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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 65151 to 65200:

  1. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    andylee - Take a look at the first 'Pothole' thread. There's a significant evidence from the GRACE mass detection satellites that indicate the current La Nina conditions (and high accompanying rainfall) have led to greater water concentrations on the continents, especially Brazil and Australia. And hence a short term decrease in the rate of rise. That short term variation, of course, will likely reverse over the next El Nino pattern.
  2. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case - If ice melt has accelerated, and it has, then perhaps thermal expansion might have slowed in the last decade? Hansen (2011) has an interesting look at the thermal expansion aspect and his team's calculations show a rapid acceleration in sea level rise is likely this decade.
  3. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    If most of the excess energy has gone into heating the oceans over the last few years then one would expect to see a little more sign of this in the graph. The only thing I can think of that would mask the heating of the oceans is if cold water was being heated from 0C to 4C, where its density would increase and volume contract. Once above water's anomalous density transfer function, a temperature vs sea-level correlation would be more apparent.
  4. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Composer99 - those metaphors were chosen by NASA JPL - Josh Willis I think. They're well-established now and I happen to like them, so won't be changing.
  5. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Sorry, KR, my comment above should have been more directed to readership in general than to you. Apologies. "I find it quite useful when someone comes along and (once again) provides a demonstration." Agreed.
  6. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Daniel Bailey - I'm aware of the repetition of this particular cherry-pick, having been in some of those discussions. However, when discussing why cherry-picking short term noisy data is statistically a bad idea in science, I find it quite useful when someone comes along and (once again) provides a demonstration.
  7. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    KR, Steve has been prosecuting this very tiny cherry-red agenda for some time, on multiple threads. Each time he has been given correction such as yours, to no avail. It is yet another iteration of this: Or this:
  8. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    I second Sapient Fridge's ideas in his/her first paragraph.
  9. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case - Two points: * What is the quality of the polynomial fit versus a linear fit for this (fairly short) time period? You have not shown whether the polynomial is a better (more justified) fit. * Looking at longer term data indicates a clear acceleration of sea level rise: [Source - IPCC 2007, projections are for the SRES A1B scenario] As this thread points out - you have to look at the broader picture, and include all of the relevant data. As opposed to, say, the short term noise.
  10. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Paul D@25, Exactly - I didn't want to patronize with long explanations! dawn and dusk was just a short way of describing the ring around the Earth where the sun is below the horizon, but the atmosphere is still illuminated, and indirectly heating the surface. Thus the fraction of the Earth receiving energy from the Sun would be slightly more than 50%. (I'm pretty sure we can discount earthshine from the moon from having any statistical relevance)
  11. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Whatever the case may be, global sea level rise will continue over the long-term because of the accelerating melt of land-based ice and continued warming of the oceans.

    So far that accelerating melt and warming hasn't caused sea level rise to accelerate. Here's Colorado University's data from their 2011 rel 4 plotted out with an Excel 2nd order polynomial trend line which shows slight deceleration:

  12. Dikran Marsupial at 04:38 AM on 7 February 2012
    Global Warming: Trend and Variation
    Fred Staples while sea level data are not my forte, I do know there are very good reasons why you can't get a good estimate of global sea levels from measurements from just one site. So perhaps you would like to explain what is so interesting about Tasmania, and why this is not just yet another example of cherry picking station data, whilst ignoring the bigger picture?
  13. Global Warming: Trend and Variation
    If you want an idea of the increase in sea-level over the past 170 years, Google "John Daly Sea-Level" and look at the following: The 1841 sea level benchmark (centre) on the `Isle of the Dead', Tasmania. According to Antarctic explorer, Capt. Sir James Clark Ross, it marked mean sea level in 1841. Photo taken at low tide 20 Jan 2004. Mark is 50 cm across; tidal range is less than a metre. © John L. Daly. If the benchmark is difficult to see, try these.
