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Dikran Marsupial at 20:45 PM on 23 October 2011The sun is getting hotter
cjshaker Yes, that is essentially correct, the sun was about 30% dimmer when the Earth first formed 4.6 billion years ago. This is well known. However that process of stellar evolution is so slow it has no effect on the climate on timescales of thousands of years. The only real relevance of this to the AGW is that it explains how a snowball Earth could ocurr with high levels of atmospheric CO2, but that is a subject for a different thread. Note the climate has been much warmer in the past, even with the dimmer Sun, the most feasible explanation is the higher levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere at the time. This is knwn as the Faint Young Sun Paradox. I note that you have been very active today posting a large number of papers for discussion on a wide range of topics. Some constructive criticism: this gives the impression that you are not really interested in the answers, because very few people would be able to hold a worthwhile discussion on so many topics simultaneously. I would advise in future that you stick to a small number of topics at any one time so that you can have an in-depth discussion that science demands. -
cjshaker at 20:08 PM on 23 October 2011CO2 has been higher in the past
Was curious, so I Googled 'geological CO2 history'. Found the graph on the top of page 92 in this paper showing the decline in CO2 over the past 160 million years. Am I correct in assuming that this is showing a decrease in atmospheric CO2 over that time period? Where is the CO2 going over geologic time? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692169/pdf/YAKVJWBFM62NRFN4_353_83.pdf Thank you, Chris Shaker -
chris at 19:58 PM on 23 October 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
That's a rather medieval style of argumentation RW1 - leading questions and anthropomorphism! So no, the climate isn't "trying" to do anything. It responds to forcings according to the laws of physics. Likewise the answer to your repeated "is it just coincidence?" is, in each case, "no, it's physics". RW1, the "controller" is very well understood. It's temperature. The water vapour content of the atmosphere rises as the atmospheric temperature rises. That is very well understood physics, and has been measured repeatedly in the real world. No leading questions about "coincidences" required! Your "mechanism" lacks both physics and evidence. One really needs to consider the response of the atmosphere in terms of humidity. I'm sure you agree that the absolute humidity of the atmosphere has risen as a result of greenhoue-induced warming. That's uncontestable - we can measure this. How about "relative humidity"? There is some evidence that the water vapour content of the atmosphere might maintain approximately constant relative humidity in a warming world. In such a situation there's no reason to expect the levels of clouds to increase since the atmosphere can maintain increased water vapour without enhanced condensation into clouds. If the water vapour content of the atmosphere rises (i.e. the observed increase in absolute humidity) at a level that is somewhat lower than required to maintain constant relative humidity, then the formation of clouds is more likely to be suppressed. That's consistent with the so far rather limited real world evidence. There's zero real world evidence that clouds increase in a warming world. On the contrary, the limited evidence supports a small positive cloud feedback in a warming world (see the top article of this thread). -
cjshaker at 19:54 PM on 23 October 2011Ice age predicted in the 70s
In Regards to the Response to item #42, the following articles may be of interest: Controversial New Climate Change Data: Is Earth's Capacity to Absorb CO2 Much Greater Than Expected? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110141842.htm Mathematical Errors Overestimate Persistence of CO2 in Atmosphere http://www.suite101.com/news/royal-society-humiliated-by-global-warming-basic-math-error-a296746 Chris ShakerModerator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Neither of these articles is of relevance to a discussion of predictions of an impending ice age made in th 70s. Please familiarise yourself with the comments policy, off-topic posts are normally deleted in order to keep the discussion focussed. I'll happily discuss the first article with you on a more appropriate thread. Note that the second article does not appear to be supported by any peer-reviewed science, unlike the statement by the Royal Society, which suggests some skepticism is in order. -
cjshaker at 19:51 PM on 23 October 2011Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored
The Climate Research Unit finally released some of the climate data which had been requested under FOI. They claimed that they could not release the data under the FOI, because the countries supplying the data would not allow it, yet they did release most of the data WITHOUT getting that permission, except for the data from Poland? http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/07/at_long_last_cru_releases_clim.html Found the comments interesting Chris Shaker -
cjshaker at 19:48 PM on 23 October 2011Ice age predicted in the 70s
Found a much more recent paper, which is talking about a return to ice age conditions in the near future From the summary, published in 2000: "The solar-output model allows speculation on global climatic variations in the next 10,000 years. Extrapolation of the solar-output model shows a return to little-ice-age conditions by A.D. 2400–2900 followed by a rapid return to altithermal conditions during the middle of the third millennium A.D. This altithermal period may be similar to the Holocene Maximum that began nearly 3,800 years ago. The solar output model suggests that, approximately 20,000 years after it began, the current interglacial period may come to an end and another glacial period may begin." http://www.pnas.org/content/97/23/12433.full Chris Shaker -
Riccardo at 19:47 PM on 23 October 2011Climate sensitivity is low
cjshaker I'm a bit surprised to see this old and debunked Shaviv paper pop up again. Honestly, I do not find it that much interesting. -
cjshaker at 19:42 PM on 23 October 2011The sun is getting hotter
A believer in CO2 was telling me that the sun's output is now 30% higher than it was when life evolved on the earth. Is that true? Thank you, Chris Shaker -
Riccardo at 19:40 PM on 23 October 2011Should The Earth Be Cooling?
