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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 75651 to 75700:

  1. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Eric@34: I caught up reading the comments. S&B was not a good paper either. The only good to come out of S&B is the seeming acceptance of satillite measurements as being accurate as I have not read a criticism of them anywhere. I just got done listening to a video of a presentation at Rice University. I am going to post the link, I don't know if it is applicable to this thread, part of it is. It deals with a host of climate issues. Presentation by Dr. Lindzen and Dr. North @ Rice I hope the link will stand as it is a very candid, gentlemanly presentation by two climate scientists.
  2. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Thanks Camburn. My view hasn't changed much from that old thread and I'll comment on that there.
  3. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Eric@34: Yes, I read Dessler's 2010 paper. I found numerous questions concerning his conclusions. It has been awhile since I read it, but I just remember that nothing conclusive at all could be derived from it.
  4. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Jonathon does not have "confirmation bias" since he did not read the paper (never mind the critiques), just ignorance. Camburn, have you read the paper and Dessler's? I believe S&B11 is "correct" as far as the data goes, but the data cannot be used to draw any conclusions about long term (or short term) sensitivity. I critiqued Dessler 2010 for somewhat similar reasons on a thread last December http://www.skepticalscience.com/an-even-cloudier-outlook-for-low-climate-sensitivity.html although I started with the wrong model and a few other mistakes. I though that "Chief Hydrologist" summed the situation up pretty well on Judy Curry's site:"Dessler 2010 assumed that cloud changes were a feedback to ENSO related temperature changes – and calculated a global warming cloud feedback . Spencer and Braswell found using lagged relationships that the ENSO cloud radiative forcing came before the temperature change – and therefore there was little scope to calculate cloud feedback as it was not possible to distinguish AGW cloud feedback from natural ‘unforced’ variability. Changes in cloud are an ENSO feedback involving changes in ocean/atmosphere coupling and likely to respond, as well, to changes in dimethyl sulphide emissions from phytoplankton." However, what Spencer says on his blog is quite different from that or the paper. He makes the claim I quoted above starting with "Now, if we assume...". That claim is unsupportable.
  5. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Sphaerica a question. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html 1.4.3 Solar Variability and the Total Solar Irradiance 3rd paragraph "Between 1902 and 1957, Charles Abbot and a number of other scientists around the globe made thousands of measurements of TSI from mountain sites. Values ranged from 1,322 to 1,465 W m–2, which encompasses the current estimate of 1,365 W m–2. Foukal et al. (1977) deduced from Abbot’s daily observations that higher values of TSI were associated with more solar faculae (e.g., Abbot, 1910)." How did they measure this ?
    Response:

    [DB] "How did they measure this ?"

    Please read the links given in the IPCC chapter you refer to.  And at least try to be on-topic here.  You were previously given advice on using the Search function to find better threads for this type of discussion and advice to read first and then ask questions: try to follow that sage advice. 

    Further off-topic comments will be deleted.

  6. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco, Enough. Go study, then come back.
  7. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Jonathan @ 10 - you have that back-to-front. More heat is buried in the oceans during La Nina, whereas during El Nino ocean heat is released to the atmosphere, which warms the surface and atmosphere. Although the exchange of huge volumes of water between the continents and ocean has long been suspected as the principal cause of sea level fluctuations due to La Nina & El Nino, it's only very recently that we have had the means to actually measure this.
  8. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    82, Rosco,
    There is an enormous difference that cannot be explained by a "constant irradiation" model.
    How the heck do you get to this conclusion? Please rephrase it more accurately as follows: There is an enormous difference that cannot be explained by Rosco's horribly insufficient understanding of radiative physics.
  9. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Camburn The problem is that Spencer did not even acknowledge that there were preexisting criticisms that had to be addressed. They knew those criticisms existed, and did nothing to address them. That is in fact bad scholarship, and bad faith. If we act as if prior criticisms do not exist, there is no way forward in science. We will all be caught in infinite loops of self-evidence. The fact that the reviewers did not represent a balanced cross section is another problem. Even as an associate editor I take pains to make sure to get a such a cross section for papers that are far less controversial. How did that not happen in this case? Who knows, but it is a real problem. I would argue that the way that Spencer and others then exagerrated the findings in the non-peer reviewed press put the journal in a bad position. Spencer et al could care less about the implications of these distortions for the Journal, but the journal for certain cares. I'm pretty sure Wagner felt he'd been hood-winked and decided that the only effective action to undo the damage was the one he took.
  10. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco, I would like to suggest a paper for you to read. I think it might help you understand what so many in this thread have been trying to communicate you. Kruger, Justin; David Dunning (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34.
    Response:

