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muoncounter at 23:56 PM on 30 September 20112011 Sea Ice Minimum
DM: I dunno; I'm seeing headlines on some blogs: SkS 95% confident of Arctic ice recovery starting in 2040! Or by continuing your upper bound forward a few hundred years: SkS forecasts snowball earth coming! Or perhaps: SkS now using chimps and buckets for climate science! -
Tom Curtis at 23:54 PM on 30 September 2011CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
Jonathon @119: 1) The most dominant feature of the solar signal is the 11 year solar cycle, whose fluctuation between peak and trough is very large compared to the rise of the smoothed signal from c 1910 to c 1950. That large cycle leaves no obvious imprint on the changes in Arctic temperature such as we would expect if variations in solar output where the main driver of variations in Arctic temperature. 2) The variations of the temperature signal above and below the smoothed TSI signal are of a similar magnitude to the rise in the smoothed TSI signal from 1910-1950 indicating that at least one other factor of similar importance the rise in TSI influences the temperature signal, even if we assume (which we are not entitled to do on this data) that most of the rise in temperature from 1910 to 1940 is due to the increase in TSI. 3) Contrary to your claim, the greatest disconnect between temperature and smoothed TSI is in the early 21st century. That disconnect is greater than is indicated in that the next few years of the TSI which would bring the TSI to the same endpoint as the temperature signal show a continued decline. From (1) and (2), it follows that TSI is at most 1 of several factors influencing Arctic temperatures over the course of the 20th century. I doubt statistical analysis would show it to be responsible for more than 25% of the variation in the signal, and more than 66% of the early 20th century trend. (3) on the other hand shows clearly that changes in TSI become decreasingly important to variation in the late 20th century and early 21st century, and indeed, because of the opposite trend of TSI and temperature in that period, we know that TSI is responsible for none trend in temperature in that period. Indeed, the more responsibility TSI has for the early 20th century trend, the more changes in TSI are counteracting a stronger influence which is responsible for the late 20th/early 21st century trend. We know independently that that stronger influence is a combination of enhanced greenhouse warming and the ice/snow albedo effect. None of this is relevant to the main point of posting the graph, which is to show the absurdity of presenting Willie Soon's graph as evidence in 2011. Soon's graph was obsolete when he made it, and is doubly so now. Its reconstruction of TSI is known to be in disagreement with direct observations of TSI by satellites. In fact, it was known to be so by Soon when he first prepared the graph. What has not been specifically commented on in this thread (although alluded to by Skywatcher), Soon's "Arctic temperatures" are not "Arctic temperatures", but rather based on a small number of Icelandic, Scandinavian and one Russian station from north of the Urals. Apparently Soon's Arctic includes neither Alaska, the Canadian Archipelago, nor Siberia. The exclusion of three quarters of the Arctic from Soon's "Arctic temperatures" was necessary to have a mid century temperature peak as strong as that in the early 21st century, a peak needed to match the c 1950 TSI peak. Soon is an astronomer, so he may not known about the flaws in his temperature index the way he certainly knew of the flaws in this TSI index. But that certainly does not mean it is appropriate to use that flawed index today, when we certainly do know better. Finally, while on the subject, Soon would certainly have known that the CO2 forcing does not rise linearly with CO2 concentrations. Consequently displaying a "correlation" between CO2 concentrations and temperature instead of CO2 forcing and temperature is certainly calculated to mislead. That makes two graphs in one paper by Soon which he knew where deceptive and misleading, both reproduced here by tblakeslee. He may not have known the misleading nature of the graphs before now, but he certainly does now. Because Soon knowingly published two such misleading graphs, we can be sure his intent is not to inform. We know also of anybody using those graphs that they are not true skeptics, whatever they claim, but rather are simply seeking confirmation of beliefs they find convenient without sufficiently high premium being placed on those beliefs being true.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] tag fixed as requested (no problem) -
Eric (skeptic) at 23:46 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
I must point out (again) that the ratio of hot to cold records is not corrected for UHIE and local effects. I pointed out one example up-thread (gravel and anomalously high readins on radiational cooling mornings at DCA) that make it much harder to reach a new record minimum. In many other cases, UHIE will cause new record maximums. It is typical that these anomalies can induce a degree or two trend over a period of record, e.g. http://www.springerlink.com/content/t7wk687082451443/ All the major global temperature indexes homogenize their station records to correct this effect. While the effect is small (< 0.1 C) for the globe as a whole, it is certainly not negligible when considering record values at individual stations. -
Dikran Marsupial at 23:44 PM on 30 September 20112011 Sea Ice Minimum
I thought today would be a good day to make a statistical prediction of September 2011 sea ice extent ;o) I obtained from data for Arctic sea ice extent from 1979-2009 (the NSIDC data archive appears to be down at the moment, that was the best I could find). I then fitted a Gaussian process model, using the excellent MATLAB Gaussian Processes for Machine Learning toolbox (the book is jolly good as well). I experimented with some basic covariance functions, and chose the squared exponential, as that gave the lowest negative log marginal likelihood (NLML). The hyper-parameters were tuned by minimising the NLML in the usual way. Here is a pretty picture:
Note the credible interval gets wider the further you extrapolate from the data, which is a nice feature of Bayesian models. Other highlights include:
prediction for 2010 = 4.927226 (+/- 1.069078)
prediction for 2011 = 4.772309 (+/- 1.096537)
prediction for 2012 = 4.614637 (+/- 1.128915)
ice free summer unlikely prior to 2027
ice free summer probably after 2041
I haven't checked to see how accurate the first two "predictions" actually are. This isn't really a serious attempt at a prediction, I just wanted to try out the regression tools in the GPML toolbox, but when I can get some up-to-date data, I can update the projections for 2012 and onwards. Hopefully I won't end up being the subject of a lessons from predictions post. ;o)
Caveat lector: This is a purely statistical prediction, so it is less reliable than physics, but hopefully better than chimps & buckets.