cjshaker there are still a lot of things to work out before the so called early human impact can be reliably assessed. It is still at the stage of hypothesis, will see. As for Columbus, let me be pedantic. In the link you provide they say "may have helped augment Europe’s so-called Little Ice Age" and not "was responsible for the cooling" as you say. -
cjshaker at 19:20 PM on 23 October 2011Corals are resilient to bleaching
J.E.N. Veron, formerly at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, says that the world's reefs face possible catastrophic losses again, due to acidification. He claims that some of the previous coral extinction events were most likely caused by ocean acidification. He also says "Corals have an intimate symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae, zooxanthellae, which live in their cells and provide the photosynthetic fuel for them to grow and reefs to form. The research showed that this Ecosystems can recover from all sorts of abuse, and coral reefs are no exception. relationship can be surprisingly fragile if corals are exposed to high light conditions at the same time as above-normal water temperatures, because the algae produce toxic levels of oxygen, and excessive levels of oxygen are toxic to most animal life. Under these conditions, corals must expel the zooxanthellae, bleach, and probably die or succumb to the toxin and definitely die. A tough choice, one they have not had to make at any time in their long genetic history." I'm not sure I should believe the last sentence, given that the climate reached a few (several?) degrees C warmer than today during the previous interglacial... Chris Shaker -
cjshaker at 19:13 PM on 23 October 2011Corals are resilient to bleaching
It appears that J.E.N. Veron's former colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science are saying that the Great Barrier Reef is not doing so badly "Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) outbreaks and storm damage were responsible for more coral loss during this period than either bleaching or disease despite two mass bleaching events and an increase in the incidence of coral disease. While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980's suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995. Instead, fluctuations in coral cover at subregional scales (10–100 km), driven mostly by changes in fast-growing Acroporidae, occurred as a result of localized disturbance events and subsequent recovery." http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017516 Chris Shaker -
cjshaker at 19:09 PM on 23 October 2011Should The Earth Be Cooling?
