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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 70551 to 70600:

  1. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    Suggested reading: “Solar energy covers earth’s needs thousands of times over,” Lars J. Nilsson, Lund University, Nov 1, 2011 To access this informative article, click here.
  2. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    92 Sphaerica: Ha! You have no evidence that there are no turtles on the side you cannot see. The primary metric must be the number of unseen turtles.
  3. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Suggested reading: “Solar energy covers earth’s needs thousands of times over,” Lars J. Nilsson, Lund University, Nov 1, 2011 To access this informative article, click here.
  4. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    Just reading Steven Pinker's Better Angels and he uses the quote: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire That'll be why these people work so hard on the absurdities .. to promote the atrocity of inaction.
  5. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    @Albtross #90: Who is Neven and why is his reaction to Curry significant?
    Response:

    [DB] Neven is the proprietor of the Arctic Sea Ice blog - probably the finest blog resource of its kind in the inter-tubes.  Imagine John Cook on ice...

  6. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    Sasquatch - Please, see post @ 93, and my reply to you on the linked (on topic) thread. And then comment there. You do not appear to be following the links folks have provided to you in this discussion.
  7. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    Sasquatch wrote: "When the wind doesn't blow enough, or blows to hard; or the sun isn't shining - from what source are we going to draw power?" The sun is always shining and the wind always blowing somewhere. Ergo, as was already explained to you, a large enough grid solves this problem. Likewise, excess energy from peak production times can simply be stored for later use. The Gemasolar concentrated solar plant in Spain uses molten salt storage... enough to provide 15 hours of baseload power with no sunlight at all. The technology to get around temporary and localized lack of wind or solar energy already exists and is already being implemented.
  8. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    104, Sasquatch, Never and nowhere if the "it can't be done and it's not necessary" obstructionists keep pushing it aside.
  9. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    #21, and to add to #22, this is the point I was (perhaps clumsily) making in #3. Calculate the squared deviations from the assumed model. Now that deniers are no longer questioning the reliability of the temperature data, they are proposing models that have no physical basis. To slice and dice, cutting the fit into 4 constant sections and fitting the 4 intervening levels, requires 7 parameters (the 3 cut locations plus the 4 levels). These parameters are varied to find the least-square-deviation. But this makes no more sense than fitting to a 6th order polynomial, which also has 7 parameters. There is no physical basis. The underlying denialist motivation is to show at any cost that there is no relation between rising CO2 levels and rising T.
  10. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    KR @ 87 "All that aside - it appears quite possible to produce dependable baseload power with renewables." Where is this happening? Or, better yet, when is it going to happen? When the wind doesn't blow enough, or blows to hard; or the sun isn't shining - from what source are we going to draw power?
  11. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    91, muoncounter, Your photo is obviously fabricated. Where is the turtle on which the earth rests? Surely you can do better than this.
  12. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    "The skeptics have no better theory, or indeed any theory, to explain all of the observational evidence of man-made global warming." That is such an important point. Science doesn't work by criticizing arguments and trying to deny the evidence, but by building and testing competing theories. "Skeptics" don't have any consistent theory that explains all the data. Moreover, in order to deny each piece of evidence, they eventually get into contradictions (as documented here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/contradictions.php). Another important point, IMHO, is that global warming is not some kind of surprising feature of our world that we need to come up with explanations for. Global Warming was a prediction, an expected consequence of dumping billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Speaking of contradictions; one minor quibble. Point 6 end with "To be a climate skeptic is to remain a skeptic" but point 7 you state about Muller that "we should no longer consider him one" Besides, I don't think I agree with point 6. There are "skeptics" that changed their mind. Michael Shermer comes to mind; he wasn't "sold" on the idea of climate change but some years ago he ended accepted reality. While I accept that your characterization applies to many "skeptics", I don't think is fair to generalize.
  13. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    90 Albatross: Surely you must admit that there is no basis for saying the world isn't flat. Don't try to show me 'photographs' or some other such 'data;' that's all clearly manipulated to hide the flatness. -- source Based on this one image, there is no consensus. If you suggest otherwise, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
  14. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    The sceptical view show and important trend.... Seems to me for the sceptical view, the slope is getting more shallow with every decade. At some point it will level off and start to rise in every decade mostly. Scary stuff.
  15. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    JMurphy @86 and CBDunkerson@89, Oh goodness, the wheels really are coming off now. Even the ever patient and reasonable Dr. Bart Verheggen is troubled by her musings. And Neven is having nothing of it: "Neven | November 8, 2011 at 6:43 am | Reply Dr Curry, if you think I’m a CAGW ideologue, I would again kindly urge you to remove the links to the Arctic Sea Ice blog and graphs page from your blogroll. We don’t want to be associated with each other." So Curry has just burned another bridge. She can add Neven to her list which now includes Schmidt, Trenberth, Verheggen, Tobis, Muller and many more. Fine job she is doing of being self-professed 'peacemaker". The juvenile and vitriolic crowd on her blog are now projecting their petulance on Neven, but whatever. Right now, I would not be too surprised if Curry claimed that the earth is flat. Bad times. Pretty pathetic times too given that we are even having this discussion instead of how aggressively we should be reducing our GHGs.
