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Albatross at 07:28 AM on 3 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Hi Ian @57, SkS has dealt with Ridley's musings before. See here. In fact, AndyS did a whole series, that is how much misinformation there was to counter. -
muoncounter at 07:26 AM on 3 November 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
lancelot#29: "total is a long term rise of about 0.9 deg C over 140 years." Or you could say a rise of 1 deg C in the 40 years since 1970. Surely you don't believe that a single straight line will fit the entire dataset from 1800 on?Now that's a significant change in trend!
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scaddenp at 07:21 AM on 3 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
"I get the feeling some of you didn't like it ..." Some of us have a great respect for the truth. -
lancelot at 07:04 AM on 3 November 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
27, 28: Nice to see the full graph at last! Well... I did say 'if smoothed'. Over 60 year periods, if smoothed on that basis the line is gradual (repeat gradual) and fairly (repeat fairly) uniform. I have done that on paper, that is how it looks. The total is a long term rise of about 0.9 deg C over 140 years. Tom Curtis - I totally agree however with your more detailed analysis. A rise 1800-50. A flat period 1850-1910. Then a sharp rise 1910-40. That actually illustrates my point. If you start the chart at 1850, you see a flat period until the start of the 20th century, then a prominent rise. So it looks as if warming started in 1910. It didn't. It started at least before 1800. Sphaerica: It is clear (even to a non-climatologist) that volcanic eruptions and solar irradiance variation will cause the visible intermediate ups and downs within the longer time scales. In that context you also referred to the Dalton minimum and 'solar activity', i.e. sunspots. Does that mean that you consider sunspots to be associated with forcing or with climate changes in general? -
Ian Forrester at 05:39 AM on 3 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Matt Ridley is on the Academic Advisory Council of The Global Warming Policy Foundation alongside such well known AGW deniers as Ian Plimer, Richard Lindzen, Robert Carter, Ross McKitrick, William Harper and many others. As such, anything he says is not based on science but on his libertarian ideology. As an aside he was Chairman of Northern Rock the first Bank to face problems in the UK, problems which appear to be blamed on Matt Ridley. -
muoncounter at 05:10 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
CBD#31: "the claim that it is minor compared to internal variability." It would be interesting to see the evidence for this cart-before-horse argument, if any exists. Here, on the other hand, is a demonstration that there is an ongoing warming trend with short-term variability written on top of that trend.- source The red is BEST with a 12 month mean; green is the linear trend. Then use the detrend operator to remove that, yielding the blue curve. That can be described as short period, with a constrained amplitude and oscillation around 0; if this was an electronic signal, it sure looks like noise
short-term internal variabilityto me. Of course, tamino did this with greater sophistication last year. Has anyone in deniersville produced a graph like this showing that internal variability swamps the trend or are we supposed to just take their word for it? -
MewCat100 at 04:58 AM on 3 November 2011CO2 measurements are suspect
Probably no one is reading this blog any longer, but the answer should be as follows. 1. The atmosphere thins as we move upward due to gravity. 2. The partial pressure of oxygen is always about 0.21 3. Because there is less gas at high altitudes than low altitudes, there is less TOTAL oxygen at those levels, but it is still 21 percent of total. So if there are 1000 gas molecules at surface, 210 are oxygen. At high altitudes, say the total is 100, then oxygen is 21. 4. From this it follows that CO2 is not evenly distributed on vertical basis in the atmosphere. Consequently, this also applies to temperature given that there are thremoclines in the vertical expanse of the atmosphere. 5. CO2 total is different from one altitude to the next, but CO2 percentage (of total atmospheric gas) should be consistent. -
wingding at 03:12 AM on 3 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
Re 18,19 I concur. Muller's results vindicated Hansen and Jones from years of denier accusations of cooking the books, deleting stations, rewriting history, exaggerating warming, etc. All of which DO constitute denying global warming. The deniers have played a sleight of hand by claiming they always accepted the world warmed. That's not the point. The point was that they were denying global warming had played out as shown in HadCRUT and GISTEMP. The deniers are mad because Muller went public about them being wrong. Effectively they've been held accountable for their false claims and they don't like it one bit. -
pbjamm at 02:35 AM on 3 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
Shoyemore@18 Muller's statements undermined a key myth of denialism - that "the books are cooked" ^^^^^ THIS is the reason that the 'skeptics' can not accept the BEST data. If Muller/BEST agree with the crooks then he too must be a crook. Reference Steve L's point one. -
dana1981 at 02:28 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
daisym, aside from echoing the previous suggestions that you use our site's search tool to find the answers to your questions, I would also like to point you to some text in the post above which you seem to have missed:"The short-term effects can only temporarily dampen (or amplify) that long-term man-made global warming trend."
