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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 67451 to 67500:

  1. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 2 - Of Cherries and Volcanoes
    Just a comment. I don't really think that the Foster and Rahmstorf paper is evidence of anthropogenic global warming. They did remove the influence of the sun, ENSO and volcanoes but if global warming is natural, then there's no expectation that that signal is going away. As I see it, that papers assumes (correctly and based on a body of scientific research) that global warming is mainly anthropogenic and then removes spurious factors that obscure that trend. Of course, they do show that GW cannot be due to the Sun, volcanoes or ENSO.
    Response:

    [dana1981] The text has been modified slightly to note that the leftover trend after the FR11 removal of those three exogeneous factors is almost entirely anthropogenic, which was the reason it was included in the discussion in question.

  2. Medieval project gone wrong
    markx @33: 1) Your claim about Lamb (1965) is false. Egregiously false. The Central England Temperature series, which continues to be maintained by the Hadley Center dates back to 1659 for monthly data, and only to 1771 for daily data. Indeed, it would have been very hard for it to extend back further, given that thermometers where not invented until the 17th century. Therefore, the high temperatures shown by Lamb prior to 1659 are subjective reconstructions based on anecdotal evidence. What is more, the anecdotal evidence is biased, being based on European sources only, and hence reflecting changes in North Atlantic (and surrounding land) temperatures only, not global temperatures. What is more, even those subjectively reconstructed temperatures do not exceed modern temperatures for the region, as can be seen below. Lamb's 1982 reconstruction is shown in red. The Central England Temperature series is shown in blue: Despite these many errors, this myth keeps on getting pulled out of the denier hat. 2) Having dealt with the claim that is rife with factual errors, we turn to the others. There I simply note that you appear not to have read the main article. Two key points that you need to learn is that Tasmania (or any other region) is not the globe; and the MWP needs to be a defined time. The later is important because many MWPs from particular proxies occur at different times in different locations. If you make a reconstruction using a range of proxies, the different time periods of peak warmth in different locations results in a lower average temperature over the entire globe over the whole period. Every such reconstruction done has shown MWP warmth equivalent to about 1980-1980 20th century temperatures, and hence below current temperatures. Allowing for error margins, it is possible that the peak global warmth in the MWP was warmer than today. It is also inconsequential. Known physics shows that current temperatures will be at the very low end of the range over the next 500 years if we continue at Business As Usual. However, although the matter is not relevant, the current evidence more strongly favours a MWP cooler than 21st century temperatures to date. Indeed, one little considered piece of evidence that that is true is the refusal of denier scientists (such as those associated with CO2 science) to perform a proper temperature reconstruction. They know that the non-synchronous warming across the MWP will result in lower temperatures in any such reconstruction. So they stay well out of that game.
  3. Medieval project gone wrong
    Are we saying there was no MWP? Comments on the papers below would be appreciated.
    “….the current warming trend over Tasmania is still a significant event when viewed in the context of multi-decadal variability covering the past 2000 years. In that period it remains the warmest event to a marginal degree, although a much longer warm period is indicated in the AD 900±1500 interval…..)
    But that is the 50 years low pass reconstructed temperature, the ‘temperature reconstruction' indicates many peaks exceeding modern warming. (fig 7) Warm-season temperatures since 1600 BC reconstructed from Tasmanian tree rings and their relationship to large-scale sea surface temperature anomalies E. R. Cook á B. M. Buckley á R. D. D'Arrigo M. J. Peterson Climate Dynamics (2000) 16:79-91 Likewise, Liu Y, et al. also see a relatively warm period from 950 to about 1100 with no extreme cool periods until about 1200 (fig 1 and fig 5). (Though not as warm as current temperatures in the region) The LIA is evident too. Amplitudes, rates, periodicities and causes of temperature variations in the past 2485 years and future trends over the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau LIU Yu, CAI QiuFang, SONG HuiMing, AN ZhiSheng & Hans W. LINDERHOLM Liu Y, et al. Chinese Sci Bull October (2011) Vol.56 No.28-29 )
    “….This record is the longest yet produced for New Zealand and shows clear evidence for persistent above-average temperatures within the interval commonly assigned to the MWP……”)
