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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 70251 to 70300:

  1. Incredible time-lapse video of Earth from space
    Really good. Are the lights of the cities enhanced??
  2. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    I don't like that 'denominator' argument. The denominator isn't actually the number of US science grads - it's the number of people who were asked to sign the Oregon petition who would have signed the opposite petition.
  3. It's waste heat
    Tom Curtis Fist up I'm not here to disrail anything as you know I've just created my first post here and had you guys jump all over it and If you were to take the time to see were I'm coming from you may get a clearer picture I do see and have a basic understanding of the green house effect and in NO way am I dissputing the theory I also lived through the 70's when our emissions were even more toxic to our health and the enviroment and if we kept going on like we were back then and didn't clean up our lead and sulfur emissions when there was only a third of the population then who knows were we would stand today. Anyway I was just about to watch a movie that has to go back But I do want to get back to you after it finishes with a heap more info I'll leave you with this. I'm more concerned about our com's and radar systems affecting the weather patterns then creating global warming I would like it if you would read this so we can create some common ground http://www.ips.gov.au/Category/Educational/Other%20Topics/Radio%20Communication/Transequatorial.pdf It's not the absorption but the exitement Do you remember when man had to re enter the atmosphere for the first time the fear was all about the angel of re entry to shallow and they would bounce off and to steep and they would burn up well thats what I'm getting at HOT spots created by forcing And the higher the frequencies the less is absorbed and can be reflected I'll get back to you And as you can see I'm not that well educated but I do pride myself on being smart enough to learn Cheers be back soon (-Snip-)
    Response:

    [DB] Inflammatory snipped.  Please focus on the science.  And a suggestion:  Paragraph breaks and periods at the end of sentences would add to the readability of your comment.

  4. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    The following is an even better evaluation of Poptech's little list : Meet The Denominator More here and here. Basically, that list is worthless and only the most desperate would ever bring it up.
  5. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    G'day monkey, take a look at this evaluation and following links.
  6. It's waste heat
    Thank you Tom for steering this in the right direction. The two "theories" are probably outliers even in the bizarre world of pseudoscience.
  7. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    Jim, have you seen the list of "peer reviewed" papers at http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html they claim 900+ peer reviewed papers dissenting on climate change. Looking down the list, some are published in such recognised climate journals as "Iron & Steel Technology" and "Missouri Medicine", some date back to the 1980s, and others are by the likes of Michaels and McKitrick, Pielke x2, etc. One or two are listed as simply "submitted", i.e. not yet peer reviewed at all. I'd be very interested in your take on these, and it might be a useful resource to add obscure papers to your database
  8. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    dana1981 and Kevin C: Thanks for the extra info. Makes the situation clearer. Having fun getting into all this, even though with no scientific training. This site makes learning merely a matter of reading and assimilating; much less technical than I had first thought. Thank you all for the information aimed at people on my level of understanding.
  9. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    Doug@11: A quick by-eye metric. On Cynicus' graph you see one other excursion from trend comparable in size to last years - 1998. So our first guess should be that we might see excursions like this on a 1-2 decadal basis.
  10. New tool clears the air on cloud simulations
    In order to complete the rebuttal of jmorpus, while not dragging this thread off topic, I have responded on an appropriate thread.
  11. It's waste heat
    jmorpus has been disrailing the discussion of a new tool to handle clouds in climate models. His discussion has been inchoate, so until muoncounter and oneiota linked to websites expousing similar views, I did not know where jmorpuss was going, only that he was trampling the evidence in the dirt to get there. Having a better idea now, I now recognise jmorpuss' claims as a variant of the claim that global warming is caused by waste heat, hence my response here. The websites linked to by muoncounter and oneiota are very explicit. According to them, global warming is caused by heat generated by the absorption of radio waves from humanities many radio transmissions. Of course, human energy emissions as radio waves is a very small subset of total human energy usage. Therefore total power emissions as radiowaves is a very small fraction of the 0.028 W/m^2 waste heat by humans as calculated by Flanner, and hence an even smaller percent of the 2.9 W/m^2 GHG forcing as indicated in the article above. This is an insurmountable barrier to such theories.
  12. Sea level fell in 2010
    Thanks Keith. We''ll see how well that stands up against the peer-reviewed literature, when the paper by Carmen Boening is published.
  13. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    Doug @11 - as noted in the post, the satellite sea level record begins in 1993 (so that's where I started the data). We've got tide gauge measurements going back more than a century though, as I recall.
  14. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    And not only hard drives, apparently blank spectacle lenses are in short supply (in Australia)as also flooded.
  15. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    dana - You made it happen, kudos to you. The fact that the animations have appeared on a dozen or so other blogs/newsites/etc is because they make the point, using data you have compiled.
  16. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    I know the global temperature record should be looked at over a period of +/- 30 years, to get the trend. Is the same time scale appropriate for sea level data? I intuit that it should be, but that is an 'assumption', not a 'peer reviewed analysis'. How long have we been taking reliable sea level measurements?
  17. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    alan @5 - actually they're my GIFs, but thanks. KR @9 - thanks to you too.
  18. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    @Pirate #18: You state: "All too often I've seen that discounted based on their viewpoints, political affiliations, or funding sources." You really need to stop perusing WUWT on a regular basis.
  19. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    I have to say the animations really reveal and clarify the difference between "skepticism" and "running from reality". Thanks, dana1981, great post.
  20. actually thoughtful at 14:42 PM on 15 November 2011
    Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    apirate - I am quick to point out your errors, so I should probably point out your analysis of sea level rise is correct. Thanks for sticking with this site.
  21. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    @apiratelooksat50 " I don't know of any skeptics making a claim that sea level rise has ended" I guess you haven't seen the Steve Goddard posts at W(-snip-)UWT Of course, you did use the term "skeptic", so you may have a point.
    Response:

    [DB] Please emulate the standards of this site.  Inflammatory snipped.

  22. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    19, muoncounter, A second requirement that pirate omitted is to take the time to actually learn the disparate parts of the science, rather than to stop short and make an early appraisal based on an insufficient understanding of the science. This appears to be particularly true of the heavily Dunning-Krugered among us, who believe that because they have mastered [insert-field-here] they are in turn more qualified to pass judgment on other fields without the same investment of time and energy that earned their standing in [insert-field-here]. 18, Pirate, Along those lines... Pirate, we together reached an understanding that, contrary to your initial beliefs, there is no doubt whatsoever that elevated CO2 levels in the atmosphere are purely anthropogenic in origin. Are we ever going to resume our discussion which will help you to understand the rather trivial issue of understanding why CO2 lags temperatures in past records, yet can and will lead temperatures in our current scenario? I think that appreciating the breadth and depth of the science is critical to being able to "make valid judgments." I'm ready to continue when you are.
  23. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    pirate @18, anybody with a logical mind can understand AGW, but not everyone will. Many will be held back by an unwillingness to study, a reliance on non-expert, and ideologically biased instructional material, or by their own ideological biases. One reality check on whether you do in fact understand AGW is your level of agreement with experts. In any branch of science it is easy to make mistakes, either through lack of relevant knowledge or because you accept plausible but misleading arguments. The process of science winnows out those arguments, and in doing so expands the knowledge base. Thus science makes its practitioners in a field experts, ie, people who know the easy mistakes to make in a field, and how to avoid them. If you disagree with the experts (and you do), odds are it is because you are making one or more of those simple mistakes. What then, are you doing to rectify the situation?
  24. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    WheelsOC - that's a good point. I hadn't thought of using the current HDD shortage as evidence of the sort of impacts climate change can have (by increasing severity of flooding).
  25. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    pirate#18: "anyone with a trained mine that can analyze and process data logically is capable of understanding the AGW theory" One requirement you omitted: The ability to put aside one's preconceived notions and ideological agenda. That, unfortunately, is the area that finds many pseudo-skeptics sorely lacking.
  26. apiratelooksat50 at 12:53 PM on 15 November 2011
    How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    DrTsk @ 15 I wholeheartedly agree with you about science and truth and fact. And, I am complete agreeance with Biblio's comment @ 12: "You don't have to be a climate scientist to acknowledge the validity of anthropogenic global warming anymore than you have to be a biologist to acknowledge the validity of evolution." I think anyone with a trained mine that can analyze and process data logically is capable of understanding the AGW theory and/or evolution. That would apply to most trained scientists along with a healthy dose of creativity and imagination. None of that makes one a "climate expert", however. But, it does validate that other scientists, or engineers, can make valid judgments that have merit. All too often I've seen that discounted based on their viewpoints, political affiliations, or funding sources.
  27. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    I love these animated GIFs. Thanks, jg!
  28. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    apiratelooksat50 @14, to my knowledge, nobody on this site has called into question the credentials of any denier except when those credentials have been inflated. We call into question Monckton's credentials when he claims to have been a scientific adviser to Maggie Thatcher, or Watt's credentials when he claims to be a meteorologist (he was a TV weatherman). Beyond that we repeatedly and explicitly call them for bad science, or all to frequently, complete nonsense that they purvey. Therefore you have no point, nor a fig leaf to cover what I strongly suspect to have been your real intentions in post 10.