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DSL at 02:11 AM on 3 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
What did you take from Ridley, Shibui? Did he convince you of anything? -
Shibui at 02:08 AM on 3 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
I get the feeling some of you didn't like it ... -
Bob Lacatena at 02:03 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
21, daisym, I thought I should address your misunderstanding of the abstract in Oceanic Sources and Sinks for Atmospheric CO2 (Gruber et al), as evidenced by your question:Do the oceans outgas only manmade CO2?
From the abstract:...we can constrain the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2 to within an unprecedented narrow range of 2.20±0.25 Pg C yr-1 for a nominal year of 1995. The inversely estimated pre-industrial air-sea fluxes reveal the expected pattern with CO2 outgassing in the tropics and CO2 uptake at mid to high latitudes. The subpolar regions of the Southern Hemisphere defy this trend, exhibiting strong outgassing of natural CO2. This outgassing nearly cancels the large uptake of anthropogenic CO2 in this region, leading to a near zero net contemporary flux.
First, note that they have constrained the anthropogenic CO2 uptake to a specific value. "Uptake" means that overall the oceans have absorbed, not released, CO2. Please note the unit of measure. Pg means "peta grams". "Peta" is the prefix for one quadrillion. Pg refers to 1015 grams of carbon. The paper notes that generally the tropics outgas while the other areas are net sinks. This is expected, and frightening. Warmer waters hold less CO2. This means that the oceans at the equator, where temperatures are warmest, are not able to absorb more CO2 and are instead releasing it as they warm. Yes! That is yet another sign that the planet is warming. Cooler waters further from the equator are more than compensating, however, by absorbing both anthropogenic CO2 and the CO2 being released in the tropics. For now. That's the frightening part. It is well known that warmer waters hold less CO2, and so it is well known that as the planet warms the oceans will be less and less capable of absorbing anthropogenic CO2. The day will arrive, in fact, when the oceans begin spitting it out and adding it to the atmosphere, even after we've halted our own emissions. [The paper does note an unexpected behavior in the southern subpolar regions which has a net zero impact in this region -- unexpected outgassing combined with uptake.] Do you understand now why your reference does not support your position, and in fact perfectly contradicts it? Do you also understand that the system is far more complex than a hand wave can cover, and that scientists in fact have a very, very good handle on both how things should work and how things are working? -
JMurphy at 01:29 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
daisym, with regard to the consensus, you should read the information at one (or, even better, all) of the following links, and comment further on this matter on one of those : There is no Consensus Less than half of published scientists endorse Global Warming 500 Scientists refute the Consensus Naomi Oreskes study The Science isn't settled Over 31,000 Scientists signed the OISM Petition Project You should utilise the opportunity to explain why you believe that the tiny minority of scientists not involved in Climate science (especially those who are dead and emeritus, or who may be doctors or economists, etc.) you have pointed towards, should be given more notice than all those Climate scientists currently working in the field - of whom 97% agree with the consensus. -
CBDunkerson at 01:27 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
Sphaerica, I think this is similar to something Roy Spencer has been floating for a while. Essentially, Spencer has argued; 1: Yes, CO2 forcing exists. 2: However, net feedbacks are negative or only slightly positive and therefor warming from human CO2 emissions will be mild. 3: The reason we have already seen atmospheric warming in excess of what these negative/slightly positive feedbacks would generate is due to short term natural fluctuations overlaying the signal. Basically, the apparent pronounced anthropogenic warming since the 1970s is 'actually' very mild anthropogenic warming accompanied by a temporary spike from non-anthropogenic sources. A variation on the classic 'it is natural cycle XYZ'... just with acknowledgment that some CO2 warming exists, but the claim that it is minor compared to internal variability. There are, of course, a host of problems (e.g. past sensitivity, measured positive feedbacks, major natural factors were cooling during the warming phase, no return to the 'baseline' cool temps, et cetera) with this position, but I think that is the underlying idea. The 'benefit' of this argument is that it 'accepts' incontrovertible results, but then assumes that the 'correct' values in all the uncertainty ranges (or perhaps a bit outside the range of uncertainty) all line up to produce the 'best case' result... rather like Spencer's original satellite temperature series (prior to corrections). -
shoyemore at 01:27 AM on 3 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