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Bob Lacatena at 23:33 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
35, guinganbresil, The temperature of the earth, from the point of view of the sun, is a constant 255˚K (-18˚C, or -0.4˚F), consistent with the amount of energy delivered by the sun to keep it at that temperature. The sun cannot directly "see" the surface temperature of the earth (which is now over 288˚K). Those emissions are blocked (got this whole greenhouse gas thingy going on here). A scientist living in the sun could infer surface temperatures by looking at the spectrum of radiation emitted and doing some special calculations that take into account an understanding of how things work (much as scientists on this planet need to do to tease out the data you'd like to see). Or better yet by sending a probe to the planet. The sun could infer that the surface of the planet is warming, if it had accurate enough detection methods, because it would see that the temperature of the earth for the past thirty years or so is very slightly below what would be expected. That's a sign that the planet is absorbing more radiation than it is emitting (i.e. appears slightly cooler than it should be). -
Jose_X at 23:31 PM on 30 September 2011Sea level rise due to floating ice?
Jonathon, I agree omitting that data is better than hiding some manipulation of it. If you can't explain it properly, then you should not try to sneak it in. However, as the criticism points out, there were sufficient clues and the citing to allow someone with experience to realize exactly what was done. It's a fail of sorts, but it doesn't appear dishonest. A few of the issues I wanted to raise were in questioning the perspective taken in that article that a normal distribution was acceptable (I don't believe it was) and that what the IPCC did, if explained sufficiently, was less than average and perhaps showed unwarranted bias (again I would disagree). -
muoncounter at 22:38 PM on 30 September 2011Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
In case anyone noticed anything different the last few days, an FD started late on the 26th and is now subsiding. On the Oulu neutron monitor, the decrease was approx 5% and hence falls below the 'Dragic limit' of 7% decrease for an observable DTR change. One thing's for sure, some spectacular auroral displays the past few nights - if you're not far enough north, see the pics at spaceweather.com -
guinganbresil at 22:33 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
Can anyone provide references for heliocentric views of the Earth's climate? By this I mean climate data averaged from the point of view of the Sun vice the Earth - not that variations in solar activity influence the climate (another argument entirely...) One of the strange things about 'climate' vs. 'weather' is the day/night and seasonal cycles cause use to do all kinds of averaging that could wash out import effects. There is no day-night cycle, nor seasons from the point of view of the sun... It seems reasonable to me to (at least) consider a case where the reference point of the analyses corresponds to the largest contributer to Earth's energy balance. Galileo would be proud... -
John Russell at 22:21 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
I've read through the comments and can't find anyone who's proposed what, to me, seems the biggest reason for ridiculing the 'Galileo was right', 'Einstein was right', 'Copernicus was right', 'whatsisname was right', memes. Let's assume for the sake of argument -- because that's because some would like us to believe -- that Galileo was a maverick with a theory that kicked against the consensus. Well then, just because one -- at the time seemingly -- maverick theory turns out to have been right, it doesn't mean that all other maverick theories are, by definition, also right. Since Galileo's time there have been many tens of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of maverick theories proposed which have been shown to be plain wrong. The fact that one, two, ten, or fifty turned out to be both correct and were ridiculed by the consensus when first proposed, does not provide any support to the idea that 'sceptic' climate scientists should be listened to on the basis that they're 'modern-day Galileos'. Leaving aside what they say for the moment, based just on statistical probability, we can be pretty certain that history will coral them with the tens of thousands of mavericks who were wrong. On the other hand if, in the very unlikely event, their ideas are correct, then statistical probability -- based on thousands of past examples -- tells us that we can be pretty certain that their ideas will gradually win through and history will put them in their rightful place. Perhaps on the pedestal alongside Galileo? -