    [DB] An open-pdf can be found here:

    http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf

  11. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Jonathan, Camburn, Your confirmation bias in this situation is absolutely astounding. It speaks volumes that you (and Pielke and Spencer) can twist, reframe and exaggerate a situation like this to your liking. Just amazing.
  12. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Jonathan @ #10, my understanding is that El Nino / La Nina is expressed as warming / cooling of surface waters. While this may have some effect on SLR, it's not going to be great, compared to deep ocean warming. On the other hand, keithpickering's numbers at #8 (thanks for that, Keith!) suggest that better than 80% of the change in observed SL is due to the simple movement of water from ocean to land surface, thanks to La Nina (and that same movement helps to suppress temperatures, due to cloud cover & evaporative cooling). IMHO, it's not that we're reading too much into it - we just like looking for explanations. Thus why we're all reading this site! :-D
  13. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    muoncounter - the 51 % was after albedo of ~30% and atmospheric absorbtion of ~19 %. Please read this from the IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html 1.4.3 Solar Variability and the Total Solar Irradiance 3rd paragraph "Between 1902 and 1957, Charles Abbot and a number of other scientists around the globe made thousands of measurements of TSI from mountain sites. Values ranged from 1,322 to 1,465 W m–2, which encompasses the current estimate of 1,365 W m–2. Foukal et al. (1977) deduced from Abbot’s daily observations that higher values of TSI were associated with more solar faculae (e.g., Abbot, 1910)." the solar insolation is certainly a vector quantity This link shows ~51 % solar irradiance reaches Earth. http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7f.html
  14. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Camburn#31: "S&P is just as valid as the last paper by Dessler. " Really? You're back to making unsubstantiated claims which are easily debunked. The only significant criticisms of Dessler were by Spencer (go figure!), Pielke and the latest Lindzen/Choi do-over; Lindzen didn't hold up that well. Pielke was taken down by the normally lukewarm John Nielsen-Gammon. On the other hand, S&B were criticized by Trenberth and a host of others. Spencer's track record makes his criticism questionable at best. His self-declared posture as a 'legislator' is what politicized this 'debate'. Blaming the Remote Sensing editor is akin to shouting 'We wuz robbed!' after losing a ball game. Yeah, it was the ref's fault. Or the wind was against us. Or the court wasn't level. Or something, just as long as it wasn't us.
  15. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco#76 and beyond, Please stop insisting you are the only person who understands radiative physics. I'm willing to bet that everyone who has commented on this thread (except you) has seen the equations that go into those insolation curves. You did not discover that sine / cosine of the solar azimuth angle and latitude are involved. But in #80, you refer to sine and cosine of angles as 'magnitudes of vectors.' That would be a -5 on any physics test where I teach. As far as my backyard is concerned, reduce the emissivity to ~0.7 and see what radiative flux you obtain at an absurdly hot 326K. In winter, when my backyard air temp could go as low as 270K and the ground temp is closer to 288K, an emissivity of ~0.7 again matches the insolation of 270 W/m^2. Guess the sand and clay of my backyard aren't black body emitters; I'll have to sell the place. Please do some reading before you post your next 'definitely definitely the last post'.
  16. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Stephen Baines@29: S&P is just as valid as the last paper by Dessler. Both have problems, yet both were published. Hopefully, the process will work itself out, as it should. This is becoming pure politics, kill the editor type thing. Uncalled for and very very unprofessional.
  17. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Jonathon, Actually, the validity of the paper is in question. The peer-review process was not adequate in this case to note that the approach taken by S&B 2011 has already been called into question, and that those questions should have been dealt with before publication was allowed. The exagerration of the findings in the skeptic media poses a real problem for the journals appearance of credibility - which is critical to it's standing. Certainly, such a provacative topic should have received an extra thorough balanced review. That did not happen. That calls into question the mechanisms and vision of the editors at that journal. I think Wagner's statement may have saved the Journals standing, frankly.
  18. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco, you still haven't gone and done the reading, have you? As someone said earlier, you're disagreeing with the stuff on just about the first page of a climatology or atmospheric physics textbook, yet you're utterly convinced you're right and everyone else is wrong. It's sad to see, really.
