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Comments 72501 to 72550:

  1. There is no consensus
    475, Jonathan, Your entire rant is simply muddying the waters of what a definition of consensus might mean. As has already been explained and discussed, science doesn't really ever bother with defining and delineating a consensus. The consensus simply is. It is whatever most people in the field understand and agree with. There are always some who agree with X but disagree with Y, or vice versa. There's always a Z that's so basic and given that everyone but crackpots agree with it, and a W that's so far out of the mainstream that no one takes it seriously. The point is that there is no structure. Scientists don't get together once a year at the annual consensus convention and vote on which parts of science will or will not be considered accepted. Scientists get up in the morning. They go to work. They study, research, think and publish, and read each other's papers. Over time, like a hive mind, a social network of understanding evolves. What you are doing with the range of climate sensitivities is to muddle that, by taking the simple idea that every scientist has what he believes is a likely range of sensitivities, and instead conjuring a world where each scientist picks a specific number, and then claiming that because there are so many different numbers, there cannot be a consensus. This is all typical denier nonsense, intended to confuse people and sew doubt. The bulk of scientists know what the likely range of sensitivities is. A small group of fringe scientists expect sensitivities outside of that range. This does not mean that scientists are at all confused on the issue (which is what you ultimately are trying to imply with your own personal redefinition and portrayal of a consensus).
  2. Climate 'Skeptics' are like Galileo
    saltspringson wrote: "So, suppression of some scientists by other scientists is OK?" Yes. Quacks who claim that HIV does not cause AIDS (ditto smoking and asbestos not causing cancer), 'scientific' advocates of 'racial purity', homeopathic 'medicine' practitioners, and other such dangerous frauds absolutely should be 'suppressed'. 'Scientists' who endanger lives by spreading blatantly false claims to the general public need to be stopped.
  3. Dikran Marsupial at 22:52 PM on 14 October 2011
    There is no consensus
    Jonathon I note that you have not addressed either of my comments. However, the consensus view is not that the plausible range is all positive values, if you want to see what the range of plausible values is then lets discuss it on the thread devoted to that issue i.e. How sensitive is our climate?. There you can find peer-reviewed research on the plausible ranges according to different methods. Your argument is essentially a straw man, I don't particularly see any point in arguing about it either, but if you change your mind, please take it to a more appropriate thread.
  4. There is no consensus
    Dikran, The argument that everyone is in agreement, because we all think that the value is positive, is nice, but does not tell us much. If that is the extent of the consensus, then we should just drop it altogether. Since no one wishes to go beyond that issue, there is really no point arguing any further.
  5. Dikran Marsupial at 22:38 PM on 14 October 2011
    There is no consensus
    Bibliovermis, 3 is on the high side of 3, but only for large values of 3 ;o)
  6. There is no consensus
    Biblio. That is for equilibrium climate sensitivity. I though you were talking abobut transient sensitivity, which the first article states as 1-3, while the second says 1.3-2.6. In either case, 3 is on the high side for transient sensitivity. Please read more carefully.
