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Comments 64601 to 64650:

64601. actually thoughtful at 14:28 PM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       I assumed poster wasn't Dr. Curry - it was fun to pretend though. I think travesty overstates the case by a fair bit.
64602. skywatcher at 14:26 PM on 6 February 2012
       Arctic sea ice has recovered
       #35 sgmuller: Possibly, but the NSIDC graph doesn't show all the recent years, just 2006-7 which had the lowest Sept extent and is among the lowest through the year, and the 1979-2000 average, which is almost invariably much higher due to the accelerating decline of ice extent. Check out the Daily Graphs page at Neven's excellent Arctic blog for other graphs, including the DMI and NORSEX extent plots. It's fair to say that the current extent is 'down there' with the very lowest for this time of year; whether it's actually the lowest depends on the sensor and extent measure used. Regardless, it's fair to say that the Arctic ice is is not in a good state of health. There's an interesting article in the UK Independent where Stefan Rahmstorf makes the link between the extreme present European weather and ice loss in the Barents/Kara Sea, a link suggested in the litereature by Petoukhov and Semenov in 2009.
64603. Stevo at 14:11 PM on 6 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
       Have downloaded and, so far, half read the CSIRO Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia booklet. Very useful and easily digested, well formatted resource.
64604. Bert from Eltham at 12:37 PM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       The topology of the denialist space is almost exactly what is needed to avoid the reality of the evidence. This is no accident. Extraordinary expertise is used to avoid evidence that does not fit with their preconceived ideas or agendas. The resulting convoluted logic is self perpetuating as it is totally circular and easily digestible to the uninformed. The inconsistency of their wacky arguments that quite often are contradictory is a blight to behold. Bert
64605. jmsully at 12:31 PM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       I have to say, his comments captured the zeitgeist of her blog and public statements perfectly. Had me going.
64606. actually thoughtful at 12:21 PM on 6 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
       I like the idea of the series, about a particular person, with a common graphic. I tend to read the articles as they come out and I have yet to use the button to access the series. In fact, I tend to (visually) ignore that whole area of the page. If I am typical, maybe the thermometer should get a promotion (great visual, and I have used the "View all arguments" link.
64607. actually thoughtful at 11:26 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       R. Gates The denier response will be its the sun. And or well of course it is warmer - it is an El Nino. And the thunderous silence about the warming going on right now (as opposed to the precipitous drop in temperatures we would expect from a La Nina/solar minimum) will continue.
64608. Daniel Bailey at 11:12 AM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       As a general announcement, a known spammer (jdey123/jdey/cdey/mace) has perpetrated fraud by masquerading as scientist Judith Curry on this thread. His comments and those replies to him were deleted from the thread. Skeptical Science apologizes to Doctor Curry for this travesty.
64609. sgmuller at 10:48 AM on 6 February 2012
       Arctic sea ice has recovered
       Looking at the latest graph at nsidc.org daily image Is this the lowest February extent ever?
64610. caerbannog at 10:20 AM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       ... His is just one of several amateur reconstructions of the temperature indices using a limited number of spatially well spread data points. Using just 45 stations may set a record... OK, I know that I'm continuing to stray a bit off topic with my post here, but the "45 stations" bit isn't the best of it. It turns out that although I chose a total of 45 stations to process, in most years far fewer stations actually reported data. Below is a "diagnostic dump" from my program where I counted up the number of stations that reported in any given year. Actually, I counted up the total *months* that a