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michael sweet at 19:55 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
"And Briggs never "backpedaled." He's remained consistent in his description of averages as models" Defending Briggs by saying he has been consistent about describing measured results as models is absurd. Measured results are measured results. Briggs is attempting to raise doubt (doubt is our product!) by calling the measurements models. This alone proves he is not serious. -
RobertS at 19:05 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
It's difficult to ascertain what Briggs is talking about here. We're not using the current trend to predict (hindcast) the global temperature in 1940.
Try looking here and hereto get a better idea of what Briggs is saying.Ultimately Briggs completely misses the point of The Escalator.
Plait stated that the WSJ authors were "dead wrong" when they claimed that there had been no warming over the last 10 years, and illustrated this point with a static version of the escalator graph. Briggs says they weren't, and that this particular graphic cannot tell us that they were wrong. The goal wasn't to "get" the purpose of the escalator graph. WheelsOCIt's pretty telling that Briggs seems to have confused real-world, instrumental data records with climate models and predictions, and then tried to trash it.
No, I think Briggs' biggest problem is that people don't understand what he's talking about. Sloppy and inconsistent terminology abounds, and the Plait critique was apparently written with long-time readers or those intimately familiar with Bayesian predictive techniques solely in mind. And Briggs never "backpedaled." He's remained consistent in his description of averages as models. -
owl905 at 18:47 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
That temperature illustrated posted by Norman is an excellent example of deception and misrepresentation. If you'd looked at the same layout 48 hours ago, it was a tongue stretching across Eurasia to the eastern Europe. Europe was actually having an above-average winter until a extreme-event cycle built around the northern Siberia high pressure zone. Trying to claim that those cold temperatures are in any way representative and indicative of conditions in the Arctic is Wall Street Journalism: http://markvoganweather.blogspot.com/ -
Tom Curtis at 18:20 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
macoles @7, the apparent "eleven year cycle" is largely coincidental. For example, the peak of the last solar cycle was around 2000, and coincided with the very low (by 21st century standards) temperatures in the years immediately following the 1998 El Nino. While the solar cycle does have an effect, the El Nino Southern Oscillation is far more important in determining year to year variability, as can be seen in the following graph, originally from NASA:
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macoles at 18:03 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Always worth giving Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 a plug whenever using the Elevator graph. The 11 year solar cycles coincide very neatly with the elevator steps (as would be expected). Perhaps someone can superimpose the two onto a single graphic? -
Stephen Baines at 16:55 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman, first the phrase "in this area" tells you that Drinkwater is not making a statement about loss ice across the Arctic. Second, those winds drawing warm currents northward could be a function of climate change, as coulod the warmth of the water itself. Drinkwater has himself published as much in a paper simulating effects of climate change on oceanographic processes. So you haven't established whether his position constitutes a contradiction to mainstream climate science with regard to Arctic ice loss generally. You have only interpreted it so. Finally, and more to the point of this thread, why don't you write Drinkwater and ask him if he agrees with the statement of Trenberth et al? -
dana1981 at 16:33 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Sure keith, if you have my email, pass it along (if not let me know and I'll contact you). -
keithpickering at 16:20 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Dana, As it happens, just today I wrote a program to help with an "escalator" graph using GISS data. I'm not done with the graph, but if you wish I can send you a spreadsheet showing all the negative-slope regressions from each month of 1970-2005 for periods of 60 thru 131 months out. I zeroed out the positive slopes so the negative ones jump right out at you; it's a cherry-picker's dream. -
Norman at 16:07 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
muoncounter @66 Sorry. The thread is about how an expert in the field of climate science should be the one to get the correct information from. It is a counter to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece signed by scientists without expertise in the climate sciences. But your link does support the conclusions of Dr. Drinkwater and says much the same thing. Quote from your link to the Arctic sea ice page. "Air temperatures in December were lower than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, but higher than average over the Kara and Barents seas. Higher-than-average temperatures in these regions stemmed from two major factors. First, where sea ice extent is low, heat can escape from areas of open water, warming the atmosphere. Second, surface winds in the Kara and Barents Sea ice blew persistently from the south, bringing in heat from lower latitudes. This imported heat also helped to keep sea ice extent low in this area." -
