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Comments 73551 to 73600:

73551. muoncounter at 03:07 AM on 2 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Today's NY Times has a multi-page spread (starting on p. 1) about forest loss. Apparently warmer temps mean the pine bark beetle and other pests thrive. It's not specific to Canada, but the Great White North does have a rather large forest products industry. -- source
       Moderator Response: [John Hartz] In this particular instance, "today" is Saturday, October 1 in the US. The time stamp for all posts is Australian.
73552. muoncounter at 01:54 AM on 2 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       Eric#137: Some valid points; we've been around the hurricane argument many times. Some studies say no trend, some say numbers and intensity increase. No studies say the trend is down; that warmer SSTs means everything will be nice and comfy. The point was, is and will remain thus: There are a significant number of extreme conditions around the world consistent with climate change; there is a valid physical mechanism for warming as the cause of said change and a valid physical mechanism for the cause of said warming. The explanations offered in response seem to cluster into a. 'older data is no good' or 'there's no trend,' which boil down to 'let's wait and see;' b. 'more people live in risky areas' or 'disaster counts don't mean anything,' which boil down to 'we're all gonna die eventually anyway;' c. 'this has all happened before' or 'its not that bad' or 'its just the weather,' which boil down to 'don't worry, be happy.' Has anyone seen a credible paper saying that conditions are getting milder?
73553. dana1981 at 01:41 AM on 2 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Pete @15 - you're talking about percentage of the greenhouse effect, not percentage of positive radiative forcing. Water vapor is the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, but not a forcing. Pete @17 - I noted in the post that the black carbon forcing may be underestimated. So may the aerosol negative forcing.
73554. Pete Dunkelberg at 01:37 AM on 2 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       The chart in the post may be based on out of date and inadequate data on black carbon. Compare for instance Jacobson_2010_Fossil_and_Biofuel_Soot_Climate_Effects.pdf (5.5 MB pdf). Mark Z. Jacobson is a man who knows his soot. Whether he is equally sharp on climate forcing I don't know. Other reports that I don't have a link for just now indicate that black carbon in the atmosphere, over the Arctic in particular, may have been significantly underestimated.
73555. Chris G at 01:32 AM on 2 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       I think I may have gotten caught up in this a bit myself, but I think the distinction between a forcing and a total effect is being blurred. There was a pre-industrial (and pre-agricultural) balance of total radiative energy effects. A change in any of the contributing factors is a forcing. So, saying that the total attribution of CO2 is x is not the same as saying that the forcing is x; the forcing will be some other number determined by how much it has changed and how much that change affects the balance. If CO2 had not changed, its percentage of any positive forcing would be 0%. Let us pretend that you could double CO2 and hold everything else constant. The forcing would be on the order of ln(2) * x, where x was whatever its total contribution was before. But from a percentage standpoint, 100% of the positive forcing would be from CO2. If you account for an increase in water vapor, then the attribution of the positive forcing would be something less than 100%, and so on. Water vapor is a feedback, not an initial forcing, but, it does change the radiative energy balance, and sticking by the definition at the NRC link above, that makes it a forcing. Dr. Pielke is saying that CO2 is only about 1/4 of the positive forcing, which means that the other positive forcings are three times larger in effect than the ~40% change in CO2. At this point, I don't know; maybe that number is not that far off if water vapor contributes a large portion of the remaining 74%. However, that would mean that Dr. Pielke is making a fairly serious omission by not mentioning that it is our CO2 that is driving the increase in water vapor.
73556. Eric (skeptic) at 01:11 AM on 2 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       Muoncounter, there are two problems with your lower graphic. First there is an undercount of North Atlantic TCs in early years. Landsea 2007 estimated it at 2.2 for 1900-1965 Mann et al 2007 countered with an undercount of 1.2 pre-1944. The problem that neither paper analyzed was more recent overcounts in named storms that is exaggerated by the 10 year moving average and truncated vertical axis in your chart. Typically the overcounting is in the eastern Atlantic using modern satellite coverage. Here is an example from last year http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2010/GASTON.shtml? where TC Gaston briefly reached 35 knots by satellite estimate (no surface or dropsonde measurements), got named, and drifted west for a week as a minor disturbance still named in the discussions so that if it came back to life it would keep the name. The Landsea paper resulted in this graphic:
       
73557. Bob Lacatena at 00:22 AM on 2 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       16, ianw01,

       Are those of you chiming in to denounce him advocating ... [that there] are no benefits to climate change at all [?]