Eric (skeptic) at 21:34 PM on 30 September 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Thanks Tom. From IPCC 2007, the "likely" categorizations are increases in drought, intense tropical cyclones and sea level rise. The "very likely" projectinos are precip and heat waves and warming is virtually certain. I assume a statement like this "Taken together, the evidence strongly favours a combined water vapour-lapse rate feedback of around the strength found in global climate models." means "very likely" or similar? But in the next section they say "Despite some advances in the understanding of the physical processes that control the cloud response to climate change and in the evaluation of some components of cloud feedbacks in current models, it is not yet possible to assess which of the model estimates of cloud feedback is the most reliable." Is it denial to ignore their overall assessment of models and point to cloud uncertainty? Is cloud uncertainty going to change any of the projections above to less than likely? I would also extend "cloud uncertainty" to mesoscale weather uncertainty to especially highlight the resulting uncertainty in upper troposphere water vapor. However, I would need a specific reference for what is considered "likely" for those particular areas. Apart from sensitivity-affecting factors like the above, I think the rest of your premise is well-defined: warming, Arctic amplification, sea level rise, SST increases and intense tropical cyclones, etc are all likely (i.e. inevitable) although timing will vary based on assumptions as you suggest. If I were a Congressman (which rules out honest man) from my area (Northern Virginia, mostly rural) I would meet your denier definition due to excessive costs for CO2 reduction. Tax and rebate would help, but would still be a negative for mobile home residents and the tradesmen who have to drive vans to their work. I would vote denier by your definition but point out that the uncertainty favors the longer time scale projections giving us time to develop other strategies (e.g. CO2 capture directly from the atmosphere) -
Jonathon at 21:29 PM on 30 September 2011CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
Tom, I am trying to understand your conclusions from the graph. Assuming that I am reading it correctly, it appears that both solar output and temperatures were lower during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was followed by a steady increase in both for several decades. The temperature appeared to reach a peak in the 1940s, while solar activity continued to rise until the 1950s. Then, both decreased, reachign a relative minimum around 1970. Both then increased for the remainder of the 20th century. From what I read from the graph, the greatest disconnect is during the 1950s. Please explain how you reach your conclusions from this graph. -
muoncounter at 21:20 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman. "Both of them are meteorologists that have been in the field for many years. They would see similar data" Here's some of the data they would 'see':
-- source
In order to see something, one first must open one's eyes. Bastardi and Watts are known to be in denial; that can be likened to looking, but not seeing. That leads me to conclude they did not see 2010 for what it was, whereas Masters did.
Can you see from these graphs that the current situation is unprecedented and a good example of 'extreme'?
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Jonathon at 21:16 PM on 30 September 2011Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
What was interesting was that the report only included the costs associated with climate change in their calculations. While the report alluded to the benefits (increased tourism, agricultural production, and decreased energy costs), no monetary value was assigned to them. Likewise, the increased deaths due to warmer summertime temperatures were included, but not the decreased deaths due to warmer wintertime temperatures. In a country where cold is a bigger issue than warmth, I would think this would be rather relevant. Overall, the report focused almost exclusively on the cons, while omitting the pros. It is hard to take something like this very seriously. This is not to argue that nothing should be done because Canada might benefit, but rather reports like this, (-Snip-).Response:[DB] Inflammatory snipped.
