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Comments 67101 to 67150:

  1. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    @Stephen Baines. Thanks. That's a logical answer which appears to match the data. The NASA GISS website produces graphs for northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere and tropical ranges, so you'd imagine that El Nino and La Nina events would have a more dramatic effect on the tropical ranges and a less dramatic effect on the rest of the planet based on the info you've supplied. The ENSO events are mapped against the tropical and global data in the "seasonal mean temperature change" graph at the bottom of this link. Nasa GISS data
  2. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    Another blog about the Republican Presidential candidates worth checking out: “Still Searching for Republicans with Climate Concerns” by Andrew Revkin, DOT Earth, New York Times, Jan 5, 2012 To access this timely and informative article, click“here. Note: Revkin cites Gleick’s Climate BS awards in his post.
  3. Stephen Baines at 09:31 AM on 6 January 2012
    A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    @mace. ENSO is largely an equatorial phenomenon. That said, I don't think your concern about the hemispherical distribution of heat has much relevance in a thread about global patterns and the big picture. @JamesWilson Frankly, I can't make heads or tails of what your saying regarding uncertainty, partly because it is completely unconstrained by the actual calcuylations in the paper being referenced. I'd read Church et al, and make sure to understand it before heaving such wild criticisms about. Also, a very very small percentage of papers in the scientific literature actually get retracted, so I don't understand your point there either.
  4. Myth of the Mini Ice Age
    Be careful of predictions of the future source of power. It will be determined by political policy and cost. Neither force is going to be unilateral. For example Coal at 5 cents a ton is by far the cheapest form of power. But outside China and India it is unlikely to increase much in usage. Jimmy Carter thought liquified natural gas was going to power cars and poured billions of dollars into it. As we plainly know he was wrong. So much for the politicians deciding. Somewhere in the middle we will find a power source. However we are going to need a lot less power. The consumption of consumer devices has dropped drastically in the last 20 years and that will continue. The next big step is dropping our heating and cooling energy needs. Personally I think breeder reactors are unlikely. There is too much fear mongering against new nuclear reactors to allow such a thing to be built. If the fear is justified or not is not relevant. Political pressure has basically collapsed the industry.
  5. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson wrote: "I like I think the majority of people on both sides believe the peer review process is inherently broken. Why? Because of the number of papers retracted after the peer review process verified them." I can't think of a single paper on global warming which has been retracted because it overstated the AGW case. Yes, there have been several which disputed the AGW consensus which were complete nonsense... but in every case they were published in relatively obscure journals that were ill equipped or unwilling to perform proper peer review. Thus, I think that most informed people understand that the peer review process is just fine. The occasional instances of unscientific nonsense slipping through the cracks are invariably identified and dealt with in short order. Unless you can cite evidence to the contrary (i.e. examples of papers being retracted for incorrect promotion, rather than denial, of AGW) this just looks like more of your, 'I want to believe something, so I will first believe many false things to build up a 'case' for it'. The claims of massive error margins are equally baseless. Cite an example and back it up. The papers cited as the basis for the graphs in the article above explain how they arrived at those numbers and why the error margins are constrained. You simply assume otherwise with no apparent basis at all.
  6. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson: Let's say you start doing the following: (a) learning enough about what you are arguing against instead of arguing from what appears to be ignorance (e.g. "How do you measure the joules the earth loses every day? How do you measure the incoming energy? What is the error margin on both?" - have you even bothered to follow the links provided in the OP to the literature describing how climatologists calculate these things?); (b) coming up with specific examples instead of vague, unsubstantiated claims (e.g. "Because of the number of papers retracted after the peer review process verified them" or, even better "I think the majority of people on both sides believe the peer review process is inherently broken."). You can say what you like about this or that graph being "meaningless scientifically" but if that's all you do (e.g. no reference, maths, or physics to back it up) you're not going to get very far here, I'm sorry to say.
  7. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson - the ocean heat content represents the most up-to-date estimates. Armwaving because you don't like the results is unconvincing. Many fake-skeptics have trumpeted the ocean heat measurements down to 700 mtrs when they thought it showed cooling. But now that measurements going deeper (2000 mtrs) show massive ocean warming, it's suddenly meaningless. You strain credulity.