       I would simply warn that most imagined benefits are only superficially conceived, and are unlikely to come to fruition. A study of the actual impact of climate change on agriculture -- the very narrow range of light, temperature, moisture, and seasons in which selected crops thrive, and the serious efforts that must already be made to overcome pests and natural weather variations -- shows that imagined increases in crop production are only that. The same applies to fanciful thoughts that "warming" will mean fewer winter deaths and cheaper winter heating bills. Canada will continue to have only 8 hours of very low incidence sunlight in the winter. It's still going to get darn cold. At the same time, if buildings are constructed and insulated to protect against cold, not heat, but summer temperatures skyrocket by 5˚C or 10˚C, then that represents a problem. The bottom line is that a lot of factors are going to change: winter temps, daytime temps, humidity, weather patterns, precipitation patterns, floods, droughts, sea levels, dangerous pests, etc. And it only takes one of these to muck up the works. So many factors are going to change that it is very, very unlikely that there is any aspect of life or economics that is going to get only benefits and no detriments. How do you think the Napa Valley wine growers are going to feel when that is no longer wine country? Or every farmer in Texas when that state is no longer a viable agricultural contributor? On top of this, you have to look at the extremes. We are not talking about what has happened to date. What you see now is nothing. We're talking about what is going to happen. That is going to be a lot worse. Trying to imagine benefits is, to me, clutching at straws to try to pretend that there is no problem. It's too complicated, and the changes are too varied and too extreme for anyone but a handful of individuals to benefit in the long run. Things are going to change. Change is expensive. Change requires adaptation. New building techniques, new equipment, new insulation, new air conditioners, new behavioral habits, etc., etc. Even "good" change is expensive. Every change requires some degree of adaptation, which requires effort above and beyond what we need to expend today. You see a lack of balance because benefits aren't included. I see a lack of true appreciation of how complicated and nasty things are ultimately going to get when I hear such complaints.
73558. Eric (skeptic) at 00:17 AM on 2 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       Norman #133 "I had pointed out that warmer low temperatures are not dangerous to the human life, that 2011 had 3 F warmer nights is not the important stat for extreme weather. It is the very high temperatures that lead to fatalities via heat stroke." Heat stroke is not the only hazardous outcome. Warmer low temperature can lead to heat exhaustion and mortality. Kalkstein and Davis (1989) http://coaps.fsu.edu/pub/williams/Thesis/2563853.pdf point out that in most statistical models, (high) minimum dewpoints and minimum temperatures have a direct relation to mortality.
73559. Bernard J. at 00:14 AM on 2 October 2011
       2011 Sea Ice Minimum
       Dikran Marsupial. As a statistical exercise, those plots warm the cockles of my heart. As a hint of what may will come, they churn my innards. Of course, as you and others of us have noted above, they are not parametric modellings of the phenomena, and thus at some point the differing ice-free-summer projections of extent versus volume are going to knock one (or each other) over. It's interesting to consider how it will play out. For the trend in extent to hold into the future, something major would have to put a brake on the trajectory of (and thus on the causative factors for) loss of summer ice volume (= mostly thickness). That's a lot of 'inertia' with which to tangle. For the trend in volume to hold into the future, all that really needs to happen is for extent to suddenly collapse in magnitude, which can easily be anticipated once thickness reduces beyond a critical threshold. I think all wise money would be placed on the latter scenario: at some point between 2015 and 2050 (and probably very much in the first half of that period) there will be a spectacular plummetting of the values for sea ice extent. I'm still of the inclination to consider that it will likely occur before 2020. Whenever it does eventually happen, it will be instructive to see how humanity responds...
73560. Pete Dunkelberg at 00:11 AM on 2 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       You say '"...Dr. Pielke responded: "~26% of the positive radiative forcing was from CO2"' This may be an overestimate, not an underestimate. Schmidt et al. 2010. Attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect finds just 20% of it due to CO2. See also NASA, Real Climate. Dr Schmidt says at RC

       One amusing aspect of the process was that one of the referees initially suggested that our paper wasn’t necessary because it was common knowledge that the attribution to CO2 was between 9 and 26% (sound familiar?). As it turns out, they were reading a page from UCAR which was quoting (without attribution!) from my original blog post.