  7. Sudden_Disillusion at 22:35 PM on 14 October 2011
    Climate 'Skeptics' are like Galileo
    @saltspringson 1. you really think the whole thing is a big conspiracy theory of tens of thousands of scientists around the world trying to suppress a couple of poor little fellas who own THE TRUTH? What do you think is more likely: AGW or your so-called "suppression"? 2. Sorry again: all of the evidence for AGW relies not on computer models but on, yeah right, observations in a vast array of different proxies. Regarding the Trenberth paper: you are just cherry-picking. This paper only shows that we do not understand everyhing yet. It does not prove your point at all. Classic denial behaviour. 3. And again a big sorry: CO2 = GHG, GHGs warm the atmosphere. Humans blast >5Gt CO2/yr into the atmosphere (CO2 stays there for like hundreds of years meaning we accumulate CO2 there). The-se are facts. It does not mean we are solely responsible for GW but we massively add to it. The only thing we don't know is how bad it's gonna be. 4. Why should Mann be dragged into court exactly? For saying what is instead of cherry-picking or misinterpretating data? Besides all your arguments are missing the most important point: It is not rational to disturb a highly complex and functioning (i.e. life-supporting) system (Earth's climate) as we do on a large scale be-cause if you do there will be consequences but you don't know what they are and how big their impact will be. Basically, you do not conduct an experiment on a global scale of which you do not know the outcome. Case closed tbh
  8. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    peilkesr wrote : "Policymakers, in my view, are being misled into believing that the climate should more-or-less monotonically warm when in reality both natural variability and the diversity of human climate forcings makes the issue of climate system heat content much more complex." Some examples have already been given as to the sort of people who are indeed trying to mislead policymakers (one of whom has recently actually published details for the picketing of a climate scientist; the other of whom has his own myth-making on this topic exposed and rebutted on SkS); and Albatross on another thread has given plenty of examples of SkS trying to make sure policy makers are indeed properly informed - another link here. In fact, the person who hosts the site at the first link I have given, has plenty of posts about cold, snow, everything-but-CO2-affects-the-climate, everything-is-going-to-be-OK-really, etc., but very little about heat records or explanations as to how temperatures do not rise monotonically - in fact, a recent post ("Breaking: A peer reviewed admission that “global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008″ – Dr David Whitehouse on the PNAS paper Kaufmann et al. (2011)" - given over to a post by those 'unbiased' chaps at the GWPF) seemed designed specifically to mislead, and none of the commenters there were informed by the blog owner (who does regularly reply to those he believes are misinformed) that their comments were misleading, etc. But who do you (Dr Pielke) believe is doing the misleading ?
  9. There is no consensus
    The article you posted states that the most likely climate sensitivity is 3 deg C. How is 3 on the high side of 3?
  10. The Earth continues to build up heat
    About the graph at #3: the corresponding graph at RealClimate doesn't have the error bars (+ or - 1 sigma dotted lines). I think they are crucial to the figure: the data show that 0-2000m contains less heat than 0-700m from 1955-1975. I don't think that's possible, so it has to be noise in the measurements. The problem appears to go away when you look at the error bars. That makes it ewen more immportant to have the original source for that figure.
  11. Dikran Marsupial at 22:31 PM on 14 October 2011
    There is no consensus
    Jonathan wrote: "The disagreement is about what is that range," as far as I can see you have provided no evidence that there is substantial disagreement regarding the range of plausible values, just that there are point estimates that are not in close agreement.. "and is it narrow enough to constitute a consensus." The spread of the range of plausible values has no bearing whatsoever on whether there can be a concensus on what the range actually is. If we had some dimensionless quantity that physics constrained to be strictly positive, but otherwise we knew nothing about it, then it would be perfectly reasonable for the concensus to be that the plausible range were from 0 to +infinity.
  12. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    Firstly, thanks for a well-written and informative post. Would it be possible to add uncertainties to the measured trends (e.g. 0.18C since 1999)? Presumably they are quite large for such short time-periods, and this would help emphasise how they are not particularly useful. Significance tests would serve the same purpose. I'm also interested in what sort of studies have been done regarding the linearity/non-linearity of various aspects of the climate system. Any references would be greatly appreciated - sorry if this request is too vague.
  13. There is no consensus
    Sky, We already answered that on the other thread - yes. The discussion here is about whether we can say that there is a consensus among scientists as to the sensitivity of the temperature to CO2. We have already agreed that exact value in unknown, and that there is a plausible range of values. The disagreement is about what is that range, and is it narrow enough to constitute a consensus. Your range for the Hubble is much narrower, and not being a cosmologist, I cannot appropriately answer your question. Biblio, If we are talking about short-term transient sensitivity, then the plausible values are much lower, and Hansen's value of 3 is still on the high side. The following might help clear this up for you. http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/clearing-up-the-confusion-about-climate-sensitivity/ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI3989.1
  14. Eric (skeptic) at 22:09 PM on 14 October 2011
    Pielke Sr. and SkS Warming Estimates
    Re #88, in #40 Dr. Pielke said: In fact, you are inappropriate mixing a "forcing" from a "change in forcing over some time period". A forcing (such as produces an acceleration, is immediate). He explained earlier in the post that some forcings are radiative and some are not, giving an example from the NAP book http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11175&page=40 In the post he was replying to, #37, Tom Curtis quoted from the AR4 glossary that a forcing is a change in net irradiance "due to a change in an external driver of climate change" such as a CO2 change or TSI change. IMO the only confusion is between the direct forcings of AR4 and the indirect forcings from NAP. But in both cases (and Tom's 37) they are referring to a change in forcing, not the forcing itself (so no inappropriate mixing was done). Nonetheless I did not those particular indirect forcings addressed in any subsequent posts (the ones from the NAP book I linked above) although MA Rodgers also asked about them. It seems appropriate to ask for the direct forcings and the radiative imbalance of direct and indirect forcings as distinct questions.