  29. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    @Sasquatch/Pirate: Why are you posting comments under two distinct user names?
  30. How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    @14...This is not about majority of opinions. Global warming is about science and truth and fact, not opinions and subjective arguments. I think we should be using that line with the judge when we are in traffic violation. I guess in a "different" court 90 mph is not considered a violation huh?...
  31. apiratelooksat50 at 11:25 AM on 15 November 2011
    Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    I am at least one skeptic that does not think that two years of declining sea level negates the long term trend. Maybe, just maybe, it is the start of a downward trend, but it appears unlikely. I don't know of any skeptics making a claim that sea level rise has ended. The only true statement about the decline is that it has declined for the past two years.
  32. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    I hate to say it, but I agree with Tom Curtis that Pielke Sr. seems to be an "anything but carbon" misinformer. The statements he made to those high school students were simply unacceptable, and he should be ashamed of himself. After skimming Tisdale's post, I also don't see where he claims average temperatures are cooling. Did I miss something? Regardless, Dr. Pielke's behavior here - misinforming high school students - is reprehensible.
  33. apiratelooksat50 at 11:20 AM on 15 November 2011
    How to Avoid the Truth About Climate Change
    Sphaer @ 11 and Biblio @ 12: My point is that Professor Bickmore's credentials would be called into question if his viewpoints differed from the vast majority of commenters on this site.
  34. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Albatross @29, the solution to your conundrum is simple. The "hard core" of Pielke's research program, as with any other denier is "anything but Carbon". That being the case, any theory, no matter how bizzare, which attributes warming to a factor other than carbon containing gasses in the atmosphere is worthy of consideration and propagation. Of course, in calling it a research program, I need to note that because its hard core is so tenuous, it is incapable of being progressive (in Lakatos' sense), and is necessarily pseudoscience.
  35. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Dana, Dr. Roger Pielke senior seems to have bought this silly myth hook line and sinker, and worse yet he is feeding Tisdale's blog science to high-school students (see below). Pielke even thinks that it should be published in a journal. How someone with his credentials can be hoodwinked by this is very troubling. It is also odd that while trying to blame internal variability for most of the observed warming in the oceans since 1980, Pielke is also giving free (and uncritical) press to the bizarre claim by Scafetta et al. (2011) that up to 70% of the warming since 1970 is because of so-called "astronomical mechanisms". So according to Dr. Pielke well over 100% of the observed long-term warming is attributable to both internal and external oscillations. How does he reconcile these aforementioned mechanisms with his claims that land-use change has had a marked impact on global climate and temperatures? One does not even have to invoke land-use change or GHGs to explain the observed warming if he believes that Tisdale's and Scafetta's work are worthy of our attention. So either land-use change is not as important as Pielke claims or he is grossly overstating the importance of astronomical cycles and ENSO in explaining the observed long-term warming trend. But he also agrees that CO2 has caused ~30% of the warming. So it would be nice to see some accounting from Pielke. Let me start. Surface temperatures have increased by ~0.5 C since 1980 (start of satellite era): 0.30 C of observed warming according Scafetta et al. is from astronomical cycles (using their lower bound of 60%). 