    Evidence for a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ in a 1,100 year tree-ring reconstruction of past austral summer temperatures in New Zealand Edward R. Cook Jonathan G. Palmer Rosanne D. D’Arrigo For the Northern hemisphere, Actual temperature records from UK dating back to about 900 AD, show the average temperature (in the UK) from about 1100 to 1250 AD was more than 0.5 C warmer than today. (Lamb 1965)
    Moderator Response: [AMB] Fixed tag
  4. macwithoutfries at 00:45 AM on 28 December 2011
    UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    I would not completely rule out the possibility that the extra heat is 'going down' slightly faster than most models predict - after all we find like 90% of the Earth heat anomaly inside the oceans, and as such a product like UAH/RSS that is from start only for the atmosphere (excluding actual land and ocean and maybe with a certain bias introduced by the extensive processing needed to extract the temperature from behind the higher-layers signal) could easily be the wrong global estimate of warming :)
  5. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    John Hartz@2 I think your “McIntyre and Mosher at the door, hand over the rent.” link is wrong. It leads to an article about wildfires in Canada. Is this the link you intended? http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/12/mcintyre-and-mosher-at-door-hand-over.html (I'm happy for this post to be deleted after the link is fixed)
    Moderator Response: [JH] Link fixed. Thank you.
  6. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    Adding to Ariadne's post, it appears the factors in the study underestimate the predation and disease elements. In Ontario, blights are spreading and attempts to deal with the ash-bore infestation have failed. It's not the bump in heat that's pushing the forest-fire spread - it's about the forests turning into fuel dumps.
  7. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    Chris @1, Excellent points. Christy and Spencer have repeatedly shown confirmation bias by using the excuse that their product did not have a cool bias because it compared well with the weather balloon data, even though the literature at that time showed that the global balloon data had problems. The Mears et al. (2011) paper is good, of course. Readers can find the PDF here. Mears et al. also note that there are still outstanding issues with the satellite temperature estimates: "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." And, "An inescapable conclusion from this is that the methodological choices that we and others have made have lead to a substantial and significant impact upon the resulting estimates. This reinforces the importance of creating multiple independent estimates from the raw data which is known both to contain nonclimatic influences and lack met[eo]rological traceability if we are to avoid the possibility of reaching false conclusions Spencer and Christy (and their apologists) should heed their colleagues' sage advice...I doubt they will though. And yes, please free the code Drs. Spencer and Christy. Funny how "skeptic" scientists like to demand their colleagues' code, yet fail to do so themselves.
  8. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    According to Eli Rabett, Spencer and Christy have yet to make public the software they use to convert the data collected by the NASA satellites into their estimates of the temperatures of the lower troposphere (TLT) and of the mid troposphere (TMT). As Rabett suggests in “MacIntyre and Mosher at the door, hand over the rent.” posted Dec 21, 2011 on his blog, Rabett Run, someone in the US ought to file an FOIA request for the software so it could be scrutinized by experts with microwave and programming experience.
  9. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    @takver: Kudos on your well-written and well-researched article.
  10. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    @takver: All links have been fixed. I keep forgetting that the SkS system automatically changes all of the embedded links in articles when they are imported for reposting. My apologies to everyone for the inconvenience.
  11. UAH Misrepresentation Anniversary, Part 1 - Overconfidence
    Nice article. It’s helpful to continue highlighting these misrepresentations since Spencer and particular Christy seem determined to engage in attempts to cloud our understanding of tropospheric temperature measurements and how these relate to expectations from physical understanding of the climate system in a warming world. Three points come to mind: ONE: It’s worth pointing out that while Spencer and Christy engage in misrepresentation, scientists that follow the more traditional (!) pursuit of real world knowledge continue to set the record straight. Recent examples include Santer et al (2011) and Thorne et al (2011). The work of Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems has been instrumental in making Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) properly useful as a means of measuring tropospheric temperature (and encouraging Spencer and Christy to make appropriate analyses of UAH data). Mears and Wentz's papers are particularly good (recent example below). If ever anyone wishes to come to an informed opinion of the progression of the science on tropospheric temperature analysis the