station reported in each year and divided by 12, so a station that reported data for 6 months in a given year was counted as "half a station". So here is the dump, showing the number of "station equivalents" that reported for each year: Year=1883 #Stations=12.4167 Year=1884 #Stations=12.3333 Year=1885 #Stations=11.6667 Year=1886 #Stations=12.8333 Year=1887 #Stations=13.0833 Year=1888 #Stations=13.9166 Year=1889 #Stations=14.0833 Year=1890 #Stations=14.8333 Year=1891 #Stations=15.25 Year=1892 #Stations=15.8333 Year=1893 #Stations=16.6666 Year=1894 #Stations=18.8333 Year=1895 #Stations=18.75 Year=1896 #Stations=19 Year=1897 #Stations=21.4167 Year=1898 #Stations=21.0833 Year=1899 #Stations=22.5 Year=1900 #Stations=23.5 Year=1901 #Stations=23.4167 Year=1902 #Stations=23.3334 Year=1903 #Stations=24.6667 Year=1904 #Stations=25.75 Year=1905 #Stations=27.5834 Year=1906 #Stations=27.6667 Year=1907 #Stations=28.5834 Year=1908 #Stations=27.7501 Year=1909 #Stations=27.7501 Year=1910 #Stations=27.8334 Year=1911 #Stations=29.0834 Year=1912 #Stations=28.7501 Year=1913 #Stations=28.7501 Year=1914 #Stations=28.7501 Year=1915 #Stations=28.1667 Year=1916 #Stations=29.7501 Year=1917 #Stations=29.8334 Year=1918 #Stations=29.4167 Year=1919 #Stations=28.7501 Year=1920 #Stations=28.6667 Year=1921 #Stations=29.2501 Year=1922 #Stations=29.5001 Year=1923 #Stations=29.5001 Year=1924 #Stations=28.7501 Year=1925 #Stations=29.0834 Year=1926 #Stations=29.6667 Year=1927 #Stations=29.9167 Year=1928 #Stations=31.0001 Year=1929 #Stations=31.0001 Year=1930 #Stations=30.9168 Year=1931 #Stations=30.8334 Year=1932 #Stations=30.5834 Year=1933 #Stations=30.5001 Year=1934 #Stations=30.3334 Year=1935 #Stations=30.6668 Year=1936 #Stations=30.9168 Year=1937 #Stations=31.9168 Year=1938 #Stations=31.8334 Year=1939 #Stations=33.8334 Year=1940 #Stations=32.1668 Year=1941 #Stations=31.4168 Year=1942 #Stations=31.4168 Year=1943 #Stations=32.1668 Year=1944 #Stations=32.0834 Year=1945 #Stations=32.0834 Year=1946 #Stations=35.75 Year=1947 #Stations=36 Year=1948 #Stations=36.0834 Year=1949 #Stations=37.9167 Year=1950 #Stations=39.1667 Year=1951 #Stations=40.1666 Year=1952 #Stations=41.0833 Year=1953 #Stations=40.6666 Year=1954 #Stations=40.6666 Year=1955 #Stations=41.5 Year=1956 #Stations=42.4166 Year=1957 #Stations=42.8333 Year=1958 #Stations=42.9166 Year=1959 #Stations=43.5833 Year=1960 #Stations=43.5833 Year=1961 #Stations=43.9166 Year=1962 #Stations=43.9999 Year=1963 #Stations=43.9999 Year=1964 #Stations=42.6666 Year=1965 #Stations=41.5833 Year=1966 #Stations=41.6666 Year=1967 #Stations=41.6666 Year=1968 #Stations=42.2499 Year=1969 #Stations=43.9166 Year=1970 #Stations=43.9166 Year=1971 #Stations=43.8332 Year=1972 #Stations=43.7499 Year=1973 #Stations=43.8332 Year=1974 #Stations=43.3333 Year=1975 #Stations=42.0833 Year=1976 #Stations=41.7499 Year=1977 #Stations=42.3333 Year=1978 #Stations=42.7499 Year=1979 #Stations=42.4166 Year=1980 #Stations=42.8333 Year=1981 #Stations=40.0833 Year=1982 #Stations=40.1666 Year=1983 #Stations=39.25 Year=1984 #Stations=39.1667 Year=1985 #Stations=38.9167 Year=1986 #Stations=38.25 Year=1987 #Stations=36.75 Year=1988 #Stations=33.9167 Year=1989 #Stations=36.25 Year=1990 #Stations=32.6668 Year=1991 #Stations=28.5834 Year=1992 #Stations=25.1667 Year=1993 #Stations=23.8334 Year=1994 #Stations=23.0834 Year=1995 #Stations=21.25 Year=1996 #Stations=24 Year=1997 #Stations=26.6667 Year=1998 #Stations=26.5834 Year=1999 #Stations=27.2501 Year=2000 #Stations=26.0834 Year=2001 #Stations=27.7501 Year=2002 #Stations=28.7501 Year=2003 #Stations=30.0001 Year=2004 #Stations=29.0834 Year=2005 #Stations=27.4167 Year=2006 #Stations=28.7501 Year=2007 #Stations=29.6667 Year=2008 #Stations=27.3334 Year=2009 #Stations=34.1667 Year=2010 #Stations=33.4167 As you can see, most of the time, I didn't have anywhere near 45 reporting stations. This further demonstrates the robustness of the global-average temperature results. Just saying that I used 45 stations understates this very important point. Shout it from the rooftops, folks -- this really needs to be pounded home in *any* argument about the quality of the global-temperature data. When folks argue that we because we have only X thousand stations for 2011 when we have data for Y thousand stations for 1990, that there is a problem with the current global temperature estimates, you know that they haven't taken a serious look at the data!