According to Professors Reddiman and Kaplan, our climate should be cooling, if not for mankind's CO2 emissions. They say that our CO2 has been modifying the climate since the beginning of agriculture, well before industrialization http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110325/full/news.2011.184.html They also believe that Columbus was responsible for the cooling during the Little Ice Age http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335168/title/Columbus_blamed_for_Little_Ice_Age Chris Shaker -
cjshaker at 18:39 PM on 23 October 2011Climate sensitivity is low
You may be interested in Professor Shaviv's writings about climate sensitivity. He explains why he comes up with a lower number http://sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity From: http://sciencebits.com/about "Prof. Nir J. Shaviv, who is a member of the Racah Institute of Physics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. According to PhysicaPlus: "...his research interests cover a wide range of topics in astrophysics, most are related to the application of fluid dynamics, radiation transfer or high energy physics to a wide range of objects - from stars and compact objects to galaxies and the early universe. His studies on the possible relationships between cosmic rays intensity and the Earth's climate, and the Milky Way's Spiral Arms and Ice Age Epochs on Earth were widely echoed in the scientific literature, as well as in the general press." Chris Shaker -
gpwayne at 17:10 PM on 23 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
I didn't realise that Judith Curry was a co-author. She writes pretty sensibly about the experience, publication and the results in her blog, concluding: "Although the results of the analysis aren’t particularly surprising relative to previous analyses, I think the BEST project is very important given the importance of the surface temperature data set and the problems that have been associated with the CRU and NASA data sets, not to mention their disagreement. The BEST group is comprised of some extremely distinguished scientists (including Nobel Prize awardee Saul Perlmutter), and this topic has benefitted greatly from the examination of this problem by physicists and statisticians who were prepared to take a fresh look at this problem. I am honored to have been invited to participate in this study, which I think was conducted very well". Berkeley Surface Temperatures: Released -
chriskoz at 16:06 PM on 23 October 2011Test your climate knowledge in free online course
SLR is a long term process lasting several centuries up to a millenium until equilibrium is reached with respect to melting of Greenland & Antarctica, as we discussed here. What rise we see now in XXI century may actually be just 30cm, so they may be correct. However, from the paleo history (e.g. PETM) we can find out that for a given amount of CO2, equilibrium SLR rise should be higher. We just don't know how much we've committed already and where the tipping point is. Even if wee're past TP, I am still optimistic: 100y is a lot of time and poeple may learn how to "cool-down" the globe before the land ice starts collapsing in XXII century or so. -
RW1 at 15:35 PM on 23 October 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
lancelot, So while RW1 has not proposed a mechanism," The mechanism is the whole of the atmospheric water cycle (ground state water -> evaporation -> water vapor -> clouds -> precipitation -> ground state water), which is the primary way the planet's energy balance and ultimately the globally averaged surface temperature is maintained despite such a large degree of local, regional, seasonal hemispheric and even sometimes globally averaged variability. In general, mechanistically, when clouds are increasing the climate is too warm and trying to cool (more or denser clouds are exposed to space, reflecting more of the Sun's energy) and when clouds are decreasing the climate is too cool and trying to warm (fewer clouds lets in more of the Sun's energy). If water vapor is the primary amplifier of warming, as claimed, what then is the controller? If not clouds via there ability to reflect incoming solar energy and precipitate out the water from the atmosphere, then what? Does anyone think it's just a coincidence that energy from the Sun drives evaporation of water? Is it just coincidence that evaporated water removes heat from the surface, condenses to form clouds and the clouds reflect the sun’s energy? Is it just a coincidence that the water precipitated out of the atmosphere emanates from clouds? -
muoncounter at 12:04 PM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Sphaerica#212: "If you have some sort of sink that takes most of the anthro CO2" Problem solved. A new natural sink is emerging before our very eyes. A place where the low salinity surface waters ... are undersaturated with respect to CO2 in the atmosphere and the region has the potential to take up atmospheric CO2, although presently suppressed. This marvelous new sink for CO2 has tripled over the last 3 decades. Just what the doctor ordered! -
SoundOff at 11:44 AM on 23 October 2011Test your climate knowledge in free online course
Overall it’s a nice Climate 101 introduction. Regular SkS readers should easily ace all the end-of-section quizzes. One imbedded question about further sea level rise by 2100 tripped me up. Their right answers seem too low to me, either 30 or 50 cm. Based on my Sks and other readings I predicted much higher - 100 cm. They admit their right answers to this question are somewhat uncertain though. -
Bob Lacatena at 11:20 AM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