subject is very well documented in the scientific literature. TWO: Focussing on the science, it's also worth pointing out that the agreement between current radiosonde reanalyses and RSS (and UAH) TLT tropospheric measures may be better than indicated in your Table 1. This follows from the fact that radiosonde measurements don’t cover the entire globe. If the satellite TLT data is filtered to exclude areas of spatial coverage omitted from the radiosonde analysis then radiosonde (HadAT) and MSU TLT are quite similar [see Mears et al (2011), Figure 12): HadAT: trend = 0.188 K/decade Sampled RSS: trend = 0.185 K/decade Sampled UAH: trend = 0.174 K/decade That's not to say that there aren't more errors/adjustments to be found/made in these analyses! THREE: Returning towards somewhat snarky historical description, it’s also worth remarking on the relationship between the Spencer/Christy UAH product and radiosonde measures of tropospheric temperature. During the long years during which Spencer/Christy were making erroneous MSU analyses, their major justification for assertions of “accuracy” was an apparent agreement between UAH analyses and radiosonde measures [*]. Interestingly, the (erroneous; see below) radiosonde measures were actually used by Christy/Spencer as part of their methodology for determining MSU temperature trends (more specifically, the choice of sets of satellite data overlaps was guided partly by reference to radiosonde data), and so the MSU and radiosonde analyses weren't as "independent" as one might suppose. Once errors in the analysis of radiosonde data was highlighted [e.g. Sherwood et al (2005)], and modern reanalyses products (like RATPAC and HadAT mentioned in dana’s top article) produced trends similar to those expected from physics, Spencer and Christy were (and are) doubly negligent in insinuating a fundamental discrepancy between surface and atmospheric temperature measures. [*]e.g. Christy, Spencer and WD Braswell (1997) “How accurate are satellite “thermometers”? Nature 389, 342. “We believe that lower-tropospheric temperatures measured directly by satellites have excellent long-term accuracy, as seen by comparisons with independent atmospheric measurements from weather balloons.”
  12. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada
    Thanks for reposting this article. The first two links now work, but the rest need fixing, including all the source links at the bottom.
    Moderator Response: [JH] I will proceed to fix the other links. Thanks for bringing these glitches to our attention.
  13. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    HK - the graph in question is very strange, because it actually plots solar cycle length rather than solar activity. In fact, as I recall, it's inverse solar cycle length, because shorter solar cycles correlated with higher temperatures. Just playing with correlations, really (unless I'm recalling incorrectly).
  14. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Did anyone notice that the graph showing temperature vs. solar activity in the beginning of the film is doubly misleading? Not only does the curve for solar activity conveniently stop in 1980 just before the two curves start to move away from each other, but it is also wrong for another reason. Solar activity did not peak around 1940 and drop after that, but continued to climb until its highest recorded level in the late 1950’s, as you can se here. That is almost 20 years after the peak in temperature. When the temperature levelled out and dropped a bit, the solar activity was still increasing to its highest level seen for several hundred years. Solar activity lags temperature? Did they use the wrong curve for solar activity to create a better match with the temperature before 1980, or am I just overly suspicious here? I guess we know the answer to that…
  15. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Les@11 – this is not off topic because Peter Sinclair’s video contains the perennial theme of media climate science misinformation. Do not dismiss Delingpole as a fringe blogger. He writes books and does many interviews - even Prof. Paul Nurse interviewed him for his BBC documentary “Science under Attack”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SmPjVCfTgM (preview only) which helped Delingpole’s profile and credibility. Just as with climate change, there is the “accumulative effect” of misinformation.
  16. There is no consensus
    In the Crock of the Week video above, I thought the stuff about characters from Deliverance was un-called for, showed class prejudice, and was counter-productive. Snobbishness and elitism is no way to convince climate change denialists. I've known lots of dolks with Appalachian roots, and this is offensive.
  17. The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
    39, Start, Terms like "climate Armageddon" are entirely unhelpful to the discussion, and rather inaccurate. While the effects of climate change will be very bad for a lot of people, and while if really pushed to an extreme civilization may find itself being refashioned (as has happened, one should note, frequently and at an accelerating pace since the end of the dark ages), "Armageddon" is not an applicable term. We discuss "climate change," not climate "Armageddon" or "catastrophic climate change" or "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" or any other unnecessarily dramatic and overwrought superlative. Note also that this site is not about "selling" a view point. This site is about explaining the science. The truth behind the science is all that one needs to make a rational decision about any course of action (or inaction).