64611. R. Gates at 09:59 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       This is an excellent post, and really puts a nice perspective on short-term natural fluctuations, either from solar or ENSO versus the longer term forcing from anthropogenic greenhouse emissions. The only thing left out of course is the effect of volcanic activity, which can of course cause short-term, and medium-term climate effects. I certainly think there is strong possibility that we'll see at least one record warm year (by instrumental record) in 2012, 2013, 2014, or 2015, as even a moderate El Nino aligns near Solar Max 24 (no matter how weak). No doubt, AGW skeptics will attribute such record warmth to either: 1) Falsified or corrupted or cherry picked data 2) Natural (though non-specified) variability 3) Continued warming from the Little Ice Age recovery 4) Residual heat left over from the 1998 Super El Nino 5) Only the El Nino and Solar Max 24 combination but not any long-term warming from increased greenhouse gases 6) Reduced Cosmic rays and reduced clouds from Solar Max 24 7) Some other creative excuse that reduces their own cognitive dissonance related to the reality of AGW. It will be interesting over the next few years to see if the linear upward trend in temperatures (when natural variability is factored out) as identified in the Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 study continues. Even more interesting is to see if this linear trend is indeed truly that, of if it does begin to inflect upward slightly over the next few decades.
64612. caerbannog at 08:26 AM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       There's no real truth, as even picking the entire global temperature record is unreliable, since the reliability of weather stations can be disputed going back in time. If that were the case, then picking different subsets of GHCN temperature stations would produce significantly different global-average temperature results. Anyone who spends a serious amount of time "slicing and dicing" the global temperature data will find otherwise. I have processed the GHCN data in umpteen different ways and have gotten consistent warming results every time. If there were serious disruptions to temperature station data that actually impacted global-average temperature results, those disruptions would have had to occur simultaneously to data from most or all of the stations. Otherwise, processing of various random station subsets would reveal the presence of such disruptions.
64613. Tsumetai at 08:19 AM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       

       Here in lies the problem of climate science, it relies on inaccurate data to come up with suspect data which are fed in to dodgy models.

       That would be more convincing if it hadn't followed caerbannog's post proving pretty conclusively that claims of inaccuracy in the surface temperature record are nonsense.
64614. scaddenp at 08:18 AM on 6 February 2012
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       Hydro can provide reliable cheap power but this is very dependent on site. In NZ, there are very few large scale sites left, even fewer cheap ones. I imagine the situation is similar in many other countries. You need large reliable water volume (easy) and substantial fall (tough) on a site with cheap construction.
64615. Rob Painting at 07:58 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Old Mole @ 16 - Almost finished a blog post on Loeb (2012), a large part of the uncertainty is the XBT (expendable bathythermograph) data, which was sparsely sampled in both time and space. That comprises the bulk of the ocean heat content data between 2001-2003 in the 2001-2010 period that Loeb (2012) looks at. Also there is substantial variation in the 3 ocean heat content records. These are things that Kevin Trenberth was complaining about in the first place, so progress has been limited. Not sure about Hansen (2011) have had a read through, but will have to look at that again. It's an interesting paper, if you can see beyond the disturbing implications of such a strong aerosol cooling effect. Will write something up about that too in the future. Need to digest it a bit more though.
64616. andylee at 06:46 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       @14, thanks for the clarification - I too wondered where the '4' came from. (Also need to factor in the contribution that the half-degree diameter of the sun adds. It illuminates a little bit more than 50% of the planet, and the rays extend beyond the surface into the atmosphere at dawn/dusk).