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Kevin C at 19:59 PM on 30 September 2011Pielke Sr. Agrees with SkS on Reducing Carbon Emissions
Having read the RC response and the exchange Dave pointed, and tried to work through some of the details myself, I'm tempted to conclude that the question is meaningless and attempting to answer it will generate more confusion than enlightenment. Although with enough research you might be able to whack the odd case of double counting. -
Tom Curtis at 19:31 PM on 30 September 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Eric(Skeptic) asked my in a discussion on WUWT how I define the term "AGW denier". My definition is quite simple: An AGW denier is a person who argues against, or opposes effective measures to reduce GreenHouse Gas emissions by rejecting well established science. For the purposes of this definition, anything assigned a likelihood of "Likely" or greater by the IPCC is considered well established science. Something considered "Likely" by the IPCC can certainly be wrong, and has as much as a 34% chance of being wrong. So it is certainly rational for somebody to disagree with the IPCC on such an issue. What is not rational it to assume that there is a very high probability that you are correct in that disagreement. That being the case, insisting that policy be based on your belief when that belief has a high probability of being false, and the consequences of basing policy on that belief, if false, are likely to be dire, is irrational. This is particularly the case as most of the viable minority views also imply equally dire consequences, which can be avoided by the same policies. They just allow us more time for implementation. Given this, a person who back low climate sensitivity (say a sensitivity of 1) but insists on an interim policy of lowering emissions while the evidence is allowed to accumulate is not a denier. In contrast, somebody who claimed the climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 was closer to 2 degrees but that this constituted adequate reason to not do anything would be a denier. At the other end of the equation, Doonesbury's (entirely fictional) "Honest Man" is not a denier. Although he fiercely rejects any policy to combat climate change, he does not do so by distorting the science. -
alan_marshall at 18:51 PM on 30 September 2011Climate Change Could be Expensive for Canada
Canada also better start thinking what a 4 degree C global temperature rise means for the habitability of the lower latitudes. It means mass migration north! -
cRR Kampen at 18:49 PM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
Albatros #102, I'm sorry but you misunderstood. The snipped text dealt with examples of taboo as interpreted by Fromm. By snipping those examples you actually acknowledged their quality! Taboo, taboo: facts are taboo (for denialists that is). This is fundamental, on topic psychology. -
cRR Kampen at 18:41 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
#31, no shock at all. The phrase is: 'the usual suspects'. Climate populism is directed (sort of) by a small group of recurring names who operate in an internet hall of mirrors. The Galileo Movement is just one such mirror. Utterly boring. #15, the denialists pounced on that off topic as of shortly before the neutrino's arrived and are boring every decent man stiff with it. Of course not a shred of knowledge is involved. Nor asked for. As of today I call any mention of the CERN experiment offending, it being deliberately off topic re AGW. Protests against this will be met with a charge of stupidity - because it is one or other. -
skywatcher at 16:34 PM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
Something rather interesting and related at the BBC today: Is the internet re-writing history?. It's a discussion of how people are having difficulty separating fact from fiction on the Internet, with examples such as 9/11 denial, Bin Laden alive and other such conspiracy theories. No mention of AGW denial, but it seems clear that one factor in denial is the incredible ease of access to apparently credible sources of information on the Internet."We have something like a Wild West on the internet," says Jamie Bartlett, senior researcher at Demos. There's a huge amount of very trustworthy, academic, good bits of journalism [on the internet], more than ever before, which is extremely liberating. But at the same time, equal proportions of distortions, propaganda, lies, mistruths, half-truths and all sorts of rubbish. It can be very difficult, especially for younger people, to sort the wheat from the chaff."
The only solution is, as potholer54 is fond of saying, check your sources! -
skywatcher at 16:20 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman, you're not seriously taking Joe Bastardi seriously are you? I thought better of you than that. See here at SkS, from ClimateCrocks (see around 7 min), at Climate Progress with lots of links, here by Tamino or on Arctic sea ice. Joe Bastardi has been so often, so egregiously wrong, it's painful to watch. -
alan_marshall at 15:59 PM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
rcglinsk @ 121 Just use basic HTML tags in the text. For example: Use the ‘a href=’ tag to add a link to Skeptical Science Use the i tag to italicizeUse the blockquote tag to indent (might be a better way to do this)
Use the Preview button to check your HTML, and then Submit -
Philippe Chantreau at 15:41 PM on 30 September 2011CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
Forard, backward and upside down defines how strongly some will held to their beliefs, but, as we've seen, not how critical they can be of a result's significance... -