Philippe Chantreau at 16:05 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman brought my attention to the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research where I found this interview of Susan Solomon, which brings us back to the topic of climate scientists being best suited to talk about climate science -
John Hartz at 15:50 PM on 3 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
For the scoop on one of the letter signers, check out: “Australian Meteorology Bureau Corrects Record On Former Research Head William Kininmonth's Actual Climate Change Experience” by Graham Readfearn, DeSmog Blog, Feb 2, 2012 Click here to access this article. -
Stephen Leahy at 15:49 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Composer99: "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are" Anais Nin. via Frances Moore Lappe's "Ecomind" -
muoncounter at 15:45 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman#63: Please do not drag this thread off-topic with weather reports. The topic is getting climate information from climate scientists - not from biologists and not from weathermen. In keeping with that, if you are looking for Arctic temperatures, look here, especially at the December 2011 Arctic Air Temp anomaly map. -
Stephen Baines at 15:35 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman, It would appear that transport of warm water into the Barents Sea could be a function of climate change. Drinkwater has written several papers looking at regional simulations on climate change and its impacts on North Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. Some of those predict increased wind and wind driven transport of warm waters northward as a result of climate change. He also mentions the AMO at times, so its clear he also thinks there is a regional mode that also tends to drive warm water northward as well. It's clear from his papers though that he considers climate change at the global level a given. -
actually thoughtful at 15:30 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman - go ahead and take the next step WHY is the water warming. Hmmm. What could warm the oceans - the largest heat sink on the planet.... Go ahead and think this one through for us, and see if you don't end up understanding climate science a little better for the effort. -
Norman at 15:26 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Composer99 @59 I am not sure that Dr. Drinkwater is a "quack" scientist on the fringe. Here is a current temperature graph of North Asia in Celcius. This graph shows that the land air temperature is definately cold enough to easily freeze ocean water. The only reason the Barents Sea area remains liquid is because of warmer water moving in to the area driven by ocean currents. I think his determination of why the Arctic is not freezing to the normal area is because of this influx of warmer water into this area.
source.
Here is a link to the weather at Novaya Zemlya, the elongated island above the Western Russia land mass.
Novaya Zemlya weather.
As you can see the temperatures are well below the freezing point yet in the arctic sea ice graph I posted @57 the water is not frozen.
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John Hartz at 15:20 PM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Tom Curtis: Your comment would make a nice blog post. -
actually thoughtful at 15:14 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman (or Elsa)- we quickly run into the twin buzz saws of the denier perspectives 1) What is all the CO2 doing in the atmosphere if it is NOT warming the planet as predicted. And 2)If CO2 is not the culprit, what IS warming the planet (with the current El Nino and quiescent sun, we would expect to be in a major cooling trend. What is your response? Anyone having a cogent response to this is on the first rung of the ladder to being a skeptic, and not merely a denier. -
Norman at 15:07 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
muoncounter, Also in the Science Daily article I linked to previously. The article does point out: "The entire North Atlantic warmed up during the 1920s and 1930s. More fish appeared not only in the Barents Sea but also off Iceland and Greenland. This warm period reached its peak at the end of the thirties and lasted until roughly 1960, when the waters began turning colder again -- and fisheries resources declined once more." Or this: "Many people recorded what they observed taking place in the ocean nearly 90 years ago. If we can determine what occurred during that warming period," believes Dr Drinkwater, "we will better understand what is going on today, plus we'll have more reliable input as to what we can expect in the future." -
Norman at 14:59 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
muoncounter @58 I checked up on Dr. Ken Drinkwater and he is more than a fisheries biologist. "Ken Drinkwater Ken’s expertise is in physical oceanography, climate change, and the impact of physical forcing on marine ecosystems. He graduated with a Ph.D. from Dalhousie University and worked at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) located in Halifax, Canada." Note the "climate change" as part of his expertise. source. -
scaddenp at 14:38 PM on 3 February 2012More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
"We do know coal seams were formed during rampant plant growth during high atmospheric co2 periods." You seem to be implying that coal seams are indicators of high plant growth. However, the requirement for coal seams is an environment which preserves plant material from oxidation combined with low sedimentation rates. The factors favouring preservation are at least as important as abundance of plant source. Plant growth may indeed benefit from CO2 but only if other essentials (especially water) are also unrestricted. It would be a simplistic correlation to equate coal with CO2. -