  18. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    DMarshall#12, Thanks for the link to the Agee et al 2011 paper, although I feel somewhat tarnished by having to go through Curry to read it. Agee is very clear: It is concluded that the observational results presented, showing several years of disconnect between GCRs and lower troposphere global cloudiness, add additional concern to the cosmic ray-cloud connection hypothesis. In fact, this has been done in the most dramatic way with the measurement of record high levels of GCRs during the deep, extended quiet period of cycle 23-24, which is accompanied by record low levels of lower troposphere global cloudiness. Their Figure 2 (comparison of GCR flux with ISCCP low cloud amount) makes it clear where the excitement generated by the early papers proclaiming 'clouds correlate with GCRs' originated. There is indeed a slight reduction in cloud amount coincident with reduced GCR flux in 1990-91 and then an uptick in cloud amount as GCR flux increased through 1994. But from 1994 on, the cloud amount has decreased, while GCRs started a strong increase in 2004. In short, the fuss over GCRs was generated by basing a conclusion on too short a dataset - and ignoring everything since. Note how often that behavior pops up among those who seek to push these fringe hypotheses.
  19. The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
    Well done friends. Thank you for your work. May I suggest that the first rule of discussing climate armageddon is to continually assess the motivations of the one with whom you speak, and secondarily of any onlookers. Deniers almost always have an agenda, obscuring the Truth by running out the clock with infinite 'arguments' whose sole criterion for them is to, well, help run out the clock. Except in the rare instance where the denier is indeed a truth-seeker, but misled, in which case sharing the facts is useful, otherwise, the kindness to humanity, and to this intended obscurer, is to disengage. The other time to violate this first rule is if there is an audience that includes truth seekers, in which case it may be best to engage the would be obscurer, but maintaining clarity of purpose in one's own mind that not the arguer, but the audience is the focus.
    Moderator Response: [Rob P] all caps edited
  20. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Peter Sinclair also has a site at Climate Crocks, where he makes frequent posts on enviro and climate-related news. Also, the site comments on this latest Climate, Sun, Cosmic Rays video has 2 useful links: 1.) An ArsTechnica article about climate and cosmic rays 2.)The actual recent paper by Purdue's Ernest Agee posted at Judith Curry's
  21. CO2 was higher in the past
    In my naivistic view of the things science is something that should serve to the people, should improve their quality of life, and should reduce the risks of getting into 'a dead end street'. CO2 is a dead end street from any point of view. Isn't it better to avoid entering this street at all instead of wondering what to do when we come to the 'dead end'. What kind of a science would teach us to close our eye when the disaster of climate change strikes on us? What kind of a science would teach us not to pay attention to the raising acidity of the oceans? What kind of a science would encourage us to expose to risk the only breaks we have so far against CO2 (the plants) and what kind of a science will have no idea of how to proceed (to hinder the processes at least)? Believe it or not but the increase of CO2 in the air (and in the ocean) could not improve our quality of life from any point of view. RE: This 500 MYA-CO2/Temp. Diagram If I am going to trade at the stock exchange with a million moving average in how many nanoseconds I would be Dead on Arrival? BTW: How does the planet look like at 24-25 deg.C ave temp?! What happens with the climate? Why does the temperature stop rising?
  22. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    9 Brian - (again, apologies for off topic) SkS is famed for backing up opinion with references; Dlingpole posts under "BLOGS HOME » NEWS » JAMES DELINGPOLE" which, is >Blogs then news, not the other way round. As for his strap-line, as I said, it's designed to wind people up to sell advertising. I've no doubt he started as a journalist... births/weddings/deaths/lost dogs etc... which has stood him in good stead to provide very few column inches he manages from time-to-time.
  23. doubtingallofit at 15:51 PM on 26 December 2011
    The End of the Hothouse
    My last comment was off topic, I guess. I am sorry I don't understand your rules, but my degree was in psychology/philosophy and I don't alway understand this stuff. Perhaps I should find a site that has more tolerance for lack of understanding.
    Response:

    [DB] "I don't understand your rules"

    Comments constructed to comply with the Comments Policy and also on-topic for the thread on which they are placed receive no moderation.

    "I don't alway understand this stuff"

    Understandable.  There was a time when I was just starting out in this field & knew little about it. 

    There are over 4,700 threads here at SkS on virtually every conceivable topic related to climate science.  If you have questions on things related to climate science, please use the Search function in the upper left corner of every page here to find a related post.  If you still have questions after reading it, place those questions there.

    "Perhaps I should find a site that has more tolerance for lack of understanding."

    The dialogue in the comments threads here at SkS rely upon science and peer-reviewed evidence to support positions.  Comments lacking substance or citations to said peer-reviewed evidence amount to opinion.  As such, little attention to them is typically given unless they also do not comply with the Comments Policy.

    Comments and questions framed in compliance with the Comments Policy and also on-topic for the thread on which they are placed are given ample tolerance for a lack of understanding. 

    Should this site not fit your commenting style then others exist that should accomodate you.

  24. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    This site is a fabulous resource -- as are Peter Sinclair's videos on Youtube. Well done to all those who make this possible. I have learned a great deal not just from the site's principal contributors, but from the many who appear regularly in the comments. May you all have, along with my admiration,the very best of times in the coming season.
  25. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    That may be so les but the article I referred to is from online UK Telegraph under “News” and it states: “James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster --------“. Modern journalism is becoming opinion where the facts are not necessarily important. This is no way to communicate climate science (or anything else) to the public.
  26. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Brian - this is off topic (so I'd understand if deleted) but Delingpole doesn't actually contribute to the Telegeaph as a journalist. He's an opinion blogger and it is now common practice for newspapers to have provocative comments sections on their web presence to increase click-fall. They are nit their to present news or analysis. Although people reading his stuff and commenting may take it seriously, it's really just play-play audience participation. If he didn't write cr@p, he'd be out of a job - its bit really his fault.
  27. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    I remember very well Australian broadcaster Tony Jones’s demolishment of Martin Durkin and his film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. But only last week British denier journalist James Delingpole, who states he is “right about everything”, started one of his tirades with the words: “Martin Durkin is a hero of mine, not just for his courage in making the first mainstream British TV programme seriously to challenge the idea of Man Made Global Warming – The Great Global Warming Swindle -----“. Not only do you have to be right about everything Mr. Delingpole, but you also require some credibility. He typifies the standard of journalism coming from the denier side.
  28. Climate change threshold nears for rapid increase in wildfires in Canada