       The chart you show at the top of the post is talking about something else. Evidently the chart folds the water vapor feedback into CO2. It looks like a chart of climate forcings, not radiative forcings, so that you and Dr Pielke Sr. are talking about different things.
73561. Glenn Tamblyn at 21:34 PM on 1 October 2011
       Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
       Les "Clearly the 'skeptics' comparing them selves to Galileo shows a very poor understanding of history". But maybe it gives a very clear understanding of the egotism/rightious victim mentality that they embrace so whole-heartedly
73562. mspelto at 21:01 PM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Energy costs will also be impacted by continued glacier retreat which will impact hydropower at locations like Bridge Glacier or Apex Glacier. In these locations declining summer glacier runoff will lead to lower hydropower production unless more water is stored at another time of the year, though that is not possible in many locations due to flood control.
73563. Peter Hogarth at 20:03 PM on 1 October 2011
       Antarctica is gaining ice
       SRJ at 23:12 PM on 29 September, 2011 The Zwally paper re-assessing the data is later than Rignot, and the science is persuasive (in my view). Although in Zwally the estimates of average mass loss have been revised and reduced over the whole continent, there is even less doubt about increasing loss of land based ice in western Antarctica. The linkage with temperature rise in this area is perhaps obvious.
73564. ianw01 at 19:13 PM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       I'm with Jonathan in so far as "reports like this, which are extremely biased to one side, make the entire environmental movement to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions look foolish." They may be correct, but to many they *look* foolish. We must accept that this is true for some people's perspective and then address it accordingly. Whether specifics aound death rates, argriculture, etc. are pros or cons are each great topics to discuss. But let me ask this: Are those of you chiming in to denounce him advocating eitehr of the following: - There are no benefits to climate change at all. - Discussion focusing on costs need not be set in the context of benefits, however small. As an avid SkS reader ready to refute denialism thanks to lots of great articles, I see this enthusiasm to write off any small financial impacts as cherry-picking. We have many more difficult people to convince than Jonathan - why not acknowledge the small benefits and then show how they are buried by the negatives?
       Moderator Response: [John Hartz] Jonathan has opined about what is contained in a summary description of a report. Before you embrace his opinion, I suggest that you actually read the report itself. Whether or not Jonathan has actually read the report is an open question.
73565. Alexandre at 17:52 PM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       "The" preferred climate change indicator for 'skeptics' is whatever one that has more uncertainty as they tend to have more room for denial. Tricky stitching together of different sensors is also something to look for: - tropospheric hotspot (even 'skeptics' who don't have a clue what it is love it) - short-term noisy temp data - short-term noisy OHC - cloud feedback
73566. Brian Purdue at 16:27 PM on 1 October 2011
       Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
       Climate "skeptics" claim that they are like Galileo and the scientific community is equivalent to the all-powerful Catholic church of the middle-ages, who suppressed scientific enlightenment with religious dogma. But it's easy to see through this idealogical-driven skeptic's assertion. The fact is climate scientists are the persecuted Galilean messenger and the church’s political dominance has shifted to global financial and fossil fuel monoliths, with the pseudo-sceptics playing the spoilers role. Those in the middle-ages had the perfectly valid excuse of scientific ignorance. So what’s our excuse?
73567. davidh5040 at 15:15 PM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       I expect this might be a minor point, but the NRC link doesn't appear to have a definition for climate change. The definition quote on Dr Pielke's blog appears to be the defintion for "climate system". Have wires got crossed somewhere, or am I missing something?
73568. GEP at 14:37 PM on 1 October 2011
       It's the sun
       Every energy source accessible to the human species is created – either directly or indirectly – through nuclear reactions powering the sun and stars. Every atom of our planet – from the fissionable atoms of uranium and plutonium, to the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms of our bodies, comprise the end products of nuclear processes. The numerous chemical, physical and nuclear quanta of energy transiently packaged within coal, oil, gas, wood, food, geothermal, hydrothermal, hydroelectric, wind, wave, electromagnetic, heat, solar, uranium, plutonium, hydrogen, neutrons and protons, are all sourced ultimately from fundamental nuclear reactions occurring deep within the sun and stars. No energy source is renewable in nature, only degradable, degrading inexorably with time as a cascading decay of energy states from protons through to coal. This inescapable degradation is enshrined as physical law: the second law of thermodynamics. In common with other stars, the sun steadily releases this energy as gamma radiation, deep within its central core, and primarily through the proton-proton reaction (ref1), the same nuclear reaction that powers the hydrogen bomb. In this simple reaction, four hydrogen nuclei fuse together to make one helium nucleus, releasing in the process 26.73 MeV (or 1.02 x 10^-22 ton oil equivalent) of energy in the form of gamma rays (ref2). Streaming out from the sun’s central core at some 10^38 per second (ref3), the gamma ray photons are continually absorbed and re-emitted as less energetic photons, eventually reaching the surface of the sun and escaping into surrounding space primarily as photons of visible light, along with sizable amounts of every other form of radiation. It is this lethal flux of radiation that has irradiated the naked Earth for 4.5 billion years now. It is this radiation which powers, supports, initiates and drives (through genetic mutation) the numerous processes of biochemical diversification we call life. It is this radiation which directly and indirectly, creates, supports and controls the so-called biosphere of life-tolerant conditions on Earth, conditions that nourish, support, protect, evolve and eventually extinguish each species of life on this planet. Energy is radiation. Radiation is energy. The ultimate source of both is nuclear. It is that simple in nature. Humanity’s real problem comes with the politics of energy, a vastly more complicated and intractable issue altogether. An issue it seems, which dare not be stated in four hundred words, far less solved. ref 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%E2%80%93proton_chain_reaction ref 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_energy ref 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
       Response:

       [DB] Rambling dissertations aside, do you have a point with this?

