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Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
A proper link to that paper is Meehl 2009, Relative increase of record high maximum temperatures compared to record low minimum temperatures in the U.S. -
Camburn at 16:17 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
KR: The point you are missing is that we warmed back to the 1930's level. That is why I asked you to make your graph longer. I didn't move the goal posts, I asked you to look at long term climate. -
skywatcher at 16:16 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
On opinion polls, Camburn, you might be interested in this recent one, run by Republican firn Public Opinion Strategies. "Fully 71 percent indicate support for requiring reductions in carbon emissions, including a solid majority of Republican voters." [Sept 22nd] This Reuters poll shows "The percentage of Americans who believe the Earth has been warming rose to 83 percent from 75 percent last year in the poll conducted Sept 8-12." "Global warming could be an important issue in next year's election, because some 15 percent of voters see it as their primary concern". Camburn, do you have polls that support your point, because these ones from September completely contradict you. Source for record highs outpacing record lows in the US. At NCDC you can see the current pace of record highs vs record lows is 2:1 for the past year (as it was over the past decade too), reaching 5:1 in July. -
Camburn at 16:13 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Spaerica: I posted what is known as far as energy reserves of oil. I won't even get into the coal, lets say of just the Powder River Basin. I have no fear about renewables. I know their costs as our elec co-op owns part of a windfarm. Even with the subsidies, the cost of wind in a class 5 wind area, and I have a windfarm approx 14 miles west of me, is approx 2.3 times the cost of our coal supplied generating stations. Speaking from my operation, if you raise the cost of energy even more, it will only cause more contraction of food output and higher prices. This ripples throughout the economy. There are only so many dollars to go around. -
Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Camburn - The graph, and the paper involved, is Meehl 2009, as described in the link (which I'll note should be clear if you read it). The period of that study is 1950 onwards. I will point out that it clearly demonstrates that record highs exceed record lows over the last 35 years. Before that, in the 1940's to mid 1970's, during a cooling phase, lows exceeded highs - as expected. Looking at the historic records, I would also expect highs to also exceed lows from 1910 to 1940, with more variation before that. I answered your question - "Documentation that the highs are outnumbering the lows in the USA please?". You then moved the goalposts. That's quite disappointing, Camburn, trying to change the question. But your original question is well answered, and your assertion contradicted, by the data I pointed to. -
Camburn at 16:06 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
adelady: The current drought in the USA in the southwest, south central is pretty normal. The drought of the 1950's in that area was more severe than the current drought. The La Nina has stengthened the drought this year, and there is worry that this will turn into a two year drought because of NOAA's forcast of another La Nina. -
actually thoughtful at 16:04 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Camburn, you write of oceanic pH: "the science is very cut and dried with high certainty." This is also true of climate change (it is the same CO2 - from man's actions - that is to blame in both cases). The science is settled and the solutions are obvious. The latest research shows that renewable energy systems grow the economy (beyond the research documented at this site, look at Germany and China - the two world leaders in renewable energy). So please explain why all patriotic Americans/world citizens shouldn't be working/installing/promoting renewable energy now? Or provide links to peer reviewed papers demonstrating that it is economically adverse to decarbonize our energy supply. -
Bob Lacatena at 16:04 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
28, Camburn, Your need to tie short-sighted economic fear to a need to continue BAU (or, worse, start frantically trying to tap shale deposits) points to a major disconnect in your thinking. There is no reason why transitions to other energy sources could not only be done smoothly and efficiently, but economically. There's no reason why it shouldn't cost less to switch energy sources rather than more. Your unreasoning fear of doing so is inexplicable and unjustified. -
Camburn at 16:00 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Kr@27. Make you graph longer please. At least start at 1900. -
adelady at 15:58 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
actually thoughtful "I believe we will see record temperatures, even with a La Nina. But the El Ninos in the US tend to put impressive weather on display." Texas and the southwest suffer mightily under La Nina conditions. Just look at the records tumbling week by week this year. Or are Americans more impressed by vision of drought and wildfire in exotic Australia when El Nino bites. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:58 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