Minkie41 at 14:19 PM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Elsa! I believe I know what Lovelock meant.This is from Paul Edwards's A Vast Machine,MIT Press,page 439,and is not to be taken lightly.The other reference is to M.R. Allen & D.J.Frame in "Call Off The Quest," Science 318,no5850 (2007):582. The discussion involves climate sensitivity,and the idea that doubling CO2 may lead to a temperature rise of perhaps greater than 6 degrees C;which is a lot higher than the IPCC's forecast,and Hansen et al's. "Once the world has warmed by 4 degrees C," Myles Allen and David Frame wrote,"conditions will be so different from anything we can observe today (and still more different from the last ice age)that it is inherently hard to say when the warming will stop."If that is true,the search for mopre precise knowledge has little hope of success.Worse,implicit in the quest for precision is the notion that there is some "safe" level of greenhouse gases that would "stabilise" the climate.Allen and Frame's point is that we do not know this,we cannot find out wether it is true--and we now have good reason to suspect it is NOT true" We need a Churchill of a leader now!All this childish bickering over things like time series anomalies has long gone beyond the ridiculous. Peter Cummins New Zealand -
Composer99 at 14:14 PM on 3 February 2012More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
JMykos: Your last sentence is technically true yet is part of a larger comment that is essentially misleading (all the more so since the key inferences are left unsaid). The fact of the matter is that the present climate change is occuring at a rate that is unprecedented in paleoclimate history - with the possible exceptions of periods that we would do well to avoid re-visiting (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum & the like). When you consider also that human agriculture has only developed during the period of relative climate stability during the Holocene, when global climate remained within a tightly constrained range, the above-noted rate of change is hardly encouraging. Nor is it any consolation to look at long-vanished climates, to which our current suite of agricultural crops are not in the slightest accustomed, and marvel at the plant growth apparent. -
Steve L at 14:09 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Very quick correction -- you've got 2011 when I think you mean 2012 for some discussion of timelines in the text.Response:[dana1981] Thanks, corrected
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Composer99 at 14:00 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman: If 97 out of 100 surgeons are telling you you should have, say, a tumour, surgically removed, and follow it up with adjuvant chemotherapy, and three others are saying you should just drink some herbal teas, which would you go with? Or would you ignore the surgeons entirely and go with the homeopath, the chiropractor, or the quack who tells you cancer is caused by liver flukes and can be cured with a "zapper"? That is effectively where we are at with climate science. The experts who are paying attention to the evidence are in broad agreement. The remaining tiny minority are espousing positions often indistinguishable from anti-science cranks. -
Composer99 at 13:53 PM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Speaking as a hockey-country Canadian, that last video nearly elicited tears. I used to have all sorts of fun playing out on the little pond near my grandmother's old house in the winter time. I have a 4-month old boy, and I'd hate to think that he (or his children, should he have any) would have less of an opportunity to do the same. -
Composer99 at 13:40 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
IMO the power of graphics such as the "Skeptic Escalator" is so great that people who really ought to know better (such as, say, professional statisticians like Mr Briggs) will make stunningly poor arguments against them. It's amazing how people will argue themselves into incoherent knots when they attempt to argue against clear & compelling visualisations of clear & compelling evidence. -
JMykos at 13:38 PM on 3 February 2012More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
Just been reading this post. I think many commenters are being harsh. At the least there is a hypothesis that more co2 will benefit overall plant growth and yields. That hypothesis is not proven or disproven by studying issues with soya beans being attached by a particular beetle etc. It's a much more complex situation that. We do know coal seams were formed during rampant plant growth during high atmospheric co2 periods. -
WheelsOC at 13:26 PM on 3 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
It's pretty telling that Briggs seems to have confused real-world, instrumental data records with climate models and predictions, and then tried to trash it. It's even more telling that Anthony Watts thinks that his obscure flailing is somehow sufficient to "school" Phil Plait on statistics! Over at Open Mind, Briggs tried to backpedal by redefining model as "averages," but this doesn't fly either. Also, I was coincidentally using the graphic on Jan. 30th in another forum (responding to the Daily Mail/Rose claim of no warming since 1997), and instantly caught some denialist flak over it. I didn't realize the picture was getting spread around of late, but it's just so great for beating down arguments of short-term "no warming" crap. Funny how things seem to happen to everybody at once sometimes. -