  14. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    If you don't mind the nitpick, speedbumps are used in streets & parking lots to slow down the speed of traffic, so the term appears to be used in an opposite sense from its denotation (where from context I assume speedbumps are unusual jumps in sea level rise while potholes are unusual drops). IMO crests & troughs (like waves in water) would be a better use of imagery, especially given the topic.
  15. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Is anyone aware of any published studies that explain the impact the projected cooling that the sun is expected to undergo within the coming decades will have on the 11 year solar cycle? Thus far I have only come across seperate articles mentioning them, and I'd be really interested to see how the one may impact the other
  16. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Rob #Original Post "Small fluctuations in the sun's output occur over a roughly 11-year cycle (peak-to-peak) and vary by as much as 0.25 watts per square metre(W/m2). This may sound sound small, but it's rather substantial when compared to Earth's energy imbalance - that is: the difference between energy (heat) entering and leaving Earth's atmosphere - the global warming-caused imbalance." Well Rob, when I started commenting on SKS, Solar was a lot smaller. When the warming imbalance was 0.9W/sq.m - Solar was only 0.13 +/-0.13 W/sq.m. Now its rather substantial. How can it be a contributor to global warming if it is a predictable cyclical variation which has always been there? Further this 'warming already committed but not yet manifest in surface temperatures' is somewhat misleading. The energy is already stored somewhere - expressed as increased ocean temperatures or phase change right now. All the temperature expression we have now is a reflection of cumulative past global energy gain or loss. Future warming can come only from future energy gain.
  17. Water levels correlate with sunspots
    This sounds like a bizarro world claim at best. TSI has a 1 month lag to temperature anomalies in FR2011 (and Lean and Rind 2008) and an 18 month lag due to ocean thermal inertia (Hansen). Now a 33 year lag? It's hard to credit a lag that's an integer multiple of the underlying 11 year cycle.
  18. Michael Whittemore at 00:37 AM on 7 February 2012
    2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    A link to a list of skeptical peer reviewed papers that have been found wrong or not up to scratch would be great. Have them in alphabetical order from the title of the paper (to make them easy to find). With a brief description of why they are not accepted. Then when you click on the paper there can be more detailed reasons with links to where on Skeptical Science the papers have been debunked. Even have them categorised, for example, sensitivity and proxy records. Deniers just keep on repeating the same papers and to be able to link them to a detailed rebuttal of the work would save a lot of time.
  19. Piet R. Zijlstra at 00:37 AM on 7 February 2012
    NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Dear Rob, Dear SkS team, I am now four months studying climate change. Next to attending David Archers lectures on climate science I could achieve the best learning curve at SkS. The year end summaries came just in time to get an overview. From now on this posting and the Hansen 2011 article will be the basis for next months study. Thanks,
  20. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Hydro can be a power source or energy storage system. For energy storage water is pumped from a low level dam to a high level dam when there is excess power, say with solar PV during the day, and then used to generate power in the evening by running the water back to the low level dam. Of course the measure for all energy storage systems is what percentage of the energy do you get back, and what are losses during holding. Hydro has very low holding lossess. You can store it for 12 months and only lose a little to evaporation and seepage.
  21. Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
    Your comment, Tom, repeats the regular comment at RC that the mid-troposphere satellite record is distorted downwards by stratospheric cooling, and that this cooling is the principal AGW signature. If you look at the HADAT charts, you will see that this cooling stopped after the last major volcanic eruption in 1994. From your weighting chart (repeating Roy Spencer), the stratospheric temperatures between 10 and 15 kms will affect the satellite readings. From the HADAT data, the overall cooling trends at these altitudes from 1958 to 2010 are: 9.13 Kms +1.27 degrees per century 11.74 kms - 0.28 degrees per century 13.5 Kms -1.02 degrees per century 15.75 Kms -2.26 degrees per century However, the data shows an absence of cooling after the mid-nineties. We can ask, therefore, how far back we must go from the present at these altitudes to detect a significant cooling trend. These are the answers: 9.14 Kms 19 years to significant warming 11.74 Kms 53 years 13.5 Kms 52 years 15.75 Kms 22 years So, Tom, if the effect you, and RC, cite so regularly exists at all, it can only ever have been marginal, (at 15 kms) and it ceased about 20 years ago.