25, actually thoughtful, My understanding of the biology is that the color change comes when the trees stop producing chlorophyll, which gives leaves their green color. The remaining pigments as the chlorophyll vanishes are what give them their color, although they've always been there. The leaves fall, on the other hand, when the veins close up and trap the sugars in the leaves and promote the production of anthocyanins. Scientists do not entirely understand what triggers these changes, but certainly temperature and length of day are two factors. Taking a systemic point of view, it behooves the tree to keep producing chlorophyll for as long as it is effectively "feeding" the plant. If temperatures drop or days get too short, it's not worth the effort anymore. My supposition is that the warmer weather could be leading trees to be able to hang onto their chlorophyll longer, but it's a losing battle because even if the temperatures stay warm, the days start to get too short. At the same time, there are other reasons for losing their leaves, as we in the Northeast have just seen. The early, heavy, wet snow at the end of October has caused a huge number of power outages, because snow usually falls after the leaves are off of the trees. The branches are not strong or pliable enough to hold the weight of the snow that can be supported by a canopy of leaves. The result is a lot of broken branches and felled trees, which in turn fall across roads and onto power lines. So the period during which the chlorophyll has dried up but the leaves are still on the trees is shortened (i.e shorter periods of fall colors) while the leaves are staying on the trees longer. Finally, the chlorophyll starts to dry up and the leaves start their shut down process soon after. I'm not a plant biologist. This is my understanding and supposition only. But one way or the other, this fall is unusually warm in the Northeast, and the trees seem to be responding to that in a very, very unusual way. -
Camburn at 15:58 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Sphaerica: A link to a 2011 poll concering environmental issues Environmental Issues Poll USA As far as fossil fuels, the USA has so many fossil fuel sources that have not been developed that this is really not an issue. The Rocky Mountain shale has approx 2 trillion barrels of oil, the Bakken has 25 billion barrels, and the Canadians have approx 2 trillion barrels in just the tar sands. As far as military, the spending for the offensive military of the USA is complety utterly nuts. President Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex, but most people are too young to remember, nor heed his warning. As far as moral standing, instead of having folks such as Solyandra in the news, I would much prefer having thorium salts in the news. That we have developed a reactor that is safe, efficient, and best of all, no co2 or very little co2 emmitted. This has been an integral part of my solutions for years, but I get a lot of resitance which I have never understood. The USA is close to a meltdown right now. In fact, the world as a whole is close to a meltdown. The sad fact is, when the economics of the world is precarious, the development of new technologies does not proceed at a pace that is condusive to well being. -
Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Camburn - "The weather in the US is not the result of AGW. At least that is what the experts tell us. Documentation that the highs are outnumbering the lows in the USA please?" Well, you could look at Record high temperatures versus record lows:
Figure 2: observations of the ratio of record highs to record lows each year (dots), solid line is a smoothed curve fit.
The ratio increase towards and over 2.0 clearly illustrates this point. Your assertions, unfortunately, continue to be unsupportable.
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Bob Lacatena at 15:48 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
22, Camburn, Have you considered that both climate change and increasing competition for dwindling fossil fuel resources is putting the U.S. on a collision course with complete melt down? That the economic and military and moral standing of the U.S.A. is at stake, simply for the sake of short-sighted, selfish thinking? Why in the world wouldn't and shouldn't the U.S.A. wean itself from dependence on fossil fuels, and so secure its own long term independence and prosperity? -
actually thoughtful at 15:47 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Sphaerica - I grant you the point that the trees are turning later (much later). But the skipping the yellows and reds bits, as I recall, is due to how quickly the frosts come, the amount of sugar in the tree and other not-directly-climate-change issues. Or can you educate me about how it ties in? -
Camburn at 15:46 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Spaerica: The 50% pertains to President Obama's approval rating. The last poll about climate that I remember had 53% of Americans concerned, but as part of that poll they asked to rate other concerns and climate did not make the top 20. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:46 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
22, Camburn, Please produce your opinion polls/statistics. You need to support your assertions. Also, politics is open for discussion as far as climate change and energy solutions only. It's not open season. -
Camburn at 15:43 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
skywatcher@17: I have posted links to NOAA Climate Slueths on this site. The weather in the US is not the result of AGW. At least that is what the experts tell us. Documentation that the highs are outnumbering the lows in the USA please? With statistical signifance as well. Thank you. actually thoughtful@18: Being we can discuss politics, and I am from the USA, real clear politics has ongoing polling data. It is what it is. I think the USA is in exaustion mode and I don't like that. Our debt is rising so fast that it is akin to Greece. The trajectory of the graph of debt to GDP is not substainable. People recognize this economic reality and it creates uncertainty. When you add one more uncertainty, climate, to the multitude that are presently here, and it is a future uncertainty, people will put that on the back burner. Yahoo news had a blurb about the protests in Washington today. Read the comments, they are informative of the mood. Yes, over-fishing is just one problem of the ocean. But the fast change in PH is an immediate problem and the science is very cut and dried with high certainty. That makes it an easy sell to most people. -
