horse power to achieve production goal. The days of easily accessable oil are becoming short. The main price impetus to oil is the rising standard of living through out the world. The price of oil will continue to go up as that standard continues to rise. This will affect not only food, but all products one uses to substain life as we know it. As a farmer, I can tell you that we don't use one ounce more of pesticide than we need to use. Economics dictates this. Oil is used mainly for production/transportain needs of the masses. Very little is used for electricity production. At present, there are no economic alternatives to oil. This will change, as the price of oil continues to rise, but it will come with a culture and economic shock as well.
  41. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    'Skeptics' like Ken can't possibly argue that McLean's prediction was anything short of ridiculous... so instead he trots out nonsensical long disproven arguments about 'plateaus' and 'no warming since 1998' to derail the discussion. McLean was blatantly wrong. Just as every other 'skeptic' who has dared make a prediction has been. There is no way to argue with those facts... and no reason to respond to people attempting to distract from those facts with nonsense. If 'skeptics' cannot admit error even when their 'side' is shockingly ridiculously wrong (as in this case) there really is no point in discussing anything they have to say... they've demonstrated that they will do anything to avoid facing reality.
  42. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    John Russel wrote: "There are many people who believe that the unrest in the Middle East since the beginning of last year was/is largely a response to rising food prices. This was certainly the cause of food riots in the Far east in 2007" I don't see the ethic in using crop land for fuel production when people still starve around the world. To add to this, the heavy use of pesticide which come with an agriculture not aimed for food production. We humans already put a lot of pressure on the wild life with our agriculture for food production and we do not need to put even more pressure on it for fuel production as other alternative exists which does not have such high impact on the environment.
  43. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    JP40 wrote: "The only short-term solution I see to get us off oil is Helium-3. This gas isotope can power fusion reactors that actually work. a Ton of it could power a major city for several months. The only problem is that [...] " Those are not small technical challenging problems. So why not look at more realistic, cheaper solution, which are more readily available and technological both well understood and proven workable like fission?
  44. Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
    Agnostic wrote: "That claim is nonsense. The economy can and will grow if energy provided by oil can be replaced by energy produced from an alternative source at a competitive price." As a related curiosa fact, in Amsterdam over the past few years they been installing recharge points, tapping into the city power grid, along the streets where people lives and park their cars over night. They also been, and I assume the still are in progress of, replacing the old power grid network. So in a sense, preparation are made for the day no oil will be available anymore.
  45. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    10, Ken Lambert, "...looks like..."? What's that supposed to mean? More specifically, what specific arguments do you have to make against the validity of Foster and Rahmstorf (2011)? No "looks like." The world doesn't want your off-the-cuff, rule-of-thumb, eyecrometer opinion of what it "looks like." Be specific. What is wrong with the methodology in Foster and Rahmstorf that would cause you to dismiss their result?
  46. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Jim Eager#28: Norman's preposterous claim is that all water taken from the ground ends up in the ocean on the 8 year time frame of this post. This is an assumption on his part that has been shown to be false. And he has successfully distracted this thread with this utter red herring.
  47. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Oops. I should have refreshed and found Dikran Marsupial's much more succinct response to Ken Lambert, before spraying 20 questions over the board.
  48. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Well of course it should be. When you are on a plateau, the height sort of 'plateaus'.
    Oh please, not this rusty old saw again. Ken Lambert, paraphrasing a question I repeatedly put to Girma Orssengo on the Matthew England thread at Deltoid, can you tell us what period of time is required to discern from the short-term noise in the global surface temperature record, a warming signal of, say, 1.0 C/century? What period of time would be required to discern a signal of 0.75 C/century, and what period of time would be required to discern a signal of, say, 1.25 C/century? Conversly, and importantly in the context of your fixation with periods of approximately a decade, what rate of temperature change would be required to discern a signal from noise over a period of ten years? What rate of temperature change would be required to discern a signal from noise over a period of five years, and what rate of temperature change would be required to discern a signal from noise over a period of fifteen years? Once you have derived the answers, can you comment on what their magnitudes imply for anyone who claims that there has been no warming for x-years, or that there has been cooling for y years, where x and y are values less than several decades?
  49. Dikran Marsupial at 00:25 AM on 12 February 2012
    The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    Ken Lambert, do you have statistically significant evidence that there has been a plateau (i.e. the apparent levelling off of temperatures is not likely to be merely an artifact of the noise)? How many times does it need to be said that temperature trends over roughly decadal timespans are not a reliable indication of what the climate system is actually doing.
  50. The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
    dana1981 "Foster and Rahmstorf find it (2011) to be in the top 5 hottest years on record." Well of course it should be. When you are on a plateau, the height sort of 'plateaus'. Fig 3 shows that nothing much has happened since 1998 vis-a-vis surface temperature rise. " Tamino has provided an update to Foster and Rahmstorf to include the 2011 data. When the effects of ENSO and solar and volcanic activity are removed from the temperature data, 2011 is either the 2nd- or 5th-hottest year on record, depending on which data set we choose (Figure 2)." Why not remove the effects of solar and volcanoes from all temperature reconstructions back to the start of the Holocene? We might then find a more significant warming trend - but not the actual temperatures - and what would that prove. And ENSO effects are supposed to be internal to the system and not relevant to underlying trends. Why then 'remove' ENSO effects? Using Tamino's adjustments looks like a try hard to get a warming trend over the last 10-12 years by removing ENSO at least, and solar which is usually reported as small (isn't the solar 11 year cycle usually only about +/-0.13W/sq.m) against a purported warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m.

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