Philippe Chantreau at 15:33 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman, AGW is not going to be the cause of all extreme weather events. It just makes some of them more likely and more frequent. Last year there was the Russian heat wave, this year the American midwest heat wave/Texas drought. You can refuse to see a pattern if you want. Even if the frequency and severity of these events continues to increase, you still will have a case to continue attributing causes to other factors. This is not an area where attribution can be proven without any doubt. It's only one piece of the puzzle. It would be like trying to pinpoint the one and only human behavior responsible for the global recession. So this is kind of a moot argument. On another note, if you say that Anthony Watts is a meteorologist, I assume you have some credentials of his to support it; what are they? Sorry but telling the forecast on radio or TV does not count, it does not make one a meteorologist. I can interpret aviation weather products and translate them into plain language, I understand what they mean, I understand the atmospheric dynamics behind it. That does not make me a meteorologist. A solid relevant background, long time study and the resulting expertise would. Considering that Watts wasn't sure whether (no pun intended) or not carbonic snow might fall on Antarctica, I'm thinking his experise is somewhere between highly questionable and non-existent. Considering once again that, recently, the very author of a paper he misunderstood (on cloud forcing) had to correct him twice on the meaning of the paper, I have plenty of evidence indicating that any time spent to read whatever Watts has to say is wasted. Do you have solid evidence to the contrary? -
adelady at 14:49 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman "... all records seem to be broken eventually..." And the longer a record's been kept, the less likely it is to have a record broken when the system in question is stable. That's why the ratio of hot records to cold records is so useful. If weather patterns were holding steady, then the statistical expectation would be for new hottest ever records to be balanced by new coldest ever records - I'd leave it to the statisticians to determine what period would be suitable to confirm 'balanced'. At the moment, it's not possible to do this because in the US the decadal hot/cold ratio has been running at more than 5 to 1. And now we have a single month, August, where the ratio is 22:1, and a whole summer where the ratio is 11.4:1. How is it that we're now in the position that, the longer records are kept, they're more likely to be broken - but only if they're on the hot side rather than the cold? -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:33 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
Jennifer Marohasy is endorsing these proclamations? What a joke. This is a brave new world we live in. Aldous Huxley must be chuckling in his grave but, really, that's sad. And there are countless people like Saltspringson who buy into the snake oil these charlatans sell. Better keep up the work on SkS. -
actually thoughtful at 14:15 PM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
rcglinsk - I am sympathetic to your approach, but you must acknowledge Tom Curtis's framing. (Hint, if Tom Curtis ever posts; read and reflect carefully - he is a real gem (one of many) on this site). I think those of us who follow the science do tend to fall into the simplistic arguments you presented (not calling you simplistic), rather than the two paragraph version that Tom Curtis presents. To our detriment. -
Albatross at 14:10 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
Stevo @29, Thanks. You made me look closer at the Galileo Movement, and what I read is very interesting/disturbing. Look who the advisors are for the Galileo Movement in Australia: Professor Tim Ball Warwick Hughes Professor Fred Singer Professor Dick Lindzen Bill Kininmonth Professor Bob Carter Professor Ian Plimer David Archibald Professor Peter Ridd Professor Garth Paltridge Dr Vincent Gray Dr Jennifer Marohasy Jo Nova Des Moore John Nicol David Flint Andrew Bolt John McLean David Evans Pat Michaels Joe D'Aleo Viscount Monckton [Source] Their purported guiding principles ironically include: "Honesty: rely on factual data, ensure decisions are based on facts; Fact based science: protect and use science, a key to human progress, objective and fair decisions and freedom" and under "Purpose and Aims" ironically include: "Protect science and restore scientific integrity" Sounds great does it not? But, there is a very big problem with those proclamations, because unfortunately those lofty ethics and goals do not seem to be endorsed or even practised by several of their advisers, as has been demonstrated multiple times here at SkepticalScience and elsewhere. Some of the names on that list shocked me. What are Drs. Lindzen and Gray thinking? -
Norman at 14:02 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @106 You quote Jeff Masters "Never in my 30 years as a meteorologist have I witnessed a year like 2010--the astonishing number of weather disasters and unprecedented wild swings in Earth's atmospheric circulation were like nothing I've seen." This is not a scientific position, it would be considered an expert opinion. In his post he does bring up some other years to compare to. This approach does not give one the true extent of the weather conditions. One claim was that a storm over Minnesota had a pressure reading that was the lowest since records were kept (all records seem to be broken eventually). He compared one other year that was a previous record. What is missing is a historical view of a large number of low pressure readings to determine it this reading was way off the charts or just a little above what has already been taking place. Two other meteorologists do not share Jeff Masters Expert Opinion. One is Anthony Watts and the other Joe Bastardi. Both of them are meteorologists that have been in the field for many years. They would see similar data that Jeff Masters is exposed to. Why don't they see this same extreme year? -
Norman at 13:55 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Bibliovermis @107 "You are eyeballing charts and declaring that they support your already held convictions. That is how you can be wrong by compiling data; fallacy of composition and confirmation bias. You are picking any iota and clutching it, such as total days over 105 in Dallas, to prove that the observed weather is not unusual." I am not claiming the observed weather is not unusual, the drought in Texas is extreme. It is still unusual as such droughts do not occur often, but they do, and eventually you will have one that was worse than the previous ones. I would suggest you try the challenge I gave muoncounter in post #90. Do your own "eyeballing" of two animation runs of NOAA drought conditions for US. See what you think. -
