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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 75601 to 75650:

  1. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Here's a nice YouTube on the subject.
  2. Models are unreliable
    #391: watch out for cause-effect relationships between different factors, but you'll also want volcanic forcing in there, and perhaps aerosol forcing too. With a reasonably simple model you can reconstruct surface temperature changes using CO2, SOI, volcanic - see Tamino's Open mind for some examples, one here and a better (superb) one here. I'm not sure about sea level, though a recent post on this site speaks of the impact of ENSO on short-term variations. Simple models don't capture the complexities of the interactions in each system, but they have their value in identifying some of the key elements to a system.
  3. Models are unreliable
    Say I wanted to play around with the data, to look for relationships in a pretty amateur way. There's: Sea Level Surface/Air temp C02 ppm Sunspot number SOI What am I missing and where will such a simple model fail?
  4. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Dana @47, "I think we all know the answer to that question." Indeed we do :) Sadly "skeptics" here and elsewhere knowingly (or not) forget that rather blatant double standard. Really, this is now like amateur hour at the circus. A 'skeptic' at RC is now questioning the validity of the data that they all used. Denial at its finest. It would be hilariously funny were it not for the fact that it is such a serious situation.
  5. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Here's a question - why is McIntyre "auditing" Dessler's work (and doing a piss-poor job of it), but not Spencer's or Lindzen's? I mean, Dessler's paper is basically an audit of Spencer and Lindzen. If McIntyre thinks Dessler's audit is flawed, why doesn't he do one of his own, as the self-proclaimed climate auditing expert? I think we all know the answer to that question.
  6. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Camburn @42, Do you simply, uncritically just believe and parrot anyone says about climate science just b/c it rails against the actual science and data? ClimateAudit was a fad, amongst other things. McIntyre. especially after the Wegman plagiarism affair and his role in the plagiarized Wegman report has no credibility anymore. Dr. Bickmore has responded to Mr. McIntyre's red herrings and strawmen. Really, Mr. McIntyre's 'analysis' amounts to nothing more than saying "look, squirrel!" to distract people from the implosion of Spencer's and Lindzens' papers. Well, I suppose someone had to step forward and try and create some uncertainty and doubt concerning Dessler (2010) and Dessler (2011). Dr. Bickmore's comments: "Steve’s arguments are weak. 1. He reproduces Dessler’s stats, but complains the R^2 value is low. Well of course it is, because the slope is near zero. But Dessler did the right thing and calculated a 95% confidence interval. It is what it is. 2. He faults Dessler for complaining about Spencer and Braswell only using HadCRUT3, when Dessler had also used HadCRUT3. But what he doesn’t show is that it made any difference for Dessler’s analysis. In any case, I wouldn’t be so suspicious if this were the only problem with S&B, because they didn’t claim to analyze any other temperature series. They DID claim to analyze all 14 models, and **forgot** to report the results. 3. Finally, he shows that you can get a different slope by changing the lag time. But since Dessler and S&B had both said this in their papers, I’m not really impressed." Of course Dessler is using HadCRUT, that is what the authors of the paper he is refuting used...duh! Moreover, unlike Spencer, Dessler used multiple datasets, and those data in fact corroborate each other...the outlier is Spencer's. Why? Because he cherry picked those data that would make the models look bad. Pretty telling that you are OK with that. Of course, McIntyre seems to neglect Spencer's and Lindzen's egregious errors (biased much Mr. McINtyre?). Actually think Dr. Bickmore is being very generous in how he is describing Mr. McIntyre's "critique" of Dessler's work. The "skeptics" and those in denial about AGW are frantically trying to throw up smokescreens to save poor old Spencer, One has to wonder how long it will be before they "throw him under the bus" as Spencer is doing more harm than good for his cause right now and is rapidly becoming a liability. Camburn, how you arrive at "Dessler was not good", while McIntyre's blog analysis was "quite good", all the while missing the train wrecks that are Lindzen and Choi (09) and Lindzen and Choi (2011) and Spencer and Braswell (2008) and Spencer and Braswell (2011) is beyond belief. In fact, doing so it is perfectly consistent with someone who is in denial. Finally, can you even begin to explain to us what was "good" about McIntyre's "analysis"? We are waiting.
  7. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Camburn, sorry but it sounds rather like "I would rather believe Spenser than Dessler, so quick find something gives me hope". Now tell what you think the substance of McI criticism is (where the science is flawed because obviously Spenser's is) and let's resolve the matter.
  8. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    This analysis by Steve McIntyre is quit good
    McI has pretty much lost all credibility in the scientific community ... And it's not because he's a penny-stock mining wonk who's smarter than einstein despite the scientific community's unwillingness to acknowledge his genius. Really, at this point, McI is nothing more than a more literate version of Watts.
  9. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Dana1981: I believe your headline is a bit misleading. Dessler paper of 2011 is no better than his paper of 2010 which was not a good paper. This analysis by Steve McIntyre is quit good: Read the comments section. There are some very good comments on the stats of both Dessler and Spencer
    Response:

    [dana1981] if you're just going to engage in empty insults with zero intelligent analysis, and reference somebody else's comments, then I'll just refer you to Barry Bickmore's comments about McIntyre's (exceptionally weak) comments.

    In the future, if you're going to disparage a scientific paper, please at least make more of an effort than "it's not a good paper."  You've added nothing to the discussion here.

  10. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Albatross @18 - yes, I'm talking about changes over a decade or so caused by ENSO.
  11. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    "[Spencer] mind trick: You don't need to see any error bars. Move along." I like it Barry! It would seem that Spencer has, academically, fallen very far now. reading Dessler's paper, it sounds like a teacher trying to explain something to a persistently errant pupil, which would be entertaining if the fallout were not so serious.
  12. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    As the Earth heats up - it would lose more energy through radiation - except for the insulation provided by the CO2. This blanket of CO2 will result in a rise in temperature - until the energy being radiated away reaches equilibrium with the energy being received. Then our temperature will stabilize. The thicker the blanked of CO2, the warmer it gets before this equilibrium is reached. I wonder what the lag is between CO2 levels stabilizing and temperature increase ceasing.
    Response:

    [DB] Try this post Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect

  13. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Jonathan @ 29 - See the sister SkS post: Extreme Flooding In 2010-2011 Lowers Global Sea Level, there are freely available peer-reviewed papers cited in the post.
  14. Climate's changed before
    whatdocter @207: 1) Your claim about oxygen is simply absurd. Humans do not begin to suffer from oxygen deprivation due to altitude until 2000 meters, with most unaffected to 2400 meters. That represents a 22% reduction in available oxygen, or about 4.5% of the total atmosphere. Consequently, for the reduction in oxygen due to combustion to effect human health, CO2 levels would have to increase from their current 0.04% to 4.5% of the atmosphere. 2) An international agreement based on restricting per capita CO2 production would need to set limits based on a a benchmark year, with national targets based on the population during that benchmark year. Failure to do so would either penalize countries with a low population growth with respect to those with a large population growth, or result in population growth forcing total emissions above the absolute limit required to mitigate climate change. Such a benchmark approach would encourage limiting population growth.
  15. Climate's changed before
    And, whatdoctor, whatever the merits or problems with a per capita approach, it cannot encourage population growth. People don't think about having children in that way. I can't provide a citation, but I suspect you can't either, and I've never heard anyone cite lowering a tax as a reason for having children. Now, true, it might encourage some people to have children because they understand mitigation as foundational to a brighter future.
  16. Climate's changed before
    So we accept that global warming has happened before. We accept that it is happening again now - and that man is contributing to it. In the past, global warming may have been the cause (or a major contributing factor to) mass extinction events. If previous global warming events have shown a positive feedback - more water vapour causing more warming - what eventually turned things around? Is it already too late to take action? I think the focus on "per capita" CO2 production is counter-productive. It encourages countries like Australia to increase their population in order to reduce their per capita pollution. This actually results in more pollution in total. I believe the focus should be on "per area" pollution. This would encourage reductions in population and a reduction in total CO2 production. Of course it helps if we individually reduce our production of CO2 but the big problem is overpopulation. Our planet does not have enough free oxygen (O2 as opposed to CO2) for its current population.
    Response:

    [DB] "Our planet does not have enough free oxygen (O2 as opposed to CO2) for its current population."

    Umm, nope.  Of all the resources consumed by mankind, O2 is the most ample and in no danger of running out.