JMurphy, Like yourself, I find Singer's comments are cause for head-scratching. Like Curry, his basic annoyance seems to stem from the fact that Muller praised organisations like CRU and GISS. In other words, Muller's statements undermined a key myth of denialism - that "the books are cooked". He seems to be telling his "team" to get with the programme - there will be no let up for Phil Jones, Michael Mann or Jim Hansen. Curry also seems to be telling Muller publicly to get on side. I do not think Muller has the fibre to stand up to them. Hopefully Rohde and Perlmutter (who do not need anyone's approval) might. -
John Russell at 01:24 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
@Sphaerica For some month's now I've had an on-line 'discussion' with a person in denial (favourite site: WUWT) who maintains exactly that. He appears to accept all the main arguments -- effect of CO2; rising atmospheric concentration; Arctic ice melting; temperatures rising (slowly); etc -- but he just won't accept that the outcome could be bad. He particularly objects to any suggestion that it could be 'catastrophic', or that we should spend any more than a token amount of money to halt emissions. It makes it much more difficult to persuade people that we need to act when they take that stance. I suspect that in a few years time the argument will move completely in the direction of risk management. -
Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
daisym - I suspect (it's certainly true in my case) that the reason nobody discussed your "natural forces" question is that it was just part of a longer post littered with other errors. I would suggest you use the "Search" box for "natural". Alternatively, you might want to start with It's a natural cycle or It's internal variability. You've been making some serious Gish Gallop posts here - you're certainly not actually discussing the science. Until you do, I for one will not take your posts seriously - Sorry. -
Rob Painting at 01:15 AM on 3 November 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Dialogue Final Summary
Victull - "but heat gets into the oceans by I guess the normal means of heat transfer - radiation, conduction and convection." Nope. A common enough misconception. See SkS post: How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean". I'm working on an animation with our SkS graphics guru, and will re-write to make it easier to follow, but you should get the general picture. -
victull at 01:06 AM on 3 November 2011Pielke Sr. and SkS Dialogue Final Summary
Bob Loblaw@57 This might be getting off topic but heat gets into the oceans by I guess the normal means of heat transfer - radiation, conduction and convection. The normal 'equilibrium' state of the biosphere bounded by the ocean bottom and land surface and top of the atmosphere would be a heat flux of 0.1W/M2 geothermal heat flowing from the ocean bottom up though the ocean and out at TOA - effectively giving a -0.1W/M2 (cooling) flux at TOA. Otherwise the biosphere would continually heat up over eons and boil the oceans. For the oceans to gain heat, it can only flow globally from the top or sides downward on a global scale even though in some places it might flow upward and others downward to give a net downward. Is there any other explanation? -
Mercury Scientist at 01:05 AM on 3 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
The only people that heed Singer are those who subscribe to the typical denialist train of thought. He lost credibility with everyone else a long time ago. -
Daniel J. Andrews at 01:03 AM on 3 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
I thought Singer believed it was warming? His book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, certainly seems to claim that, at least from the title. You'd think he'd be happy to see the warming in the BEST data (and all the other data) because he could then point to his book and say, "See, I was right". -
Bob Lacatena at 00:46 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
I'd like to point out something new and unusual about daisym's attack. He doesn't say CO2 isn't the culprit. He instead implies that the effects of CO2 are minor and that natural causes, while not the cause of recent warming, are an amplifier, as if without them the effects of CO2 wouldn't be that bad at all and wouldn't be worth the effort to address. Is this the beginning a new tactic in denial? Accept the science to a large degree, but declare it exaggerated and minor compared the the vast, unknowable, unpredictable, unconquerable natural forces that we cannot hope to understand, control or in any way compete against. Of course, in a way he's right. Except there's a specific name for those natural forces. They're called "feedbacks," in this case "positive feedbacks." The only problem is that we do understand them, and yes, they do explain why the effects of CO2 are amplified. -
Bob Lacatena at 00:43 AM on 3 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
20, daisym,If natural forces are powerful enough to cool and offset warming attributed to manmade CO2, might they also be powerful enough to cause the warming attributed to man to seem greater than it really is?