Norman at 13:47 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
muoncounter @113, Thanks for fixing the tags and letting me know how to close them if I choose to use them in the future. -
Norman at 13:45 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
DB @106 and adeladay @85 Both of your posts are similar and I would expect to see warmer weather patterns around the world as it has heated by about 0.8 C since pre-industrialization. Warmer temperatures are not necessarily extreme. You can have patterns that make one part of the globe very warm (which has been happening as long as temperature records have been taken, in the area of Omaha NE the record high temp is over 20F above the average high temp). In my area as a low pressure system approaches from the west, it rotates counterclockwise first will pull up warm moist gulf air into the region raising the temperature maybe 20F above normal, than as the low passes it will bring down cold air from the north and drop the temp about 20F. These temperature swings are not like a random dice throw. They are predictable and have an established linking mechanism. One thing is certain in all the variations of temp. When all added up the amount above the historic average is about 0.8 C. If half the globe is 5 C above normal, then the other half has to be 4 C below normal to balance the total anomaly for the globe. -
Norman at 13:35 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
DB @101 Your statement: "You discount adaptation as a human response to minimize damage to property and loss of life due to severe weather and constantly cherry-pick isolated events to support your adopted position. There is nothing scientific about that approach at all." Cherry=picking "Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. It is a kind of fallacy of selective attention, the most common example of which is the confirmation bias. Cherry picking may be committed unintentionally." What I am doing is not cherry picking, it is random picking. It would be like reaching blindfolded into a basket and pulling out cherries at random and presenting this. I go to the NOAA site looking for past examples of severe weather events. I just picked a date a random that was far away from recent times and presented it to demonstrate that extreme weather takes place maybe more often than a randomized statistical approach would allow. I do not think extreme weather is the same as a random event like dealing a straight flush from a deck of cards. My perception (from what I have read on meterology is that extreme weather occurs because of some known atmospheric event...it would be closer to someone manipulating the cards in the deck to favor the dealing of a straight flush). I am not convinced that one can use random event statistics to determine the likihood of extreme weather (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, wind) -
Bibliovermis at 13:30 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Norman, My proposed disparity metric is on the Dai After Tomorrow article. You were making the assertion that the current extreme dry and extreme wet weather is not unusual by providing a few images. I want to create a more robust way of validating such an assertion. -
muoncounter at 13:23 PM on 30 September 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
phantum#75: "what about the interaction of the Earth's and Sun's magnetic fields (solar wind)? this effects the temperature as well" If you have data to substantiate this claim, please provide links to it on the cosmic rays thread. I've looked and haven't found much of any quantitative information. "maybe we should be more worried about the things we cannot change than the ones we can." That is an interesting suggestion. After we've worried about the things we cannot change for a while, what do you propose we do about them? -
Norman at 13:12 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
Bibliovermis @111 "I would appreciate your input on the quantitative PDSI disparity metric." I will have to claim stupidity on this one. I am not sure what you are asking and could not find a link to give an explanation of what you are asking. -
Norman at 13:08 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
KR @108 * Earthquake numbers are underestimated due to better building codes. I am not making a firm statement on that one. I do know that in earthquake zones they do have building codes designed to reduce death and destruction and can work fairly well for the more numerous magnitude 5 quakes but would probably not help much in a 7 or above. Here is what my post said. "I have one possible explanation. Not necessarily a good one, maybe you won't accept it. Here goes." It was just food for thought, not an elaborate explanation for the difference between the disasters. I had a debate with Tom Curtis on this question on another thread Post 83 on this thread. -
Dave123 at 13:00 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
@25 Saltspring Person- You seem to be unaware of the religious aspect of global warming rejectionism. Both Spencer and McKitrick are signatories to the Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, Cornwall Alliance Signatories stating among other things that: 1.We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history. and 1.We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming. Which leads to your point 1 about scientists suppressing other scientists. McKitrick and co-author MacIntyre have conducted the primary attack on Michael Mann's Hockey stick. Their statistical tools have been shown to be corrupt: Summary of Analysis of M&M with links to peer reviewed publications at the same time- someone was attempting the equivalent of a DoS attack on Hadley by flooding them with FOI requests. SkS discussion of 'ClimateGate' Was this McIntyre's doing? So the question is who started trying to suppress who first? What other suppression do you have in mind? Is there any supression currently going on? The rest of your points have been addressed by others, but I'll add that for there to be a change of opinion in 5 years, the data ought to be on the ground now, bedcause it will take time to replicate it and explore it. So what's your unrecognized smoking gun? -