    Scarce items:

    • Food
    • Water
    • Housing
    • Open land
    • On-topic comments
  17. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    I just weighed in on Dessler's paper here: http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/roy-spencer-persecuted-by-own-data/
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Link activated
  18. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Sphaerica; jmsully That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure that I hadn't missed something. It's been puzzling me. Thanks.
  19. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    32, BBD, 35, jmsully, I see no relevant difference between the three equations (Dessler's notation, LC11 Eq. 8 and SB Eq 1). Am I missing something in how I am interpreting the notation and the clarifying text? FYI, the original comment in question was posted at Bishop Hill here.
  20. There is no consensus
    DSL, I particularly like your post at #411. I think that anyone reading through the last fifty posts, who is still arguing against Global Climate Change is just holding a debating position. All necessary points have already been made. And anyone who doesn't want to read through everything, can find plenty in post #411. And no, I have no idea who DSL is.
  21. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    The first comment on this post hits the nail on the head. The only people who do not see the obvious "grasping at straws" here are those the paper was written for, and those people never read it. They just used it to promote a political agenda. The science has reached the point that the few remaining skeptics in the academic world seem to be submitting papers for their political followers and not for their peers. This could be dangerous if the journals start to dismiss anything that seems the same, so each paper must be evaluated with due care to ensure that truly valid questions get the full light of day.
  22. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Radiative forcings (N) of temperature change could arise, for example, from natural fluctuations in cloud cover which are not the direct or indirect result of a temperature change (that is, not due to feedback) [6]. Examples of non-radiative forcing (S) would be fluctuations in the heat exchange between the mixed layer and deep ocean, or between the mixed layer and the overlying atmosphere. Importantly, satellite radiative budget instruments measure the combined influence of radiative forcing (N) and radiative feedback (- λ∆T) in unknown proportions.
    This above is from SB2011 and seem congruent with Dessler's eqn.
    Moderator Response: [Sph] Corrected delta character
  23. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Cornelius @33, That 3rd oder polynomial fit to the tropospheric temperature data is meaningless. But I am confident that Roy knows that and the intent of the graph, despite the caveat, is to mislead and/or allow people to make their own misguided interpretations. Spencer doing that is known as feeding fodder to the "skeptics" and those in denial abut AGW-- in fact, that seems to be one of the main goals of his blog nowadays. Anyways, we'd better leave it at that for now, there are more important developments afoot such as Dessler (2011).
  24. Cornelius Breadbasket at 06:13 AM on 7 September 2011
    Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    I apologise if this is slightly off the thread of this conversation, but has anyone noticed that Roy Spencer has changed the graph he uses for his "Latest Global Temps"? It now has a trend-line through the change in temperatures over the past twenty years which looks like a sine-wave with temperatures currently beginning to fall. Is there any evidence for this?
  25. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Dikran (and anyone else) There's much fulminating about Dessler's response to SB11 and LC11 in certain quarters. I came across this comment:
    [from Dessler (2011)] "LC11 (their Eq. 8) and SB11 (their Eq. 1) both write the Earth’s energy budget as: C dTs/dt = ∆Rcloud + ∆Focean − λ∆Ts" What SB11 actually says is: Cp d∆T/dt = S(t) + N(t) − λ∆T And it is not the same.
    Could anyone clarify if and how the commenter has misunderstood Dessler? To be clear, I'm rather off Spencer these days, so this is not a baited hook. I'm simply confused.
  26. Dikran Marsupial at 05:05 AM on 7 September 2011
    Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Eric (skeptic) No. If the problem was that ENSO was the problem, then it would be reasonable to select the model runs where the modelled ENSO was close to the observed ENSO and then perform the analysis. This would effectively be controlling for ENSO. However, the key point is that S&B11 is dead in the water because they cherry picked BOTH the models and the data that maximise the model-data disparity. Had they instead followed the chess player approach they would have looked at the choices that minimise the disparity as well and tried to work out what was the factor that caused the difference. It is what is known as skepticism, which should always start with self-skepticism. The harder you try an pick holes in your own arguments, the more likely they are to survive peer review and (at least) the first encounter with the research community.
  27. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    I would argue that if models cannot predict the onset of a new cycle as is shown in both papers, then they cannot predict the slope or peak of radiative feedback to temperature as shown in S&B11 only.