64617. Rob Painting at 06:45 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Renewable Guy - " I find it a very powerful presentation of the total picture of temperature on the land masses of earth. The -2 and -3 sigma events are shrinking and the +2 and +3 sigma events are expanding." I agree, it's powerful evidence that global warming is keeping on keeping on. And thanks for the nice words.
64618. Old Mole at 06:36 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       "The NASA analysis has this imbalance at 0.58±0.15 W/m2 (Hansen 2011), whereas Loeb (2012) has it at 0.50±0.43W/m2. Either way the solar cycle-induced change in energy received from the sun (0.25 W/m2) is large compared to Earth's energy imbalance." I have looked at both papers to try to find an answer to a question that has been nagging at me, but frankly they are both beyond the limits of my understanding, and I can't puzzle out why Loeb suggests so much more variability than Hansen does. Is he using a longer time scale or something?
64619. Rob Painting at 06:14 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       William @ 13 - Again, the extra energy absorbed by the oceans over the recent period has little to do with the Arctic. Owl905 is simply confused - despite this being clearly explained. For some reason several readers have not grasped the fact that the oceans accumulate energy during La Nina, and we have been in a La Nina-dominant period over the last 3-4 years. That would have gained a bit more spice on top because of the strengthening solar cycle in the last 18 months. It has already happened. That heat stored in the subsurface layers of the upper ocean is going to re-surface - as it always does during El Nino - see the figure from Roemmich and Gilson (2011) in comment @4. You can clearly see the heat building up in the subsurface ocean up to the beginning of 2011.
64620. sauerj at 05:40 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       For #7 renewable guy: Like you, this huge difference between ~1366 W/m2 from the sun and the ~239 W/m2 across the earth (after albedo) confused me. The main source of the confusion for me was: "Where does the factor '4' come from?" After carefully reading Hansen's book, "Storms of My Grandchildren" (pg.104, 1st paragraph), the light bulb finally came on. 1) If you take the light from the sun that is aimed at the earth and you put an imaginary flat-plane thru that beam, you will essentially make a circle of light with the same diameter as earth's diameter (~8000 miles). The area of this circle is = (pi)x(diam^2)/4 (or (pi)xrad^2). The 1366 W/m2 is the flux of energy thru this imaginary circle. 2) Now the AREA of the whole earth's surface, or of a sphere, is = (pi)x(diam^)2 (or 4x(pi)xrad^2). So, the area of a sphere is 4x the cross-sectional area of the circle having the same diameter of the sphere. So, when you take the 1366 W/m2 and spread it over the rotating earth, the AVERAGE W/m2 across the whole globe is then 1/4 the 1366 W/m2. Multiply that result by 70% for the albedo effect (30% immediate reflection), and you are left with the 239 W/m2 value. This essentially follows mdenison's math above. Obviously, due to the curvature of the earth, this W/m2 value varies: higher at the equator, lower at the poles, but the AVERAGE is this ~239 value.
64621. william at 05:35 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Owl905 - "The only place the bulk of the deep-absorbed heat will return to manifest itself soon, and not violate the 2nd law of TD, is in the Arctics" This effect in the fall may be more easily understood in a very simple fashion. An ever more ice free Arctic Ocean absorbs more energy during the summer. In the fall, the land cools off quickly while the ocean remains "warm". You have the typical off-shore wind scenario that occurs in warm climates each evening. Only this effect will persist, probably, until the ocean freezes over. Result,with Coriolis, winds flowing toward the North East and a counter clockwise flow over the Arctic ocean. ie the reversal of the Polar Hadley cell http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2008/07/arctic-melting-no-problem.html
64622. caerbannog at 04:48 AM on 6 February 2012
       Still Going Down the Up Escalator
       Apologies for the slightly off-topic (but hopefully not *too* much off-topic) post here. I had a bit of spare time, so I dug out my "quick and dirty" temperature code and hacked at it a bit to process a very small number (45 or fewer) rural temperature stations, distributed approximately evenly around the Earth. Wanted to see what sort of results that would produce: Well, here's a quick-n-dirty plot of my results (with the NASA global land-temperature index for comparison): As you can see, the global-temperature record is incredibly robust with respect to the global-average temperature trend. My results track the official NASA results pretty closely except for the 1880-1885 period. A quick investigation showed that only 12 of my 45 selected stations reported any data for that time period. Since not every station reported data for every year, the results for most years were based on fewer than 40 of the 45 selected stations. I posted more details about my processing approach here. Also have a draft blog post stashed with my account here. If the skepticalscience managers think that this would be worth turning into a short article, that would be no problem -- most of the work has already by done.
