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PhilMorris at 06:42 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Rob@5. A thousnd years to get to a 25 m rise? If we've learnt anything over the last few years, it is that the rate of global warming and the effects have been far greater than the IPCC predictions. The Greenland and Antartic ice sheets don't have to melt to cause sea level rises - they just have to slide off the underlying ground into the ocean. Not long ago the predictions were for the Artic to be ice free in summer around 2050. Now we're looking to 2015, and totally ice free in the early 2020's. We've already reached the tipping point. Even if all fossil fuel buring were to stop tomorrow, human activity would still be releasing substantial quantities of GHG through agriculture and land use. And we know that fossil fuel burning will continue unabated for the forseeable future. -
AussieinUSA at 06:30 AM on 13 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
Sit on the beach and watch the tide come in. You will see some big waves, some small. The water's edge will advance and recede in a way that is not entirely predictable. But there is an overall patern that emerges as the hours roll by, and the beach narrows before you. This is still without doubt to me the best analogy of global warming. I use this all the time now, and kudos to whomever first came up with it! -
AussieinUSA at 06:24 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
I have to say that I take this prediction with a large grain of salt. I live in Southern California's high desert, and during El Nino conditions we get more precipitation on average. I know weather is quite the complex thing, but with warming oceans wouldn't that mean in my area we would get wetter, whereas Washington State would be getting drier which typically happens during El Nino years? Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I think it is a good thing to our flora and fauna, just a opinion of mine. -
Philippe Chantreau at 06:07 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Problem is, even 2100 seems remote and not so much of a concern for many. Humans are ill equipped to plan and commit for that kind of time frame. Not so long ago, a typical life expectancy was 40 to 50 years in what is now the developped world. In a lot of the rest of the world it's not that much higher. Billions of humans live with constant reminders that they may very well not be around in 1 year from now. -
muoncounter at 05:40 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Your last Masters quote is from his 11 Jan 2012 blog entry. A great illustration of the wet get wetter, the dry get drier:
--source
The numbers on this map are rankings of 'wettest' (high numbers) and 'driest' (low numbers). Seven states had their wettest year on record, and an additional ten states had a top-ten wettest year. Texas had its driest year on record, and four other states had a top-ten driest year.
I actually heard someone wondering why 'they just don't build a pipeline for all that floodwater' to irrigate the drought-stricken.
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TheTracker at 05:23 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Excuse me for being the most boring person on earth, but this is a reminder that we need to get serious not just about energy conservation, but also about water conservation. We were doing a lousy job of managing this precious resource before we decided to add climate change to the equation. The program: 1. Water efficient agriculture. 2. Market pricing for water. 3. Effective treatment and water recycling. 4. Overhaul of water rights -- system that recognizes water as a shared asset, like the atmosphere. 5. Ramped up storage of water for the inevitable droughts and to minimize draws from rivers and lakes during low-flow periods. 6. Planning for (where necessary) high-cost high energy solutions like desalinization. Note that fossil fuel burning can also be water-intensive. Charging a market price for water would bring us a step closer to fair market prices for fossil fuel energy. -
dana1981 at 04:50 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Agreed with Albatross @25. The point of this post is not to say that UAH is wrong, the point is that the fake skeptics like Taylor and Michaels (and based on their comments, also Christy and Spencer) have refused to consider the possibility that UAH data could be the source of some of the discrepancy. The post shows that this is probably even the most likely explanation. As Michael Hauber noted @21, a true skeptic would consider the possibility that more than one factor could be contributing to the discrepancy, and would certainly not ignore the inconvenient possible explanations. The individuals in question have not behaved as true skeptics. -
Stephen Baines at 04:23 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
tmac57...I'm pretty sure the personal savings rate in the US is nearer positive 2-4%. It's been higher over the last few years in response to lost equity in the housing market and fears about the economic future spawned by the financial crisis. My guess is the rate varies substantially with economic status. In a way that pattern proves your underlying point that people on the whole respond to very obvious and more recent stimuli. I just wouldn't be as extremely cynical about it. -
Stephen Baines at 04:23 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