Just for the record I'll answer this. No. Scientists have estimated, entirely separate from the observational record, the effects and degree of anthropogenic CO2. The observational record now supports those estimates, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Given this, why would you go looking for another, unknown and inexplicable cause or amplifier? It seems to me rather like someone who finds a note saying Mr. X is planning to shoot Mr. Y, watches Mr. X shoot Mr. Y., recovers the gun and the bullet and matches all of the forensic and ballistic evidence of Mr. Y's murder to Mr. X -- and then declares that we can't rule out other suspects, or even death by natural causes. Your next argument, no doubt, will be to declare that we do not have such evidence or supporting knowledge of the predicted effects of CO2. Before you make that argument, you need to read, absorb and understand all of the science on this site. Your problem right now, I believe, is that you are speaking and thinking from a position of extreme ignorance, reflected no doubt by ideas planted there by others (WUWT, Nova, etc.) who do not want you to understand and simply want you to be angry about what they tell you that you should believe. -
JMurphy at 00:42 AM on 3 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
I'm not too sure about that, Shoyemore, as evidenced by these quotes from him :I applaud and support what is being done by the Project — a very difficult but important undertaking. I personally have little faith in the quality of the surface data, having been exposed to the revealing work by Anthony Watts and others. However, I have an open mind on the issue and look forward to seeing the results of the Project in their forthcoming publications. ClimateRealists(sic)
But unlike the land surface, the atmosphere has shown no warming trend, either over land or over ocean — according to satellites and independent data from weather balloons. This indicates to me that there is something very wrong with the land surface data. Nature comment
Having read both of those, though, I'm not sure whether he believes the world is warming or not ! He seems to almost be trying to accept warming but also raising doubt as to the actuality of that warming - just like a true so-called skeptic like Watts. -
Bob Lacatena at 00:31 AM on 3 November 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
26, lancelot, I think part of your misunderstanding resulted from treating the noise we see in shorter periods (the ups and downs in, say, the 1980-2000 period) the same as valid ups and downs in longer periods. The physical reasons for the ups and downs in the shorter periods are (a) not entirely predictable and (b) not entirely worth predicting, because they refer to very short term events with no lasting effect on climate beyond the affected year or years (ENSO events, volcanic eruptions, minor changes in solar activity, etc.). Put another way, there are so many factors that overwhelm the signal that in shorter periods you have to average things out and look at longer time periods to detect a trend. But when looking at a graph such as this one, there really are tangible reasons for the various, intermediate ups and downs (the Dalton Minimum, a long term increase in solar activity, a large series of major volcanic eruptions, anthropogenic aerosols, anthropogenic CO2). The point is, the rules you apply to interpreting the data (which is being done by most people -- not scientists -- simply by eyeballing graphs) must change depending on the time scale. The fact that two graphs look the same does not mean that you apply the same rules to their interpretation. The bottom line is that you need 17 to 30 years to determine a climate trend. That rule applies whether the hashmarks on the graph represent 1 year or 20 years. You don't need a number of hashmarks or a percent of a graph to identify a trend in climate... you need whatever span represents 17 to 30 years. As such, you can't look at a graph of temperatures from 1990 to the present and properly divide it into distinct, separate trends, but you do need to look at a graph such as this one and do so. -
Tom Curtis at 22:56 PM on 2 November 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
lancelot @26, your description of the graph is false:
Where you say the graph rises smoothly, it clearly falls for the first 15 years, probably due to the Dalton Minimum. It rises sharply, then falls sharply before leveling of around 1850. From 1850 to 1910 it oscillates around a mean before rising sharply to 1940.
Not much weight can be given to the early years (pre-1880) of the BEST temperature index. During that period, due to a low number of stations, and poor geographic coverage the calculated error margin is as high as +/- 0.6 degrees, or approximately 30% of the calculated fluctuations. Tamino believes this error is significantly underestimated because BEST ignored auto-correlation. The poor certainty, and in particular the limited geographical coverage is probably responsible for most of the large scale fluctuations relative to latter in the graph.