  16. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    Here's why we must double-down on our individual and collective efforts to educate people about what scientific community is telling us about climate change. “There's been a lot of talk recently that the world is finally facing an economic reckoning — a final past-due bill for those years of living so far beyond our means. The truth is we're facing a climate reckoning as well. The two are fatally intertwined — and they're going to be impossible to solve separately, if they can be solved at all.” “The Kyoto Accords — and Hope — Are Expiring,” Time Magazine, Nov 8, 2011 To access the entire article, click here.
  17. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    There is an article in the International Business Times which claims that Curry is now denying that humans have caused any warming. I doubt this is true, as it would indicate that Curry had completely lost touch with reality... but I have to wonder how she plans to continue in her role of 'peacemaker' now that she has become the de facto standard bearer for global warming denial.
  18. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    Composer99, it has been passed: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-08/carbon-tax-passes-senate/3652438
  19. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    Any word on Australia passing the carbon tax? I've been led to understand that took place just today (Australian dates).
  20. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    All 'best fit' trend lines and curves should be calculated from linear least squares. As long as the errors are normally distributed.
  21. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1
    Dr. Pielke Sr. proposed Moist enthalpy as the primary metric in Davey, Pielke, Gallo 2006, Global and Planetary Change: "Changes in heat content of the Earth's climate are not fully described by temperature alone. Moist enthalpy or, alternatively, equivalent temperature, is more sensitive to surface vegetation properties than is air temperature and therefore more accurately depicts surface heating trends." Now, of course, it's OHC.
  22. Luxembourgish translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
    Ah, I thought it was Rosa Luxemburg.
  23. Luxembourgish translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
    Luxembourg has its own language? Cool.
  24. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    Peacemaker ? I think we all know that that is nonsense. It would be far more rational to believe that she is putting it all on and is merely taking the 'peace'...
  25. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    86 JMurphy: "Curry seems to have started channelling" But she's supposed to be a peacemaker!
  26. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    21 Jsquared: "Why isn't minimizing the squared error (least squares) an acceptable way of getting at this?" To a degree, it is the acceptable way. All 'best fit' trend lines and curves should be calculated from linear least squares. However, you can always decrease root-mean-squared error (RMSE) by simply adding additional powers to a best fit polynomial; the problem is then: what physical model justifies higher order curves? So the physics isn't 'biasing' the choice of curves, the physics is a prime control over the choice of curves. The step function is a not a best fit unless one makes an ad hoc chopped salad out up the time interval and then presumes that each section is flat. How physical is that model? And why doesn't anyone on the 'steptic' side ever ask these questions?
  27. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    102 MAR: Have you looked here for conversion factors? 1 g C = 0.083 mole CO2 = 3.664 g CO2 1 ppm by volume of atmosphere CO2 = 2.13 Gt C
  28. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Regarding step vs linear: seems to me this is basically a mathematical argument about what curve best fits the data. Why isn't minimizing the squared error (least squares) an acceptable way of getting at this? The physics may bias your choice of functions to consider, of course.
  29. Baked Curry: The BEST Way to Hide the Incline
    Curry seems to have started channelling Monckton by referring to "CAGW idealogues". Maybe that nice meal she had with him recently turned her around to his way of thinking...
  30. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1
    Michael Sweet wrote: "Pielke Sr advocated using satelite data as the primary metric of AGW during this time, perhaps this relates to his current proposal to use ocean heat" Hi Michael. Do you have a link or citation for Pielke's advocacy of the satellite data? If he really claimed that should be taken as 'the primary metric' and has now switched to advocating for the 'top 700 meter OHC' it really seems like he is just latching on to any metric which doesn't show continuous warming IF you accept non statistically significant trends as valid.
  31. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    Re @80 (& @68, @74, & @76) above. It's good to definitively sort out what these gigatons are and what the year was. Then it is sad that the answer brings a concept of increased complexity down from the sky into 'emissions' and with it the latitude for more unwanted argument & dissembling. And that in an issue already complicated enough. It's also bad because reducing emissions significantly below 2010 levels will require more emission cutting than 'peaking before 2020' which was my previous understanding of the required global emissions goal. That said, is it possible to be more exact about GtCO2e? I'm hoping the conversion from GtCO2e emissions to atmospheric ppmCO2e is the simpler one (ie the same calculation used to convert GtCO2 to ppmCO2 or x40%/2.13). The 2010 emissions 48 GtCO2e being 25% higher than 2010 emissions 38 GtCO2 looks about right for such an assumption. Then my assumptions have failed me on this already. And the paper linked @74 above gives 2005 emissions 45 GtCO2e which is 50% higher than the 30.7 GtCO2 2005 emissions. (The 45 GtCO2e is referenced to this UNEP paper but I do not see the number there! I do see its Note 12 suggesting my assumption of a simple GtCO2e is wrong! Although Fig 1 strongly suggests less that careful authorship.) With methane concentrations flat in 2005, 50% is surely impossibly high if the conversion is the simple one I assume. Then the 2005 50% multiplier could have been borrowed from the 1990s.
    Response:

    [DB] Fixed links.

  32. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    100 - adelady "(I expect there were other groups on other islands who probably turned them into some kind of worship-worthy tribal symbol and maintained their populations.)" not this particular case, but for those interested in that kind of thing may I recommend the fabulous Roy Rappaport and his "Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People"
  33. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    chriskoz "The mentality of other cultures, i.e. Pacific Islanders, Aboriginals are different as you noted." Even there we find huge variations. Saw an item on teev recently about at least one Pacific Island and their turtle population a century or so ago. They just kept eating eggs and turtles until there were no more. (I expect there were other groups on other islands who probably turned them into some kind of worship-worthy tribal symbol and maintained their populations.) Culture and religion can be important influences for both good and bad outcomes.
  34. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    Ger, Lovelock was talking about "tribal mentality" in European sense, wherein selfish "people-first-and-only" attitude always prevailed. Nature/land was always considered an infinite resource. Such culture led to the concept of exponontial growth economy that is still deeply engraved in most minds, especially right wing politicians, in EU, NAmerica, Australia, China. That conservative thinking persists despite the clear evidence that we are hitting the limits of "exponential growth". The mentality of other cultures, i.e. Pacific Islanders, Aboriginals are different as you noted. Unfortunately those were swamped and almost anihilated by white man as was the case in OZ. Now it the best time to say pardon (I was said in OZ some 3y ago) and learn something about the way of living sustainable and respectful to the land. Incidently, the first step has just been made in OZ itself: they've just approved the emmission trading scheme in Canberra today. The first time white man recognised the land and air has value Down Under!
  35. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    DMarshall@5 I can feel a "snow job" coming on.
  36. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    DMarshall : "...they've been cranking up the "another Little Ice Age is coming" publicity machine. If this is a bad winter and if next year is significantly cooler than the last few, expect them to shout victory from the rooftops." I'm lost now : are they saying that the earth is warming (and they have all been saying that all along, apparently) or are they saying that the earth is cooling ? Or is it both, depending on how they feel each day ?! Anyway, there was a programme on the BBC recently (Will it Snow ? - although probably only accessible within the UK) which had the Met Office reckoning that this Winter in the UK shouldn't be as bad as the last couple. Fingers crossed...
  37. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    DMarshall @8 Political polarisation strikes again it would seem.
  38. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    @Stevo Romney seems to have been steadily shifting towards denial as the leadership race progresses, despite having nearly implemented a cap-and-trade program in his days as governor. His most recent statements are that America shouldn't waste trillions of dollars on reducing emissions because polluters will just move elsewhere and he's been calling for aggressive use and development of domestic fossil fuel and nuclear.
  39. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Err Steve @19, who are you arguing with? Right now it seems like you are arguing mostly with yourself. Your original question regarding the warming in the top 700 m was and is off topic. It seems that you are talking about oceanic heat content. Please take that to the appropriate thread. Try here. Regarding sea level might I suggest posting here. And regarding the loss of ice from Antarctica might I suggest posting here.
  40. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    DMarshall and Albatross, I'm not quite keeping up with developments in the GOP. Does Romney still maintain AGW is real or has he changed horses?
  41. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Response: [to my post #6] [DB] "I see that the Church & White source you list shows the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributing to sea level with the same sign." Nice goalpost shift. Actually [DB}, I originally put up a question about ocean heat. I said: (-Snip-)
    Response:

    [DB] We are all well-aware of what you said.  My purpose in posting what I did in response to you was to illustrate the fact that ample data - including the "skeptics" favorite toy: error bars & error data - exist extant of the graph depicted and also extant of the IPCC's summary.  All that remains is for an interested individual to actually look for it, instead of carping about a graph's supposed lack of whatever-their-point-of-interest is.

    If you cannot locate what you are looking for, asking politely without insinuations of conspiracy, fraud or malfeasance on the part of, well, anyone, works best.

    Please make a greater effort to remain on-topic, also.  Off-topic snipped.

  42. citizenschallenge at 16:01 PM on 8 November 2011
    Eschenbach and McIntyre's BEST Shot at the Surface Temperature Record
    From the final paragraph: "Based on the analyses of Fu, V&G, and Zou, an unbiased assessment would indicate the far more plausible explanation is that RSS and UAH are biased low, particularly since the accuracy of the >>> surface temperature record has been confirmed time and time again, even by those (i.e. Anthony Watts)<<< who have been disputing its accuracy for years. " ~ ~ ~ It would be very cool if you had a link here going to more details about how Watts weather station study actually turned out to support the consensus.
  43. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    chriskoz #97, I do not get tribal mentality. as one tribal leader spoke (in connection with land rights/land use) " we do not own the land, the land owns us. How can we decide to sell it for a purpose not knowing what the effect will be on the land and its inhabitants". Will look up which chief spoke those words, was on the island of Mindanao, Philippines.
  44. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    jyyh @17 Thanks for the Tamino article. Solidly argued and delightfully written.
  45. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Tamino gets 70.9 years as the lenght for the best statistical fit for a single longer cycle, it doesn't fit. http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/berkeley-and-the-long-term-trend/ 'Electron walks in a bar and stops to say to the bartender, "You haven't seen me here"'
    Response:

    [DB] Hot-linked URL.