73569. dana1981 at 14:31 PM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Chris G - TCR represents what we expect in terms of the immediate climate response to a radiative forcing. It seems like your a and c are basically saying the TCR value may be off, which is certainly true, and why I specified "best estimate". However, if the best estimate is correct, then b is correct.
73570. muoncounter at 13:03 PM on 1 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       Numbers of earthquakes do not change because of building codes. Numbers of extreme weather events do not change because more people have nicer houses. -- source (2004) Note: number of events by decade is up by a factor of 5 in 5 decades. Here are tropical storms, rather than just hurricanes: --source A 2005 study published in the journal Nature examined the duration and maximum wind speeds of each tropical cyclone that formed over the last 30 years and found that their destructive power has increased around 70 percent in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (4). Another 2005 study, published in the journal Science, revealed that the percentage of hurricanes classified as Category 4 or 5 (the two strongest categories on the Saffir-Simpson scale) has increased over the same period (5). Note 4 is to Emmanuel 2005 Note 5 is to a paper co-authored by J. Curry. Like the man says, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
73571. Norman at 12:48 PM on 1 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       DB @ 132 Thanks, I am working on getting the "known, statistically robust, methodologies." I was just stating that my approach is not cherry-picking. I did not say what I did was the best choice of methods (grab bag is probably the most descriptive).
       Response:

       [DB] Best wishes then.  In the meantime your current approach is scientifically similar to this one.

       By all means, acquire those methodologies, do the work and disprove what the current experts in the field are saying.  You will be welcome to submit the work here as a guest post if it meets publication standards.

       Until then, please try to adhere to the topic of the OP.

73572. Norman at 12:44 PM on 1 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       KR @ 128 "You've done this with (as I recall) just Dallas weather rather than Texas, just days >105 rather than mean temperatures, selected dates from history rather than trends, on and on and on as others have called you on your data selections." I had pointed out that warmer low temperatures are not dangerous to the human life, that 2011 had 3 F warmer nights is not the important stat for extreme weather. It is the very high temperatures that lead to fatalities via heat stroke. The higher the high the more dangerous to human life. That is why I included that in the post. "At this point, with cherry-picking firmly established as a core of your arguments, I'll have to take this as evidence that the Extreme weather has increased hypothesis is rather strongly supported by your inability to disprove it." You can take the same challenge I posted to muoncounter in Post #90 Go to the NOAA page he linked to at #58 and put in 1981 to 2011 for any month you wish to view (I chose August since it is a warm month). Shrink the screen and go to the site again and try another 30 year period and shrink this one as well. Run the two side by side in an animation and you see if you can see clear evidence that severe droughts and floods (very wet conditions) is increasing based upon another set of 30 years.
73573. Norman at 12:34 PM on 1 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       KR @ 128 "In other words, you searched for extreme events at other times, ignoring statistical indications and trends, in order to present possible counter examples. This is classic cherry-picking, Norman. It's (from the definition, "a kind of fallacy of selective attention"), hunting for the subset of data that supports your hypothesis and ignoring the mass of evidence that might contradict you." That is not at all what I did or described that I did. I went to the NOAA website that lists extreme weather events for given years. I selected one (without looking at the others) and posted the result in #95 to muoncounter with a link to the NOAA page I grabbed it from. I would agree with you on cherry-picking if I looked at many extreme weather reports and picked the most extreme out of the bunch. I did not do this and do not know what the other years hold in terms of extreme weather.
       Response:

       [DB] "I would agree with you on cherry-picking if I looked at many extreme weather reports and picked the most extreme out of the bunch. I did not do this and do not know what the other years hold in terms of extreme weather."

       Relying upon happenstance in the absence of known, statistically robust, methodologies is sheer folly.  So then call it raspberry/orange/apple/kiwi/squash/etc-picking.  Closing ones eyes and walking into a busy thoroughfare because one doesn't believe in extreme traffic doesn't make one's body impervious to being run over.