  15. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    DK @6, It's obvious by just looking at the couple of graphs above that nul hipothesis to Pielke's conclusion passes easily here. Santer et al. (2011) have proved it; no need to repeat. Certainly, dr. Pielke seems to disregard statistical methods while formulating his conclusions. Further, by cherry-picking the weather data that is likely to support skeptic opinion and ignoring the other aspects of the warming globe, (i.e. ocean heat, discussed here); he shows a biased attitude. We know many examples of such cherry-picking by many "skeptics". The most prominent one being Chris Monckton, who not so long ago (as lately as April 2011 in Australia) boasted that "Arctic is steadily gaining ice" showning the ice extent data for years 2007-2009 as the "proof". We all know now that Monckton was not only cherry-picker but a [-snipped-] because he didn't even show the 2010 data (available to him at the time) as that data would disprove his claim. Now, when the 2011 ice data equalled the record low of 2007, no one listens to Monckton's [-snipped-] anymore. It's easy to rebut Monckton (his arrogance also works against him), Pielke is more subtle but still uses the same cherry-picking methods.
  16. Pielke Sr. and SkS Warming Estimates
    Did we ever get to the bottom of Pielke Sr's interpretation of Forcing @40? I.e. "A forcing is ... immediate" and different from "a change in forcing over some time period" Immediate or not, a force is still a change from before to after. I did wonder if Pielke Sr was talking of some measure of residual forcing (radiative imbalance) when asking for the forcing for 2011 but @8 he asks for the 2011 forcing and radiative imbalance as well. So I am at a loss at what he is blethering on about. Is there some refined climataligical definition of 'forcing' that I am misinterpreting or is this our pet sceptical professor of climatology making yet another 'simple mistake on a fact you would expect him to know well'.?
  17. The Earth continues to build up heat
    Thanks Rob, I look forward to seeing what you have to say. p.s. I don't think that it's coincidental that the recent extremes in weather we're seeing have occured since the precipitous decline in the arctic sea ice in 2007.
  18. The Earth continues to build up heat
    atcook27 - I have assumed until now that the oceans were largely being warmed by the heat in the atmosphere. I don't think you're alone in that regard. Quite conveniently I have a post on that topic coming up in a couple of days time. It's the sun that warms the ocean, but greenhouse gases regulate the amount of heat they retain. The post should be published on Sunday.
  19. The Earth continues to build up heat
    I have assumed until now that the oceans were largely being warmed by the heat in the atmosphere. I believe that this graph points to a different conclusion. It would seem that the energy increase in the ocean is much larger in scale than that of the atmosphere. If you take into account that water is much harder to warm than air, it would seem impossible that the atmospheric warming alone has been responsible for the oceanic warming. So where is the energy to warm the oceans coming from? There is only one major source....the melting of the arctic sea ice. I believe that the albedo effect has been grossly underestimated. If this is the case then we are in a heap of trouble as the magnitude of this effect is set to double over the next decade as the arctic eventually becomes ice free in the northern summer.
  20. The Earth continues to build up heat
    Michael Hauber - "Although squinting at the colours with my partially colour blind eyes, it looks like the strongest heat gain is in the Atlantic?" Heat from the Indian Ocean is leaking into the Atlantic. See: What caused the significant increase in Atlantic Ocean heat content since the mid‐20th century? - Lee (2011) Not the 700-2000 mtr layer though. It'd be really nice, to see a review paper putting all this into context.