  19. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC SAR
    I think the point is that climate models are physical models (based on physics) as opposed to statistical models.
  20. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Wow. I was not expecting this kind of response. The only embarassment and ranting I found was from Wagner. While I do not claim to know his motives in resigning, it does give the appearance of "grandstanding." I admit to not having read the paper, but it does not sound like the validity of the paper is in question, but the idea that it contradicts Wagner's beliefs. I have seen several other papers that seemingly contradict another, sometimes in the same journal issue. This is nothing new. From what I have read, Wagner is not upset about the original paper, but the responses that it has drawn from others. Frankly, I am surprised that this paper has garnered such a notable response, from both those who support his conclusions and those who do not. I fail to see how this can be compared to cult leaders. Wagner does not seem to have made that much of an impact.
  21. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    I think you guys are reading too much into this dip. The wiggles in the SLR largely correlate with the ENSO cycles. The higher spikes are associated with El Ninos, witness 1998, 2003, and 2005. The dips occur during La Ninas, such as 2008 and 2011. The warming of the ocean surface results in expansion, while cooling leads to contraction. The changes in rainfall over land are small compared to the expansion or contraction of the ocean waters. Unless large scale glacial accumulation were to occur, the redistribution of ocean waters over land does not contribute significantly to teh SLR calculations.
  22. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 08:31 AM on 5 September 2011
    The Fate of Greenland: Exceptional Storytelling, Extraordinary Photography
    Thanks for this - another book to add to my long list of climate-related books
  23. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    The IPCC state in their scientific discussion that approximately 51 % of incoming solar radiation warms the surface of earth - it is not front and centre like Figure 1 but it is there. If you calculate 51 % of the solar constant and multiply that by the cosine of the latitude of where you live you arrive at the maximum irradiation for your home on a clear day at the summer solstice for where you live. You will see that this maximum energy corresponds to a temperature - calculated by Stefan-Boltzman's law - which is much more than recorded values. We all know heated air rises and is replaced with cooler air which is why (no matter how you believe the air is heated) the temperature never achieves the theoretical maximum. If you had a perfectly sealed greenhouse you would record a temperature inside it near to the theoretical maximum for the insolation minus some losses because there is never perfect transmission - there are always losses. That is what I have been saying.
  24. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    Albatross @66 Given that more imports are at least a possible consequence of not developing the oil sands, the impacts of such oil imports are indeed relevant.
  25. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    All I am pointing out is in muoncounter's back yard the earth in the sun was emitting ~640 W/sq m at 123 F, the air around him was emitting ~565 W/ sq m at 109 F - these calculations are from Stefan-Boltzman's law used correctly. I don't know what temperatures you get in winter but if you convert them to Kelvin and calculate the radiative flux you'll see a huge difference - for example at 60 F (~288K)the radiative flux is ~390 W/sq m and for say 40 F (~277.6 K) the radiative flux is ~336 W/sq m. There is an enormous difference that cannot be explained by a "constant irradiation" model.
  26. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    As I understand it, Rosco, you keep trying to apply theory based on equilibrium temperatures resulting from radiation balance to scales of observation where equilibrium clearly doesn't apply and where a large number of variables besides solar radiation are important - incuding downwelling LW radiation, which you seem to believe does not exist. You then wonder why your simple approach gives you startling numbers for incoming radiation. What you are doing is trying to predict weather - using too few variables. At the planetary scale, things are simpler. The only way heat can be exchanged between a planet and the surrounding space is via radiation. That simplifies the problem to one of radiation balance. Simlicity is a good thing! Because solar inputs and LW outputs are not necessarily constant across the globe, a proper balance requires integrating gains and losses over the globe through proper averaging. Certainly, as Tom has pointed out, spatial variation in surface temp can influence the efficiency by which heat is shed to space, and therefore the equilibrium planetary temp. But, luckily, one need not understand what is happening at every point on earth to get a reasonable radiation balance for Venus.