211, Bob, I'm not sure I understand. If you have some sort of sink that takes most of the anthro CO2, then it also has to take most of the natural CO2 as well. But if the rise in CO2 is primarily from this unknown natural source, then for that natural sink to be taking most of the anthro CO2, it has to also take proportionally more (i.e. most of) the natural CO2. That means that in order to have raised atmospheric CO2 levels by 100 ppm while overwhelming this mysterious natural sink that has sucked "most" of the anthro CO2 out of the air, then that mysterious natural CO2 source must be absolutely huge! A whole order of magnitude greater than the hundreds of gigatons of CO2 we've generated by burning fossil fuels. What the heck is that source? [My own conjecture is that an alien race is burning their own fossil fuels, but using special teleportation technology to deposit their CO2 in our atmosphere.] -
jmsully at 09:55 AM on 23 October 2011Test your climate knowledge in free online course
Aced the first quiz and I didn't even view the lesson! I did think the questions were fair and didn't try to trip you up, as so many of these online quizzes do. They were well phrased and clear about the information they were looking for. But hey, I was watching (American) Football on TV at the same time and I do have priorities (go MSU Bobcats!) -
Bob Loblaw at 07:42 AM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
re: Sphaerica @208 You've left the loophole that the unknown sink that surely must exist (by denier argument) is only taking most of the anthropogenic CO2, not all of it. Thus, the unknown natural source is also affected by this same sink, so point 3) is avoided. To close this loophole we can look at quantities. Current thought is that half the anthropogenic CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. Let's assume that the proportion is larger: - if 3/4 is removed, then 3/4 of the unknown natural source is also removed, and this means that the unknown natural source is of the same size as the anthropogenic source. Corollary: half the rise is anthropogenic. - if 80% is removed, then 80% of the unknown natural source is also removed, and this means that the unknown natural source has to be 1.5X larger than the anthropogenic source. Corollary: 40% of the rise is anthropogenic. - if 90% is removed, then 90% of the unknown natural source is also removed, and this means that the unknown natural source has to be 4X larger than the anthropogenic source. Corollary: 20% of the rise is anthropogenic. - if 95% is removed, then 95% of the unknown natural source is also removed, and this means that the unknown natural source has to be 9X larger than the anthropogenic source. Corollary: 10% of the rise is anthropogenic. - if 99% is removed, then 99% of the unknown natural source is also removed, and this means that the unknown natural source has to be 49X larger than the anthropogenic source. Corollary: 2% of the rise is anthropogenic. To get to a point where most of the rise is not anthropogenic in origin, and (to keep consistency) there is an unknown natural source that plays by the same rules as the anthropogenic one, you have to posit a huge, undiscovered natural source that nobody has noticed. As they say, that dog won't hunt. -
Dikran Marsupial at 07:26 AM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai wrote: "And yes, I claim it is the problems with a too weak sink of CO2, not with extra emission." However, the data show that the natural sinks are stronger than the natural sources and have been steadily strengthening relative to sources for at least the last fifty years. SO the idea that the sinks are too weak doesn't survive first contact with the data, they are only weak in the sense that they can only cope with half our emissions on top of all natural emissions. Which suggests that CO2 levels have only been rising because of anthropogenic emissions. Bugai is making an error that many have made before (confusing residence time with relaxation time). Making a mistake that others have made before is nothing to be embarassed about - we all make mistakes. Not being able to accept you have made a mistake on the other hand is another matter. For that reason it is always a good idea to assume you are wrong and take counter-arguments seriously. -
Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
scaddenp - Well, we're currently emitting enough CO2 to raise atmospheric concentrations at >4ppm/year. It's actually rising at ~2ppm/year, hence natural sinks are (currently) absorbing ~2ppm. So, if we were to suddenly stop emitting CO2, the natural sinks would initially absorb 2ppm/year, with an expected decrease over time (multiple decaying exponentials due to the various pathways), as the imbalance decreases. See my post and the IPCC links here, and also here for the curves. It's definitely rate(s) dependent on the pCO2 imbalance. -
Bob Lacatena at 06:57 AM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Bugai, You position is untenable, because you must solve three intractable problems to support it. First, humans have burned hundreds of gigatons of carbon that have been sequestered underground for hundreds of millions of years. 1) If this carbon has not gone into the atmosphere and oceans, then where has it all gone? Second, there must be a source of carbon which has both raised atmospheric levels by 100 ppm, and introduced an equivalent amount of CO2 into the oceans (and very noticeably lowering pH there). 2) What is the source of the hundreds of gigatons of carbon that have gone into the atmosphere and the oceans? At the same time, if you do propose another source of carbon, and another destination for anthropogenic carbon, there must be some mechanism which somehow preferentially puts anthropogenic carbon in one place (if you can find it) while adding only your other source of carbon (if you can find one) to the atmosphere and ocean, in a fashion which makes the existence and quantity of anthropogenic carbon meaningless in affecting the balance. 