    From My Comment: note: the link in "(See example: mountain ash forest landscape trap of Victoria, Australia)" doesn't work After months of reading your posts I finally gave in and made an account as this is something I can comment about directly. In the 2090-2099 map, the dark red area in the south of AB, SK, and MB is mostly prairie (farmland) with the occasional patch of deciduous trees, mostly poplar. The exceptions may be around the bottom of Lake Winnepeg (the big lake that drains into Hudson's Bay), the northern most tip of red in AB and the south west tip that moves from AB into BC. I live right in the middle of SK, on the edge of the prairie grasslands and boreal forest. What has been going on here is we had 1 summer when it rained every day, then 3 summers with almost no rain. Since then it's been alternating normal rain patterns with raining every day, leaning to more rain than usual. The winters have been leaning more and more to drought with 1999 being the first brown winter solstice in SK since, probably, before the ice ages started. Today, there's 0-2 inches of snow around town - not quite a brown solstice, but lots of grass showing. All this has put a stress on the trees - in this area the trees are about half jack pine with the rest being white and black spruce, a smattering of tamarak (larch), and some areas of poplar. The jack pine have become increasing vulnerable to dwarf mistletoe, a parasitic infection that causes some cancerous looking growth called witch's broom, that kills the trees within 5ish years. So we've got these forests of, mostly, dead and dieing jack pine and the provincial government started hiring people to go clearcut the diseased trees. But, what good are they? So the contractors cut out most of the diseased trees and all the healthy ones. What was left behind was acres of dead branches. Fuel for the (coming) fire. Because of the unseasonably warm winters the country is experiencing, the pine bark beetle has found the forests of BC (pretty well the whole province) to be a nice place to live now. They've made it over the mountains on the warm pacific winds (chinooks) and are moving down the Athabasca River where they'll eventually end up in nw SK. And they're leaving behind 100s of sq miles of dead trees. Of course the BC timber industry, in an attempt to beat the beetles to the trees, is ramping up clear cutting of forests. No doubt they're leaving behind lots of nice dry branches as is the practice here. And then, we also have the Tar Sands in the ne dark orange area of AB (about 25% of the province) where they're clear cutting and leaving, not dead branches this time but, all that nice flammable bitumen exposed. So yes, I think forest fires might wipe out the Canadian Boreal Forest quite nicely in the coming years. I saw an article somewhere (sorry no link) hypothesizing that northern forests (especially coniferous) actually contribute to warming, so it may end up a net cooling effect taking into account the lessened albido, the co2 from the fires, and the blocking effect from the ash in the sky. BUT I am going to miss them and the deer are going to miss them and the bears are going to wander into towns and get shot. What a sad day that I hope I won't be here to see.