  27. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Sorry I pressed submit accidentally I should have said the sine of the angle to the sun in the sky at any time is the magnitude of the vector of importance for insolation. The cosine of the latitude of where on earth you are situated is the magnitude of the vector of importance for insolation. The combination of the two gives a vector relating insolation to a point on earth but the problem is the sine value changes daily whilst the cosine changes seasonally.
  28. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Interesting graph and site - I liked the fact they use the sine and cosine of angles to break down non normal incident vectors into normal components to determine the value incident on a surface - I think I've seen that somewhere - I'll research the material provided on that site but according to Stefan-Boltzman 440 W/sq m is the radiative flux associated with a temperature of ~ 297 K or ~24 C or ~76 F ?
  29. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco#77: This demonstrates exactly why you are wrong about using these peak temperatures. Put aside the fact that the ground was not at equilibrium (adjacent areas in shade had lower temperatures), hence there must be heat flow along this very local thermal gradient. At 30N latitude during August, I am basking in the glow of a mere 440 W/m^2. -- source To paraphrase, it would indeed be a travesty if you believed something had to account for the missing 200 W/m^2.
  30. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Oh and one more thing: does this now mean that the Jason/Poseidon sea level altimetry data is not part of the worldwide scientists' Global Warming Conspiracy/Hoax? Because I'd sure like to identify all the data that's untainted by research grant money.
  31. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    #1 MA Rodger, #2, critical mass, #3 Bern, etc. GRACE data is divided between land and water areas. Gridded land data by month can be found at ftp://podaac-ftp.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/tellus/L3/land_mass/ in various formats. Data is by anomaly in the equivalent of cm of water at the surface. Even a cursory summation of the data shows a lot more water on the land surface in March 2011 than in March 2010. After summing the entire globe by latitude and correcting for difference in area by latitude, I compute that roughly .41 cm of the .5 cm sea level change can be accounted for by hydrological storage differences between these months. In other words, the JPL/NASA article basically gets it right.
  32. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC SAR
    I have taken a gander at the Science of doom from time to time. so? Models either have a physical basis or they don't. But if you now understand that, fine.
  33. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Sorry - I didn't intend to post again. muoncounter measured 109 F air temperature - (~43 C or ~316 K) and 128 F ( 53.3 C or 326 K) on the ground. The energy flux associated with this temperature is ~640 W/sq m. You have just supplied some real data - the maximum temperature at your place that day required ~640 W/sq m. And presumably it built up during the day to a maximum in the afternoon and began cooling after the peak. Surely we can agree on that ?
  34. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Sphaerica @26, I concur-- I would not say "interesting" as Jonathon alleges, but a "predictable rant" from someone who is completely uncritical and unskeptical of Spencer and his real motives, despite a mountain of evidence that doesn't support his rhetoric and persecution complex. I wonder what Jonathon @25 honestly thinks about William's rant? I think that am now beginning to understand exactly how cult leaders manage to do what they do and why some people gravity towards them.
  35. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    25, Jonathon, I found nothing interesting there. It sounded like an angry denier who's been embarrassed by one of his own, and so angrily and defiantly wants to ignore the facts. He starts out by saying that the review process was fine and attacking the man who resigned (implying that maybe his term was up soon anyway, so it was an easy thing to do for show). He goes on to declare that the paper itself is both robust, and too minor to care about (despite the great brouhaha created on the Intertubes over it in denial camps). All in all, it's the same kind of fabricated, angry denial (this time denying that Spencer's paper is bad or that the resignation is in any way meaningful) that is demonstrated over the science or anything else. More of the same, clearly demonstrating what motivates those hypnotized by that particular belief system.
  36. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Here is an interesting take on the article and his resignation. http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=4311
    Response:

    [DB] You have an interesting definition of the word "interesting". Perhaps in the sense of watching a career's worth of scientific integrity go *poof* (a la Curry on RC).  One need read no further than the first sentence in your linked blog column to ascertain the patently transparent agenda of the writer.  Indeed, I stopped there.

    "Sad" is a better descriptive term of that rant.

  37. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    23, geraldwilhite, Looking around at when this has been done in the past, retracting a paper is not something you want to do lightly or without serious evidence. Remote Sensing can only make themselves look even worse by retracting the paper without serious, indisputable cause. Retracting this paper would just raise the hew and cry that the peer review system is corrupted by an old boy network that it trying to marginalize the skeptical position. Normal methods of doing science are fine in this case. Lots of invalid papers get published and then refuted by later work. They can let this happen with this one. It would be another thing if Spencer retracted it, but that obviously will never happen.
  38. The Climate Show 18: The Big Chill & The Big Fracking Issue
    Marcus: I don't care to watch tv, etc. In my offtime, I read. I am an Icelander by heritage, it is either cultural or somewhat genetic, in that as people from Iceland seem to enjoy knowledge. That is my enjoyment. And with my reading, if I could find a practical way to generate electricity from my own source, I would do it. I have investigated the bio and wind. Unless heavily subsidized, it is not practical. Raising food requires a lot of energy, it is a huge expense. Any way to reduce the consumption of energy or replace it with another source is an ongoing endeavor.
  39. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Has Remote Sensing withdrawn the article? If not, why not?
  40. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco#73: "I don't understand why everyone seems to insist I calculate some sort of average - I don't." The other day I measured 109F air temperature in my backyard; at the same time the ground surface (in direct sunlight) read 128F. You would use the maximum local transient (the area in direct sun changes during the day) temperature as the day's high? 109F was bad enough, but 128F? Why not record the temperature inside a car as the day's high? Or inside an abandoned refrigerator? Everyone's maximum temperature would vary depending on sun exposure and materials. That approach is just flat wrong; it is unbelievable that you don't understand something so straightforward. Recognizing that you may continue reading after your 'last post' and your 'definitely the last post,' there's no need of a reply. It is a shame, however, to encounter such rigid opposition to learning. In education, we advocate for 'life-long learning;' that requires a willingness to abandon preconceived beliefs. To be so clearly incorrect and yet remain unwilling to learn strongly suggests it is by deliberate choice. Sad, very sad.
  41. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    This seems very straight-forward. Water temporarily stored on the continent has to come from somewhere and eventually go back somewhere. That somewhere is the oceans; I believe the word cycle as in 'the water cycle' connotes a round trip. Here's an example of the unusual runoff conditions. Summary of Winter 2010-2011. The forecasted runoff for 2011 is 61.8 MAF, 249% of normal. This would be a record inflow runoff, exceeding the previous record inflow of 49.0 MAF in 1997. Jun 2011 data show the same multiples of normal. Isn't it nice to live in times that are 2 1/2x above normal? “Presently, almost three quarters of the automated snow measuring sites in Montana and northern Wyoming still hold considerable snowpack,” ... “In fact, some individual SNOTEL sites, especially the high elevation sites of northern Wyoming, reached this year’s maximum snowpack in the last two days of May.” Anecdotally, I spent a week along the upper Arkansas River in Colorado in early July. While not out of its banks, the river flow was torrential; all the locals could say was 'we've never seen it like this before.' Yet on high ground a mile or so from the river, the ground was parched and fire bans were in place. All the locals there could say was 'we've never seen it like this before.' That's an apt description of the new normal.
  42. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Lest we forget, SLR is not distributed unifomily throughout the world's ocean systems. A single graph of mean global SLR as shown in Firgure 1 masks one heck of lot of anomalies.
  43. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Hurrican Irene transferred one heck of a lot of water from the Atlantic to the northeast coast of North America. Does NOAA compute the total amount? The amount absorbed by the land mass? The amount returned to the ocean? How long does it take for hydrological system to return to equilibrium?