BernardJ, RobP and Tony O...I agree wholeheatedly. The fact that the debate has been framed arbitrarily by the 2100 endpoint has warping effect in my opinion. The kinds of changes to city-centers that will be occurring over the next several centuries is unheard of in history. Think about it, do people really think central NYC, Miami, Sydney or London could manage the consequences >4 meter of sealevel rise without substantial downside even over 2-3 centuries? That is a lot of infrastructure and people. Then there is all the heritage, natural and cultural, that is under threat as well. And this is a multi centrury pattern we are committing to now. This is one aspect where the IPCC and virtually every reasonable scientifically body is probably acting too conservatively, simply because they are trying their damnedest to appear level-headed. They should be depicting the full range of possibilities on this front so people can really assess what the risks are. -
Albatross at 04:15 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Folks, We have a troll who is determined to try and derail this thread by making numerous off-topic, unsubstantiated, unreferenced remarks and being argumentative., while also ignoring the citations and facts presented to themAnything to distract from the disgraceful behaviour of Mr. Taylor and Dr. Pat Michaels. In fact, they do not seem to have read the OP in its entirety or followed the links provided. This is entirely consistent with people calling themselves "skeptics" when they are not true skeptics at all. I strongly encourage people to ignore such disingenuous behaviour and focus instead on the facts at hand. That is, as detailed in the main post, Mr. James Taylor, like Dr. Pat Michaels are wholly unskeptical when it comes to the UAH data. Worse yet,Taylor and Michaels continue to misrepresent, distort and use those data in their ongoing misinformation and PR campaign. While Fred may be OK with that (he has not said anything to the contrary) most of us with a conscience, ethical standards and a humble respect for science will not stand for it. Now there are other examples of "skeptics" being unskeptical of the satellite temperature estimates, in particular the UAH data, and i am more than happy to discuss those too. -
Eric (skeptic) at 03:30 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
"too reality" -> "to reality" -
tmac57 at 03:04 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
One source that I checked said that the net national savings rate in the U.S. is -2.5% . If the U.S. populace is unwilling to make sacrifices in the short term to provide for their personal future,what are the odds that they will make any sacrifices to provide for the welfare of future generations? There seems to be a mass denial going on about more things than just the climate. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:32 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
22, Fred, I'd ask that instead of constantly referring people to data and citations using vague words, that you learn to embed links in your posts. Vague statements like "RC wrote many articles" and "Google RayPierre Humbert" and "on the Global Warming at a Glance site" (I get 39,000 hits on that... to exactly which one are you referring?) require too much effort on the part of the reader, and leave the reader to wonder if he has actually found what he was supposed to find. You said "Tom, if you read the RSS paper you will find that..." This is similarly vague and unenlightening. Provide a reference to the section that you reference, and if possible extract a quote. As worded, this is again a mere assertion, albeit one with the implication "I know something you don't, but if you knew what I knew you'd agree with me." It is of little value in convincing me that your points are valid. To put it another way, your vague references to references for your assertions are themselves assertions and not citations (say that ten times fast without frying your brain)... and they cause me to completely dismiss your statements. If your position were as strong as you imply, it wouldn't be difficult for you to properly support it. -
John Brookes at 01:30 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
I don't particularly like fake skeptics. They are far to ready to believe the latest "paper" which shows that something (anything) other than CO2 causes the warming (that they deny anyway). However, there are people who accept AGW, who will happily believe any rubbish that says we are ruining the environment, no matter how unlikely. I like this web site because the commenters here are happy to pull up their own when they think their claims are unsubstantiated. Keep up the good work. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:18 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
22, Fred,It would be difficult to measure the trend in a garden shed to this accuracy
Do you mean accuracy or precision? Either way, this comment demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of averages and statistics. Measuring a single temperature at a single location to this accuracy (or precision) may be difficult. Measuring an average (the sum of many temperatures, regardless of precision, and dividing them by the number of measurements) at one location over an entire single year can be done and can yield a result of greater precision. When done over the entire globe, over many years, accuracy and precision can very easily be represented to two decimal places. Your (snide) complaint is unwarranted.Moderator Response: Fred, look up the "law of large numbers." -
Fred Staples at 00:59 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