  8. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    @Rob Painting, Ok, I can see that if we measure ocean temperature close to the surface, and a La Nina causes upwelling from deep, this would have a cooling effect. Would we not see a stronger cooling effect in the southern hemisphere than the northern hemisphere, however? I'm assuming here that the cooling effect of the La Nina doesn't dissipate around the whole globe rapidly.
  9. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    No the graph produced is meaningless scientifically. Let me explain what I mean. I can draw a graph about something relevant. Let's say I draw a graph for the UN that shows the population peaking before 2050 and dropping. Now I ran 75 numerical series picking and choosing methods to refine the graph and my margin of error is to the nearest Trillion. (1000 times larger than to the nearest billion). What it represents is meaningful. The way it was produced although mathematically sound was not meaningful. Do you get the scientific difference? Trying to calculate the number of joules retained by the earth is by definition an almost impossible job. The numerical methods to do it might be logically sound but if you understand the math behind it it is similar to multiplying both sides of the equation by zero. Mathematically fine but not meaningful. How do you measure the joules the earth loses every day? How do you measure the incoming energy? What is the error margin on both? Every time you numerically manipulate data from the original source you introduce two problems. Error and bias. I like I think the majority of people on both sides believe the peer review process is inherently broken. Why? Because of the number of papers retracted after the peer review process verified them. So my goal is to look for the *least* processed/manipulated numbers. Not things that show what I want to see but which can't be argued with. Unfortunately that seems to leave very slim pickings.
  10. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    An important qualifier to the effect that ENSO has on global surface temperature is that all ENSO does is move energy around in the Earth climate system (e.g. warming atmospheric & surface temps by cooling ocean temps or vice versa). This is contrasted with the energy imbalance caused by adding IR-trapping gases, which cause the Earth climate system to accumulate more energy in all components.
  11. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    If you are interested in learning more about the scientific views of the current crop of Republican Presidential candidates, you will want to check out: “Gingrich Tops Scientific American's Geek Guide to the 2012 GOP Candidates”, Scientific American, Jan 3, 2012 To access this timely and informative article, click“here.
  12. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    @Stephen Baines. Ok but the global mean temperatures are usually a combination of ocean and air temperatures. If the ocean is releasing heat to the air, why would this increase the mean temperature?
  13. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    Mace @ 20 - wrong. ENSO affects global temperatures because the Pacific Ocean is very large, and the two phases (La Nina/El Nino) distribute heat in the water column in two distinct ways. Thus: La Nina = strengthening trade winds blow warm surface water across to the western Pacific where it 'bunches up" and a substantial proportion ends up below the surface layer. The strengthening winds promote the upwelling (ekman pumping) of deeper colder water along the coast of South/ Central America. The combination of these two processes and the air-sea exchange is sufficient to cool surface temperatures globally. El Nino = the easterly trade winds shut down and heat accumulates in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. Upwelling along the coast of America shuts off. Net result is a lot of warm water in the surface layer of the ocean. Once again because of the air-sea exchange of heat, global surface temperatures rise as heat is lost from the ocean. This meme is popping up a lot recently in the threads, so I guess I'll have to write up a post/rebuttal.
  14. Stephen Baines at 08:58 AM on 6 January 2012
    A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    mace... Because the ocean is such a large reservoir of heat, any change in how much heat gets into (or comes out of) the oceans has a significant impact on the amount of heat in the atmosphere. El Nino actually releases heat from the ocean to the atmosphere under normal conditions, La Nina does the opposite. So there is more heat in the atmosphere after El Nino and less after La Nina. The heat in the atmsopshere is what we on land experience. Capiche? Even Spencer, Christy and Lindzen would not argue against this.
  15. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    @DB. I keep responding. The posts disappear. Not sure why. Still this seems to me to be a good scientific question to ask, bearing in mind that 2011 being only the 11th warmest year is accounted for by a moderate La Nina event cooling the planet. I'd include links but assume that most people on here are familiar with this information and it just takes too long to keep googling the sites and copying and pasting the urls.
  16. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    @dana1981, but I don't understand that bit. Why would an oscillating ocean current contribute to global mean temperature. El Nino warms America and cools Australia, La Nina does the opposite. i.e. on a regional basis it has an effect but should have no net effect globally.
    Response:

    [DB] A Reminder:  It is insisted that you must first respond to the unsupported assertions you made in this comment before you can then move on to other subjects.

  17. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson - "Scientifically I don't like this post" I'm sure you don't like it, but where's the 'scientific' argument to support your claims? "Changes in total earth heat content are pretty meaningless" Clearly the world's ice sheets, glaciers, sea level, and plants/animals don't share that ill-informed opinion.
  18. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson @14 - if you're referring to Figure 2 (there are 4 figures, and thus saying "the graph" is entirely too vague), then I guarantee you have seen it on a 'skeptic' site. Any graph or claim of 'no warming since 2001' or 1998 [insert date] is illustrated by the segments (with blue lines) in Figure 2. As DB notes, making general disparaging comments without any specifics is not constructive. mace - El Nino and La Nina result in short-term warming and cooling (respectively) of global (and regional) surface temperatures.
  19. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson, the graph rebuts claims that 'it has not warmed since 1998' and the like... which is currently #9 on the list of frequent 'skeptic' claims. If you truly have never heard that then you simply haven't been paying attention. In any case, examples of this false claim can be found in that link and many other pages on this site. The fact that you assume the lack of documentation of false claims in this overview post means that no such documentation exists, rather than that it is an overview / summary and thus not covering all the details, is indicative of interpretative bias on your part. As to your claim that margins of error in heat measurements are greater than anomalies... you provide no basis for this claim and it contradicts numerous scientific studies, including those cited for the graphs. It thus appears to be a false claim which you choose to advance and/or believe rather than dealing with the actual evidence.
  20. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    JamesWilson: You're kidding, right? Right? Try reading the comments on your average WUWT post, or perhaps the comments on almost any news article, blog post, &c where pseudoskeptic tripe & nonsense is allowed free reign. Try reading the comments of the likes of ClimateWatcher, TOP, Fred Staples, RW1, and many others on this site alone. All over the Internet, the airwaves, and newsprint there are pseudoskeptics cherry-picking data to claim that global warming has "flattened" (or there has been "no warming since 1998" or whatever you want). The graph, showing the various decadal periods of cooling, is a satire by reductio ad absurdum. Please also substantiate your claims regarding total Earth heat content with reference to peer-reviewed scientific publications or by appeal to widely-accepted physics. Without such support, they can be safely dismissed as nonsense.
  21. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    How does a La Nina or El Nino event effect the global mean temperature. My understanding is that they cause cooling and warming effects on a regional basis for a short term only.
    Response:

    [DB] It is insisted that you must first respond to the unsupported assertions you made in this comment before you can then move on to other subjects.

  22. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    From Slate.com : Why Are Windmills Always White? "The white paint, which many localities require by ordinance, is also a matter of aesthetics. City planners seem to think white windmills are less of an eyesore. The white also reflects sunlight, which minimizes expansion and cracking of the gel coat that protects the fiberglass composite rotors. Not all windmills are white, though. Some Midwestern turbines are yellow to match the grain. (This doesn't work so well in the spring, when the crops are green.) German windmills are sometimes painted dark green at the bottom to blend into the forest. European rotors usually have a red stripe to make them visible to aircraft. Engineers once tried painting the rotors black to absorb sunlight and prevent icing, but it didn't seem to help much."
  23. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    ubrew12, presumably windmills are usually white so that they can be seen easily. You seem to be suggesting that this is a bad thing, but I don't believe that is the case. While some complain that windmills are 'eye sores', most seem to like the way they look. In any case, being visible is important for aircraft and birds to be able to avoid them. A light on top wouldn't necessarily be sufficient, and would require that those lights be monitored for failure and maintained.
  24. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    Scientifically I don't like this post. Nothing here has enough detail to be refuted. Graphs claim "this is what the skeptics think" without actually sourcing the graph. Since I have never seen this graph on a skeptic site I am guessing no skeptics think that. In which case what is the integrity level of the Global Warming researcher that produced this? (-Snip-) Changes in total earth heat content are pretty meaningless. Let's say our margin of error in measurement is 10 digits of mantissa. Now lets draw error bars on the graph. They are bigger than the entire graph. -> Waste of time graph. Put another way how would you calculate the amount of joules entering and leaving the earth with any degree of accuracy? (-Snip-). That doesn't mean it is wrong. Just a meaningless graphed numerical model like the Mandlebrot set. Pretty but pointless.
    Response:

    [DB] "Scientifically I don't like this post."

    Then give us some scientific specifics.

    "Nothing here has enough detail to be refuted."

    Incorrect.  All of this is considered in individual posts here at SkS and the entire OP contains specific links to the peer-reviewed literature it cites.