muoncounter at 13:25 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Norman#57: "there is always the second opinion when medical treatments are involved." Granted. But what we see here is really this simple: the second opinions given by an ex-astronaut, a newspaper blogger and some paid political policy hacks are not as valuable as the second opinions of those scientists working in climate science. Your link to Dr. Drinkwater, a fisheries biologist, is a case in point. In his opinion, "This warming is primarily due to currents -- a greater amount of warm Atlantic water is flowing into the North Atlantic and up to the Barents Sea." We've clearly shown in other threads that ocean warming is a result of upsetting earth's energy balance. So in his opinion, Arctic ice melt is due to warmer water moving north; what is left unsaid is that warmer water is due itself to global warming. A climatologist (like a practitioner of internal medicine) might make that connection; a fisheries biologist (like a guy who operates only on left elbows) might not. -
Tom Curtis at 13:06 PM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Elsa @15:"I find it rather difficult to see why you think your own approach is in any way superior to the cherrypicking that you highlight. If we are looking for evidence of temperature changes then surely it is temperature that we should look at."
Contrary to Mark R, the Daily Mail article was a response to this press release rather than news of the upcoming revision of the Hadley/CRU Land/Ocean Temperature Index. That press release contains data from four Land/Ocean Temperature Indices, three of which are in close agreement and show significant temperature increase over the last fifteen years. There is, however, one which is an outlier, and which shows little or no temperature increase over that period. The land component of that index is also an outlier compared to various land only temperature indices including the BEST analysis (not included in the Met Office press release as it is not a Land/Ocean index). As we also know, it is an outlier with respect to its revised version which, though not yet fully implimented, is known to show warming over that period due to the addition of more station data from regions which where formerly sparsely covered. Naturally, the Daily Mail article focuses exclusively on the outlier. The fact that it is an outlier, however, puts Elsa's suggestion that we look exclusively at the temperature into perspective. The GWPF and the Daily Mail did not look exclusively at the temperature, but exclusively at just one temperature index. That is the nature of the cherry picking she has taken it upon herself to defend. When faced with contradictory temperature data, the obvious thing to do is to exclude the outlier. It is also obvious that we should exclude the temperature index with the least geographical coverage (and hence most unrepresentative of the globe as a whole). We should also exclude the temperature index with the least raw data, ie, actual station records. On all three counts, the temperature index we would drop is the HadCRUT3 temperature index, ie, the temperature index the the Daily Mail (and apparently Elsa) focus on in exclusion to all others. Of course, given that there may be problems with the analysis in any of the indices, the other sensible thing to do is to look for corroborating evidence. If we look at natural events which are significantly effected by temperature, and they tell us a different story from what our temperature index is telling us, then we have significant reason to distrust our temperature index. This is in fact a method recommended by the scientists at NASA:"This derived error bar only addressed the error due to incomplete spatial coverage of measurements. As there are other potential sources of error, such as urban warming near meteorological stations, etc., many other methods have been used to verify the approximate magnitude of inferred global warming. These methods include inference of surface temperature change from vertical temperature profiles in the ground (bore holes) at many sites around the world, rate of glacier retreat at many locations, and studies by several groups of the effect of urban and other local human influences on the global temperature record. All of these yield consistent estimates of the approximate magnitude of global warming, which now stands at about twice the magnitude that we reported in 1981. Further affirmation of the reality of the warming is its spatial distribution, which has largest values at locations remote from any local human influence, with a global pattern consistent with that expected for response to global climate forcings (larger in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern Hemisphere, larger at high latitudes than low latitudes, larger over land than over ocean)."
(Source, my emphasis.) If you follow NASA's advise and look at other indicators of global temperature increase, it becomes obvious that global temperatures continue to rise. Arctic, and global (Arctic plus Antarctic) sea ice have declined:
Glaciers have retreated:
The Greenland and Antarctic Ice sheets have lost mass, while other smaller ice sheets are disappearing entirely:
The oceans are gaining heat:
And, among a host of other smaller signs, the Donner Christmas family hockey game is a dying tradition:
These secondary indicators clearly show the Earth has continued to warm over the last 15 years. That is, it is GISS and NOAA who are giving us the straight dope on temperatures, not HadCRUT3, on which the Daily Mail keeps its eyes so firmly fixed.