Despite these flaws, however, it is still necessary to describe the graph as it is, not as we might desire it to be.
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lancelot at 20:26 PM on 2 November 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
Re 23, 24, 25: CBDunkerson: Yes, the 1850+ image used in the SkS intro is taken from the Influence in Urban Heating study, and is appropriate in that context. The full chart 1800 - 2010 is viewable in the Berkley Earth Data Set section at http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis.php. Perhaps getting off topic, but the 1800+ chart correctly shows a gradual and fairly uniform (if smoothed) global rise from at least 1800* to 1939, a total of 0.9 deg C over 140 years. That would not be evident from the 1850+ chart. *Central England instrumental measurements (HadCET http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/) also show a long term warming trend in CE from around 1780. -
John Russell at 20:17 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
@daisym You are simply regurgitating old climate myths that we've heard a thousand times before. Everyone here is very familiar with the 'Oregon Petition', for instance, which was published in the last century -- which, at the very least, means that it's long past its sell-by date. I implore you to open your mind to the scientific evidence which is provided on this site, starting by clicking on the 'Most Used Climate Myths', top left. You'll find all the answers you seek, there. Choose one and read it first before posting your question below it. If you dive in and start showing that you've not looked at the science first, you just make yourself look foolish. -
shoyemore at 19:50 PM on 2 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
At least Singer is dissenting from the happy-clappy Marc Morano-Anthony Watts "skeptic" consensus: "Of course, we always knew the globe was warming". As far as I remember, Singer was teh designer of the "Doubt is Our Product" campaign for the tobacco lobby. His disagreement may rock some hardened deniers. -
Rob Painting at 19:30 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
daisym @ 21 - Your list is full of the usual suspects. This is old hat for SkS, but not apparently to you. Most of the questions can be answered by clicking on the 'arguments' button at the top of the page. In as far as CO2 outgassing from the ocean. This is well known, but what matters is the total or net exchange. Far more CO2 goes into the ocean than leaves it. This process is causing ocean acidification. Click on the OA is not OK button at the top left hand corner of the page, to learn about this. As far as global warming is concerned, considering natural factors only, the Earth should be gradually cooling due to orbital factors. If you're interested in learning we can help, but if this is simply dogmatic repetition, there are other blogs for that. -
adelady at 19:13 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
daisym "It makes no sense to think that natural variation only cools." So it's just as well that no-one's ever said it, isn't it. What do you think all those graphics comparing TSI, temperature and GHGs are for? They're used to show that it's not the sun this time. It's been the sun plenty of times before and it will be again. But not for the last 40 years. -
Tom Curtis at 18:16 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
daisym, I noticed your question when I got online (5:12 pm my time) and was going to respond. Then I noticed that you berated us for not answering the question just 11 minutes after you posed it. And then again, 31 minutes later in a near identical cut and paste of your second post. Clearly you are not interested in answers, just in spamming this thread. As you are not interested in learning, I find that I have no time for you. -
cliffeking at 17:46 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
John Hartz@10 If you had carefully read my initial comment and the moderator's response, and taken note of Scaddenp's post @9, you would have realised that yes, SKS, does send out e-mails linking to online and peer-reviewed articles, that I was not mistaken in thinking the mail I get was from SKS, and you would not have needed Dana1981 to 'clarify' things for you. It's a bit irritating to be told I'm wrong when the commenter writes from a position of ignorance. -
daisym at 17:35 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
Thanks for your feedback. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming This link will provide names of scientists who disagree that the science is settled. There's no point to include the Oregon Petition or Sen. Inhofe's list of 700. Others have already managed to discredit ALL 30,000 names on the Oregon Petition, and Inhofe's 700, as well. Make sure any such list includes the names of Professors William Happer, Harold Lewis, Ivar Giaever, Fred Singer, Roy Spencer, Patrick Michaels, Bjorn Lomborg, Ian Plimer, John Christy, and Roger Pielke, Sr. Also see: www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/icdc7/proceedings/abstracts/gruberFF335Oral.pdf (Oceanic Sources and Sinks for Atmospheric CO2 -- Gruber et al). Apparently, outgassing of CO2 is occurring in some areas, with uptake occurring in other areas. Do the oceans outgas only manmade CO2? I find it curious that no one commented on a question I raised: If natural forces are powerful enough to cool and offset warming attributed to manmade CO2, why aren’t they also powerful enough to cause the warming attributed to manmade CO2 to seem greater than it really is? It’s the $64,000 question.Response:[DB] Quite frankly, everything you've written is known to be incorrect (it's a style called Gish Gallop). You could find it all out for yourself, if you wanted to, simply by using the Search function in the upper left of every page here. Ranging from the Oregon Petition, Inhofe's list, just about all of the individuals you name, to CO2 oceaninc fluxes, natural vs manmade warmings, attribution forcings (to name but a few stream-of-conscious denialist memes), all have been looked into here at Skeptical Science.