“ The same adjustment for endogenous factors clearly illustrates that UAH is a low outrider, with an adjusted trend of 0.14 C/decade compared to the RSS trend of 0.16 C/decade”. Presumably, Tom, you quote these trends to 2 decimal places per decade to show that you have a sense of irony. It would be difficult to measure the trend in a garden shed to this accuracy (I know because it was one of my responsibilities in a nuclear power plant). You would need well calibrated continuously recording equipment – systematic errors in trends imply the measurement of drift. It would be impossible to measure such a trend in your garden, and difficult even to define it – holes in the ground, water temperatures, air temperatures above ground? “The main subject of the article was the fact that according to climate models, the Earth's lower atmosphere should warm approximately 20% faster than the surface, whereas UAH estimates place the lower atmosphere warming at about 20% less than surface temperature measurements” The moderator asked for a citation for the above. RC wrote many articles on the subject (they are great proponents of the “higher is colder” lapse rate theory – Google RayPierre Humbert). When it became obvious that the lower troposphere was warming the faster they introduced the cooling stratosphere as a confounding factor, just as Tom does above. Go to the HADAT site, transfer to their “frequently used graphics” page, and look at the lower stratosphere temperatures. You will see that there has been no cooling for the last 18 years. And Tom, if you read the RSS paper you will find that they did exactly what you suggest to compare satellite with radio-sonde data. Finally, while you are on the Global Warming at a Glance site, have a look at the plot of all radio-sonde temperatures. The chart starts at 1958, when temperatures were below their previous peak in the forties. Look at the trend to 1977, and the rise of almost one full degree between 1972 and 1974, and the subsequent fall between 1974 and 1977. Even without the statistics, which I have posted elsewhere, you should not need to be convinced that there has been no significant tropospheric warming between 1945 and 1997. Now look at the Mauna Low CO2 data on the same chart. -
muoncounter at 00:51 AM on 13 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
CW#14:"Greenland encountered significantly more summer sunshine for thousands of years around six thousand years ago, but this did not effect sea level:" Excellent point! We're seeing more melting now than we did 6kya, yet (according to your unsubstantiated statement) we're now seeing less sunshine. Wonder what must be different now compared to then. Could it be that there's something in our atmosphere now that is keeping things warmer? Something that wasn't present in as large a concentration during 6kya? -
Daniel Bailey at 22:28 PM on 12 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
The GIS is drained very effectively by many marine-terminating ice-streams which penetrate into the heart of the sheet. Thus, decadal doublings of mass loss which can raise global sea levels by several meters per century have been observed in the paleo record. So even if the GIS takes several centuries to largely collapse, the ramifications of the collapse will still be felt this century. By us, our descendants and our civilization. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is another story... -
Robert Murphy at 22:07 PM on 12 January 2012It's aerosols
JamesWilson#10: "I did find this link which claims CFC cools in the upper atmosphere. http://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq under Ozone." From that link: "Ozone is actually a greenhouse gas, and so are CFCs, meaning that their presence in the troposphere contributes slightly to the heightened greenhouse effect." In the stratosphere, CFC's do lower ozone levels which then lowers temps there, but this is only a small part of the cooling that has happened in the stratosphere. Most of the cooling is from rising CO2, and this cooling is a direct fingerprint of AGW. More importantly, this is yet another example of CFC's being called GHG's and direct warming agents. This goes against your claim that CFC's were considered to cause net cooling, and that aerosols were substituted as cooling agents only very recently. The later claim is absurd, since the cooling effects of aerosols have been known for many decades now and were at the center of the debate in the 60's and 70's over whether cooling from aerosols would outweigh the warming from rising GHG's. Why can't you just admit you messed up? -
scaddenp at 20:17 PM on 12 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Greenland inner plateau is high as well. However, you dont need to melt all of it to get very wet. -
Tony O at 19:58 PM on 12 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Coming out of the last ice age we got as fast as 4m per century. We have changed the forcing more than an order of magnitude faster than anything in the paleo record and yet we are expecting rises slower than that which has previously happened. Ice sheets are incredibly complex, expect surprises. I realy do have to agree with Bernard J'c comment it is not going to stop in 2100. While we may not be able to stop it, we will be able to make it worse. -
scienceteacher at 18:53 PM on 12 January 2012Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Could you please add a direct rebuttal to the following article by Singer? Lack of consistency between modeled and observed temperature trends It attacks CCSP's modeling as being "an artifact."Moderator Response:[DB] Please, no All-Caps.