Apparently Elsa wants our eyes firmly fixed on HadCRUT3 as well. Not for her any glance outside of that little black circle (figure 2 above). For if we do glance at the additional evidence, we won't believe the Daily Mail's con.
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John Hartz at 12:55 PM on 3 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
This caught my eye… “It seems a reliance on non-experts for consultation is not just a problem for education, as underscored in the editorial by climate scientists. I wonder: is it just coincidence that global warming and education are both socially and politically charged fields? There's a lot at stake for wealthy interests to ensure that global warming remains controversial and contested. Otherwise, we'll finally adjust our lifestyles and that could hurt a bottom line. A similar situation might be true for education. Certain well-heeled entities are very interested in the acquisition of valuable public per-pupil dollars. This might be why the real experts get shut out: they actually know what might be best for students and not someone's bottom line.” Source: “Climate Scientists, Educators, and Why We Avoid Consulting the Experts” by Shaun Johnson, The Huffington Post, Feb 2, 2012 To access this thought-provoking article, click here. -
Norman at 12:55 PM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
muoncounter @20 I think it is correct to respect the knowledge of experts in a given field but you can certainly question them and should. A skilled surgeon may claim you need an operation, but they could still be wrong, there is always the second opinion when medical treatments are involved. "While you're at it, consider Arctic ice melt and world glacier mass loss; explain how these symptoms can possibly be happening if there's been no warming." muoncounter. Arctic ice melt may very well be a signal of Global warming but there are other explanations out there. Note I am not endorsing any particular view but showing that other possibilities do exist. Here is one at this link. Quote from the link above: "Dr Drinkwater rejects the common explanation that the Barents Sea is getting warmer because the atmosphere in the polar regions has warmed." Current Arctic Sea Ice, low formation in Barents Sea area.
source.
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muoncounter at 11:23 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa#43: You quote Lovelock without providing a reference. That's poor form in a scientific discussion; it tends to erode your credibility. Here is the interview you refer to. Note his statement a few paragraphs below your selection: I think the sceptic bloggers should worry. It's almost certain that you can't put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening. This is going to resolve itself and global heating is going to come back on stream and it's these bloggers who are going to be made to look weird when it does. ... But everything has a price and an unexpected price may hit these bloggers. It's the cry-wolf phenomenon. When the real one comes along, they'll be laughed at. We call picking only the data that fits your argument a cherry-pick. -
Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Daniel Bailey - I have to agree. elsa has clearly misconstrued the entire thread, failed to follow any information or links provided, and appears to be commenting simply to confuse. Elsa - If I'm wrong, please demonstrate it by actually commenting on the content of the thread, or the information you have been provided. If not, I would have to consider you a troll. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:08 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Getting back on the topic of think tanks and media misinformation for a moment ... The desmogblog has an interesting article shining the light on a strategy document put out by the International Climate Science Coalition. In part, the strategy document says:But small community newspapers are where the real easy pickings are to be found. The strategy explains these publications are more likely to publish submissions because they’re not swamped with offers like larger newspapers. Also, these publications might not yet have an editorial stance on “controversial, ‘big city’ media issues such as climate change.