I, for one, find it curious that some continually aver things to be "natural" in origin without having taken the time to actually get a handle on the science for themselves. And this especially applies to those who have been commenting here for as long (over a year and-a-half) as you have. That's the $64,000 question.
No one says understanding a multi-disciplinary field like climate science would be easy. It's not, if you want to get a good grip on the details. But the details are all readily available, for those interested in learning.
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daisym at 17:24 PM on 2 November 2011Sorting out Settled Science from Remaining Uncertainties
If natural forces are powerful enough to cool and offset warming attributed to manmade CO2, might they also be powerful enough to cause the warming attributed to man to seem greater than it really is? -
Rob Painting at 16:27 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Shibui @ 44 - Aha, the false equivalence gambit. -
Bert from Eltham at 16:26 PM on 2 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
My mother who was a devout Christian always said that one day I would really understand when I got older and wiser that being an atheist scientist was wrong. She is dead now and I am much older and wiser and have not changed at all. The evidence still stands. We are dealing with people who are deluded. Nothing will change their mindset. It all reminds me of a case a neurophysiologist called Ramachandran had, whose patient had a delusion that he was dead. No logical argument could convince him that he was deluded. Yet he could see delusions in others! Sound familiar? Bert -
dhogaza at 15:50 PM on 2 November 2011Fred Singer Denies Global Warming
rpauli: "Is Climate Change Real? Take a Look at the Science Before you Decide" The very notion that a headline like this is published is depressing. "Science says 'X" . Take a look at the science before you decide". Where else would you look? Genesis? (yes) Republican politicos who wave their hands and don't know their d**k from their rear end? (yes). etc. depressing ... -
oneiota at 15:07 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Albatross@50 Indeed the scent of BS increased the closer I got to the source. Sphaerica: The ".html" dropped off the link all by itself... must be magic ;-) -
muoncounter at 15:02 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Anyone looking for 'balance' will find more satisfaction in Scott Denning's video. "Its pointless to worry about decimal places. Its a big problem, and needs solutions. " Tell that to the crowd that thinks warming stopped for the last 20 minutes. -
Stevo at 14:56 PM on 2 November 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
Tom, Daniel, muon, Many thanks. Looks like you've given me plenty of reading for tonight. -
Tom Curtis at 14:47 PM on 2 November 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
Thankyou DB. The relevant papers are The Annual Cycle of the Energy Budget Part 1 and Part 2. Fasullo was the lead author of both, and both were published in 2008. -
Bob Lacatena at 14:34 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
44, Shibui, Okay. I looked at Ridley. It's mostly a lot of vacuous fluff, but I'm a little surprised that you didn't take the key points to heart, in trying to recognize pseudoscience (i.e. Watts, Nova, any number of cranks on the 2nd Law thread here, etc.) rather than presuming that his proclamations apply to the real science and scientists. I'm sure you clung to this statement, but in an upside-down, inside-out, black-is-white fashion:Lesson number 4: the heretic is sometimes right.
but failed to take heed of this oneLesson no 5: keep a sharp eye out for confirmation bias in yourself and others.
But when I got to lesson 6 I got angry, because I've seen that Feynman quote misapplied frequently since last year. In fact, I got so tired of seeing it misunderstood and misapplied that I wrote a post on it on my own too infrequently updated blog. The Feynman quote that he got wrong is here:"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts"
His woefully incorrect interpretation of that quote is here:Lesson 6. Never rely on the consensus of experts about the future. Experts are worth listening to about the past, but not the future. Futurology is pseudoscience.