73574. Norman at 12:25 PM on 1 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       KR @ 128 "* Earthquake numbers are underestimated due to better building codes. * Reporting codes (for weather only, not earthquake, a peculiar distinction) have changed to increase disaster reports." I believe this earthquake chart may show my case in point. Also please look at how ridiculous claims are about earthquake disaster number. Check out the world earthquakes for the years 1976 and 1977. Very close to the same number of earthquakes but look at the huge difference in fatalities. If disaster reports for earthquakes are relatively flatline they really do not address the actual disaster of an earthquake. That is a side point (something to consider). The big point would be to look at the fatalities around the world from earthquakes. Then look at the US fatalities. The percentage of earthquake number to fatalities is much lower in the US. I wonder why? Is my building code argument really that lame to you? What answer can you provide for this difference in fatalities to earthquake number between the US and the rest of the world? But the bigger thought here is that disasters are not a good way to determine extreme weather frequency. All I ask for is a better system, does that make me a "bad guy"? I think it would qualify for scientist. Less dependent on a shifting variable like human behavior, population increase, property values, dumb choices, etc. Earthquake data.
73575. Norman at 12:13 PM on 1 October 2011
       Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
       KR @ 128 "I may have overstated this - what you are actually asserting is that it's impossible to prove that extreme weather has increased. That seems to be a firmly held opinion, and I believe is leading you into confirmation bias, shaping what evidence you find acceptable." I did not know that is what I was asserting. I explained what I believed would be a good way to determine if extreme weather is increasing. You create scales like hurricanes and tornadoes for other extreme weather events and then you collect the data and see if the trend is positive. This is a certain way to prove extreme weather is increasing. * Records of disasters are biased by population shifts/changes, and no actual event changes have occurred. Hence the insurance information and FEMA disaster records are inaccurate. I am not claiming insurance and FEMA disaster records are inaccurate. I am claiming disasters involve humans and property and with shifting growing population and more valuable property it will tend to distort the connection between real events. I presented a useful thought experiment to demonstrate the point. If you have the same number of extreme events a year but the population moves to areas more prone to these exteme events (such as moving into tornado alley, moving along coasts with numerous hurricane strikes, moving into flood plains with known history of flooding) and builds bigger better houses and fills them with higher cost items you can see that even if the number of extreme events stayed the same, in this scenerio disasters would increase as the extreme events would have a better chance of causing more damage and death. This is a clear case showing how disaster events do not have to correlate with actual number of extreme events. Just think it through. You can take the thought experiment either way. Here is some evidence that no visible trend exists in US disasters over a 22 year period (1988 to 2010). If you remove the extreme hurricane Katrina (which did not kill so many in itself but a faulty built levi was the problem with this one) you can see there is no significant trend in monetary or fatalites caused by extreme weather events. 22 years of weather related disasters in US. Above link from this page Link to graph above.
73576. Chris G at 11:58 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Dana, May I ask how transient is "transient climate response"? Because, I don't know how you ever avoid obfuscation issues with lag. Why the temp might be under the best estimate could be because, a) the best estimate is a little off, b) there are some small cooling effects being introduced as well, or c) there is a bit more lag in the system than was estimated. I'm not entirely clear on this, but it might be premature to say that (b) is the answer. Hmm, I'm wondering if the answer doesn't hinge on the outcome of the debate whether there is missing heat, possibly in the ocean depths where it is difficult to measure, or there is no missing heat, possibly because of an increase in aerosols from China and India (mostly).
73577. Jonathon at 11:48 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Hi Man, Nice to see a reasonable post added to the antagonistic rhetoric displayed earlier. I do not know whether the pros actually outweigh the cons as reported by Albatross in the earlier NRT report, but at least someone else is willing to acknowledge that they exist. Sphaerica seems to object to the mention of agricultural benefits in the report, (-Snip-). Discussing only the negatives, without acknowledging the positives is akin to a corporation reporting revenues only, and omitting costs. It would look quite lopsided. I am only a border Canadian (I live in Michigan), but we have experienced some of the same positives/negatives as our friends to the North.
       Moderator Response: [DB] "I do not know whether the pros actually outweigh the cons"

       Perhaps then you should actually do the background reading, as suggested, before making such seemingly authoritative statements.  Else your comments look quite lopsided.

       Inflammatory snipped.