  44. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Two things leap to mind upon reading this: 1. NASA/JPL needs to use a different color scale in that "GRACE Shows..." graphic. In particular, there's an uncomfortable amount of area that's pegged up against the +0.05 dark blue end of the spectrum, with a lesser portion pegged by the -0.05 dark red end. You can't really tell how much extra water we saw in some areas. (I'm assuming that this is true, based on the conclusions of the article.) 2. Is this rainfall-induced drop in SLR another characteristic of our "new normal" state? Is it possible that we've added enough warming to the ocean, in particular, that normal cycles are enhanced enough to produce big enough swings in things like rainfall to cause dips (and surges?) in SLR?
  45. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Re #1: it'd be interesting to see the numbers for that figure, so they could actually be tallied up and the net change in water content of the continents worldwide determined. I know it'd be pretty rough, but considering the extremes of the scale are 50mm of water, and the change in global sea level is ~5mm or so, it might correlate quite well.
  46. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Norman#124: "I could agree to the first one (but the degree of influence is not so certain). The first being 'human influence on climate.' Norman, you've given a stock response phrase, more appropriate to the pages in the realm of the uncertainty monster. You brought up the contrail example; 3 days of only a change in the number of airplane flights produced a measurable change in a key climate variable -- the degree of influence is there for you to see. "Not sure about the GCR debate, looked into it some but not heavily." The point here is not the mechanism that stimulates high clouds; it is the existence of those clouds. Contrail-caused clouds had an effect; GCR clouds (if such actually exist, which I strongly doubt) would have the same effect. Svensmark's mythic effect is overturned on this basis alone. "Last one, the measurable effect of contrails is localized but it can imply clouds (Spencer) do play a significant role in Earth's energy balance." Yep, these data show that clouds can trap OLR, which is clearly a positive feedback. That is indeed significant. But Spencer's magic clouds are supposed to be a negative feedback, while Dessler finds positive feedback. What data did Spencer produce for the magic cloud argument? Norman, the picture keeps coalescing. It is time to abandon those who preach 'we don't know' and 'its not certain' as dead-enders. Take a sheet of paper and make two columns. In one, list the observations one has to reject in order to objectively say 'we don't know.' In the other, list the convoluted explanations needed to explain away those observations - and the supposed observations that support them. When you're done, you should have an approximate outline of the contents of this site. Rather than pick away at the evidence one bit at a time, look at the weight of the evidence. Can you really say with any objectivity 'we don't know'?
  47. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Does anybody have any numbers to show the mass balance of missing water from the oceans equating to the net water left on the land masses? Given these massive rainfalls in Australia there is still a portion returned to the oceans by rapid river runoff and the rest absorbed in recharging aquifers, snow & ice etc and increased soil moisture.
  48. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC SAR
    @Dave123 #28 Climate models are generally called "climate models," not "physical models." Let's leave it at that. If you have never done so, I suggest that you take a gander at the Science of Doom website.
  49. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    I am wondering if the professors decision was influced by a need to defend not just his journal, but open access publishing as a whole?
  50. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    This NASA article was also posted on WUWT almost as above. The map was omitted allowing it to be presented by their Willis (Eschanbach?) whose great contribution to the debate was to question whether the water had left the oceans for the continents:- "To do that, the above map would have to average a medium blue well up the scale … and it’s obvious from the map that there’s no way that’s happening. So I hate to say this, but their explanation doesn’t … hold water … I suspected I’d find this when I looked, because in the original press release the authors just said: “This year, the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most of the last year,” says Carmen Boening. When people make claims like that, with no numbers attached, my Urban Legend Detector™ goes off like crazy … and in this case, it was right." So the map's not blue enough so NASA's lying, apparently. Good to see such precise analysis being deployed. And attaching the number "medium blue" to sidestep those Urban Legend Detectors - facinating.

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