    "Since I have never seen this graph on a skeptic site I am guessing no skeptics think that."

    Straw man.  Because you have never seen the Emperor Caesar Augustus then that therefore means he was made up, right?

    "Changes in total earth heat content are pretty meaningless."

    Meaningless?  It is the entire point.  If you cannot understand this fundamental point then you need to comment less and learn more.  QED.

    Claims of falsification snipped.

  25. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    DrTsk@#5 and CBDunkerson@#8: I hope this isn't too far afield of this thread, but why are windmills white (unless as a gift to the fossil-fuels industry)? Why not earth-tones/dark blues and purples (with prominant flashing lights on top that can't be seen from the ground)? Why do people hire landscape architects for homes and buildings and not alt energy projects? Just wondering...
  26. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    From "The Gathering Storm" (May,1935),WS Churchill's first book in his "The Second World" series,page 112,Reprint Society,1951. "There lay in my memory at this time some lines from an unknown writer about a railway accident.I had learned them from a volume of Punch cartoons which I used to pour over when I was eight or nine years old at school at Brighton. Who is in charge of the clattering train? The axles creak and the couplings strain; And the pace is hot,and the points are near, And Sleep has deadened the driver's ear, And the signals flash through the night in vain, For Death is in charge of the clattering train."
  27. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    CW#6: "for the last eleven years, warming trends have decelerated" [DB] reply: "The point is without statistical merit... " Not to mention the fact that the point is also incorrect. See Foster and Rahmstorf: There is no indication of any slowdown or acceleration of global warming, beyond the variability induced by these known natural factors."
  28. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    Ubrew12, as DrTsk implies, the acceptance of wind power in Iowa is largely driven by economic rather than environmental concerns. Indeed, if promoted as a way to oppose global warming, many Iowans might have opposed it. However, the area is part of a major wind corridor (which also contributes to the prevalence of tornadoes) and thus wind power is more economically viable here than in most other parts of the world. Ironically, I am in Iowa at the moment and 60+ degree (fahrenheit) temperatures in Adair county are setting a new record high for the day... yet, while this has been endlessly discussed, absolutely no one I have talked to thinks it has anything to do with global warming. All that said, I think the fact that even my 'Republican corn-grower' relatives are backing things which do work to reduce global warming is a hugely positive sign. If wind and solar power become inexpensive enough we may be able to beat global warming despite the misinformation campaign. Indeed, once they lose on the economic front most of the deniers will likely move on and it is likely that scientific reality will then be allowed to filter through to most people. Just as all but the lunatic fringe of the 'tobacco smoking does not cause cancer', 'acid rain is fake', and 'fixing the non-existent ozone hole would bankrupt the world economy' deniers have given up the ghost, so too will most of the AGW deniers once the underlying economic battle has been won one way or the other. The wind mills I can see all over the countryside here demonstrate that economic battle can be won independently of the fight against misinformation.
  29. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    The folks you've awarded First and Second places to are really one and the same. I'd have put J Curry up for an award for such BS* gems as 'Wow,' the 'uncertainty monster' and 'there is no scientific basis for saying the trend hasn't paused.'
  30. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    Memo received!
  31. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    Ubrew. No subsidies and money are always welcome...
  32. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    Excellent choices for the awards! I wish we had a public ceremony to give these to their recipients.
  33. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    I was really hoping someone would ask the Republican Presidential candidates during the Iowa caucus the following question: "If there's no such thing as global warming, why does Iowa now generate 20% of its electricity from wind power? Have these largely Republican corn-growers just naively swallowed the AGW propaganda?"
  34. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    By the way an excellent post by Dana.
  35. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    To @ ClimateWatcher. Please compare paleoclimate quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere to average global temperature. Assuming you accept CO2 is the main level of the Greenhouse effect you can then be left in no doubt that a substantial and rapid Earth System warming is inevitable given the relative atmospheric lifetime of CO2 when compared to manmade aerosols. If you do not accept that CO2 is the main lever for the greenhouse effect please consult with the following papers: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=la09300d http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=sc05400j http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha05510d.html When discussing the future of the species or climate and ecosystem health it is not very helpful to focus on decadal variations.
  36. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    I think I'd have put Lord Lawson's 'Global Warming Policy Foundation' -- a charity -- further up the list. I haven't included a link because I don't want to give them the oxygen of publicity. Instead I'll link to one of the many articles rebutting their activities.
    Response:

    [dana1981] Here's the SkS version of that rebuttal.