  46. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    Hello DMarshall @5, I share your concerns, trust me. I and other are still fighting tooth and nail, here, behind the scenes, whenever and wherever we can...it is exhausting. But now and again we do earn "small victories" as I noted above and it recharges my batteries :) No need to worry, "complacent" is not in my vocabulary, and probably not in John Cook's either. Yes, Obama is having a hard time of it, but a lot can change in a year, hopefully he can pull some magic, but I fear at this point it is going to take some "magic".
  47. SkS Weekly Digest #23
    @Albatross #4 Don't be complacent; a setback is not a loss and they've been cranking up the "another Little Ice Age is coming" publicity machine. If this is a bad winter and if next year is significantly cooler than the last few, expect them to shout victory from the rooftops. I trust it hasn't been lost on you that ALL but one of the original entrants in the US Republican leadership race switched from supporting to denying global warming?
  48. Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
    funglestrumpet @95: James Lovelock, the inventor of Gaia hypothesis, in his recent book "The revenge of Gaia", claims that overpopulation and tribal mentality of homo sapiens are the key causes of current "Gaia crisis". Further, James is a big proponent of nuclear energy, and asserts that if we don't re-embrace it, rather than burning fossils until exhaustion which is expected given "tribal nature", then Gaia will get rid of us. According to James, nucs and radiation is not a problem for nature (nuclear waste sites, AWA Chernobyl area, are beaming with plant and animal life) it is just human fear. So people got scared enough not to use nucs (yet) so they are still proliferating and killing Gaia's diversity. In that context, one could deduce an opinion that it's very bad your generation did prevent nuc war... BTW, that's not my opinion, but it can be the Lovelock's, although he didn't state it explicitly. However, tribal, selfish mentality of man seems to be correct assessment by Lovelock. And, as he argues, most of the past global problems (DDT poisoning, ozone hole, threat of nuc war) were resolved by people due to the fear the effects (loss of bald eagle - national emblem - Amer pride etc, skin cancer, radiation) that started to (or would) affect themselves rather than future generation or environment. The latest AGW problem is different: less tangible, and does not exist for selfish, tribal mentality. What we need IMO, is a big shakeup that changes that mentality. Otherwise, I can bet on BAU until fossils run out and PETM is in the tipping.
  49. Bert from Eltham at 12:22 PM on 8 November 2011
    Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    I thought that I understood climate science as I have a degree in Physics and worked in science for forty years. It was not until I carefully read all the information available on this site over a few weeks that I realised how many misconceptions and just plain ignorance I had on many aspects of climate science. It is difficult to comprehend the full picture even with an open mind. Coming armed with the half truths or completely erroneous information peddled by deniers would make this task almost impossible. My advice would be to ignore any information that is not attributable to the original published refereed science and start with a clean slate. Otherwise it all keeps going in confused circles which is what the purveyors of FUD want. It all reminds me of the old fable of the blind men who each attempted to describe an elephant by the bit they could each feel. Bert
    Moderator Response: [Sph] Typo fixed.

    Thanks for the rational and useful perspective.

    So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween,
    Rail on in utter ignorance
    Of what each other mean,
    And prate about an Elephant
    Not one of them has seen!
  50. Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 2
    Sphaerica - I'm not sure that grayman's issues are so much scientific as number related. One thing that some people seem to have trouble getting their heads around is the genuinely gigantic quantities involved. May not be true for him, but often is for people with these kinds of complaints about 'the science'. We talk often in percentages and trends and anomalies. The fact that the actual numbers themselves for the atmosphere, the oceans, the biosphere and the impacts of 7 billion humans are literally unimaginable for some people - and talking in numbers derived from numbers obscures that even further. grayman. The things that concern you should come down to 2 issues, one simple, one not. One. Physics may be a hard science in more ways than one, but the physics of the atmosphere are straightforward. Same energy in, less energy out, means more energy accumulating. You may want to spend some time sifting through radiative transfer equations and the like, but you don't have to. Most people don't. Two. Not so simple. Given that energy is accumulating, you're now down to measuring how much, where, when is it showing up. Or is it steadily changing the temperature of ice which might not reach melting point for a number of years yet. Is it warming in places we can't measure as well as we do our backyard temperature yet, like the deep oceans. Are we looking at the right things in the right places at the right times? How much more do we need to know to be sure we're on the right track - scientifically speaking. The result is down to you, me and everyone else to decide. In my view what we've got is good enough - in some respects absolutely astounding, others a bit marginal as yet. I don't send back a meal because the cauliflower's a bit pedestrian today when the rest of the plate is near perfect. I doubt you do either.

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