  28. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Just to be clear about models simulating ENSO. They can clearly be very useful tools for predicting the evolution of current events and perhaps the start of a new phase in the oscillation-- but that is all on a scale of less than a year or so. So the models can reproduce the ENSO. What I was referring to @27 is AOGCMs running out 100 years most likely not being able to tell us correctly the timing of the next El Nino or La Nina, as those models do not have the luxury on real-time boundary conditions as current models used to predict the evolution of ENSO do. Dikran do I have that more-or-less correct?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Yes, that is my understanding, expecting the ENSO of even the best model initialised a century ago to be in phase today is rather unlikely, to say the least. I suspect the very latest models can track rather longer than a year or so, or the modellers wouldn't be starting to get interested in looking at the skill of decadal projections.
  29. Dikran Marsupial at 04:41 AM on 7 September 2011
    Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Eric (skeptic) wrote: "Doesn't it now mean he must choose the "right" model" No, better not to choose models and if you are going to compare them with the observations, you need to take the uncertainties in both the models and observations into account. I don't know whether that was done in Dessler's earlier paper, but whether it was or not does not change the fact that the SB paper is dead in the water. BTW it is not correct that the models can't track ENSO. The newest models are beginning to be able to make worthwhile decadal predictions. Even then, they can only do so if they are properly initialised so that they have matching ENSOs at the start of the prediction. However that doesn't mean the ones used in the study could, or were initialised so they could. The point is that Spencer would make himself look silly by claiming a model-data mismatch after (i) discarding the models that minimise the mismatch and (ii) discarding the observations that minimise the mismatch. As I said, that is not the "chess player" approach as he is ignoring data that do not support his conclusion, and so is easily refuted by Desslers Figure 1.
  30. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Interesting claim, as most comments on this site are not supported by citations. Perhaps it would be helpful if the author, Rob in this case, would point out the previous research in this area. I know this is not being submitted for peer-review, but it would be helpful to others. I will try to be more accommodating with citations in the future for those who are not as well versed in the subject matter.
  31. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Eric @25, OK, your reasoning is going downhill very rapidly here. You claim: "The models can't in fact reproduce ENSO at all" A demonstrably false claim-- they can reproduce ENSO (some better than others), what they cannot do in climate simulations is tell when the next La Nina or El Nino event will occur. The rest of your post @25 is incoherent hand waiving. You can do better than that.
    Moderator Response: [Sph] Corrected end italics (again!)
  32. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Eric @21, " I'm going to have to refresh my memory on the conservation of energy issue" Please do. "Dessler in his paper makes no such claims either.." Correct, but surely you understand the implications of Dessler's findings in the context of feedbacks and climate sensitivity, and claims that climate sensitive low b/c of a negative feedback from clouds arising from some mystical force. Also, Dessler (2011) exposes the lengths that Spencer and Braswell went to try and mislead people concerning the veracity of the the models discussed in the IPCC reports. Perhaps that action is a reason to have SB11 retracted.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] HTML tags (hopefully) fixed
  33. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Dikran, the first thing I thought seeing S&B fig 3 is that of course the models aren't going to match the observations when the gain in the observations goes negative (i.e. a new ENSO cycle starts). The models can't in fact reproduce ENSO at all. Dessler's paper backs that up. Why would anyone expect the slope or gain or any other aspect of the ENSO response in the models to match observations? Also I don't see this new Dessler paper doesn't undermine Dessler 2010 in which he used a model to derive the cloud feedback to SST. Doesn't it now mean he must choose the "right" model to get the right results in Dessler 2010?
  34. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    27, Jonathan, No. On this site, any argument you make is expected to be supported by citations. The denial world is full of people who make elaborate claims completely without substance. No one is exempt from this in any situation. That you didn't offer up a citation with your original comment is up to you, but when a citation is requested and not forthcoming, that presents a problem, and you can't put the onus of any confusion on the other party for not being as well read in that particular research niche as yourself.
  35. OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2
    Doug do you have a reference for this? average ocean pH has decreased by 0.11 pH units (from 8.25 to 8.14) since the industrial revolution and is on track to decrease by a further 0.3 units Thank you Tony
  36. Dikran Marsupial at 04:08 AM on 7 September 2011
    Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Eric (skeptic) wrote: "one of Spencer's goals in the paper is to show that climate models do not match observations" Pity then that he didn't show the results obtained using the models that most closely matched the observations (which as Dessler shows lie within the error bars of the observations). "Dikran your chess analogy is good, but keep in mind that Spencer's paper did not go out on any limbs that can be easily sawn off (he left that to his blog). " No, if showing that the models don't match the observations was one of his goals then not showing the models that give the best match is a definite blunder (to continue the chess analogy) Not considering the error bars on the observations is another easily sawn off limb. "In fact he can simply argue the dispute over model choices is more evidence that the models are wrong." That would be a ludicrous argument, and would demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what the models actually say. The models cannot be expected to reproduce the exact course of chaotic features such as ENSO. Even if you had a model with perfect physics you would only expect the observations (taking into account the error bars on the observations) to lie within the spread of the model runs.
  37. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Norman#131: "During the day time, shortwave radiation dominates" This is merely an expression of daytime warming. Since the ground is increasing in temperature, it cannot be in equilibrium (radiated OLR and all other heat loss must be less than incoming solar). Hence you cannot automatically assume that OLR keeps up with apparent temperature. This is demonstrated for a number of different surface scenarios here. Example: During the day, copious solar radiation is absorbed at the surface, and the ground heats up rapidly. Initially, most of the heat is conducted down into the soil, but as the layer of warmed soil thickens, HS dominates; the heat is primarily transferred to the air. This is promoted by extreme differences (up to 28 K) between the ground temperature and the 2 m air temperature. At night, surface radiative cooling is balanced by an upward ground heat flux. Since the nocturnal boundary layer is very stable, the turbulent heat flux HS is negligible. In this example, HS is the 'upwards surface sensible heat flux.' The point is that greenhouse gases appear to slow the net transfer of the energy radiated from the ground back to space. Most of that transfer is taking place at night, because that is when the ground can cool. Added GHGs make that seem as if nights are warming faster than days - perhaps better put as 'nights aren't cooling as fast as they once did.' The upper of the two graphs from the paper shows a mean warming of 0.2C/decade across all hours; nighttime hours at twice this rate.
  38. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    I think that this excellent essay by Stephan Lewandowsky titled "Climate sceptic science: read with caution" is relevant to this discussion. A teaser. "Ideology, subterfuge, and propaganda. That is all there is to climate denial."
  39. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Re Robert Murphy at 00:48 AM on 7 September, 2011 On the other hand, that's music to his fans' ears. He plays for his audience, of course. His book on "Economy" is another hint at that.
  40. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Sphaerica, your understanding matches mine, but remember that one of Spencer's goals in the paper is to show that climate models do not match observations, specifically that the underestimate the radiative gain from a temperature change from ENSO. He can't really use another climate model to prove that some other climate model is different (more or less a tautology). Albatross, I'm going to have to refresh my memory on the conservation of energy issue. I think we agree that what Spencer says online is different from the paper, specifically his claims about sensitivity. Dessler in his paper makes no such claims either. Spencer's accusations are unsupported because nobody is supressing his scientific claims about sensitivity since his paper has none and it was not supressed anyway. Dikran your chess analogy is good, but keep in mind that Spencer's paper did not go out on any limbs that can be easily sawn off (he left that to his blog). In fact he can simply argue the dispute over model choices is more evidence that the models are wrong.
  41. Extreme Flooding In 2010-2011 Lowers Global Sea Level
    villabolo#7: "predictions date back to at least 1994" That's clearly a typo; we're told repeatedly that those models don't work. And if we've learned nothing else, we know enough to believe what we are told, not what we observe. Or at least that's what I've been told.
  42. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 02:48 AM on 7 September 2011
    Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Here's a video by Dessler on his 2011 GRL paper and debunking of Lindzen and Spencer. Really good of him to do a video for the general public.
  43. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Sphaerica, When a new theory or explanation arises, the burden of proof usually rests on the shoulders of those who present the new explanation, not on the existing theory. To request a citation for something that is basic to the understanding of ENSO led me to conclude that you were not well versed in the subject. Forgive me if I have misrepresented your knowledge base here. As Rob stated in #25, this may alter the existing thinking, but the onus is still on the new presenters to prove their case in order to convince the status quo. One peer-reviewed paper will not upset the apple cart, but it may lead to re-analysis of the current thinking, and further research.
  44. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Realclimate has posted a link to a version of the paper at Desslers uni page: http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2011.pdf
  45. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    24, Jonathon,
    You really need to read up on ENSO events before commenting as such.
    Spare me the arrogance. I understand ENSO more than well enough. I asked twice for your citation, a paper I had not seen or been able to find when I looked. Was it so difficult to simply provide that on the first request, or even the second but without the unnecessary hubris?