  21. Pielke Sr. and SkS Warming Estimates
    I'll just note couple of papers regarding the carbon dioxide - water vapor overlap issue: Pielkesr: "It is my specific question that an answer is needed for "What would be the global annual average radiative forcing change since pre-industrial with CO2 without the water vapor overlap and with the the overlap?" I doubt you could find it in a literature search because to my knowledge, it has not been done." There is a classic paper by Kiehl & Trenberth (1997), which seems to address this question at least in some form: "It is also important to note that different gases can absorb radiation at the same wavelengths; this is called the overlap effect." Then, later in the paper: "Of this 125 W m-2 clear sky greenhouse effect, we can ask, what is the relative contribution of each atmospheric absorber? A detailed answer to this question is complicated by the overlap among individual gaseous absorption features. We calculate the longwave radiative forcing of a given gas by sequentially removing atmospheric absorbers from the radiation model. We perform these calculations for clear and cloudy sky conditions to illustrate the role of clouds to a given absorber for the total radiative forcing. Table 3 lists the individual contribution of each absorber to the total clear sky radiative forcing." Table 3 then gives for each included gas the individual and combined effects for both clear and cloudy sky. For carbon dioxide individual clear sky radioative forcing is 29 watts per square meter and combined (with overlap effects) forcing is 32 watts per square meter. There is also separate row for "Overlap H2O–CO2". Another paper apparently addressing this issue is Cess et al. (1993). However, I I only have seen the abstract, so I'm not sure how complete analysis this paper has. I just noticed that Google Scholar returns this sentence for this paper: "Fig. 3. (A) Scatter plot of LW clear (clear sky) radiative forcing, as generated by the GCMs, with and without overlap of the C02 absorption bands by water vapor absorption." So it seems that it might be interesting in this sense. If needed I can dig up more references as there seems to be plenty of research done on this overlap issue.
  22. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    skywatcher - I believe that graph was a Dr Inferno masterpiece at DenialDepot.
  23. Dikran Marsupial at 14:51 PM on 14 October 2011
    Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    Prof Pielke wrote: "Dikran Marsupial - I had three hypotheses. I request you complete the test and see what you obtain." I do not dispute the fact that your first two hypotheses are entirely true, however, as I pointed out neither of these facts are at all surprising because the timescale over which the trends are calculated are too short for us to reasonably expect to be able to reject the null hypothesis even if it is false. Thus the test, and therefore the hypothesis, is essentially meaningless. Statistical power is often neglected by working scientists, however if you want to claim that a failure to reject the null hypothesis is of any interest, you need to show that the statistical power of the test is sufficiently high that the failure to reject a false null hypotheis would be unusual were it false. You have so far failed to do so. So I ask again, what is the statistical power of the test? I will discuss your third hypothesis on the new blog article, as dana requests, you can find my post here.
  24. Dikran Marsupial at 14:47 PM on 14 October 2011
    Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    Prof. Pielke Your third hypothesis is that "the trends during this time period [2002-present] are different than the trends earlier in the time period." My question is: Is the difference in the trend prior to 2002 and post-2002 statistically significant at the usual 95% level of significance?
  25. The Earth continues to build up heat
    Several comments about the graph supplied by Albatross from RC. It would be interesting to know the basis of how the 7000-2000 data was estimated pre-Argo Looking at when the 700 & 2000 lines diverge around 2003, really this is when the Argo data started to become available. So this may be simply joining to disparate data sets together. But the really interesting period is 2007-2010. That divergence looks real. And during a Solar minimum at that. And that huge climb around 2000-2001! Could that be the energy transferred during the 1998 El Nino supressed the value a year or so earlier then it recovered? We really, REALLY need to see a paper on this! I wonder how many skeptics will look on this as a very big nail in the coffin of the 'it hasn't warmed since 1998' meme?
  26. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    The 'pick an arbitrary short period' game can be extended. Look at the following graph of UAH data. Shown are the long-term trend, plus four arbitrarily-chosen non-overlapping but contiguous subdivisions of the whole dataset. (I saw a great graph of this done for the entire GISS dataset once.) All the short trends are negative, yet how is it that the long-term trend is still rising? I note once more that we are above the long-term trend for UAH at present, and close to it on other measures. Why would we think global warming has stopped?