actually thoughtful at 15:42 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Too bad about the La Nina vs. El Nino. An El Nino in an election year would put the issue front and center. I believe we will see record temperatures, even with a La Nina. But the El Ninos in the US tend to put impressive weather on display. I for one would love to see the Republicans argue that global warming is not happening as they campaign (spin) during the extremes of an El Nino summer. That would put the issue front and center, and force Republicans to address the issue. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:38 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Separately... I don't know if anyone is actually measuring things from year to year, but... it is now November 6 and a lot of trees here (Massachusetts) are still green. By now more than half shouldn't even have any leaves, and they should almost all have turned. The trees did start turning yesterday and today, but they are skipping the yellows and reds and instead going straight to green-brown. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:30 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
17, skywatcher, The big problem with Americans is that the MSM has failed. They ignore climate change, for the most part, unless it's something juicy that will help their ratings. Basically, the U.S. media has gone two routes. Most of them are commercial enterprises focused on making a buck (or just plain staying afloat). As such, there is no responsible reporting or selection of material. Everything is sensationalism. Respectable journalism is dead. The flip side is Faux News, which both is out to make a buck from their chosen shills (the fiercely and ignorantly right wing middle class and lower middle class) as well as to push a particular agenda, i.e. right wing "values." This means that they attack and misreport climate change religiously. The end result is that Americans are more concerned about other topics. There is concern about climate change, but not immediate concern. And I question Camburn's 50% number until he demonstrates some proof. I've seen the numbers on climate change dropping, but nothing like 50% thinking negatively about climate change (although I note that Camburn did not clarify what that 50% actually think). -
actually thoughtful at 15:27 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Camburn - sadly for humans on this planet - it doesn't matter what an opinion poll says: objective reality exists. And the scientific method is our best window on that objective reality. And of course that process tells us the world is warming, and that man is to blame. Now, while you are right to be concerned about the ocean ecosystem - it is going to collapse with or without the change in pH (yes there are other problems besides global warming - try over-fishing as just one). But oceans provide 5% of the global food supply. You should worry more about the flooding in the rice belt. Climate change will show no mercy - all our systems are adapted to the current climate, and the new regime will be much less forgiving, much less productive and much more volatile. Earth's carrying capacity for humans is probably well below 7 billion with currently deployed technology. I believe we are in an overshoot right now, with global warming being only one of the ways the interconnected systems of the earth are automatically acting to reduce the human population. Not happy about any of that, but I think it is important to focus on the core problem from time to time. -
skywatcher at 15:23 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
#12: "As far as an El Nino breaking temp records, it would have to be one heck of a El Nino." 2010 was hottest/tied hottest/damn close to hottest (depending on temperature record) with a moderate El Nino, during the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. In the intervening years, solar forcing has at last risen on the way to a peak in the next few years and CO2 forcing continues to rise. It's going to take one heck of a small El Nino to break the temperature record. There, fixed it for you. Equatorial volcanic paroxysms aside, we'll be seeing new temperature records quite soon enough. As for the US versus the world, I can only shake my head in amazement that you are unable to look beyond your own borders. The effects of warming are being felt all over the US through some remarkable weather extremes, be they snowstorms driven by high precipitation, large floods or desperate droughts. Around the world, news events that are part of the growing story abound, Thailand, Italy and Central America being the latest extreme flooding victims. Clearly you'd like those to continue because in your opinion, it's cooling in the US? We can be sure that US daily record high temperatures will continue to far outstrip US daily record lows (cooling? sure...), and also equally sure that US Republicans will ignore the problem until it's pretty much too late to straightforwardly solve it. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:21 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
14, Camburn, I'm an American, too. Big whoop. Can you support your 50% statistic? -
Camburn at 15:18 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Mr. Mackie presented one of the best series on ocean ph I have ever read. I can only commend him on the highest order for this. -