64623. SoundOff at 04:01 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       For #7 renewable guy mdenison beat me to the answer but here’s different words that say the same thing in case it helps. The left hand axis of figure 1 is showing the TOA solar irradiance at the subsolar point. It appears to vary from 1365.2 to 1366.7 W/m² over most solar cycles (from eyeballing the figure). The difference is your 1.5 W/m². These two numbers work out to 341.3 to 341.7 W/m² of solar energy entering the climate system when averaged over the surface of the entire planet. Around 30% of what enters is reflected back out to space, leaving a net from 238.9 to 239.2 W/m² inside the climate system. The difference between these last two numbers is very close to 0.25 W/m², which is the figure shown on the right hand axis.
64624. mdenison at 03:17 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       #7 renewable guy The Solar Flux given the value above the atmosphere. However some of that is reflected by the Earth due to the albedo effect and the remainder (about 7/10ths) is spread over the surface of the Earth so we must divide by 4 to obtain an average flux for the whole planet. So multiply 1.5 x 0.7 x 0.25 and you are close to the 0.25 W/m2 variablity in the forcing quoted. There is some discussion of this in other SkS articles. e.g. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming. Other sites like Real Climate discuss this too.
64625. Tom Curtis at 03:01 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       apiratelooksat50 @9, your word splitting is entirely specious. Implication is a relationship such that: A implies B allows us to infer from A that B. In this case, A is the tenfold increase in extreme warm events; B is the attribution of the 2010 Moscow heatwave, and the 2011 Texas and Oklahoma heatwave to global warming. In this case, you are maintaining that the authors assert A, and further assert A implies B, but insist that they do not conclude that B. The only way they can have not concluded that B is if, for some unknown reason, they have decided to contradict themselves. That not being the normal custom of NASA scientists, your interpretation is a clear misinterpretation of their claims.
64626. tmac57 at 02:56 AM on 6 February 2012
       Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 2
       Bernard J- I read the Angliss Rutan thread,and it supports your statement that denialists rarely discuss things in good faith.Very disheartening. I would imagine an online debate with Monckton would similarly deteriorate into (at least on his side) a rhetorical smoke and mirrors presentation,rather than an exchange of science and fact.
64627. apiratelooksat50 at 02:40 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Rob Painting, You did a nice job of presenting the information from the GISS site. Pursuant to our last dialogue I would like to once again point out the importance of using proper terminology. From the NASA website (emphasis mine): "Increased occurrence of such extreme anomalies as a result of global warming, by more than a factor of 10, implies that we can attribute such recent extreme anomalies, including that in Texas and Oklahoma, to global warming." From your summary: "A more than tenfold increase in extreme warm events, has the authors state that we can attribute the monster 2010 Moscow summer heatwave, and the 2011 Oklahoma/Texas heatwave, to global warming." The sentence is subtly different with the omission of the word "implied". However, the information being conveyed in the sentence is changed to a much greater degree. I don't know if this was intentional or unintentional on your part during your rewording of the report. Or, it could simply represent your own bias based on your interpretation due to a lack of understanding of scientific vocabulary. Regardless, for the sake of accuracy, this needs to be pointed out. When used in scientific (logic) writing the word implies means “to be of sufficient circumstance”. Or, that causation is not certain. In casual use the word implies loosely means “suggests”. Your omission of the word “implies” changes their statement from suggesting there is a causal relationship between the anomalies and global warming to a statement of fact. That was not the author’s intent.