  46. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Jonathan - please re-read the post, you appear to missing important details. Such as: "So what's up with the down seas, and what does it mean? Climate scientist Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., says you can blame it on the cycle of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific......................"But El Niño and La Niña always take us on a rainfall rollercoaster, and in years like this they give us sea-level whiplash." This is a re-post of a NASA JPL article, based on material provided by Josh Willis and Steve Nerem, both world experts on the topic of sea level. The temporary exchanges of water between the oceans and continents is now able to be observed using the GRACE gravity satellites - a recent development. See the sister SkS post, highlighted in the green box at the bottom of this post, for further discussion. Don't be surprised if climate scientists modify their views in the light of new observations and measurements. That's how progress is made. I may have the wrong end of the stick, but I assume Carmen Boening's results will appear in the peer-reviewed literature in due course.
  47. On Mowing a Virginia Lawn … And Contemplating a Greenland Iceberg
    People on this site should also read this article Gobsmacking Greenland Glacier Loss Alarming, genuinely, not simply "alarmist". :(
  48. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Dana@14 "short-term temperature changes are dominated by ocean heat transport, not cloud cover changes. " What do you mean by short-term exactly? People tend to think of the oceans changing temperature relatively slowly, so one should be clear about the time scale involved and what is causing the ocean to change on that time scale. I know this is alluded to in the post a few times, but the point must be clear that we are effectively talking about changes brought about by ENSO, no? My concern now is that some people might misinterpret, spin this to claim that ENSO is driving global warming.... I like this part from the body post, "Dessler finds that.... In fact, the heating of the climate system through ocean heat transport is approximately 20 times larger than the change in top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy flux due to cloud cover changes. Lindzen and Choi assumed the ratio was close to 2, while Spencer and Braswell assumed it was close to 0.5." Let me see, should we go with "found using observations" or with the "assumptions" of ideologically driven scientists? ;)
  49. Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    Eric @11, S&B postulated that clouds caused some of the ENSO temperature changes, not ENSO itself Actually, that is not clear Eric, b/c what Spencer is trying to argue is not clear. If you follow his online discussion (sorry, I cannot recall exactly where that was held off the top of my head, but I did find this), Roy's reasoning was almost incoherent and at times his statements are inconsistent. We know that clouds, especially deep convection, respond to the change sin surface winds and SSTs associated with ENSO, and those changes in cloud cover probably have some feedback. And no comment from you Eric about the problems with Spencer and Lindzen's and Braswell's and Choi's thinking running into trouble with the conservation of energy. "Their real conclusion is that it is not simple to extract cloud feedback (or even the sign) from temperature changes the way that the models are claimed to do. " That may be, but that is most definitely not even close to how their findings have been spun and distorted, not only by the denial misinformation machine, but by Roy Spencer himself. I have said this elsewhere on SkS, and it still applies today (especially after Spencer has now made a rather brazen defamation attempt on Dessler noted by Sphaerica @9): "Spencer is now clearly using science as a political tool in his ideological and political vendetta against the IPCC and climate scientists who are rightly concerned about the impacts of us doubling (or even quadrupling CO2). I find that incredibly disturbing." Spencer's actions of late also make his claims about being interested in advancing the science ring hollow. Eric you noted on another thread that: "With such gross oversimplifications on both sides I can't help but think Spencer is arguing about nothing." Yes, on that we agree.
  50. Dikran Marsupial at 01:41 AM on 7 September 2011
    Andrew Dessler's New Paper Debunks Both Roy Spencer And Richard Lindzen
    When a good chess player plays chess, instead of playing the move that maximises his advantage, he plays the move that minimises his opponents maximum advantage; on other words he plays in the expectation of best play from his opponent. A good scientist publishes his arguments in the same manner; instead of presenting the strongest argument he feels the evidence can support, he presents the strongest argument that an opponent can't refute. So if there are choices to be made in presenting the evidence, you don't make the choices that maximally support your argument, you make the choices that give the least support for your position. If you are right, the evidence should still be on your side even then, and you will have made your paper bullettproof. Roy clearly didn't do that here, he didn't choose the models that were most closely in accord with the data, but those that would clearly make his argument. As it happens those models also happen to be amongst the worst in terms of matching the observations. What he should have done is present the results for all of the models (so there can be no accusation of cherry picking) and then find out why some of the models fit the observations better than others. Unfortunately for him it appears that it is not climate sensitivity. If his scientific career were a game of chess, this move would be annotated with a "?!" at best.

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