Camburn at 15:13 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Sphaerica: This is the opinion of over 50% of my countrymen/women as it pertains to the USA. The last poll had jobs as number one, climate didn't even score in the top 20. I am expressing what the majority of Americans feel at this time. Concerning the current administration, the last poll had it at 32% approval of economic policy. -
scaddenp at 15:07 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
In short, utterly short-sighted, narrow-as-your-nose thinking from nation that you look for leadership from. I dont think you have a hope of predicting whether there will be El Nino or not in 2012 but I find it depressing that you have to hope for one to get any kind of action. When you can only get action during an upswing it makes you lament. "Oh its, warming" - no, change policy, its cooling, - no wait its warming again". This is mind-boggling unreasonable - send everyone back to school. -
Camburn at 15:06 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
As far as an El Nino breaking temp records, it would have to be one heck of a El Nino. As far as AGW, I have never been to concerned about that. I am concerned about the lowering PH of the oceans tho. We have had periods within the Holocene as warm as the projections from the models and survived quit well. In fact, one period was called the Holocene Optimum. But we have NOT had periods of warmth and the lowering of the PH of the oceans within the Holocene. The extra co2 benifits plant growth, but is very detrimental to the oceans. I do not think the carrying capacity of the planet can continue if the effects on sea life is as currently presented as the oceans are still a major source of food. -
Camburn at 14:51 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
scaddenp: I am sure there will be more El Nino's, but not in 2012 as the prediction is for a moderate to strong La Nina. There are so many things wrong with the current administration it is hard to start. Perry is at the bottom of the pack as far as Republicans. The flavor of the week is Cain, but he is getting out of flavor now. As far as climate, the US has been cooling so that is a hard sell. And the current economic climate because of the spending and increased debt of the Feds is so bad that people are concerned how they are going to eat tomorrow and not worried about next week.Response:[DB] "As far as climate, the US has been cooling so that is a hard sell."
Straw man. You say climate but mean weather/season. It is November in the USA so the temperatures do their seasonal trend downwards. Seasonal cycle superimposed on the long-term rise in global (not just the US) temperatures.
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scaddenp at 14:46 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
So Camburn, are you trying to say that you dont think there will be any more El Nino's and so we dont need to worry about global warming any more? It looks to me like only a moderate El Nino will enough to break all surface and satellite temperature records. If you dont like the current administration do you think an alternative are going to get real about climate? (isnt Perry leading runner?). -
Camburn at 14:18 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
As an American I am deeply unhappy with the current administration. As far as El Nino, it will be a La Nina instead. -
renewable guy at 13:32 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
I'm used to thinking about co2 only and when I see 48 gigatons it threw me off. I'm assuming 48 gigatons is all ghg's combined. -
actually thoughtful at 13:31 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
I am fervently (feverishly?) hoping for a big fat El Nino during the US election cycle in 2012. Nothing like a little heat to add a little heat to the discussion. Deeply unhappy with the irrationality of my fellow Americans. -
Bob Loblaw at 13:23 PM on 7 November 2011Watts, Surface Stations and BEST
Muon: an IR thermometer can only measure remote objects (e.g., the dead grass lawn) to the extent that the IR radiation received from the object is transmitted through the intervening atmosphere. No problem when the object is 1-2m away. More of a problem for distant objects, as you get more and more of the atmospheric IR in the path. It would depend on the exact range of wavelengths used, and such things at atmospheric humidity. A really long path? Yes, you'd get something largely dependent on air temperature. If you still have the IR thermometer, try pointing it at the sky some time. Compare clear skies to overcast, and high overcast to low overcast or fog. If you don't know what to expect, try guessing first. I'll hold off on clues. As for the "equilibrium temperature", I think you're missing something. The surface (the dividing plane between ground and air) has no mass, so it can't store heat. All solar radiation absorbed must go somewhere - either emitted as IR, transferred into the air as thermal energy, conducted into the ground as thermal energy, or used to evaporate water. The system is always balancing energy input and removal. If you have steady solar input, and steady all other fluxes, you can get a constant surface temperature - and it will still be much warmer than the air temperature. It's the same energy balance I described for the temperature sensor. If I get a chance in the next day or two, I'll try to dig out some old research data of mine that has actual measurements of fluxes, and temperature gradients. -
Bibliovermis at 13:01 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
I suspect that the denialist response to being marginalized will be to claim that nobody ever doubted that mankind was responsible for the warming. The contention was always over resolution methods, with geoengineering projects on top of Business As Usual (BAU) trotted out. The cartoon show Futurama showed that humanity "solved" global warming by dropping mountainous slabs of extraterrestrial ice into the oceans every year, starting in 2063. Youtube: Futurama - None Like It Hot It's policy as described by nursery rhymes. I know an old lady who swallowed a spider, That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly, I don't know why she swallowed the fly, I guess she'll die. -