Norman at 12:59 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
KR @108 I think best to break up your bullet and respond to each individually or the post will get too long. * 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. This postion is based upon the research of Pielke. Disaster as a proxy for extreme weather events is questionable. Besides Pielke research into the matter I have a thought experiment for you to consider on this issue. Some big disasters are floods, costing billions and killing people caught in the flood waters. Others fires. Hurricanes and tornadoes. The thought experiment to demonstrate a point. Consider the idea that insurance companies require changes before they will insure property. Here are the changes. In fire prone areas the property owner is required to have at least 200 feet of sand between their property and the nearest forest and a sprinkler system to put out any embers that approach the property. All home owners in floodplains are required to have their homes on stilts high enough so the bottom of the property is above the highest recorded flood stage (Galveston has homes on stilts to save the property from storm surges). People living in tornado alley will be required to tornado proof their property ("One construction method has been shown to stand up to 250 mph winds, which provides you and your family with far more protection than conventional wood framing. That construction method is called ICF (insulating concrete forms")). Roofs made of hail resistant material in areas prone to such events (Wyoming for instance). People are not allowed to build expensive property on coastlines prone to hurricanes and storm surges (low cost cabins would be okay). Along with the property saving methods described, life saving knowledge would be far more widespread (don't go outside when lightning is close, stay off roads with water running over the top, no hurricane parties, etc). Now with all these in place the number of disasters would drop off considerably but the extreme weather would be the same. Trending disasters would not tell you anything about what the weather is actually doing. A system of reporting that does not rely on property values and human fatalities would be the only actual scientific method of determining if weather related events are actually trending upward. -
Bob Lacatena at 12:53 PM on 30 September 2011CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
tblakeslee, It amazes me that you'll fight and claw to prove that a long-shot theory like GCR is it, while you'll dismiss overwhelming evidence for theories that you don't want to be true. You'll take a graph off of a disinformation site that is riddled with errors. If you were at all skeptical, you'd look at half of those pages on appinsys, see for yourself how wrong they are, and know you couldn't trust anything there. Your two graphs are from the 2005 paper by the infamous Willie Soon. Read about his funding sources here. Read about his polar bear debacle here. Or read about him right here at SkS. I wish I could find someone who bothered to debunk that particular paper, but it seems to have been pretty much just ignored by everyone, probably because (a) the author is not credible and (b) the argument has been debunked in so many ways that a silly attempt to "argue" a strong solar correlation in the way he did is itself pitiable. -
muoncounter at 12:44 PM on 30 September 2011The Dai After Tomorrow
Bibliovermis: Liu et al 2011 has a nice analysis of PDSI and 'Standardized Precipitation Index.' They forecast (using standard model scenarios) a significant increase in severity and probability of drought. The key is figure 12, which displays the PDFs of PDSI for the past and the future. 1950-1999 shows a near normal distribution with mean value slightly above zero, while 2050-2099 displays an abnormal PDF with mean value below zero and left tail reaching towards much lower PDSI. This indicates that future drought is likely to get more severe and frequent, as projected by SPI under A2 scenario. Note: PDF is probability distribution function. -
Norman at 12:41 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
KR @108 and skywatcher @109 KR I did like your bullet format but I am not sure my button was zapped. I will repost your bullets and then defend my position, it this is okay. KR's Bullets. *Extreme weather has not increased. Perhaps I give you the perception that I am saying that "extreme weather has not increased" but the reality of my posts does not support this claim. In post #30 I do state my position: "My position on this topic is that there is not enough data to make a declaration of certainty on the topic. I think earlier data on severe weather events was not as fully reported as today. I do not think there is adequate accounting of severe weather events to take a strong position that the number and intenstiy of severe weather events has certainly increased. I am not stating it has not. I am making the case that there is not enough good reliable data to make any claim of certainty on this issue at this time and we may not know for many more years. Your contention is that if we wait to see if it is getting worse, it might just be too late." And in post #60 "This thread is not about global warming (evidence would suggest a degree or 2 of warming depending on your temperature scale). It is about extreme weather events. Are they increasing because of the global warming? That is what I question. I am not saying I am correct in my position. I just of the opinion that at this time there is not enough good, reliable data to make a sound judgement upon this issue. I see some blogs throw out the year's worst weather events and tell me things are getting worse. Maybe they are, I just need more evidence than one or two years worth of data. Need a lot more from a lot more areas and over a lot longer time period. Need a consistent way of logging an extreme event. I think monetary damage is not a good one. Hail size, area of coverage, duration of hail storm. That is much more scientific. Get enough of this data compiled and you can answer the question in a sound scientific way based upon solid data."Moderator Response: [muoncounter] fixed closing tags. < /B > ends bold and < /I> ends italics. -