  27. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    My point of view as a layman is that PielkeSr knows the whole science (-snip-). I enjoy the clarity that Dana and Albatross bring to this. (-snip-).
    Response:

    [DB) Presumptions of malfeasance snipped.  Please allow these discussion threads to run their course before formulating conclusions.

  28. Greenland ice loss continues to accelerate
    Been looking at the artic ice volume as reported by the Polar Science Center. Extrapolating their data suggests that the artic may be ice free in summer time around 2020. If that happens, what will be the estimated effect on Greenland ice loss?
  29. There is no consensus
    Johathon, "climate sensitivity" = short-term transient sensitivity = fast feedbacks = 3 deg C The 6 deg C figure you keep providing is for long-term sensitivity / slow feedbacks.
  30. There is no consensus
    Jonathon, two very simple questions. If the range of plausible climate sensitivty values is 1.5C to 5C per doubling CO2, is there a consensus that the climate warms with added CO2? Yes or no? If the range of plausible values for the Hubble Constant is 55-80km/s/Mpc, is there a consensus that the Universe is expanding? Yes or no?
  31. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    To follow on Albatross above and illustrate the 'pick an arbitrary short period' game, here is the requested 2002-present: And here is 1990-1997: And here is mid 1982-mid 1987: Yes, there are short periods where temperatures flatten. But these are present throughout the satellite temperature record. It would be nonsensical to draw any conclusion from these arbitrarily chosen lulls, because the trend continues to be up. BTW, here is 2006-present: So if one wants to take some meaning from short periods, one must also conclude that the most recent period indicates warming has not stopped.
  32. There is no consensus
    Scaddenp, (-Snip-). The Hansen value can be found here among other places: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-emergency-time-to-slam-on-the-brakes.html Muon, We are discussing the range, not a value.
    Response:

    [DB] Inflammatory snipped.

  33. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    Dr. Pielke on another thread here at SkS: "Policymakers, in my view, are being misled into believing that the climate should more-or-less monotonically warm when in reality both natural variability and the diversity of human climate forcings makes the issue of climate system heat content much more complex." With all respect to Dr. Pielke, that is his opinion, but the facts show that he has it backwards. He is also making an unsubstantiated assertion with regards to policy makers being "mislead". Dr. Mojib Latif and other IPCC scientists are aware that the warming will not be monotonic and have in fact cautioned that it will not be, it is actually the "skeptics" who seem to think so. I say that because it is in fact those who deny the theory of AGW and "skeptics" (even some "skeptic" scientists who know, or should know, better) who get excited every time there is a short-term slowdown or cooling (perceived or real). It is for that very reason that science sites like SkepticalScience (and OpenMind) have had to spend a lot of time refuting claims that global warming stopped in 1998 and 2002 etc. (the number of choices to cherry pick increases as the window is shortened). See here, here, here, and here. There are more, but I think you get the point. The scientific literature abounds with papers speaking to the variability of global temperatures and SSTs (some examples here and here). Unfortunately, because the global temperature records are inherently noisy (because if internal climate variability, such as El Nino and La Nina), "skeptics" can continue playing this deceptive game (and it is a game for some) of cherry picking statistically insignificant short-term "cooling" trends all the while the statistically significant long-term trend is UP. To do so is in fact misleading policy makers and confusing the public.
  34. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    Dr Pielke @107, you say "global warming has flattened". When it is said that a long term trend has "ceased" of "flattened", what is being claimed is that future temperatures are more likely to lie close to current temperatures rather than close to the projection of the long term trend. Is this what you are claiming? More specifically, are you claiming that the RSS MSU Channel TLT anomaly relative to the 1979-1998 mean is more likely to be closer to 0.25 degrees K, or 0.4 degrees K (ie, approximately current values plus the 1 decade trend)? (RSS TLT anomaly as reproduced by Dr Pielke, Sept 7th, 2011). As an aside, I to believe that policy makers are being misled "into believing that the climate should more-or-less monotonically warm". However, that misleading is coming from people like your friends Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts.