  22. apiratelooksat50 at 22:57 PM on 6 February 2012
    NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Mods, Am I allowed to post an email from another person? If so what are the guidelines? Thanks
    Response:

    [DB] You would need:

    1. Consent from them, either written or via email, that they agree to allow you to post the email on SkS
    2. To repost the message from them in it's entirety so context is preserved
    3. The email must not contain personal information of a sensitive nature
    4. The email must be on-topic to the post on which it is placed
    5. The email must be written to comply with the SkS Comments Policy
    6. The email must add to the discussion; i.e., it must provide information/context to the discussion on that thread not already covered prior to this, nor itself also not available via link to peer-reviewed, published literature (no anecdotal reposting of the science)
  23. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    #20: Excellent summary of denier excuses. One important thing to remember is that the deniers have painted themselves into a corner by predicting rapid cooling in the coming years/decades. There will no doubt be an effort to delete webpages with such statements, etc, so it would be wise to save as much of this info as possible. I have adviced local journalists (who can't print enough denier drivel, it seems) to take note of these cooling claims and then follow up on them around 2014. When the next El Nino comes around and the new global record is set, being able to point to the science predicting that, and then pointing out that the deniers forecasted the opposite will cause at least reasonable folks to open their eyes a little. Note that immediate cooling was the hot denier topic back in 2008 as well, and they could not wait until 09 and 10 rolled around with their predicted continuing cooling, proudly claiming the "La Nina excuse" could not be used anymore. It was the negative PDO that was the denier favorite back then. We all know what happened in 09 and 10, but the deniers got away with it despite their prediction being dead wrong. This is the sort of stuff that even an illiterate public will understand when pointed out to them, so when the next record is being set sometime from 2013 to 2016 we can't put enough emphasize on the (once again) failed denier cooling predictions.
  24. Sapient Fridge at 22:19 PM on 6 February 2012
    2012 SkS Weekly Digest #5
    Personally I'd prefer if there were a single page listing all the "skeptic" scientists and linking to a page for each one, in the same style as the "Climate myths from politicians" page. Doing it like that keeps it dry and avoids accusations of unprofessional attacks from SKS. I would also really like the short links to be available from the "Link to this page" selection of links e.g. http://sks.to/sun to be included in the "Link to this page" selection for http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm. The reason being that when answering misinformation on comment pages (e.g. the BBC) space is often a premium so the short links are really useful, but finding the appropriate link for an argument page is currently awkward.
  25. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    andylee@18 I'm not sure dawn and dusk really have any relevance since they are purely human perceived timing events at specific points on the globe. I get the point you make about the atmosphere, part of the suns rays are going to hit the surface and those rays on the periphery of the imaginary circular slice through the rays, will pass through the atmosphere. It is a continuous process as the earth revolves. There is no need to perceive any special case or moment in time.
  26. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Further to Tom Curtis' comments the image below is from Loeb (2012) and is the subject of an upcoming post: Note the 15 climate model simulations versus observations of the period in question. But then fake-skeptics always focus on what they want to see and ignore the obvious - just like the GWPF:
  27. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    RonManley @168, climate models predict non-linear trends that still approximate to linear trends over short intervals (30 years or less). Therefore, the easiest test to falsify the climate model projections in the short term is does the temperature record depart significantly from a linear trend approximating to the model predictions over that short term. In order to falsify those projections, you would need to do two simple things: 1) Show that a statistically significant and robust short term trend lies outside the significance interval of a trend approximating to that of the predictions; and 2) Show that the assumed conditions of the projections in fact held over the period in question. Fake skeptics have repeatedly drawn attention to short term trends which are not statistically significant. What is more, they are not robust. The are not duplicated across all temperature indices (for instance), and they change significantly with small changes in start and end point. Therefore they have not shown (1). Never-the-less Foster and Rahmstorf jumped ahead and tested (2). They showed that conditions did vary significantly from those assumed by the model projections, due to the coupling of several strong La Ninas with an exceptionally weak period of insolation. Further, the showed that if you correct for those factors, the trend is well within the confidence interval of the projected model trends. The use of the linear trend in that context is unexceptional because of the hypothesis they were testing.