actually thoughtful at 12:55 PM on 7 November 2011Global Surface Temperature: Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 1
Dana1981 - great post! I think it would be even more powerful if the animation ended showing the real trend AND the denier version. The visual contrast, at the same time, would be stunning. (Of course it would be so fun it would need a way to play it again). I would love to be able to link to that when I am whopping the deniers on Politico. -
adelady at 12:49 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
"When will we be able to take really effective action?" 30+ years ago. What we're now faced with is selecting from the least worst processes and outcomes, rather than the good, the best, the economical, the gradual or the preferable. The best analogy I can think of at the moment is the River Murray. We knew we were in deep doo-doo the day in 1981 the mouth of the river closed 'despite' all the management of flows and levels. SA irrigators started modernising and restricting their take from the river while those further upstream increased their take and kept on with their lax (or lack of) technology. (It's a good idea to shield your face from the flying spittle when you talk to SA farmers recounting their horror stories of visiting eastern state orchards with their primitive open channels blithely evaporating tonnes of water.) 30 years later? Still arguing. Still proposing that upstream irrigators should be able to take more than scientists say is the absolute maximum they should be allowed if the river is to survive. And they'll still be arguing if they get their way. The next drought reducing the river to a filthy trickle will be described, again, as the fickleness of nature. A bit of a parallel, within a single country, to the North-South divide we see unfolding with climate impacts largely caused by northern hemisphere countries being felt first and worst by those nearer the equator. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 12:29 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Le Monde have run the Down Escalator graphic & the indicators of warming graphis. Cool! -
Lloyd Flack at 12:06 PM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
When will we be able to take really effective action? I fear not for about twenty years. I think after continued warming and some nasty effects denialists will have become a spent force. But even after the denialists are marginalized (We won't completly get rid of them.) there will be problems about what should be done. The danger then will be panic measures and measures made more to make a staement of concern. These can unnecessarily push up the cost of mittigation. We will need to make careful and realistic calculations of the cost and benefit of mittigation measures. The denialist concern that mittigation measures could provide a means for special interests to rip off the populace is reasonable. I think we just need to be on guard against them. I think self righteousness on the part of climate change activists can make them vulnerable to exploitation by such interests. -
dhogaza at 11:22 AM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
Link to LeMonde. It's a blog post, actually, and the skeptical science graphic (and link to skeptical science) is on page two ... nice! -
dhogaza at 11:16 AM on 7 November 2011Sober up: world running out of time to keep planet from over-heating
The excellent graphic here ended up in Le Monde's coverage (credited) of the Nature paper discussed above. -
Tom Curtis at 11:09 AM on 7 November 2011Eschenbach and McIntyre - Seeing the BEST part of the Satellite Temperature Record?
Returning to Camburn's original point @3, I would like to note that the trends for the TLS channel are: From 1978 to Dec 2009: -0.327 degrees per decade (from the graph above) From Jan 1999 to Dec 2009: -0.165 degrees per decade. I would like to note that: a) While the trend has approximately halved (reasons for which are off topic) it has certainly not "stopped" as claimed by Camburn; b) The period of the 1999-2009 trend is probably too short to be statistically significant; and c) The trend is still of the same approximate magnitude as tropospheric trends, though opposite in sign. Therefore any supposition that decreases in stratospheric temperatures have ceased to cause the TMT channel to underestimate increases in tropospheric temperatures is entirely unwarranted. TLS data is available here, under the MSU_AMSU_v.2 folder, and the monthly folder: ftp://ftp.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/smcd/emb/mscat/data/ -
Rob Painting at 11:08 AM on 7 November 2011SkS Weekly Digest #23
I find the 2nd panel of that cartoon particularly funny, and accurate! Cheers Muon. -
muoncounter at 10:59 AM on 7 November 2011SkS Weekly Digest #23
Speaking of cartoons, I hope everyone enjoys this from the Sunday New York Times:
-- full size source
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muoncounter at 10:52 AM on 7 November 2011Watts, Surface Stations and BEST
Bob, I suppose the IR reading is an approximation. I pointed the IR sensor at the furthest point from where I stood. The measured spot spreads out with distance; the temperature reading did not vary with what I pointed at. And I checked it with a local weather observation; they reported an air temp of 104F. Equilibrium temperature? A spot on the ground in the sun receives solar energy faster than the ground can conduct heat to adjacent spots in the shade. In such a case the ground temperature reading at one spot is much higher than its surroundings. That's not equilibrium. -
skywatcher at 09:42 AM on 7 November 2011Eschenbach and McIntyre - Seeing the BEST part of the Satellite Temperature Record?