    Moderator Response: [JH] Link fixed. Thank you for sharing your personal observations and trepidations.
  29. Making Arctic Sea Ice Loss Real
    DB (and mouncounter) @9 - Thank you, I had not seen the Walsh dataset before.
  30. Rising Oceans - Too Late to Turn the Tide?
    rktect#99:"a bargain we should jump at? " More people should think like you. Fig 7 here demonstrates comparative costs of early action vs. inaction. What we usually hear are far-sighted statements like 'they can just move' or 'let them build walls' and of course, the ever-popular 'its not happening to me.' Here is a set of planning maps for the eastern US. You can see roads, ports, power plants, sewer plants, oil refineries, airports etc, all in need of some level of protection; all just waiting for the next disaster.
  31. Rising Oceans - Too Late to Turn the Tide?
    Regarding the discussion of our transition from hunter gatherers to nomadic pastorialists and then settled urban populations, One of the costs of rising sea levels is the destruction of infrastructure. Most of our oldest cities are built as ports at river mouths. Nuclear facilities which use oceans for cooling are very hard to service underwater but so are water treatment and sewage facilities; street utilities, power stations, lpg terminals, roads, bridges, subways, commuter rail, and most of our communications facilities. Doesn't the cost of replacing all of that make mediating climate change a bargain we should jump at?
  32. Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
    I'm concerned that the often quoted IPCC data are wrong. Essentially what was published in 2007 was designed to present a lowest common denominator consensus amongst as many scientists as possible who would agree to anthropogenic causes for global warming. By the time its next report comes out in 2014 and its observed data is seen to exceed its worst case projections from 2007 the IPCC discussion will have become so skewed by partisan political posturing between those who think global warming is a scienctific fraud of some sort and those who realise that it is real and has tipping points such as the massive Siberian methane release, ocean acidification which in synergy with rainforest destruction is destroying the worlds largest carbon sinks, that the argument itself will have carried us past those tipping points and made mediation impossible regardless of cost. The only bright side is that the observed phenomena may be self correcting. If you consider overpopulation from a Malthusian perspective so that Peak oil, resource war, plague, pestilence, the loss of the fossil water that irrigates the worlds crops to feed the growing population, resulting famine, dead oceans and depleted fish stocks, extinction of the species we are dependent on for our survival, we are actually doing everything we can to remove the anthropogenic cause.
  33. Updating the Climate Big Picture
    Just to give a piece of context, the change in ocean heat content (joules) from 1960 to date is more that ten times the energy contained in the combined gas and petroleum reserves known in 2010.
  34. Ocean Acidification Is Fatal To Fish
    Something to keep in mind is that the human impact being wraught on the marine milieu involves changes to thermal, oxic, sonic, and olfactory conditions, as well as to hydronium ion concentration. These impacts combined represent a challenge to many species, and to other species who rely on the former for whatever ecological reason. As Doug H says, we've started a steam roller and it won't be braking any time soon. Sigh, indeed...
  35. Philippe Chantreau at 20:17 PM on 25 December 2011
    IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    Mace thinks he's so subtle, while you could see him coming from a mile away starting on his very first post. That's almost comical. [Mod} feel free to delete this comment.
  36. Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
    Is there a prize for the finest examples of cherry picking? I just had a "skeptic" tell me that the satellite data is biased because they were launched in 1978 which was "one of the coldest periods on record". This was his "proof", a post from Steven Goddard: http://www.real-science.com/dessler-partially-correct The temperature data comes from a *single* location in Greenland (Nuuk)!
  37. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    chriskoz, it might be mild in Sydney, but it was over 38 in Adelaide for Xmas Eve. Cooling off today for turkey baking.
  38. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    muoncounter... Good catch. Thanks. caerbannog... That's very cool news. I wonder if Peter knows?
  39. The End of the Hothouse
    "If everything happens for a reason, then there has to be a reason for .... (absolutely everything) ... and unless there's a physical law with mathematical verification that there cannot exist a phenomena with a cause ... " Just because there's a reason for everything, it doesn't necessarily follow that we have yet identified that reason or set of reasons. There are millions of issues in science that we don't even bother with - even though we know there are 'reasons' for them - because what we already know is good enough. Or often, in the case of earth sciences especially, we don't have equipment like enough satellites or deep ocean observatories or seismological sensors to gather and process the mountains of details we'd need to get things down to the umpteenth decimal place or the precise day and hour of expected earthquakes and the like. The 'reason' for warming of the ocean and atmosphere is, in fact, pretty straightforward. We do know how greenhouse gases work and we do know how much of them are emitted and absorbed. Physics plus other arithmetic tells us what kind of events to expect as a result of the net increase. The fact that we can't tell the precise place, date and time of floods or wildfires is irrelevant. (Just like we don't know which particular smokers will suffer which particular illnesses - or none at all for the lucky ones. What we do know is that a community with more smokers suffers more smoking related illnesses. And that's all we need to know to take action.)