  28. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    1. Is it perhaps time to update some of your graphs many of which end around 2007? 2. Do you not feel that the Foster and Rahmstorf analysis is compromised by the fact that they assumed a linear trend? ("The influence of exogenous factors will be approximated by multiple regression ... and a linear time trend"). They then derived the coefficients that came closest to that hypothesis. On my own web site for fun I've done a similar analysis for the period 1998 to 2011 and 'proved' that the trend is completely flat for that period. Adjusted temperature 1998 to 2011
  29. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    chirhphoros @23 your categories are non-exclusive, and significantly overlapping. Specifically, if a person stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, and somebody deliberately pushed her to her death, proof "beyond reasonable doubt" that they pushed her, and did so with the intention of causing her harm would be proof beyond reasonable doubt that that person was guilty of murder. However, the push was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the death of the victim. Necessarily it is just a small part of the causal chain leading to the victims death. Other parts include the force of gravity, the height of the drop, the lack of a safety rail, the lack of a safety net, and so on. Therefore the push was not sufficient for the death of the victim. Neither was it necessary for the victim could have stumbled, been accidentally bumped, or just had an embolism, and died even in the absence of the push. So, despite the classical development of the notion of causation as a necessary and sufficient condition for an event to occur, in actuality "causes" are only necessary if we exclude alternative non-realized scenarious, and if we include rigorous assumptions about what is reasonably expected (ceterus paribus clauses). Likewise they are only sufficient with similar assumptions about reasonable expectations. Further, the legal distinction of "beyond all doubt" is bizarrely (at least in Australian Jurisdictions) undefined and hence meaningless. Judges, under common law, are not permitted to direct the jury as to what level of probability constitutes beyond reasonable doubt, or in any other way define the phrase beyond its own words. Hence, by law it is an undefined and undefinable. And as a matter of logic, any term which is undefined and undefinable is strictly meaningless. In the end, it reduces to an emotional appeal to be as certain as you can be before recording a conviction, ie, to take your job seriously and to not convict lightly. Such a standard has no place in science. For myself I parse "beyond reasonable doubt" to mean that the evidence shows the conclusion with greater than 99% probability (necessarily subjectively estimated) and no reasonable hypothesis which, if true would mean the defendant is not guilty has been proposed as true and not refuted. Note that this is my personal definition, and by force of law not the actual definition, because by force of law it has no actual definition. However, it is obviously an absurd standard for science. In science it would mean that no hypothesis could be accepted even provisionally if there existed any alternative hypothesis that had not been refuted. In science, however, showing that Hypothesis A has a probability given the evidence, at least 20 times greater than the probability of Hypothesis B given the evidence is sufficient to provisionally reject B in favour of A. Provisionally, because all theories or laws in science are only ever provisionally accepted. (The 20 times is not a hard and fast rule. Nobody has ever sat down an legislated it. But it is a good rule of thumb.) Returning to the anomalies, look at the following very important graph: The Hot events are greater than 0.43 sigma, Very Hot greater than 2 sigma, and extremely hot, greater than 3 sigma. If you look at the graph, you can see that we now have events with a probability (assuming stationary climate) of 2.1% occurring around 20% of the time (area covered); and events with a probability (assuming stationary climate) of 0.1% occuring between 5 and 10% of the time, ie, between 50 and 100 times as frequently as they previously occurred. I haven't done the maths but that global warming is the cause of those events (all else being equal) seems well established. The all else being equal, of course, just assumes a continuing pattern of El Ninos and blocking events, which are of course contributory causes to any particular heat wave.