64628. renewable guy at 01:04 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       I'm really glad you have written this part two for Hansen's paper. Admittedly I didn't completely understand the statistics part very well. What was the number between the -1 and +1 sigma. I didn't know what to do with it. This article cleared up that part of the question for me. I have worked at understanding this so I can present it in conversattion to other people at the different sites. So far I have gotten very little reaction, because most people don't know what to do with it. I find it a very powerful presentation of the total picture of temperature on the land masses of earth. The -2 and -3 sigma events are shrinking and the +2 and +3 sigma events are expanding. The only way out for them is they don't like Hansen and its a fraud or scam. Thanks for your work in presenting this. I look forward to reading more of your work:)
64629. Ken Lambert at 00:58 AM on 6 February 2012
       Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
       Ian #100 A very sound point Ian. Other non-expert professionals in the areas of science, engineering etc and any lay persons able to understand the first law of thermodynamics can grasp the essentials of the general AGW case.
64630. renewable guy at 00:50 AM on 6 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       In figure one, I was noticing on the right side .25W/M*2, following the blue hashed lines across it appears to have about a 1.5 W/M*2 peak to peak difference. For my basic understanding, it would clear things up for me why it appears to be two different values.
64631. Bernard J. at 00:48 AM on 6 February 2012
       Monckton Myth #17: Debate vs. Denniss, Part 2
       

       I have often dreamed about a debate forum where each argument and counter argument were dealt with one at a time with each side given all the time needed to support their position,and have objective judges vet the responses.I am not even sure that this is possible...

       Oh, it's possible - many bloggers have tried to engage denialists in specific threads to exactly this end. Brian Angliss did this just over a week ago with Burt Rutan. Angliss' approach was to put up two threads, one open and one dedicated just to his comments and Rutan's, and this would have allowed both an extented analysis and a noise-free corner. Rutan promptly ducked and weaved and high-tailed it away. And here on Skeptical Science there was a whole series of exchanges with Roger Pielke Snr intended to nut out the facts. The trouble is, denialists rarely seem to discuss things in good faith. Frankly, I would like to see how they respond in a setting more like a thesis defence, where they do not have the opportunity to prevaricate or otherwise distract from the hard facts. I think that Monckton in particular would snap under that sort of pressure - his whole glib schtick is predicated on his audience and questioners not knowing that his responses to genuinely-scientific opponents are completely bogus.
64632. Delmar at 00:16 AM on 6 February 2012
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       The projected energy consumption, the dotted line, appears too low. The population from 2000 to 2050 is to grow from 6 bil to about 10 bil. However the middle classing of India and china will be a large energy demand increase. There is not enough focus on hydro. Hydro can produce large amounts of electricity on any day you choose, but not every day as the water will run out. As a backup for wind or solar PV, when it has been cloudy for days and the storages are depleted, or there has been unusually light winds over large areas, the hydro can reliably fill the gap. It is the only large scale energy storage system that is currently commercialized, and has been for decades.
64633. MarkR at 23:59 PM on 5 February 2012
       Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
       #55 Minkie41: which predictive models are you referring to? Most climate models include ice sheet changes. But since CMIP3 (the model runs for the last UN IPCC report) only tended to go to 2100 iirc, they could miss longer term warming. Also, the models are underestimating dynamic ice sheet losses. CMIP5 models (the current runs) often include a carbon cycle I believe, although they don't include some dynamic effects so experts think they underestimate the carbon release (Schuur & Abbott, 2011). Will be interesting to see what comes up; hopefully I'll hear some more about CMIP5 next week.
64634. Bernard J. at 21:18 PM on 5 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       On the subject of statisitcal distributions, Roy Spencer is writing about anomalies going "negative", as if this is impossible in a consensus physics world. Why does he not comment when the anomaly goes positive, and why does he not comment on the frequency over time of positive versus negative anomalies? And once again he trots out his 3rd order polynomial fit with his traditional disavowment:

       The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.

       which begs the question of why he includes it in the first place. After all, the mathematical function has no relevance to the data, and so has nothing to say about future points: in fact, anyone who knows how the curve's trajectory evolves will know that it rapidly departs from physical possibility in an accelerating and permanent way. Excel (gag) will courteously demonstrate this for anyone who is even mildly curious... The only use of the third-order polynomial fit is to serve as a denialist dog-whistle for the mathematically ignorant and/or gullible, who are taken by the negative slope on the right hand side of the curve. Anyone who has explored the data will know that this is the only form of curve from quite a variety of its that obliges in this way - and to reiterate Spencer's own confession, the mathematics is completely irrelevant to the data. And just quietly, the same third-order fit was included on the WWWT banner a month or two ago. It seems that deception is so great a tool for the Denialati that they are happy to advertise the fact even before they open their mouths.