  35. Continued Lower Atmosphere Warming
    As part of a science project, a 5th grader plots the temperature for the Spring. April 2 has a record high in Boston--95 degrees Fahrenheit. The next seven days show an unusually low average of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Clearly, based on this trend, Boston is not warming up that year, and spring is not coming. A baseball player starts off the season batting a poor 200. During the playoffs, however, he catches fire, batting over 400 for 15 games. The last game shows no exception: he starts off with a triple, then hits a home run. However, at his next two at bats, he strikes out and then grounds out. A commentator states that based on the last two at bats, the player is not improving at all, since his batting average is 0 percent. As silly as both arguments are, I don't see them as substantially different than arguing there has been no warming trend since 13 years ago. Some aspects in climate science are very complex and hard to understand (such as the heat transfer in oceans, or the feedback in clouds); accurately identifying trend lines is not one of these areas.
  36. Pielke Sr. and SkS Warming Estimates
    I am very suspicious the "regional/local" effects line. No denying that these effects are what matter to us most, but are the local effects due to local causes? I would like some substantial scrutiny of this. The very appealing side of this narrative for Western nations. GHG emissions are global in effect. In this way, the historical emission from western nations can have negative climate effects not just for themselves, but also on vulnerable nations with very low emissions. This creates complex questions over rights and responsibility that pure free-market only advocates struggle to solve. On the other hand, if you can suggest that local/regional land use change are main or even substantial driver for climate change in the same local region, then there is excuse to simply blame say Pakistan for its own climate problems and sit on your hands when it come to reducing emissions. Very appealing idea but I rather doubt that it is strongly scientifically based.
  37. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    Let's please move any discussion of TLT trends to the new blog post on the subject, and move on to the discussion of OHC data here.
  38. Every Picture Tells A Story
    Very informative - as is the well selected reading list.
  39. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    muoncounter - I took 2002 because visibly there appears to be a change in slope. I request you plot that as well.
  40. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    Dikran Marsupial - I had three hypotheses. I request you complete the test and see what you obtain. It is a starting point for our further discussuions.
  41. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    Tristan - You asked "Dr Pielke, [many policy makers] believe that the flat temperatures between 1998 and 2011 are a result of a cessation of anthropogenic warming, [will you acknowledge] that that flatness is [a temporary result] of natural variability[...]? " There is no question that the diversity of human climate forcings, including that from added CO2, has continued even as global warming has flattened. However, this behavior of the climate system illustrates our still incomplete knowledge of the climate. Policymakers, in my view, are being misled into believing that the climate should more-or-less monotonically warm when in reality both natural variability and the diversity of human climate forcings makes the issue of climate system heat content much more complex.
  42. Pielke Sr. and SkS Warming Estimates
    > the regional/local scale that matters much more to > society and the environment. On the regional/local scale, absorbign damages are of different kinds in different locations, you can absorb a whole lot of losses. That works for a while -- while the trading/transportation/financial system holds up, because each area can buy what it can't produce and sell what it overproduces. That's the definition of overshoot, ecologically. http://www.google.com/search?q=catton+overshoot It's not a solution. It's a way of postponing and increasing the damage while hoping the problem doesn't keep adding up. Remember the advertising slogan "The solution to pollution is dilution!" from the 1950s? Because impacts could be avoided. For decades.
  43. Michael Hauber at 10:40 AM on 14 October 2011
    The Earth continues to build up heat
    An interesting chart. Enso does act to move heat between the surface and the subsurface, with El Ninos moving heat from subsurface to the surface, and vice versa for La Nina. However most of this effect seems to happen above 700 metres if you track the detailed evolution of ENSO events, but possibly the effect extends deeper down in a more subtle manner. On this basis the strong La Nina period of the early to mid 70s increased heat content in 700-2000. Then between 1980 and 1998 a strongly El Nino dominated period resulted in a loss of heat which was a little more than enough to offset the heat that global warming put into this layer. Then since 1999 a more La Nina dominated period combined with global warming resulted in a rapid rise of 700-2000 metre heat content. Although squinting at the colours with my partially colour blind eyes, it looks like the strongest heat gain is in the Atlantic? Whereas if ENSO was driving the multi-decadal variation I'd expect it to be strongest in Pacific.