Trying to ignore the off-topic parts of Camburn's points, I'll concentrate on this statement from #18: "We can observe that in the past 20 years the [stratospheric] temperature has been stable, within error bars." With the same data, the strong long-term decline in mind, and the closeness of the data to the fitted declining trends, this sentence can equally be restated as: "We can observe that in the past 20 years the [stratospheric] temperature has been declining, within error bars." Camburn is going up the down escalator here. -
Bob Loblaw at 08:05 AM on 7 November 2011Global Surface Temperature: Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 1
I think I've realized what bothers me about the "skeptics" version of "the warming has stopped". I think it is a variation of the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle. The question I ask is "what warming?" a) the warming due to human-induced increases in CO2? b) the warming due to a) plus all other factors that affect global temperatures? The temperature records shows b). Attribution studies attempt to tease out a) from b). Theory tells us that b) will not rise continuously at a steady rate: it will have fluctuations imposed on the long-term trend that is caused by a). Now here's the rub: the "skeptics" look at variations in b) and make statements like "the warming has stopped", but what they are trying to imply (whether they believe it or not, or whether they are just employing FUD), is that noting a change in b) means that a) has stopped. The word "warming" does not mean the same thing in a) and b) - that's the undistributed middle in the logical fallacy. To make an analogy, let's say we have a bathtub full of water. At one end, we have a small heater. At the other end, we measure temperature. Periodically, someone stirs up the tub. Over time, we see the temperature rise slowly, but it doesn't rise evenly because the mixing isn't uniform. Let's say someone periodically adds some ice at the thermometer end - that causes periodic drops in observed temperature. We know that the heater at the far end is still adding energy slowly warming the bath, but the "skeptics" want us to believe that the occasional drop in temperature (or decrease in the heating rate) at one end means that the heater at the other end has stopped - or even never existed at all. There is also (yet another) inconsistency in the skeptic position here: they often argue the strawman that climatologists ignore other factors when attributing the global temperature rise to CO2. Yet that is exactly what the "skeptics" are doing when they pretend that short-term fluctuations are evidence against the current scientific understanding of global temperature and the effects of CO2. -
Bob Loblaw at 06:23 AM on 7 November 2011Watts, Surface Stations and BEST
Muon: 138 F for surface temperature with an air temperature of 108 F is not at all a surprise to me. Yes, the gradients in that 2m height can be that large, and they can be sustained. Two questions: - what exactly do you mean by "equilibrium temperature"? - how did you measure air temperature with the IR thermometer? It's easy to envisage taking the temperature of the dead grass with one: point and shoot. But what exactly did you point the IR thermometer at to get air temperature? -
jatufin at 05:09 AM on 7 November 2011Watts, Surface Stations and BEST
I was a "weatherman" in army some 20 years ago. And these measurements were what we did. Our post was part of national network (civilian bureau), so we delivered SYNOPses every three hours. In my later life I've not been involved in climate science, but I'm proud those few measurements I (and my fellows) did long ago, are still part of the global dataset. We were trained not to make basic mistakes, and the issues about station locations were discussed. I feel always insulted when these accusations of "bias" or solid stupidity arise. I'm sorry for real professionals, who must take this kind of crap nowadays. -
cce at 04:44 AM on 7 November 2011Eschenbach and McIntyre - Seeing the BEST part of the Satellite Temperature Record?
GHG induced stratospheric cooling is most prevalent at about 50 km, roughly corresponding to the top line (TTS) on the STAR graph. Unfortunately, the SSU instruments failed in 2005 so there is no data since then. As others have said, the cooling was reduced after CFCs were phased out in the mid '90s. Also, the higher altitudes have larger solar components, so the solar cycle tends to interfere with any eyeball-based analysis.
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