[JH]CCSP = US Climate Change Science Program. -
Rob Painting at 18:35 PM on 12 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Bernard J - I agrees wid ya! The Pliocene is where we're heading (so far) in terms of sea level rise. That's around 25 metres higher than present. There was a presentation at the last AGU where one of the scientists confirmed as much. I think it was part of James Hansen's lecture. Sure it'll take about a thousand years to get there, but so? -
Bernard J. at 18:01 PM on 12 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
The thing that I find frustrating about almost all discussion on the topic of sea level rise is that it's all referred to in the context of increase by 2100 - as if it all suddenly just stops then. Consider that the rise was 20 cm in the 20th century, and likely to be around 1m in the 21st. What of the period between 2100 and 2200? And beyond? What of the eventual plateau once our emissions are finally controlled? I want to see and hear from the people who believe that we have no responsibility to the future, their justification for inaction. It's bizarre how so many denialists think that the faceless 'future generations' will fix 'it', either through an extraordinary but apparently inevitable cornucopian accumulation of wealth (how's that supposed to work, exactly?), or by miraculous techology, or both. Consider that America has been populated by colonialists for about 400 years, and Australia for about half that time. Each country is still intimately tied to its respective Western founders, and by the standards of most other cultures of the world we are mere babies. Effectively, each of the colonisations was little more than 'yesterday' in the scheme of things. And yet it seems that the decendants of those colonial 'fathers' and 'mothers' regard the time spanning backward to be far more important than the same periods projecting into the future. Hnnn. I suspect that generations 200 and 400 years hence will not have the same respect for us that we, today, apparently exhibit for our own ancestors. Indeed, I suspect that we will be perceived by our descendants with the same contempt that many native Americans and indigenous Australians have for the European settlers who invaded their respective lands those centuries ago. It's long past time that the world faced the fact of warming, and of concommitant sea level rise, and gave the future as much right to a decent world as we demand for ourselves today. -
Sceptical Wombat at 17:34 PM on 12 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
As I understand it the Greenland Ice Sheet is unlikely to collapse because it is surrounded by coastal mountains. The Antarctic sheets are however a different story. -
skywatcher at 16:51 PM on 12 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
It is clear in the above post's graphs and elsewhere, sea level rise has been accelerating through the past 100 years - I presume that ClimateWatcher's first graph, covering just 23 tide records, is an unrepresentative sample. The thrid graphic presented by ClimateWatcher is, to me, one of the scariest graphs in climate science, but I suspect ClimateWatcher does not realise why. It shows Meltwater Pulse 1A, a sea level rise of about 20m in <~500 years, which happened abruptly at some point during the melt of the last great ice sheets (though two great ice sheets remain). Thus the graph shows what is possible when you begin to melt a big ice sheet - sudden pulses of accelerated sea level rise. There was little warning as to the onset of the Pulse 1A, no gradual ramping up to it. Of course, something like that might not happen this time, or it might be thousands of years down the line. But the climate forcing this time is much bigger, and who'd like to deal with a sea level rise rate of >~60mm/yr? Wetsuit fitting sessions for St Mark, Galileo, the Statue of Liberty, the Old Course and anything else within a short distance of the coast? Or invest in a sea wall manufacturing company... -
Bern at 16:43 PM on 12 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Doug H: prudence would be recognising that, however much wealthier the future world may be, relocating, say, the cities of New York, London, Amsterdam, and many others to higher ground will cost a lot more than switching away from fossil fuels now. However, that also ignores the "let somebody else pay the bill" mentality that seems to pervade those whose main goal in life is to add another zero to their net worth. While ice melt & sea level rise is by no means the worst impact predicted from climate change, I think it's probably the one that would get the most response. It'd be hard to deny the ice sheets are melting when famous coastal landmarks start spending part of their day underwater. Of course, by then it will be far too late to do anything about it. -
Daniel Bailey at 16:38 PM on 12 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Note: A comment questioning SLR predictions was redirected to this How much will sea levels rise in the 21st Century?, more appropriate, thread. Please respond there if such is your interest. -
ClimateWatcher at 16:11 PM on 12 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Sea level is rising. But rising at a fairly constant rate:
And we should remember that during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, Greenland encountered significantly more summer sunshine for thousands of years around six thousand years ago, but this did not effect sea level:
Response:[DB] Note: This comment was moved from the Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick thread to this one.