3) What mechanism can possibly exist that "knows" how to intelligently separate anthropogenic from natural carbon, adding the former only to some undefined (and presumably bottomless) sink, while putting the latter into the atmosphere and oceans. No matter what other things you want to argue, the bottom line is that there is a pool of carbon in the system, an additional pool of carbon (fossil fuels) that had been separated from the system but have now reintroduced in a very short time frame, and there are only limited and measurable places for that carbon to go in similarly short time frames (those places being the atmosphere, the oceans, and biomass). No matter what you come up with, anthropogenic carbon must go somewhere, and in so doing, it must be affecting the balance. No matter what you come up with, anthropogenic carbon must be contributing substantially (actually, solely) to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere and oceans. There is no way out of this inconvenient truth. -
scaddenp at 06:22 AM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
"So without our contribution to atmospheric CO2, CO2 levels would be declining by >2ppm/year right now". This cannot be right. The amount of update of CO2 by natural sinks must have some dependence on pCO2. If natural sinks reduce CO2 by 2ppm/ year we would have been ice age long ago. -
IanC at 05:20 AM on 23 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Bugai #201, Also in the Joos et al. paper you cited, they've set the air-sea exchange to zero for figure 3 (see appendix A1). The curves in their figure shows how quickly tracers move from the surface to deep ocean, and that is certainly not the relaxation time we're discussing. -
Bob Lacatena at 05:20 AM on 23 October 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
174, lancelot,So while RW1 has not proposed a mechanism, others appear to have.
I'm afraid I don't see that. Can you be more specific? The question at hand is: "Given warming that results from anthropogenic CO2, what will be the resulting cloud feedback?" While the work you discuss is interesting, it does not in any way affect the topic at hand -- which is the direction and degree of feedback from clouds in response to warming. That cloud formation is impacted by many factors is obvious. That temperatures are impacted by unexpected but measurable factors such as cosmic rays, through cloud formation, is what is under debate in current science (and on other threads here at SkS) but at the current time is not in any way supported by the evidence available. But in any event, it is not relevant to this thread, which discusses cloud feedbacks, not clouds as a primary forcing. -
John Hartz at 04:29 AM on 23 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
@Agnostic #57: The issue you have raised is directly addressed in "The Next 500 Years of Sea Level Rise" by Michael Lemonick posted on Climate Central on Oct 19. Lemonick had posed that very same question to Aslak Grinsted. -
muoncounter at 04:04 AM on 23 October 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
lancelot#174: "Svensmark, Shaviv, J Kirkby et al all suggest a mechanism" Those gentlemen are all part of the 'it's cosmic rays' camp. There are a number of threads addressing their data here at SkS (search: cosmic rays), as well as this excellent RealClimate piece exploding their suggested mechanism. -
muoncounter at 03:59 AM on 23 October 2011The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
An uncharacteristically perceptive comment by one of JCurry's 'denizens' in the midst of their agonized debate on the BEST temperature work: it is alleged that due to increased green house gases in the atmosphere, heat is trapped that cannot escape from earth. So if an increase in green house gases is to blame for the warming, it should be minimum temperatures (that occur during the night) that must show the increase (of modern warming). In that case, the observed trend should be that minimum temperatures should be rising faster than maxima and mean temperatures. That is what would prove a causal link. -- emphasis added This fellow goes on to admit a cherrypick ("my carefully chosen sample of 15 weather stations") of some recent data to demonstrate that in a few locales, DTR is not decreasing. But as we've seen here and here, there is ample evidence of DTR decrease. Other references for DTR decrease include Zhou et al 2005: Such spatial dependence of Tmin and DTR trends on the climatological precipitation possibly reflects large-scale effects of increased global greenhouse gases and aerosols (and associated changes in cloudiness, soil moisture, and water vapor) during the later half of the twentieth century. Zheng et al 2010: ... for the later period of 1951–90, the trend in maximum temperature reduces to an insignificant value, while the trend in minimum temperature remains high, resulting in a significant downward trend in diurnal range of 0.10°C/decade. From Martinez et al 2009, despite variations due to seasonal effects, an average annual decreasing trend of DTR is found, particularly relevant in autumn (−0.9 °C/decade). -
lancelot at 03:42 AM on 23 October 2011Clouds provide negative feedback
Interesting thread. Is it still active? On mechanisms: Svensmark, Shaviv, J Kirkby et al all suggest a mechanism for cloud nucleation (and thus possibly formation) independent of temperature. I was surprised not to see this mentioned. Other possible mechanisms have been proposed, such as micro organisms prompting nucleation. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/microbes-make-rain/ So while RW1 has not proposed a mechanism, others appear to have. No hard evidence for those mechanisms, but they should perhaps be considered when assessing the evidence for other mechanisms such as co2 forcing.Response:[DB] "Interesting thread. Is it still active?"