  40. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    "To suggest an answer to my own question: is it the case that the fix for NEOs is technological and the solution does not require a change in the status quo?" The other side of this is that such a project looks glamorous, exciting and, best of all, a single, literal target. Technological whizbangery at its finest. We might think that saying we've already got the technology to deal with reducing emissions is a positive. It is, for many people. For others, it seems pedestrian and unappealing and therefore negative. They really do want a silver bullet. (Hence the attraction of mirrors in orbit and other such nonsense.)
  41. Making Arctic Sea Ice Loss Real
    Wow! Great graphics. Thanks to all who contributed to furthering my understanding: the picture is clear and frightening.
  42. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Right you are muon - correction made.
  43. Making Arctic Sea Ice Loss Real
    @ arch stanton One can go much further back in time than 1979: Red is September min, blue is March max (From the Walsh dataset, courtesy muoncounter) Or this image from Cryosphere Today: And the following graphic from L. Hamilton shows area and extent declining in every month of the year (back to 1978), again:
  44. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    Rob H., This is a terrific summary, making the CR issue quite clear. But it's Jasper Kirkby, not Kirby.
  45. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    A slightly off-topic but I'm hoping to be treated as an exception one: Merry Christmass (which is already underway in the part of the globe E of GMT) to John Cook and the team of authors and the whole bunch of good commenters! you're the best blog to educate people (myself included) about AGW. And of course to Peter whose Crocks are as funny as informative. Keep doing good job! We are blessed with unusually mild (not so hot) December 2011 Down Under (SYD area) so Santa may feel releaved. Not so good news on the noth pole though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf4DpJys3Wo mybe he should move to the south pole at least temporarily until people (majority of them Up Over) do sth about north pole situation...
  46. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    John, My suspicion is that there is a lot of overlap between the hardcore deniers of AGW and this lot. The difference? AGW is our doing; something falling from the sky isn't.
  47. Peter Sinclair on Climate, Sun, and Cosmic Rays
    FYI, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) has given Peter Sinclair's videos an implicit endorsement with a link to Peter's YouTube channel on the "Best Bets For More Information" page of the Scripps-Birch Aquarium web-site.
  48. Making Arctic Sea Ice Loss Real
    I liked the explanation in that article of how arctic ice loss affects the jet stream and hence the climate AND weather in the mid-latitudes. Another arrow in the quiver...
  49. The Media & Global Climate Science Communication
    Tom @9, Indeed, I agree I painted the image of AUS Liberals (LIB) in my previous comment as too rosy. I was trying to say that the situation with respect to AGW in AUS politics is not as bad as it is in US. LIB's official docs do not deny the bottom line facts about CO2. Further to that Monckton, while visiting AUS earlier this year, was not allowed to pronounce his ridiculous testimony in Canberra's Parliament as he did in US Congress. It's hard to believe today, that back in 2008-2009, under the leadership of Michael Turnbull (a strong-minded conservative), LIB supported the ETS similar to that just introduced today by the ruling party (ALP). But, sadly, the denialist voices within LIB prevailed when 2y ago, the caucus knocked down MT and elected Tony Abbott, who is just a silly puppet, IMO. I agree with you and MT, that their current "direct action plan" is worthless. So TA, who later sort of appologised for his "climate science is crap" comment as pronounced in "hyperbolic state of mind", should rather have said that about his own direct action policy. He would be very inappropriate about it, but at least sort of right. Someone above praised Julia Gillard (current PM) for her currage in this divided political world. No doubt a strong and harismatic leader, JG however with respect to ETS, implemented northing more than her predecessor (Kevin Rudd) conceived yet in 2007. If talking about courage here, we should not forget a couple of independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, who gave their support to ALP. Without RO and TW, ALP would not be able to rule let along do anything in the hang parliament situation we have here. RO & TW joined ALP despite harsh criticism in media and loud voices suggesting their background predisposes them towards LIB. I think more reasonable stance of ALP towards AGW weighed heavilly on RO & TW decision to join ALP rather than LIB. That's a lots of courage, and let's remember that without it ALP would not have been ruling here and ATS would not be alive.
  50. Making Arctic Sea Ice Loss Real
    Happy Christmas to the Skeptical Science team !!! [Ok, its off topic, but stretch a point :)]
    Moderator Response: [DB] 'Tis the season...Merry Christmas to all!

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