73578. Chris G at 11:04 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       KR, thanks for adding those. I was tunneled in on energy and forgot about the chemical changes.
73579. Chris G at 10:50 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Keith, Nice pickup on the distinction between contribution to radiative forcing and contribution to warming. I followed Dr. Peilke's comments to where he mentions that figure, and then to the slide that he referenced, and I'm struggling a bit with understanding his claim that, "The CO2 contribution to the radiative warming decreases to 26.5%" Granted, there are other changes that are forcings, for instance an increase in black aerosols, and if CO2 were to stay the same and they were to increase, then, percentage-wise, there could be a decrease in the relative forcing of CO2. But, CO2 has increased by ~40%, and even given the logarithmic nature of its effect, I have a hard time believing that the effect of the other constituents has increased so much as to cause a relative decrease in the effect of CO2. If that were the case, then I suspect there would be a lot more missing heat to account for. Because, if we can calculate the expected increase in warming from just CO2 at around 0.9 K, there would have to be more forced warming from other sources in order for there to be a percentage decrease in CO2's contribution. In any case, you are right, the question was, how much of the warming, and what he answered was how much of the radiative forcing, and they are not the same.
73580. KR at 10:38 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Agnostic Chris G has a point. I'll add that even without temperature changes, increasing CO2 has an effect on ocean acidification and C3/C4 plant responses - climate change as well. That said, global temperatures are a really important indicator, and I feel Dr. Pielke is inappropriately dismissing it.
73581. Chris G at 10:19 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Agnostic, I'll have a go at answering your question. It really isn't all about change in temperature. Rather, it is about change in energy. Changes in energy can cause phase state changes, like between water and vapor, and water and ice. Difference balance points between where energy is absorbed and where it is transferred somewhere else can affect wind patterns, and also currents. Temperature makes a nice proxy for energy levels, but climate change is more than just temperature because different energy levels change more than just temperature.
73582. Riduna at 09:52 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       I have a problem with the assertion that …. “Based on the NRC definition, the increase in global temperature is a subset of climate change.” In my view, all aspects of climate change have one thing in common – change in temperature. How then can it be seen as anything other than the driving force rather than a sub-set of climate change?
73583. keithpickering at 09:17 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       It looks to me like Pielke Sr. has simply taken the 26%-for-CO2 number from the paper of Kiehl & Trenberth 1997, which concluded that CO2 is responsible for 26% of the greenhouse effect. That's a long way from 26% of the warming, however.
73584. les at 08:17 AM on 1 October 2011
       Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
       38 - Tom Smerling My "instrument maker" remark was, obviously, an exaggeration to offset the exaggeration of the Galileo's 'uniqueness' myth - and I mean 'myth' in the sense of stories we develop and tell our selves to help us understand systems of thought - not 'myth' in the popular sense of fiction. I'm not saying he wasn't one of the greats - just that, in the potted histories we tell, his position is a bit exaggerated for for convenience. And to illustrate the point. "what prompted A. Einstein to dub Galileo "the father of modern physics—indeed of modern science altogether," and Stephen Hawking to state, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."" Of course, both Albert and Stephen are/where theoretical physicists; not historians of science / philosophy of science (let alone experimentalists!). Of course, knowing they're part of the story, they support and promulgate the received narrative of their disciples... Still, how often do people, correctly, point out that just because some skeptic is a science X, doesn't make him/her knowledgeable in climate modeling or what ever... Clearly the 'skeptics' comparing them selves to Galileo shows a very poor understanding of history... Still, history doesn't really repeat it's self although, as they say, it might rhyme.
73585. Manwichstick at 07:02 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       As a Canadian Lover-of-this-website, (for its attention to science) I must say I'm glad my country is getting some sks time. Canada's economy should grow as fossil fuels become more difficult to extract. This will happen with or without global warming. I imagine our water resources will become more valuable if the climate warms - also a plus financially. Blueberries can become a larger crop for as we warm etc. More tourism would also be enjoyed. But there are certainly negatives, and you will be hard pressed to find an honest economist who will defend that the status-quo fossil fuel use is financially prudent. This past decade 2000-2010, our insurance claims have more than doubled over the previous decade. http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/news/aviva-canada-claims-data-show-increased-frequency-severity-of-water-claims-costs/1000406401/ I imagine that the latitudes that Canada inhabits will be a battleground between the arctic air and the warm air from the south as new "normals" are set and then changed again. Our precipitation should increase, and climate get weirder by the climate models I have seen. We have had some bad experiences with invasive species that should not be neglected in "cost to Canada" calculations, and we already have "climate refugees" in the far North as permafrost melts where it hasn't melted before in many many years collasping the ground beneath buildings. I look forward to a better financial future, however I am skeptical.
       Response:

       [DB] Canada was also featured prominently in this thread: Twice as much Canada, same warming climate.

73586. Daniel Bailey at 06:16 AM on 1 October 2011
       2011 Sea Ice Minimum
       What an interesting thread I've been missing! Just wanted to interject some (hopefully) salient points into the dialogue. 1. As far as predictions and "tipping points", Eisenman and Wettlaufer (PNAS 2009), in their publication "Nonlinear threshold behavior during the loss of Arctic sea ice" state:

       Our analysis suggests that a sea-ice bifurcation threshold (or “tipping point”) caused by the ice–albedo feedback is not expected to occur in the transition from current perennial sea ice conditions to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, but that a bifurcation threshold associated with the sudden loss of the remaining seasonal ice cover may occur in response to further heating. These results may be interpreted by viewing the state of the Arctic Ocean as comprising a full seasonal cycle, which can include ice-covered periods as well as ice-free periods. The ice–albedo feedback promotes the existence of multiple states, allowing the possibility of abrupt transitions in the sea-ice cover as the Arctic is gradually forced to warm. Because a similar amount of solar radiation is incident at the surface during the first months to become ice free in a warming climate as during the final months to lose their ice in a further warmed climate, the ice–albedo feedback is similarly strong during both transitions. The asymmetry between these two transitions is associated with the fundamental nonlinearities of sea-ice thermodynamic effects, which make the Arctic climate more stable when sea ice is present than when the open ocean is exposed. Hence, when sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean during fewer months of the year, the state of the Arctic becomes less stable and more susceptible to destabilization by the ice–albedo feedback. In a warming climate, as discussed above, this causes irreversible threshold behavior during the potential distant loss of winter ice, but not during the more imminent possible loss of summer (September) ice.

       Emphasis added. The article also contains this graphic:

       The inclusion of nonlinear sea-ice thermodynamic effects stabilizes the model when sea ice is present during a sufficiently large fraction of the year, allowing stable seasonally ice-free solutions (red solid curves). Under a moderate warming (∆F₀ = 15 Wm ^-2), modeled sea-ice thickness varies seasonally between 0.9 and 2.2 m. Further warming (∆F₀ = 20Wm ^-2) causes the September ice cover to disappear, and the system undergoes a smooth transition to seasonally ice-free conditions. When the model is further warmed (∆F₀ = 23Wm ^-2), a saddle-node bifurcation occurs, and the wintertime sea ice cover abruptly disappears in an irreversible process.

       2. Parties interested in the processes of bottom melt and the mixing layers underneath the ice would do well to look at "Mixing, heat fluxes and heat content evolution of the Arctic Ocean mixed layer" Sirevaag et al 2011 3. Another fascinating paper which I regret to not having internalized yet: "Influence of Initial Conditions and Climate Forcing on Predicting Arctic Sea Ice" by Blanchard-Wrigglesworth et al GRL 2011

       "In the model there are times when no significant area predictability exists from either initial conditions or climate forcing, whereas for volume, significant predictability is present almost continuously."