All threads here at SkS (all 4,000+) are active. Many are temporarily dormant but any are free to be reawakened at any time. Regular participants here follow the Recent Comments thread, so they will see any new comment made regardless of the thread it is posted on.
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Tom Dayton at 01:14 AM on 23 October 2011Abraham reply to Monckton
Scoop! "Lord Monckton" actually always has been Sasha Baron Cohen in unbelievably convincing character! -
muoncounter at 01:10 AM on 23 October 2011Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
The tail end of new the BEST temperature reconstruction:
is not very friendly to the 'warming stopped in ____' crowd, nor is it supportive of Dr. Pielke's '2002 change in trend is significant' interpretation. Put in the perspective and detail of the BEST graphic, short term downtrends are a regular feature of the temperature record, as there are too many of these 'blips' to count.
Despite the jagged appearance, the overall trend is up: since ~1970, ~1 degree in 40 years.
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Daniel Bailey at 01:02 AM on 23 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
Hyperactive Hydrologist shares my concerns about the WAIS being more of a threat to SLR than does the GIS. Once the restraining influence of the PIG & Thwaites linchpin are removed the risk of ice sheet dynamic decomposition of the WAIS escalate. Melt rates are a non-issue compared to that. I've been planning on writing a post on this for some time; perhaps the time has come to put aside malaise and laziness and actually do it. -
chriskoz at 23:02 PM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
Bern @29, Oil & coal will run out in ~300y at current rat, so your will is actually pessimistic. Had that happen (300y of BAU) we would certainly head for PETM scenario (56mya) when arctic ocean temp was 74F... Hopefully it won't come to that. Back to our times: denialist are disturbed and hopefully their influence dies much sooner than the fosils are burned. If it happens in decade or two, it won't be bad, perhaps not too late. -
Rob Painting at 20:20 PM on 22 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
Hyperactive Hydrologist - yup, that seems to be the conclusion of a couple of recent papers - the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been the main contributor to sea level rise in recent (ish) warm periods. See SkS post: Rising Oceans - Too Late to Turn the Tide? and The Role of Ocean Thermal Expansion in Last Interglacial Sea Level Rise - McKay (2011) the study referenced. -
Hyperactive Hydrologist at 20:02 PM on 22 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
Glenn, I'm not disputing rapid ice loss and subsequent rise in sea level. I'm saying perhaps Greenland is more stable and resilient to complete collapse compared with the Western Antarctica (WAIS) based on topography. In-situ melting of a large ice sheet will be much slower than an ice sheet losing mass from glacial carving and in-situ melting. WAIS has the potential to suffer from a mechanism of sea water intrusion and consequently an increase in basal lubrication. For me the real danger of rapid or even catastrophic sea level rise comes from the WAIS. The key is how much of an impact will 2-4oC of warming have on Antarctica. -
Doug Mackie at 19:53 PM on 22 October 2011OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2
Don't look at me. I have no intention of rolling in the muck with the crowd at Watts. I leave it to those of a pachycephalsauriaic disposition to deal with. Bernard: Perhaps your pedantry is up to the task? I still don't follow your concern. A definition of 'neutral' is not relevant to a definition of acidification. We thought we were careful in the first post to remind readers that acidification is an absolute increase in [H3O+] and not a relative change with respect to some 'neutral' point. (Yes, yes, actually activity not concentration but we also explained that we would avoid activities to not totally confuse readers). -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:58 PM on 22 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
Hyperactive Hydrologist. Catastrophic collapse is unlikely. On what time scale? If a couple of 1000 years of temps maybe 0.5 C warmer than now removed 1/2 or more of the GIS, what will the rate of loss be with temps 2-4 C warmer than now? How much of decline is movement towards the coast, how much is melting in-situ? Today? What will this balance be in 50 years?, 100? 200? -
TScanlon at 18:07 PM on 22 October 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
@John Russell I'd say you're right on that. And when we have all forgotten all the previous debunkings they will return once again to the old chestnuts. I heard two the other day "peer reviewed by who?" and "but the Earth is only 6000 years old, there can't be a carbon cycle." Fortunately the later doesn't come up too often. -
Rob Painting at 17:17 PM on 22 October 2011Ocean Heat Poised To Come Back And Haunt Us?