0.25 C from of observed warming according Scafetta et al. is from astronomical cycles (using 50%, my very conservative estimate of what Tisdale means by most, he does not get more specific than that as far as I can tell). We are already at 0.55 C....so what about: X C warming/cooling from land use change (Pielke?) X C warming from GHGs (Pielke?) X C warming from aerosol effects including black carbon (Pielke?) What is also odd though is that in recent discussions with SkS Pielke agreed with the IPCC TAR that solar contributed a positive forcing of 0.30 Wm-2, which is about 5% of his estimate of the total positive forcing since pre-industrial in 2001. That is a factor of ten lower than the claims made by Scafetta et al., yet Pielke advertises their number on his blog without question. These type of logical fallacies being committed by someone of Pielke's stature is truly embarrassing. And last but not least, shame on Dr. Pielke for misinforming and confusing High School students, and for directing Tisdale's site and for telling students that "For example, the global average temperature anomalies are cooling!", even after being told/shown repeatedly that we cannot say the planet is cooling. I'd like to know which school Pielke sent this to, they should be notified. IMO, his answers to the students was the very antithesis of pedagogy. Dr. Pielke is entitled to his opinions, but I must take strong exception when he uses his authority to impart his beliefs and misguided notions on impressionable minds to the point of misinforming them. I hope that the teacher at least uses Pielke's answers as an exercise in critical thinking, rather than taking Pielke's assertions at face value.
  36. SkS Weekly Digest #24
    #1, much talk about extremes centres around the damaging extremes that can occur in the summers/winters of the year. Far less attention is paid when the extremes occur in the 'mild' intervening months. Your story follows on from the hottest April in UK recorded history too. Now had it been the hottest July, it would hit the headlines. When the weather patterns shift to favour unusual warmth, records are being broken/smashed in the UK. For cold, this is not the case. Even the extreme and 'perfect' winter set-ups of the past two years failed to get close the UK low temperature record, even though it would have been difficult to envisage more appropriate, well-timed or long-lived 'cold' set-up. Anecdotal, insufficient sample size etc, but still interesting to observe. #3: eugh!
  37. BEST hides the decline in global temperature
    unbelievable how this denialists work!
  38. The BEST Summary
    yeah, yesterday I listened to a talk of Prof. H.J.Schellnhuber (director of PIK in Potsdam, Germany - http://www.pik-potsdam.de) in Berlin, Germany, a lecture given within the Berlin lectures (Berliner Lektionen) at the Renaissance Theatre ... And just that he mentioned - a bit ironically ... moreover this talk was just gorgeous, prudent and wise ... a great man! I am very grateful, Dana1981, that you posted this comment here ...
  39. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    Cornelius, it looks like that pattern corresponds roughly to La Nina periods of ENSO cycles. Also, techies might be aware that there's recently been severe flooding in Thailand, where most of the world's hard drives and hard drive motors are made. This has caused supply to plummet, prices to skyrocket, and widespread hoarding of HDDs over the last few weeks. Brick-and-mortar stores were insulated for a while, but their stocks are running low too and I've heard from many people who've had to spend half a day trying to scrounge up a drive at all. If you can find any place that has a 1-2TB HDD, expect to pay double what you would have over the summer. Major OEMs have already bought up most of the remaining supply, but even they might not be able to ship PCs in the volumes they were expecting due to the shortage. And the shortage is projected to continue far into next year before production is back to normal levels, not even taking into account a backlog of pent up demand. Besides the immediate human tragedy in these regional disasters, extreme flooding in major manufacturing areas has world-wide economic repercussions. And such flooding is expected to become more frequent in a warmer world.
  40. Solar cycles cause global warming
    The link under the figure above is broken. The paper can be found (at least today) at http://solar.physics.montana.edu/SVECSE2008/pdf/tung_solar_svecse.pdf This is the first paper I've seen that successfully shows the correlation between the solar cycle and surface temperature. Lean and Rind [Geophys. Res. Letts 35, L18701 (2008)] certainly suggest that it's been true from 1600 to 1995 or so, and get similar numbers for the size of the effect. I'm one of those people on the wrong side of the paywalls, and I'd be very interested to know how well this work has been found to hold up. Since it's in the same direction as any effects due to cosmic rays, I think it might well mask those effects entirely.
    Response:

    [DB] Fixed link.

  41. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    (-Snip-)
    Response:

    [DB] Good advice from the elder generations: 

    "If you having nothing nice to say, say nothing."

  42. Dikran Marsupial at 05:45 AM on 15 November 2011
    9 Months After McLean
    Fred Staples wrote: "Does this really constitute proof that CO2, increasing steadily from about 280ppm in 1800, is responsible?." No, of course not, it is impossible to prove any causal link via empirical means (Hume). Our understanding of physics is why we think CO2 is responsible (given the lack of change in other forcings), the observations corroborate that theory. BTW, CO2 levels have been rising approximately exponentially rather than "steadily".
  43. 9 Months After McLean
    The UAH charts you have produced, DB, are exactly the same as the data I used for my regressions. We are (or I am, if you prefer) looking for evidence of AGW in the mid-troposhere to support the “higher is colder” theory, which would attribute any such warming to increasing CO2 concentrations. There are two data sources only, entirely independent, satellites and radio-sondes. The most obvious test would be to compare the two sets of data over the period 1979 to 1997. I have used the data from the HADAT site, and the regression for data at 5.56 kilometers gives a trend line of 0.175 degrees per century, not (nowhere near) significantly different from zero. In other words, it exactly confirms the UAH results – no temperature change over a period of 19 years, when CO2 concentrations increased by 15%. (-snip-)
    Response:

    [DB] "The UAH charts you have produced, DB, are exactly the same as the data I used for my regressions."

    Care to point out where I used these supposed UAH charts?  Perhaps I've forgotten what I've posted (after all, you've been wrong on so many things so far, I'd hate for this to be another).

    "We are (or I am, if you prefer) looking for evidence of AGW in the mid-troposhere to support the “higher is colder” theory"

    Yes, that would be "you".  GHG, and their attendant warming observed typically produce tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling, matching observations.

    "The most obvious test would be to compare the two sets of data over the period 1979 to 1997."

    Cherry-pick.  Less than 20 years of data while ignoring the much larger datasets we have.

    "no temperature change over a period of 19 years"

    More cherries/IBID.  Tiresome, very tiresome.

    As for the rest, you waste all of our time.  Unless you can contribute something positive to this dialogue other than regurgitated PRATT, your comments will cease to appear.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit off-topic posts or intentionally misleading comments and graphics or simply make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
     
    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter, as no further warnings shall be given.

  44. The BEST Summary
    Hmm it seems nobody read Part 2 of 'Going Down the Up Escalator'! I addressed the step change myth there. I also put it into a rebuttal.
  45. Cornelius Breadbasket at 04:58 AM on 15 November 2011
    Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    The animated Gif of Global Sea Level Data is interesting - especially the page of "skeptic" data. Does anyone else notice a four(ish)year pattern between the intervals of falling sea-level?
  46. Hiding the Incline in Sea Level
    Please allow me to ignore the long term trend and cherry-pick like a real skeptic (inverse skeptic actually) to show that sea levels are rising currently with a very alarming rate of ~40 mm per 2 years or 20 meters per century!
  47. New tool clears the air on cloud simulations
    jmorpuss, you can say anything you like, but if you expect to be taken seriously on this forum, you're going to need to explain and defend your propositions. Here. Pointing to websites is not effective, because the authors of those websites are not available (oh, were it that they were!) to discuss the science of their alternative theories (or simulacra as the case may be). If you've been convinced by these websites, then you must understand them well enough to be able to defend them, yes? So do it. (on the appropriate thread, of course) This site is about discussing the science, not simply pointing to it and saying, "look!"
  48. Sea level fell in 2010
    Lewis C and Rob: I computed these values from GRACE data back in September, commented here. My computations indicate that about 80% of the sea level decline between March 2010 and March 2011 was due to increased storage on land.
  49. SkS Weekly Digest #24
    "At least some of the bark beetles survived". It will be interesting to see what survives in the rest of the world. Anyone for a jellyfish sandwich?
  50. SkS Weekly Digest #24
    "Protestors of the Keystone Pipeline, fracking and other environmental concerns are finding common ground with the Occupy movement -- but there's more to the story." Source: "When It Comes to the Environment, Are We the 99 Percent or the 1 Percent?" Alternet, Nov 4, 2011 To access this through-provoking article, click here.

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