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Doug Hutcheson at 16:00 PM on 12 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
The question seems to be when, not if, we will see dynamic changes to the large ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica). Given that so many indicators are already at or exceeding IPCC estimates, I feel that planning for a pessimistic sea-level outcome this century would be prudent. Can't see much prudence in the political agendae being pursued around the world at present. As we sow, so shall we reap. -
Tristan at 14:36 PM on 12 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
Perhaps the displacement of the growing billions of boats on the water, all rising with the unlimited bounty of capitalism. Love it! -
Rob Painting at 14:08 PM on 12 January 2012Why does CO2 lag temperature?
Muon - Sphaerica's comments helped clear exp137's confusion, whereas our current rebuttals did not. There is almost always room for improvement, and that's no slight on all our current rebuttals. I don't think that the number of comments is of that much value either - sometimes specific topics are contentious because they decimate well-worn fake-skeptic myths and said fake-skeptics swarm to defend it. The more valuable rebuttals, to my mind, are those that so thoroughly discredit a myth it never really gets going in the first place But YMMV. -
scaddenp at 13:52 PM on 12 January 2012Myth of the Mini Ice Age
James Wilson - your post and my response are here -
scaddenp at 13:45 PM on 12 January 2012It's aerosols
James, responding where this should be. "Notice that the Sulfur emissions are higher in 1980 than they are today. ie if Sulfur emissions reflect sunlight then we should have been freezing in 1980 and cold today. Not the other way around. ie that graph blows the premise of the article." Nonsense - because aerosols are only one of the forcings at play. GHGs are another. See the recent article on Lean and Rind 2008 which look at temperature as function of all forcings. A similar study would be Benestad and Schmidt 2009. "it had the other forcing value in 2007 according the IPPC however it has been scrubbed apparently" This is very close to accusations of fraud. Which is more likely - that IPCC managed to change what they said in printed copies of reports in libraries round the world - or that you misunderstood what it said. Looking at our bound copies, I see that in First Assessment report 1990, CFCs were reported at having positive forcing - a theme repeated in every report since that. Since the IPCC reports are summaries of the published science, this is no surprise since there is no published science that says otherwise. As to effect on stratosphere, well funny you mention that. A warming surface and cooling stratosphere is a fingerprint of GHG warming. CO2 is actually the main player in cooling the upper stratosphere. As to why, that is not so straightforward to understand. In one sense it can directly calculated from the Radiative Transfer Equations (RTEs), but for a qualitative explanation, see here. Whether you understand it or not, the actual measurements of temperature and spectra closely confirm the theoretical prediction from solving the RTEs. As to that paper on aerosols that I linked, read more closely. The satellite does not directly sample aerosols (it couldnt). Instead it deduces them from Aerosol Optical Thickness - which is of course the radiative effects from the aerosols. More detail on this can be found here. Note the references for studies on checking and calibration of the method. I would like to point out that so far you have insisted that aerosols warm based on no evidence at all that I can see, while refusing to accept laboratory and direct emperical evidence ( eg satellite or say Ball R J and G D Robinson, 1982 "The origin of haze in the Central United States and its effect on solar radiation") to the contrary. -
muoncounter at 13:31 PM on 12 January 20122010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Masters strikes yet again: U.S. weather in 2011: unprecedented rains and wet/dry extremes An extraordinary twenty major U.S. cities had their wettest year on record during 2011. This smashes the previous record of ten cities with a wettest year, set in 1996 ... If you weren't washing away in a flood during 2011, you were probably baking in a drought. ... Climate change science predicts that if the Earth continues to warm as expected, wet areas will tend to get wetter, and dry areas will tend to get drier--so 2011's side-by-side extremes of very wet and very dry conditions should grow increasingly common in the coming decades. -
Michael Hauber at 13:29 PM on 12 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
The BEST analysis does not prove the surface temperature record is perfect, and there hsa to be some error in this record. Whether it is 0.0001 or 0.01 I don't know. It seems that whatever the error may be it is not large enough to fundamentally change our view that the globe is warming significantly. But there still could be a large enough error in surface records to at least partly account for why the troposphere is not measusred as warming faster than the surface. A true skeptic would consider the possibility that more than one factor could be contributing to the discrepancy. And perhaps the models aren't 100% correct in their predictions of the atmosphere's vertical temperature profile. Of course if we start changing the vertical temperature profile of the atmopshere this could result in unexpected changes in convection, and therefore in rainfall and severe weather. -
muoncounter at 13:14 PM on 12 January 2012Why does CO2 lag temperature?