       The Death Spiral yet lives...
73587. John Hartz at 06:13 AM on 1 October 2011
       Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
       If you have not already done so, I highly recommend that you take a gander at Chris Mooney's "Memo to Rick Perry: Galileo Was a Liberal" posted on DeSmog Blog. To access Mooney's article, click here.
73588. Albatross at 06:09 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Jonathon @9, You would be in a position to answer your own question if you read the reports. The rest of your post just argues strawmen and floats red herrings.
73589. Bob Lacatena at 05:58 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Jonathan, I'm sorry, but anyone who is expecting any positives to come out of real climate change (I'm not talking about the dinky little early climate change we see now, I'm talking about where we're headed) is absolutely kidding themselves. For example, you talk about increased agricultural production. Sorry, no. This has been discussed to death, but warmer does not have to equal better. It can also mean more pests (i.e. a better world for insects, not plants, or for weeds, not useful crops). Also, plants need light. Making it warm further north won't affect the amount of daylight available, or how direct that light is. One thing that I learned that surprised me is that you can't simply move agricultural production north because of topsoil. You need topsoil, and a lot of the land further north has had the topsoil scraped clean by advancing ice sheets during glacial periods. There are other threads that discuss this. You should research them before donning those rose colored glasses.
73590. John Russell at 05:55 AM on 1 October 2011
       Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
       @Tom, I think Rational Wiki's rebuttal is a more concise version of my point: 'being persecuted doesn't make you right; supporting the consensus doesn't make you wrong'. To that I'd add (with thanks to KR, above) "demonstrating the evidence to support your theory trumps both". That's what I'd say to anyone who plays the Galileo card.
73591. NewYorkJ at 05:33 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Jonathan (#7), There are fallacies in your reasoning. It's not so relevant what the current death rate is but how it changes in response to climate change. The study I linked (also cited by the report) indicates little change in mortality in winter months going forward in 3 Canadian cities. Similarly, what matters to energy costs is how they change over time, not what they currently are. Could be that heating costs are reduced more than AC costs are increased in a warming climate. It also could be that Canadian homes are built for heat efficiency, and so energy costs will be more sensitive to increased summer heating. I do think it would have been nice if they estimated changes in energy costs, but it's not clear to me which direction it would go. The report indicates that this is not meant to be the last word on the topic.
73592. arch stanton at 05:26 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Sorry to dribble… Obscure references deserve links, particularly on an international forum. Here’s a couple: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Pipelines+coast+more+important+than+Keystone+HSBC/5453565/story.html http://www.marketwatch.com/story/canadian-crude-under-attack-on-two-fronts-2011-09-29
73593. arch stanton at 05:12 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Add to #8: And if we Yanks don't get our XL straw to suck it all up with, Canada seem all to willing to sell it to China.
73594. dana1981 at 05:11 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Water vapor is a feedback while we're discussing forcings, so that's not the issue. I think it's mostly that Dr. Pielke thinks the black carbon forcing is underestimated, and possibly methane as well. I discussed this in 'CO2 contribution' section.
73595. Tom Smerling at 05:11 AM on 1 October 2011
       Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
       Question for all: What should be the #1 point to make in an SkS "basic" rebuttal (this rebuttal is "intermediate")? i.e. Given just one shot, what is single succinct " killer" argument you would use to puncture the Galileo Gambit? My original draft "brief rebuttal" was simply this: "The comparison is exactly backwards. Modern scientists follow the evidence-based scientific method that Galileo pioneered. Skeptics who oppose scientific findings that threaten their world view are far closer to Galileo’s belief-based critics in the Catholic Church." Can we do better, in light of the comments above? Along these lines, Rational Wiki has a concise rebuttal to the "Galileo Gambit" (their term). The generic form is: “They made fun of Galileo, and he was right. They make fun of me, therefore I am right." The essence of their rebuttal: "There is no necessary link between being perceived as wrong and actually being correct; usually if people perceive you to be wrong, you are wrong. . . [nothwithstanding] the selective reporting of cases where people who were persecuted or ostracized for beliefs and ideas that later turned out to be valid." It's worth checking out, at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit. It concludes with that delicious, but perhaps unuseful, Carl Sagan quote about Columbus, Fulton, the Wright Brothers.....and Bozo the Clown!
73596. arch stanton at 04:53 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Canada is in an interesting position. Not only do they consume carbon based fuel at a per capita rate comparable to the US, but they also sit on one of the largest resource of very carbon intensive oil. Short of producing oil from coal it is tough to beat tar sands for carbon intensity when it comes to mile driven.
73597. Jonathon at 04:39 AM on 1 October 2011
       Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
       Albatross, If the earlier NRT report concluded that the pros outweighed the cons, why should we focus on this new report where the pros are omitted, and only the cons are listed? Even though Canada is better adapted to cold weather than many other counties, the death rate is still highest in the winter months. http://www.cmaj.ca/content/181/8/484/F1.expansion.html By the way, air conditioning costs in Canada cannot compare to heating costs.
       Moderator Response: [John Hartz] For better or for worse, SkS did not post articles on the first three reports produced by NRT when they were released. We encourage you and all other readers to peruse the entire set of reports. I will provide direct links to each of the first three reports as an addendum to the above article.
73598. Chris G at 04:27 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Forgot to finish that line of thought: The what-about-the-paleoclimate response to low sensitivity estimates has almost become a meme on the AGW side, but then, I've been seeing it for years, and I have yet to see a comprehensive response. IIRCR, Lindzen made an attempt, but it fell short of being globally applicable.
73599. Chris G at 04:19 AM on 1 October 2011
       Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
       Angliss #1, IDK, but it is possible, I can't speak for any contributors to the exchange. In any case, water does not spontaneously decide to become vapor, or delay precipitating once thresholds are reached, and there is already plenty of it exposed to air; therefore, it is not a primary driver. It can only respond to and enhance warming or cooling around it. So, if Pielke is comparing water vapor with CO2, he is comparing a feedback with a forcing, and the discussion has been around primary forcings. CO2 can also be a feedback because a temperature change can alter the carbon cycle, but in this case we know we have added lots of gigatons to the biosphere; so, we know we have created a causative agent, and we can only hope that our cause does not trigger a strong feedback of itself. Dana, thanks for completing the flip-side of what you came to an agreement on. It's kind of anti-climactic for me, but not completing it would have been a gaping hole in the series. It strikes me that many in the denier camp cling to the proposition that AGW is only based on models because the models are complicated and never 100% right; so, they are easy to argue against. Whereas, the paleoclimate record is simple to understand, and it is hard to argue against the idea that, this is what the earth has done in the past, we can expect it to do something similar now.
73600. Dikran Marsupial at 04:11 AM on 1 October 2011
       2011 Sea Ice Minimum
       Bernard J. Here are some sea ice volume projections, they look a bit pessimistic to me, usual caveats about this being a purely statistical projection apply, YMMV. This gives the general shape of the projection: Focussing in on the near future: The periodic covariance function looks like a neat way to model the seasonality. prediction for 2012 = 4.342434 (+/- 2.071584) 10^3km^3 prediction for 2013 = 3.306950 (+/- 2.227936) 10^3km^3 prediction for 2014 = 2.211567 (+/- 2.426253) 10^3km^3

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