David Lewis -"I wonder why you report on the science as if one of the organizations did not exist" I wonder why you would write such a thing when you commented on another recent(ish) post which attributed the slowdown to pollution aerosols from Asia? We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out. As I mentioned in the other post, some papers on the effect of Asian pollution on global dimming are awaiting publication. In the meantime, I see little point in you repeating the same things over and over again. -
Bern at 16:17 PM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
Bert: those who are actually sceptical as to whether the Earth is warming will probably be convinced by the BEST study. Those in denial will not be. But many of those who were sceptical about the warming will shift their scepticism to the causes of warming. Maybe the BEST team can tackle that next? ;-) Hey, maybe in a decade of two, when they've reproduced & confirmed the last few decades of climate science as a whole, we might start to see some real public acceptance? Naaaaaaah! That'll only happen when the oil & coal actually runs out, and the denialist organisations run out of funding. -
Tristan at 15:35 PM on 22 October 2011Climate sensitivity is low
Thanks Sphaerica, your response was just what the doctor ordered! xox -
SteveS at 14:57 PM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
Mal Adapted, I'm tempted to drive up to Santa Fe to catch the proceedings. The Tuesday morning Observations session could be interesting: Muller gives his presentation from 10:55-11:15 followed by Rohde from 11:15-11:35, followed by a certain F. Singer presenting "Is the reported global surface warming of 1979 to 1997 real?" I'm not sure how these conferences are, but the ones I've been to something like that would spark some interesting, uh, discussions. -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:09 PM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
Bert, as their actions indicate, the term scientist would not apply by any stretch to Easterbrook, Monckton or Goddard. -
Bert from Eltham at 12:58 PM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
Apart from carefully collected and drafted evidence and solid conclusions, what else can you do to convince sceptics? I am totally at a loss as to the blindness of seemingly rational scientists. Bert -
Ger at 12:54 PM on 22 October 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
Improved energy use? Removal of power generators from the cities? -
muoncounter at 11:58 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai#195: "we destroy the CO2 sink by pollution of the oceans" We pollute the oceans, sufficient to 'destroy' the CO2 sink, yet we do not produce the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere? BTW, we also influence atmospheric ozone and produce CO, N2O, NO, among other gases, but not CO2? Seems like an inconsistent position to me. -
guinganbresil at 11:57 AM on 22 October 2011How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
Rob - I was imprecise in my language. The warming of the skin layer increases the gradient between the cooler air and the top of the warmer skin layer - increasing the heat transfer from the water to the air. -
IanC at 11:03 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Bugai, Your own model suggests that T cannot possibly be 5-10 years. Say we linearize about the pre-industrial level and assume that's the equilibrium. The resulting DE will be dC/dt=E_a-C/T Notice that E_n disappears due to linearization. C here is the CO2 above the preindustrial level of 280ppm. Currently we have dC/dt=14 Gt/yr, E_a=29 Gt/yr gives C/T=15 Gt/yr Now the CO2 level has increased by about 100ppm, with is about 770Gt. This yields T of 51 years.
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