  37. Models are unreliable
    Tristan -"There seems to be little indication of increased warming" Nonsense. Over 90% of global warming is going into the oceans. Did you miss Dana's recent blog post? Check out the last 40-ish years: I guess a blog post and graphic(s?) is necessary to clear up this confusion because a lot of the fake-skeptics don't seem to grasp this.
  38. 2011 Year in Review (part 1)
    Suggested reading: “Top climate change stories of 2011” by Andrew Freedman, Capital Weather Gang blog, Washington Post, Jan 4, 2011 Although Freedman plows some of the same ground that MarkR does in the above, there are some significant differences in the focus of the two articles. Freedman covers the following: 1. Advances in understanding global warming and extreme weather 2. Surface temperature record holds up to (another) review 3. “Climategate 2” falls flat 4. Congress Nixes National Climate Service
  39. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    Climate Watcher criticizes paleo ice-core records as regional while resting on HadCrut which has its own limitation of eliminating polar regions. Dana's context is valid to the point of extremely conservative: glacial to inter-glacial 8dC over 5k years is a stability crawl compared to a 2dC rise over a century. It isn't 'climate change', it's 'biosphere disruption'. The big picture is that graph showing heat transfer to the deeper layers of the oceans - 3D AGW at a measurable rate in a human-observable period.
  40. The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards
    As far as the OP goes, Rush maybe deserved a climate B[ad]S[cience] award (although it would be a close thing between him, Watts, and Spencer/Christy/Braswell) on account of the size of his listenership.
  41. Myth of the Mini Ice Age
    Amazingly brazen liars that people like to hear. On a related topic. How does the Skeptic Community see Robert B. Laughlin? He wrote a book titled: Powering The Future. It seems he takes some liberties, but he also seems well reasoned. He is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. He said that Breeder Nuclear will provide 20,000 years of energy. He also siad that CO2 is not really a big deal. That Carbon is our friend. Is he another myth-sayer or just different outlook?
  42. A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    CW @6 - you continue to miss the point. If you're going to argue that the planet isn't "warming rapidly", you need an objective definition of what that phrase means. My solution was to use the paleoclimate record. Your solution is to compare current warming rates to projected future warming rates. Your argument is thus equivalent to "if the planet isn't currently warming as fast as we expect it to warm in the future, then it's not warming rapidly." To be blunt, that argument makes no sense whatsoever. Moreover, you continue to focus on short-term noise while ignoring the long-term trend. I again refer you to the 'Rising Surface Temperature' section of the above post.
  43. Dikran Marsupial at 03:58 AM on 6 January 2012
    Models are unreliable
    Tristan As this thread is about the models being unreliable, do the models suggest that this acceleration should be visible over a 40 year timespan, above the noise we should expect to see in the observations due to sources of internal unforced variability such as ENSO? If so, then please give a reference to a paper or model output demonstrating this is the case. If not, then the reason we have not seen the clear accelleration is because of (i) the physics of climate suggest we shouldn't have seen it yet and/or (ii) there is so much noise in the observations it may be there but is obscured by the noise so we can't reliably/unequivocally detect it.
  44. ClimateWatcher at 03:38 AM on 6 January 2012
    A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    5. John Russel the GISP record is regional not global, but it does indicate a fair number of temperature spikes: "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Greenland_Gisp2_Temperature.svg"
    Response:

    [DB] Your reference is to local/regional data and is thus off-topic for a global thread such as this one.  Please keep in mind the nature of the OP.

  45. ClimateWatcher at 03:26 AM on 6 January 2012
    A Big Picture Look at Global Warming
    1. Dana wrote "comparing current warming rates to future projected warming rates." One cannot use future projections to validate future projections. If temperature trends are to reach the future projected trends, they must accelerate. That could still happen, but instead, for the last eleven years, warming trends have decelerated.
    Response:

    [DB] "for the last eleven years, warming trends have decelerated"

    The point is without statistical merit and amounts to being specious and argumentative.