It turns out the mechanisms for glacial onset are still uncertain. Timmerman et al 2010: Compared to the rapid glacial terminations, the buildup of glacial ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere took tens of thousands of years. During the buildup phase, the growing ice sheets were subject to major orbitally induced summer insolation changes, without experiencing complete disintegration. The reason for this behavior still remains elusive. But why another lag post? See the existing 'CO2 lags temperature' rebuttals; both basic and intermediate are quite good - they generated 330 comments. -
Daniel Bailey at 12:57 PM on 12 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #1
You're very welcome, Chris. My pleasure. -
chirhophoros at 12:23 PM on 12 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #1
PS And than you Daniel Bailey. CC -
chirhophoros at 12:22 PM on 12 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #1
Thank you Tom Curtis. I am actually a regular visitor and have been so for some years. I used to post frequently under another name but have not contributed a comment for well over a year (I think). The moderation policy at SkS has been a source of concern to me for a long time. My last contribution to SkS under my former nom de plume comprised an expression of concern about moderation standards (as best as I recall). I decided to write under another name as an experiment. The null hypothesis comprised: SkS would willingly accept a criticism made in good faith in response to a specific invitation to discuss the moderation policy. Following deletion of my comment, I responded to the effect that SkS had confirmed my hypothesis (or strictly speaking, strongly undermined the null hypothesis). As of today, I think the null hypothesis is decidedly strengthened. I'm pleased with the outcome. I should add that I have no huge personal stake in the matter. I don't get a major buzz out of seeing my comments on a blog. These days, I contribute very rarely to any blog because of sheer lack of time. The actual science on SkS is often very thought provoking and challenging - hence, I do check it out at least a couple of times a week if not more. I see myself as a "lukewarmer" and thus quite interested in all aspects of the science. Unfortunately, you run the risk of "preaching to the choir" if you don't maintain a consistently high standard of moderation. My comments were made in good faith - I really don't have the time or inclination to "troll." With best wishes to all for 2012 chirhophorus (formerly chris1204 and chriscanaris) -
Tom Curtis at 11:52 AM on 12 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #1
I'ld like to thank Daniel Bailey (moderator) for restoring chirhophoros' original post. I certainly understand his concern about the use of the discussion of moderation policy as an excuse for trolling. I also understand why he thinks chirhophoros's original post went to far. Never-the-less, his consideration in the interests of discussion on this thread is appreciated. -
Tom Curtis at 11:45 AM on 12 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Fred Staples @18: 1) The satellite data only has near global coverage, being very restricted in its coverage of the poles. UAH does publish polar data, but RSS does not because the imprecision (error bars) of the data are too large relative to the rest of the globe. 2) The Temperature Middle Troposphere (TMT) channel is poorly named as it includes significant data from the lower stratosphere and the surface (see figure below). As the lower stratosphere is cooling and the surface may not be warming as fast as the middle troposphere, that under reports middle to upper troposphere temperature trends and makes direct comparisons the model predictions of a tropospheric hotspot difficult. Such comparisons require construction of an explicitly weighted function of temperature to match the signal strengths in the TMT channel which you have neither done nor cited. Therefore absent such a weighted model prediction, the TMT comparison is irrelevant.
3) For the Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) channel, UAH understates the HADAT radiosonde trend by 10%, the RAOBCORE radiosonde trends by 5%, the RICH radiosonde data by 8%, but overstates the IUK radiosonde trend by 6%. The IUK radiosonde trend is a clear outlier among the radiosonde data sets understating the average trend of the other three sets by 12%. The RSS trend is lower than the UAH trend when compared to the first three radiosonde data sets, but (illustrating the idiosyncracies that can arise with small data sets) overstates it compared the UAH in the IUK comparison.