To take the ICSC on at its own game, I have decided to start writing regular letters to the editor of my local paper. It is a right-wing rag, but I have had letters published in the past, so I can hope at least a few will be published in future. This is something I can do that is positive. I have the time, I am literate and I am concerned, which is all it takes to write letters. I am not a scientist, but I can write and I vote. I invite others who are wondering what they can do to help, to take up the same challenge. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:07 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa... Would that be the same James Lovelock who says that humans are too stupid to prevent anthropogenic climate change? -
skywatcher at 11:00 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
... and clearly avoiding providing any alternative explanation for the consilience of evidence. Elsa, Have you an explanation for all the evidence in #42? You might also want to read Dessler on clouds, and as aerosols are predominantly a cooling agent, invoking them is not good news for Earth: lots of aerosols may indeed mean that our GHGs are responsible for more than 100% of global warming. -
andylee at 10:54 AM on 3 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
@47 Mattj - my favourite analogy again: How do you make turkeys vote for Christmas? Voters hold the keys in a democracy, and as the majority of them vote selfishly according to their economic conditions, the people they elect will always be mandated to pursue disaster. If voters are informed that doing X will definitely lead to Y if action Z isn't taken might just be able to lead to some positive results, but Easter Island springs to mind. Actively encouraging and investing in markets for alternative energies is a way forward, even if initially expensive. Considering externalities, I'd argue that leaving coal in the ground is worth more than digging it up. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:42 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Elsa has been pandering this form of denial, "We can't be sure because we don't know everything" on the intertubes for well over a year now. Examples just from GPWayne's site are here and here. It is quite obvious due to the utter lack of supportive links that Elsa is just here to prosecute the twin agendas of delay and denial. -
elsa at 10:20 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Minkie41 at 09:21 AM on 3 February, 2012 To the rational,observant and informed the AGW case is proven conclusively "beyond all reasonable doubt".Yet,many sections of the media continue to lie,obfuscate and confuse. I'm an old Lovelock fan too. Well here is what he has to say on the science that you think is proven: "The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they're scared stiff of the fact that they don't really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven't got the physics worked out yet." So who is right? Him or you? -
skywatcher at 10:09 AM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
andylee: interesting thought... a "category 5 high pressure" (at least as a notion of quite extreme high pressure), though it should be pointed out that many extratropical lows go much lower than 966mb in the Atlantic and Pacific in winter (e.g. Hurricane Bawbag, which spawned the trampoline Internet hit). elsa: if you think the last 10 years is significant, you seriously need to read Going Down The Up Escalator What's so strange about a short-term lack of warming? Nothing! They are present in observations and in climate models, and are just what to expect when you combine a solar max --> solar min with a period of roughly El Nino --> La Nina, masking the warming (see Foster and Rahmstorf). Warming is not monotonic. -
Tom Dayton at 10:03 AM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa, science crucially relies on converging evidence. That's why people have been retesting the theory of relativity in different ways, for decades, despite the clear success of the previous tests. Converging evidence is gathered to ensure that the previous measurements, no matter how carefully gathered, were not due to some cause other than the nominal cause. The many other indicators of a warming world, and indicators that humans are causing it (e.g., ice diminishing), converge with the temperature measurements in pointing to the same conclusions. That's why it really is important to attend to those other indicators. -
andylee at 09:57 AM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
“consider Arctic ice melt and world glacier mass loss” >Why would I do so if I could use the temperature record and >why do you not mention the Antarctic? Elsa, that is like driving a car by GPS without looking out of the window! Even if global average temperatures have not seen much increase over the last decade, the unequivocal loss of Arctic ice and glaciers are particularly notable because they are the canaries in the coalmine, saying that Something Big Is Going On. Do we really have to wait for data to become so obvious that the last remaining denier has to concede? It'll be too late to do anything by then. -
skywatcher at 09:50 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa #38: you're handwaving. You claimed in #15 not to see much warming in the full temperature record in the opening figure, despite the large and statistically significant warming present in the figure. You then claim that the surface temperature record is all that matters. However, heat in the near-surface Earth environment goes into many things, most importantly ocean water and sea/glacier ice. If you fail to account for those you miss quite a lot of the heat (see Fig 1 above). Ocean heat content is a measure of temperature, despite your claims otherwise, as others have pointed out to you. And you're repeatedly claiming that the other measures, of glacier ice melt, sea ice loss and sea level rise are not indicators of temperature rise. Theoretically possible, but what is your alternative mechanism for an acceleration of sea level rise, and an accelerating decline of glacier and sea ice, that does not involve temperature rise. It's rather difficult to move all three simultaneously without temperature rise, particularly when that is observed clearly in every surface temperature dataset and in the 0-700m and 0-200m ocean heat content datasets. Add to that the 10 human fingerprints on climate change, notably the cooling stratosphere, reduction in heat escaping to space and increase in heat returning to ground, and there is a coherent, consistent picture that explains all the evidence. What is your explanation for all this evidence? -