  46. Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider
    Stephen... Thanks a ton for stopping in to comment. Everyone really likes the video. It's a wonderful tribute to Stephen Schneider and reminds us all of what a great loss his passing was. With respect to the critiques, pretty much everyone here is heavily invested in learning how to effectively communicate climate science. Most of us spend many too many hours on other sites trying to battle people's misinterpretations and misrepresentations of climate science. We are, as Schneider puts it, trying to "take back the airwaves" from those who wish to cause confusion. One of the key points that John Cook discovered was a study showing that sometimes repeating a myth in the course of debunking it can actually reinforce that myth. That's where the concern about the CO2isGreen ad comes in. You're right, the video you created was targeted at a more sophisticated audience who understands the science. For a newbie the video has the potential to actually lodge the myth into a person's mind and make it harder to replace the myth with accurate information. My own interpretation is that the CO2isGreen ad ends up looking like a modern version of the 1960's cigarette ad. And ultimately history will see it exactly that way. In the meantime there are several great take home messages in Schneider's talk that inspire us all. Your video does a great job of capturing that in a compelling and digestible format.
  47. Models are unreliable
    The past 40ish years appears to have a fairly straight 0.016C/yr trend. There seems to be little indication of increased warming. Even when exogenous factors are removed, the signal doesn't seem to show any acceleration. Given that we're expected to hit +2C well before 2087 under BAU conditions: A) Why is it taking so long for the positive feedbacks to reveal themselves in the temperature record. B) How long will it be before the rate of change is 0.020 or 0.025C/yr? Ca) If emissions continue at ~BAU and short-term CS is >2.5C (which would result in a visible increase in warming), doesn't it follow that there is a very high chance that the next decade will contain one or more years that are dramatically hotter than '98/05/10? Cb) Isn't that really ****ing bad?
  48. Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider
    45, Stephen, Thanks for providing the video. Overall I think most people love it (which is why it was posted here). The general complaint only focuses around the fact, I think, that the "CO2 is plant food" advertisement runs for so long that one forgets that it is an example of malicious advertising and not actually part of the case being made. But the video is very well done and gratefully welcomed. By the way, you might choose to click on your name at the left just below the thermometer (where it says "You are logged in as stephenthomson"), click "Update Profile" and add your website. This will let users get to your website by clicking on your name in any comment.
  49. Quantifying Extreme Heat Events
    actually thoughtful, and if deniers do use that approach (i.e. 'not one shred of evidence linking CO2 to increased heat') the response should be that it is a flat out lie... the equivalent of claiming that just because you put a hot dog on a lit barbecue grill and it has now been cooked on one side with vertical stripes corresponding to the grill frame that does not mean that the grill had anything to do with the hot dog becoming cooked. Some magical unknown force could have been shielding the hot dog from the grill heat while another magical force (cosmic rays in your example) came in and cooked the hot dog in exactly the same way that the grill would have. As you know, there is overwhelming evidence (rather than 'not one shred') that CO2 is responsible for this warming... to the same level as the grill and hot dog example. I've found that people tend to understand how global warming 'fingerprints' tie it back to CO2 better when presented with this sort of 'heating food' analogy. Just as the grill has observable heating patterns on the hot dog so too does CO2 have specific global warming patterns that differ from cosmic rays, solar, and other warming sources. Given that the observed warming matches both the degree and patterns we would expect from CO2 and does NOT match any other known source the efforts of 'skeptics' to claim 'something else' is responsible have drifted into the realm of denying observed reality.
  50. stephenthomson at 01:10 AM on 6 January 2012
    Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider
    Dear SKS community, I wanted to thank you for posting my video and for your feedback and critique. Some of you may think this video hurts the cause, and i'm a little surprised about that; after all, I don't feel i've obscured Stephen Schneider's message; it was his oratory that originally spoke volumes to inspire me, and which I trust will speak volumes to the general public (whom I do believe, contrary to some of you, are smarter than a bar of clay). I understand that it may not follow the debunking bible to a t, but then it wasn't necessarily made for denialists or for debunking. It was my intention simply to shed more light on an inspiring man for an audience normally unwilling to sit through hour-long lectures (and SS himself knew the importance of multiple formats of conveyance). I also happen to believe that no matter which side or set of information is being used to proselytize, 'force-feeding' sometimes doesn't go over all that well. Schneider's monologue was one of repose and of ominous calm, and it was that tone I attempted to garnish without obstructing; hence, no volley between myth and busting. Time will tell if my attempt here was successful or not in furthering environmentalism and attention to climate policy. I respect this community for taking on the denialists head on, and I hope all our work does some good. cheers stephen

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