  30. Still Going Down the Up Escalator
    RobertS @62, in that case his argument is nothing more than bait and switch. If he wanted to show poor interpretation of the (classical statistics) prediction interval of the regression, the proper Bayesian comparison was the credible interval of the regression as calculated by Dikran Marsupial. Remember that his conclusion was that "Users of classical statistical methods are too sure of themselves." He did not conclude that sometimes classical statistical results are sometimes misinterpreted. That is because he intended an assault on classical statistical methods per se, rather than occasional particular misinterpretations. What is more, if he is not simply misinterpreting the confidence interval of the regression for the confidence interval of the data, then his comparison is bizarre. The "confidence interval" of the regression using Bayesian methods would have been similarly narrow; and the confidence interval of the data using classical methods would have been almost as wide as that which he calculated using Bayesian methods, and indeed would have included 95% of the data used to calculate it. What is worse, if this is the basis on which he asserts classical confidence limits are too narrow, he has no basis for that assertion. That goes directly to the issue of the main post here.
  31. Michael Whittemore at 18:07 PM on 6 February 2012
    Water levels correlate with sunspots
    WUWT is suggesting this is the reason for the rising sea levels we are seeing around the world. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/ they even suggest that due to this correlation sea levels will decrease by 2050.
  32. It's the sun
    There is a new paper out by Abdussamatov here, he is claims a total decrease in TSI of 6.8 W/m2 due to a decrease in the bicentennial activity of the sun. Of course this big decrease will cause a new little ice age etc. etc. Only problem I have is that I am not able to find anything on the "Bicentennial Decrease of TSI".
  33. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2)
    Pirate @ 9 & Tom Curtis @10: Most inferences in science (apart from mathematics) relate to probability. In analysing data with public policy and especially legal implications , the language goes as follows: A caused B beyond reasonable doubt (the criminal test). On the balance of probabilities A caused B, ie, it is more probable than not that A caused B (the civil test). On the balance of probabilities A substantially contributed to B, ie, A need not have been the entire, largest, or even majority contributor to B. A needs only to have made a contribution which was large, more than trivial, not small, etc (a subtle refinement of the civil test). I'm curious how you would fit the issue of the anomalies into this framework. At any rate, thanks to RP for a very clear explanation of the Gaussian curve underpinning temperature. Do we have enough data to say that the current shift to the right is unprecedented?
  34. Still Going Down the Up Escalator
    RobertS#106: "some unobservable, unverifiable parameter like "slope" under the assumption that your straight line model is correct." In this case there are physical models and they predict a slope that is verified by the observables. -- source So Briggs' argument hardly applies here. But 'unobserved observables'? Are they like known unknowns?
  35. Still Going Down the Up Escalator
    Stephen Baines @74 "To imply it is a common mistake among those doing analyses of temperature patterns is downright puzzling." Is it? You make this very mistake in your comment @81: "If we have confidence that the slope parameter is positive, we can say confidently that temperature has increased." But it's not just you. It is incredibly common when looking for a change in some dataset, not just in climate science, to plot a linear regression and calculate a confidence interval with the hope of finding a small p-value so statistical significance can be claimed. This method, however, doesn't do what many think it does - all it does it reject some (often silly) null hypothesis for some unobservable, unverifiable parameter like "slope" under the assumption that your straight line model is correct. And because you're uninterested (at least explicitly) in seeing if your model can forecast skillfully, we don't know if it is even very good. Briggs argues that most people aren't actually interested in the uncertainty in unobservable model parameters, but the uncertainty in the unobserved observables - the temperature at places where averaging techniques (statistical models) attempt to predict, and where we don't have measurements (though theoretically we could). That's how I interpret what he's saying, anyway.
  36. 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.
  37. 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.
  38. 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.
  39. 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
  40. 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.
  41. 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.
  42. 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.
  43. 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.
  44. Arctic sea ice has recovered
    Looking at the latest graph at nsidc.org daily image Is this the lowest February extent ever?
  45. 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!
  46. 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.
  47. 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.
  48. 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.
  49. 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.
  50. 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.

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