Based on this, satellite data understates the TLT trend by at least 4%, and probably closer to 10% when compared to radiosondes. Given that the TLT channel still includes surface data, biasing it low, that means the satellited data from RSS is entirely consistent with a tropospheric hotspot. Once adjusted for endogenous factors as per Foster and Rahmstorf 2011, that means the long term trend in tropospheric temperatures is at least equal to the surface trends, and probably greater. The same adjustment for endogenous factors clearly illustrates that UAH is a low outrider, with an adjusted trend of 0.14 C/decade compared to the RSS trend of 0.16 C/decade.
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DSL at 11:40 AM on 12 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
Did I misread QE? I thought s/he was poking fun at the whole "it's a natural cycle" crowd. -
ms2et at 11:33 AM on 12 January 2012Lean and Rind Estimate Human and Natural Global Warming
Thanks, guys. I now understand why my analogy was a very poor one: TSI correlates well with the other solar variables that I was curious about, so it's appropriate to use it in the regression. -
Daniel Bailey at 11:30 AM on 12 January 2012Why does CO2 lag temperature?
"every time you leave something not explicitly explained, a skeptic will use this as a point of attack against the entire concept"
Those aren't skeptics. Those are fake-skeptics. -
Tom Curtis at 11:09 AM on 12 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
A transcript of the podcast can be found by following the link to the ABC at the podcast site. -
exp137 at 11:05 AM on 12 January 2012Why does CO2 lag temperature?
Thanks for the responses everyone. This was seriously informative, and needed. I agree with Rob Painting here, that it would be great to put this together into a post to fill the gap left by focusing mainly on the lag on the warming end of the cycle. From what I've seen, every time you leave something not explicitly explained, a skeptic will use this as a point of attack against the entire concept. Again, thank you very much for your quick and detailed responses. -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:54 AM on 12 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
Given the media bias and the fact that I am not a scientist of any flavour (my career was computer programming), I am surprised that I ended up as, I hope, a true sceptic. The processes by which people like me come to understand the science, in spite of the smoke and mirrors, might be interesting to investigate. I guess I have always been truly sceptical of advertising, therefore of much in the commercial MSM, making it easier for me to say 'show me the data'. It also might have something to do with my training in analysis, in that I like to start with the data when framing a software design. OTOH, it might just be chance. -
Albatross at 10:50 AM on 12 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
"However, the most likely explanation for UAH showing less warming than models and atmospheric physics predict is that UAH is biased low" This is a legitimate possibility that is supported by the data. A 2006 report on which John Christy (developer of the UAH product) was a lead author concluded that: "These results could arise either because [1]“real world” amplification effects on short and long time scales are controlled by different physical mechanisms, and models fail to capture such behavior; or [2] because non-climatic influences remaining in some or all of the observed tropospheric data sets lead to biased long-term trends; or [3] a combination of these factors. The new evidence in this Report favors the second [2] explanation." [I added the numbering for clarity] This figure from the UK Met office shows UAH (blue square) to be biased low:
Caption: HadAT2 radiosonde data (black) vs. UAH (blue) and RSS (red) lower troposphere temperatures, and HadCRUT3 surface temperatures (green) [Source]
Note that the surface rates of warming compare well with RSS and HadAT and RATPAC.
The point was that the satellite data, in particular the UAH data are biased low is a very real possibility that should not be ignored. Yet, Taylor did just that. Satellite data are not the gold standard that "skeptics' imagine them to be, corrections to the satellite data have been numerous and are ongoing. Mears et al. (2011) note that there are still outstanding issues:
"This further confirms our finding for our data set that unambiguously resolving the diurnal drift effect correction and its impacts is likely to be a key determinant in reducing the uncertainty in long term tropospheric temperature changes from MSU/AMSU records."
Also, something else Mr. Taylor and Dr. Michaels decided to not share with their readers is that other satellite products that use different techniques to correct for stratospheric contamination obtain much higher rates of warming in the mid troposphere than do UAH, see here.
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Rob Painting at 10:30 AM on 12 January 2012Why does CO2 lag temperature?
Sphaerica - You have the makings of a post/rebuttal there. Maybe a few graphics to explain how it fits together. I only mention this because it is a legitimate area of confusion, and perhaps we haven't adequately explained the process.
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