This is wrong. It is an entirely inaccurate interpretation of what Feynman meant. Please take the time to read my commentary on The Ignorance of the Experts. And please... to compare this drivel to Milne's talk is a huge insult to Milne. -
muoncounter at 14:32 PM on 2 November 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
Stevo: One way to look at atmospheric CO2 distribution is with Carbontracker. The CO2 'weather' maps and movies are entertaining, if not informative. -
Tom Curtis at 14:30 PM on 2 November 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
Stevo @62, CO2 is a well mixed gas, so its concentrations are nearly identical in the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. Here for example are the CO2 concentrations at the South Pole and at Barrow Island in Alaska:
In contrast to CO2 (and Methane), aerosols are not long lived in the atmosphere so are largely concentrated in the in the hemisphere of their origin, ie, primarily the NH. That is one of the major reasons for the difference in behaviour between NH and SH in response to global warming.
The other major difference is that nearly all the worlds major land surfaces are concentrated in the NH. Because land warms much faster than the ocean, and because there is more land in the NH than the SH, the NH warms much faster on average than the SH. That pattern has been partly ameliorated by the high aerosol burden in the NH. As a result, during periods of rapid increase in aerosol load in the NH (most notably during the rapid industrialization that followed WW2 up until the clean air acts of the 1970's, warming in the NH was stopped or even slightly reversed. During periods of significant reduction in aerosol loads (the great depression) or stasis (1970's to 1990's due to clean air acts) the NH shows exceptionally rapid warming. This aerosol related pattern is not found in the SH:
As for major methods of moving heat around, they are, as you conjecture, the the ocean currents, but also the major atmospheric circulations, particularly the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar Cells. I believe Fasullo and Trenberth have a paper discussing this issue, though I am uncertain who was the lead author and do not have a link to hand.
Response:[DB] Trenberth's publication record is here. Many PDF's available for download.
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Albatross at 14:19 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Oneiota @49, Thank you for your thoughts on this. Wish I could give you your hour back. Seriously though, I try to consider such goings on a learning experience. I have learned an awful lot from considering the musings of self professed "skeptics" and chasing down what later turns out to be no more than spin, misinformation and opinion. These folks prey on those with preconceived notions (i.e., confirmation bias) and the gullible. -
Stevo at 13:57 PM on 2 November 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
I'm hoping this is an appropriate thread upon which to post this question. Could somebody please inform me or point me in the direction of which mechanisms spread warming around the planet, and how quickly this is likely to happen? e.g.How much warming is conveyed around the planet by ocean currents? Or how freely does CO2 spread around the entire planet? Since most fossil carbon is released in the northern hemisphere I can understand the north warming faster than the south, but how much lag should we expect before temperature rise rates in the south catch up with the north? -
oneiota at 13:45 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Shibui @44 I too found Milne's talk interesting. On your recommendation and being a believer in finding balance and without a link to the Ridley talk in your post I searched and found via WWUT (as I'm becoming familiar with some of the landscape the acronyms are convenient) a transcript on Bishop-Hill I read and re-read and feel robbed of an hour of my life. I failed to find the balance and felt the need to visit Milne's talk once more for reassurance that I hadn't missed something. Frankly I resent it when a preacher has the arrogance to assume that I swallow an opinion without evidence for the argument....if Ridley gave permission to have the transcript published on Bishop-Hill and the asterix against the several claims made in his talk are meant to refer to footnotes and sources that aren't available to the reader then both Ridley and Bishop-Hill are merely preaching to the converted or to the gullible. Balance? Weigh this: How many lemons make an apple?Moderator Response: [Sph] Your link didn't work for me. Try this one for the Ridley transcript. -
Albatross at 13:22 PM on 2 November 2011Richard Milne separates skepticism from denial
Muoncounter, I actually did peruse Ridley's talk. Hence my reasoning that Ridley's talk does not represent "balance". But I sense that you are being sarcastic ;) It has gotten those in denial at WUWT (including Anthony of course) excited though, as expected. Fodder for the "skeptics" is what Ridley's talk is.
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