Minkie41 at 09:41 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Regarding my Churchill post,may I add some other criteria?At least bi-lingual:Mandarin and English.An internationally well-respected scientist possibly,maybe a writer,but with highly developed political skills.Charisma in bucket loads and absolutely clean--no DSKs please.An ex-warrior,perhaps? Appointment to be by a non-political committee of internationally recognised scientists; and by acclamation.But soon,very,very soon,please. Peter Cummins New Zealand -
Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa - Please see my comment here. This thread shows that looking at the larger data (all the data, all the indicators) clearly shows global warming - only 'skeptic' cherry-picking indicates otherwise. -
andylee at 09:24 AM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Well, a simplistic explanation for the lull in land temperatures is because most of the heat has gone into the oceans, carried north, and melting the ice. We all know what happens to temperature over time while heating a bath of ice. It stays at 0 until the ice has melted and then continues climbing. I know the difference between weather and climate. The extremes that we are seeing are caused by more energy being injected into a dynamic system. My analogy is like agitating a filling bath, if you agitate more vigorously, the peaks and troughs of the waves increase, even as the average level increases. The atmosphere behaves the same - it's a huge spherical "bath" of gas behaving like a thin liquid. Highs and lows of pressure are directly proportional to the height and mass of air above, but because of their size and the rotation of the Earth, they are forced to rotate while searching for equilibrium. As the world is retaining more heat, the atmosphere becomes more active, jet streams shift, pressure differentials increase, and then wind and weather become more extreme and unusual. Topical case in point now is the extreme cold that we are suffering in Eastern Europe, where in my memory the weather has been behaving strangely for the last decade, some winters not even seeing any snow. This year winter took a holiday until just last week. The high pressure above Siberia reached 1060 mb (1013+47), and would make a Category 5 hurricane if it were a low of 966! (1013-47). Also this year North America has an unusually mild winter. It seems to me that with more Arctic interaction, the Arctic will gain even more energy this year and we will again see record losses of ice cover this year. Whatever we can do to try to keep our climate stable should be done, whether cynically or pragmatically - the benefits of making use of alternative energies stand on their own, even if warming were not happening. -
padruig at 09:22 AM on 3 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Dr. Trenberth successfully highlights the skeptics flaw, that among scientists engaged in climate research, anthropogenic global warming is not a theory or belief but is data, analysis and models. The so-called skeptics have utterly failed to suggest or promote an alternative hypothesis in peer reviewed literature that explains the observations and models, instead seeking to promote a manufactured consensus through posters and opinion pages. Unfortunately, the final arbiter of this story is going to end up being the physics, thermodynamics, physical chemistry and all the other sciences that make up the multidisciplinary field of climate science. There was a paper once written that I would quote here, not only for its content but for its context in this field of study - "A great deal has been written on the influence of the absorption of the atmosphere upon the climate. Tyndall in particular has pointed out the enormous importance of the question. To him it was chiefly the diurnal and annual variations of the temperature that were lessened by this circumstance. Another side of the question, that has long attracted the attention of physicists, is this: Is the mean temperature on the ground in any way influenced by the presence of heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere?" S. Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground. April 1896 -
Minkie41 at 09:21 AM on 3 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
To the rational,observant and informed the AGW case is proven conclusively "beyond all reasonable doubt".Yet,many sections of the media continue to lie,obfuscate and confuse.What struck me most about the David Rose Daily Mail nonsense were the commenting punters' affection for AGW denialist remarks and their loathing for all others.Denialist stances are popular and that helps sell advertising. While I'm not a scientist,I've read Hansen's Storms Of My Grandchildren and Spratt & Sutton's Climate Code Red,plus others.I'm an old Lovelock fan too.I follow the science on a long list of excellent sites like this one.My opinion echoes many people's--but not nearly enough--like me.It is that we are heading for a humongous catastrophe;a combination of the impact of CO2 and CH4,and it's too late for anything but drastic worldwide action. To achieve this,I suggest we need a charismatic,articulate and loveable leader--a modern day international Churchill--to capture the hearts of of the majority so that the denialists and other contrarians become irrelevant. The time for argument and debate,much of it so juvenile and divisive,has passed.The time is for action but without a leader nothing much will happen. Where are you?
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