Bibliovermis at 12:33 PM on 30 September 2011The Dai After Tomorrow
A discussion on PDSI disparity, very dry & very wet at the same time in different parts of the same landmass, is being migrated here from the Review of Rough Winds article. I am looking to create a PDSI disparity metric to quantitatively say whether a given drought & flooding episode is unusual in the observational record. The discussion was about the 2011 Texas drought happening alongside flooding in other parts of the US, but the general principle could be applied around the globe using the Dai dataset at Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from NCAR. The data set for the US analysis is the PDSI Divisional Data linked below the map on NOAA: Historical Palmer Drought Indices. direct link: PDSI data (3.8 MB text file) The NOAA PDSI dataset is composed of 344 climate divisions. U.S. Climate Divisions division area list Now that the data sources are referenced, here is my concept for the disparity metric. 1) Order the list numerically by value. 2) Match the list off into 172 top/bottom pairs; 1-344, 2-333, ... 172, 173. 3) Take the absolute difference between the value pairs and multiply it by the summed area of the two climate divisions. 4) Sum the 172 values from #3. - reference value: 8 (difference between extreme drought, -4, and extremely moist, 4) x U.S. contiguous area 5) Divide #4 by the reference value. The final result is a scalar value between 0 - 100+%. Low values mean similar dry/wet conditions across the nation, while high values indicate large areas of opposites of extremes. The metric can be greater than 100% since PDSI values are not capped. Any suggestions, arguments against or confusion? -
rcglinsk at 12:29 PM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
@ Mr. Curtis 115, sorry, wish I could edit. -
Norman at 12:25 PM on 30 September 2011Review of Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by James Powell
DB @96 My contrail concept: "The 0.01 watts/meter of contrails is its effect on the entire globe (the contrail coverage of the globe is small) but in localized areas that may have a high degree of contrail formation (based upon upper atmpospheric conditions) the effect can influence the local region (still a small part of the globe) to a greater degree." Your response to this postion: "For example, your Black Knight routine after the lack of evidence supporting your position on contrails was pointed out to you," I did find some evidence supporting my postion. Contrail information. Look at the concluding remarks. Regionally contrails can add 4 watts/meter^2 radiative forcing. Yet over the whole globe their effect is very small. This is very close to my postion on contrails. -
rcglinsk at 12:08 PM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
@ Tom 115 - I've not seen that quote before, I don't think it's a common argument in the public climate debate. Where is it from? Also, if you might indulge a question, how do you indent and italicize a quote on this forum?Response:[DB] Posting tips can be found here. The blockquote tag may be used to indent (replace the b or i as found in the link with the word blockquote).
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Stevo at 12:03 PM on 30 September 2011Modern scientists, following in Galileo’s footsteps
Albatross @ 12, One of the Galileo Movement's main mouthpeices here in Australia, Andrew Bolt, has just lost a court case. Two of his articles were found to be unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act. The articles were about perceptions of Aboriginality. Though this does not tie directly to his ACW denial writing, it has his exposed him as a writer now on record for distorting facts, employing spurious evidence and falling to disparaging and inflamatory language. -
muoncounter at 11:49 AM on 30 September 2011CERN - Saying Nothing About Cosmic Ray Effects on Climate
tblakeslee#107: "the Forbush effect is robust when you work backward" Dragic clearly shows the FDs are the very definition of 'not robust,' forwards, backwards or upside down: 7% FD = effect, 5% FD = no effect, not a robust statistic (resistant to errors in the results, produced by deviations from assumptions) Are you seriously suggesting that the CR/cloud connection is determined in this 2%? -
John Hartz at 11:48 AM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
Suggested reading: “Unequivocal: Today’s Right is Overwhelmingly More Anti-Science Than Today's Left” by Chris Mooney, DeSmog Blog, Sep 26, 2011 To access this insightful article, click here. As you my already be aware, Chris Mooney has written extensively about climate denial over the years. -
yocta at 11:45 AM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
The link to the address is here: Climate Change, William Happer testimony to Senate Energy Committee on February 25, 2009 | Reprint -
yocta at 11:42 AM on 30 September 2011Understanding climate denial
@Eric (skeptic) 112. Don't get me wrong, on the interwebs I encounter people who say things like "Have you ever saw that movie "The Day After Tomorrow", well, guess what? It wasnt a joke movie like 2012, It is happening right now." These comments I let slide to some respect as they are emotionally charged comments with respect to the issue. It is the comments such as: It is cold in everyone's back garden. AGW nutters can manipulate the numbers all they want, that is still a fact. These comments of accusation I flag and feel motivated to address. With regards to your comment on
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