  44. Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
    Tristan @10, the petition was originally circulated to "virtually every scientist in every field" in the US according to one of its critics. But the OISM refuses to indicate the size of the mailout. From SourceWatch:
    "OISM has refused to release info on the number of mailings it made. From comments in Nature:
    "Virtually every scientist in every field got it," says Robert Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and spokesman for the American Physical Society. "That's a big mailing." According to the National Science Foundation, there are more than half a million science or engineering PhDs in the United States, and ten million individuals with first degrees in science or engineering. Arthur Robinson, president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, the small, privately funded institute that circulated the petition, declines to say how many copies were sent out. "We're not willing to have our opponents attack us with that number, and say that the rest of the recipients are against us," he says, adding that the response was "outstanding" for a direct mail shot. [16]"
    The original mail out only garnered about 15,000 responses. Despite Robinson's claims, without a precise statement of the mail out number, no significance can be assigned to the petition as a survey of scientific opinion. What is more, given the anecdotal evidence of the size of the mailout, and the small size of the respondents (15,000) compared to the number of "virtually every scientist in every field", the reasonable conclusion is that the response rate was very small. Indeed, if it were not, you can be sure that the OISM would be trumpeting not only the absolute number of signatories, but the response rate as well. Since the original mail out, the petition has been available online to add the signature, and has been frequently trumpeted by various political figures, so its presence has been known. Given that, the response rate is best given by the number of signatories divided by the number of potential signatories as given in the main article, ie, 0.3%. As such, this petition is no more significant than any of the various creationist petitions that get circulated. Indeed, given the close ties of the OISM and the Discovery Institute (an Intelligent Design creationist site), it can be viewed as one of the various petitions circulated by creationists.
  45. Every Picture Tells A Story
    Anyone care to draw a line of best fit through the Annual Mean NH Snowfall Extent of Fig 3 ?
    Response:

    [DB] The seasonal graphs have trend lines already in place, here.

  46. The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
    Thanks Pete. And this is from the NODC data? Interesting how it can change so quickly, almost as if someone has flipped a lever and heat is now tracking down deeper. Just been reading Sutton & Roemmich (2011). Although I don't cover it in the post, most of the heat funneled down to the depths in the climate model used by Meehl (2011), occurs in the Southern Ocean (figure 4 in the post). That's what Sutton & Roemmich find looking at the WOCE (World Ocean Circulation Experiment) and ARGO data. The "missing heat" is running out of places to hide.
  47. There is no consensus
    Continued sensitivity discussion is better suited to the existing sensitivity thread. The consensus there is 3.5 deg C per doubling.
  48. There is no consensus
    Jonathon, I am curious. What is your reference for Hansen believing sensitivity to be 6? Wasnt what he said in public meeting I attended. Also, in consensus. Am I correct in assuming that in your mind, if there is a published value outside a consensus range, even in a refuted paper, then consensus doesn't exist?
  49. Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
    pielkesr#103: ""The lower tropospheric global annual average temperature trend (TLT) from 2002 until now cannot distinguished from a zero trend."" The rationale for choosing 2002 as a breakpoint is still unclear. However, if you take what appears to be a natural breakpoint (1998), you see something completely different. Here is UAH from start to the beginning of 1998 with a 6 month running mean. The trend line is shown. Here is UAH from mid-1998 to present, same mean; the trendline has a higher slope than does the prior period. I seem to recall a video interview with Dr. Pachauri in which he clearly stated that warming was not expected to be monotonic (can't find the link to it at the moment). Perhaps the nonlinearity in the system that everyone agrees is present is expressed in these temporary flattenings along the overall rising curve. In view of that characteristic of these data, choosing arbitrarily short periods for analysis seems utterly counterproductive. And given the data have a high frequency noise, short periods are likely to be more contaminated -- and therefore misleading -- than long periods.
  50. Book review: The Inquisition of Climate Science
    1. Here's a sourcewatch wiki on Koch Industries, with references. Readers can do their own explorations from that starting point. You should add no. 3, Sasquatch, if you want to provide complete coverage: "Where does the industrial funding money come from?" Remember, the government isn't the only economic entity that engages in taxation (it's just the only one that offers representation (such as it has become)).

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