64635. Bernard J. at 20:41 PM on 5 February 2012
       Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
       David Archibald has joined the party to hide the sea level incline. I lost count of the errors in the post, but I know that would have filled a denialist-tactic bingo card in about 60 seconds...
64636. Rob Painting at 20:07 PM on 5 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Alex C @1 - see SkS post: Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming. Rahmstorf & Coumou (2011) cite a number of earlier papers on this topic too. The distribution is Gaussian.
64637. Rob Painting at 20:01 PM on 5 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Owl905 - "The only place the bulk of the deep-absorbed heat will return to manifest itself soon, and not violate the 2nd law of TD, is in the Arctics" The NASA scientists aren't talking about the deep ocean, rather the heat that has gone in the upper ocean over this period. See this image from Roemmich & Gilson (2011). Figure 3 in part 1: As outlined in part 1, during La Nina periods the upwelling of deeper cooler water along the Pacific coast of North & South America, the burial of heat into deeper layers in the western tropical Pacific, combined with the reduced evaporation and lower cloud cover over the oceans, causes more sunlight to be beamed into the oceans. We have been in a La Nina-dominant period in the last 3-4 years, therefore the upper ocean will have accumulated much more heat. That heat will find it's way into the atmosphere during El Nino. That's just the way we have observed the Earth to operate. "According to recent papers, the heat-flow........" This is just more confusion on your part. Note the above. Two separate processes are being discussed here. This 'train that has already left the station' has nothing to do with deep ocean warming. A foundation of AGW atmospheric heat-increase projection is that the heat does not quickly transfer into the ocean 'sponge' Really? Many of the climate models appear to mix heat too efficiently into the deep ocean when compared to observations - according to Hansen (2011). Some much more than others. Can you point me to these other papers you allude to? It's relevant to another article I'm writing. "Another piece of contention in the NASA report is on the conclusion about solar influence. They just handed the pro-pollutionists a rock" This is just a repeat of your comments in the thread of part 1. The sun has a cycle which alters the amount of energy the Earth receives. That is simply a fact. It is also a fact the the fluctuations in this cycle are substantial when compared to Earth's energy imbalance - therefore they can exert a noticeable influence on Earth's climate. This is a completely separate issue to the decline in solar output over the last 30 odd years.
64638. owl905 at 18:11 PM on 5 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       "The circled area is (roughly) the solar energy already absorbed by the ocean and yet to manifest itself in global temperatures i.e - warming already committed." The only place the bulk of the deep-absorbed heat will return to manifest itself soon, and not violate the 2nd law of TD, is in the Arctics. Observations suggest it releases in the autumn. According to recent papers, the heat-flow is going the other way (missing heat into the deep). If the transfer of heat into the deep layers (below 750 metres) is quick and efficient, then one of the great uncertainties of 'how long' turns out to be decades or centuries. A foundation of AGW atmospheric heat-increase projection is that the heat does not quickly transfer into the ocean 'sponge'. Another piece of contention in the NASA report is on the conclusion about solar influence. They just handed the pro-pollutionists a rock.
64639. John Brookes at 17:22 PM on 5 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Nice. Hansen et al have the knack of finding great ways of looking at the data. The "skeptics", for their part, are not sure what to make of two cold winters. They can't talk them up too much, for fear of falling foul of their own "its only weather" catchcry, but they don't want to let them pass unremarked.
64640. Delmar at 16:19 PM on 5 February 2012
       Cool climate papers 2011
       Takver, the obvious next question is; if in VanCuren that white roofs add warming of 0.07k to gross global temperatures, would black roofs provide gross global cooling? It does sounds counter intuitive. Or is there a shade of grey that provides the maximum cooling?
64641. Alex C at 15:03 PM on 5 February 2012
       NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
       Hm, I thought it wasn't appropriate to assume that global temperature anomalies were distributed in a Gaussian fashion? Or, am I thinking of their residual distribution about a linear regression model?
64642. takver at 15:02 PM on 5 February 2012
       Cool climate papers 2011
       I think I need some help with this one: "Week 40: VanCuren studied how albedo modification by building cool roofs would affect climate." I understand that this reduces the radiative forcing, and cools the local environment. Has this study modelled possible effects on the global level? I raise this because Mark Z. Jacobson and John E. Ten Hoeve released a study online (Free PDF) in October 2011 (see my blog article), but peer-reviewed published in AMS Journal Feb 2012 - Effects of Urban Surfaces and White Roofs on Global and Regional Climate (abstract) - that argues that their model results "show that conversion to white roofs cooled population weighted ground and air temperatures over the simulation. However, feedbacks of the local changes to the large scale resulted in a gross global warming, but smaller in magnitude than the UHI. Whereas, the population-weighted air temperature decrease due to white roofs was ~0.02 K, the global temperature increase was ~0.07 K." Perhaps they are both correct, just looking at the subject from different levels? Can someone with more physics background advise?
64643. Bob Lacatena at 13:41 PM on 5 February 2012
       The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
       Rutan's diatribe is downright embarrassing. It stands as a living testament to how even a successful, driven and intelligent man can be so violently ravaged by the onset of Dunning-Kruger disease in its advanced stages.
64644. michael sweet at 13:00 PM on 5 February 2012
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       This article from Bloomburg says solar power is now cheaper than diesel in India. Many companies have diesel generators because the power grid cannot keep up with peak demand and they have rolling blackouts. Solar is being installed primarily because it is cheaper. It also generates during the day when blackouts are more common. Solar only became cheaper than diesel last year. Coal is still considerably cheaper than solar but solar is easy for small users to install. Companies install solar on the roofs of buildings.
64645. tmac57 at 12:26 PM on 5 February 2012
       The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
       citizenschallenge- Thanks for the link.That was very disappointing to say the least.I was unaware that Rutan held those views.If he could have supported them in a factual way he might have come off better,but in the end he appeared to be simply parroting the denier party line.
64646. takver at 12:13 PM on 5 February 2012
       Cool climate papers 2011
       Thanks Ari, I appreciate the effort that has gone into this list. A great deal of interesting papers here. While scrolling through I noted a few that are relevant to blog articles I have written in the past. Sometimes it's the offbeat 'cool' research that can attract the most public attention. The most visited article on my climate blog is: Whales and Climate Change: the role of Whale poo in absorption of CO2. Hardly 'core' climate research but it taps in to environmental concern over commercial whaling and climate change.
64647. citizenschallenge at 09:27 AM on 5 February 2012
       The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
       For another excellent response to the WSJ letter. . . Brian Angliss does a superb job of trying to discuss science with Burt Rutan, Engineer to Engineer like, and Burt Rutan exposes himself as a ideologically driven demagogue he seems to have become - refusing to acknowledge anything other than his own shallow talking points. Brian's even tempered issue focused approach is a thing of beauty. Climate science discussion between Burt Rutan and Brian Angliss Posted on January 31, 2012 http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/31/climate-science-discussion-between-burt-rutan-and-brian-angliss/
       Moderator Response: Link fixed
64648. Minkie41 at 07:42 AM on 5 February 2012
       Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
       My post no 52 wasn't gin-clear on the sensitive topic of climate sensitivity.I should have added that these predictive models: "...omit 'slow' feedbacks,such as ice sheet growth and decay,change in vegetation cover,permafrost melting and methane release,and carbon-cycle feedbacks,all which amplify climate changes on time scales of decades to centuries". The quote is from Spratt & Sutton's Climate Code Red,p47.
64649. ktonine at 06:48 AM on 5 February 2012
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       "A good summation of the physics of radiative forcing can be found in V. Ramanathan's Trace-Gas Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming." Is a broken link.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Fixed link, thanks. The actual URL is: http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr72.pdf

       A portion of V Ramanathan's publication list can be found here.

64650. funglestrumpet at 06:45 AM on 5 February 2012
       Cool climate papers 2011
       Thanks for all the effort, but don't you think that, given the subject matter, overuse of the word 'cool' is best avoided?

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