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Comments 77001 to 77050:

77001. KR at 01:15 AM on 20 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       Tom Curtis - In your first sentence there, did you intend "justifiably", or was that a typo?
77002. KR at 01:11 AM on 20 August 2011
       It's waste heat
       mullumhillbilly Thought experiments and analogies both have their issues - they are fine as long as the points being discussed actually map to the system under discussion, but have a tendency for irrelevant aspects of the analogy to be taken as part of the mapped system. The core of what happens with the greenhouse effect is directly tied to conservation of energy - the amount of energy entering a system (a dynamic system like the Earth climate) must equal the amount leaving the system, or the amount of energy in the system will change. Now, you can look at the Earth as a simple, zero degree system - increases in GHG's effectively reduce the emissivity (amount of energy the Earth radiates to space at any particular temperature), which means to match incoming solar energy the Earth must warm to a higher temperature before matching that with outgoing energy. In more detail, increasing GHG's raise the level in the atmosphere where infrared radiation can emit to space - and given the lapse rate of the atmosphere, those are colder regions, meaning again less energy going to space, and an imbalance between incoming/outgoing. The Earth warms, the entire atmosphere warms, and then that level where radiation can escape is warm enough to again balance the equations. It's not a matter of "energy taking more hours to leave", it's a matter of how fast energy can leave, based upon the physical radiative characteristics of the Earth. In terms of simple analogies, I like to think of the Earth as a bucket in a waterfall. Energy comes in, overflows the edges, and goes out - increased GHG's raise the side of the bucket, the water/energy level must get higher to flow out at the rate it's coming in. (Moderators - previous comment was in error, due to my fumblefingeredly hitting the wrong button; could you delete that?)
77003. Joshua at 00:53 AM on 20 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       Tim Ball?
77004. Composer99 at 00:19 AM on 20 August 2011
       How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
       Dr Doom: What does the Scotese paleo-temperature reconstruction have to do with claims that a glacial period is imminent (or has been fortuitously forestalled by CO₂ emissions)? It is claims such as those that this Skeptical Science article is meant to rebut.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I suspect Dr Doom is still promulgating the fact that according to strict geological usage we are still in an ice age at the moment (as the Earth has permanent ice caps). However it has already been pointed out to him that the colloqial use of "ice age" is appropriate for this article as it is for communication of science to the general public, who use "ice age" to mean a time of substantially greater glaciation than we see today. Dr Doom has made his point, while it is factually correct, it is not of great importance to the discussion. Thus there is no need to discuss it any further, I suggest we take Dr Doom's caveat as read and go back to the substantive scientific issues.
77005. Dave123 at 00:09 AM on 20 August 2011
       Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
       Re # 2- I agree that the statement/assertion is itself unintellible. But perhaps the idea is that the CO2 flux is being obtained by difference, rather than by an independent measurement....hence could be a cumulative measurement error. Refering to Trenberth's Energy Balance The heat retention estimate due to not reaching steady state for the level of greenhouse gases is 0.9 w/M2. Since the overall flux is ~341, this seems pretty small vs the naive expectactions of % accuracy on an energy balance this complex...and such eyeballing can lead people astray. Of course the CO2 effect on flux isn't being measured by difference...but rather by the outgoing radiation from TOA and its spectral distribution....if I've got this right.
77006. DSL at 23:35 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Rickoxo, if you say that the Earth has warmed and that humans have played a significant role, then you have to describe the mechanism. The only mechanism that fits those two conditions and the actual data is a large increase in atmospheric CO2. Once you understand what such an increase in atmospheric CO2 does (forces temp and ocean acidification), then you can factor in all of the feedbacks by applying the temp increase to all other climatological systems. The hard work is in figuring out the dynamic integration of these systems. Accepting those two conditions in the question is, essentially, accepting the theory of AGW--as long as you accept the established physical model (Kirchoff, S-B, etc. ad nauseum). It is clear now, after decades of warming, that there are few negative feedbacks. Most are positive, including the big ones (albedo and water vapor). It's possible that a major negative feedback awaits in the wings. Research suggests not. That wouldn't matter so much for the basic theory, though. It's warming, and we did it, and as long as we continue to do what we did and what we're doing, it will continue to produce the same physical response (worsening, of course). That's what 97% of climate scientists agree with. Indeed, if the question had been framed thusly ("Will an increase in atmospheric CO2 cause lower tropospheric warming?") then I imagine the percentage would jump to 99%.
77007. CBDunkerson at 23:20 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Rickoxo, it seems like you've mostly left 'consensus' behind and are now getting into questions about solar forcings (much smaller than current CO2 forcings and feedbacks), volcanoes (major eruptions cause cooling for only a couple of years), plate tectonics (can significantly impact climate, but only over timespans of millions of years), ice (the total amount and the vast majority of individual locations is in accelerating retreat worldwide, a comparative handful of locations show small increases), and so forth. My suggestion would be to read the many resources on this site which already cover all of those issues and THEN ask questions on the appropriate pages.
77008. CBDunkerson at 23:01 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       Garethman, there is frequent discussion on this site of studies which question prevailing ideas on climate change. One recent example is the study which suggests there is a 50% chance that Arctic sea ice extent could expand over the next decade (but will certainly show a declining trend over the next 20 years). This differs from other recent findings which suggest that the ice loss is accelerating. It is thus a TRUE skeptic presentation. They describe their methodology and have published it in a peer reviewed journal for further analysis. Similarly, studies of Greenland ice mass loss have come to different conclusions which have been discussed here. See, the thing that most 'skeptics' don't seem to understand is that REAL skeptics are PART of the climate science community. There are different views of how data should be interpreted, which analysis methods yield the most accurate results, and so forth. The sort of rigorous ongoing debate with detailed research and explanation of methodologies which characterizes actual science. As opposed to, 'some guy with a blog says that photons can only travel in packs - so therefor global warming is a lie'. We discuss those too, but just to debunk them.
77009. rhjames at 22:36 PM on 19 August 2011
       Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
       I'm actually just trying to find support for the models. This thread seems to be about models, so I thought it appropriate to comment here. My point is that models, once developed, should predict future data. I'm not saying that a short term flattening means that the long term upward trend isn't correct. It seems to me that because of this flattening, it's just too early to claim model compliance, as they are still relatively new, and coincided with the flattening. I see in comment 4 that there is a thread "Models are unreliable", so it's probably best if I try to transfer to that thread to find these answers. Thanks.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Read the Easterling and Wehner paper I mentioned in my previous comment. Both the instrumental record and model output show occasional periods of little or no warming even with increasing CO2 radiative forcing. The models do predict that this will happen, they just can't predict when it will happen, because it is a chaotic effect.
77010. muoncounter at 21:22 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Rickoxo#401: "Am I missing something" You've questioned whether the science is settled and seem to feel a single paper, in this case Doran, is the only thing of interest. It is not; look at any number of threads here that (taken together) reference and review thousands of published articles. Evaluate the actual evidence presented, not the surveys. If you are looking for a demonstration of consensus, go around to the websites of various professional organizations in the related sciences. Read their position statements on climate change; discount overt ringers like the one I cited for AAPG (even though they state out loud that climate change is occurring and tacitly that reducing CO2 will have an impact). But it seems that those who talk about consensus are often really talking as if that requires 100% agreement -- and the existence of one genuine skeptic out there results in another 'Ha! There's no consensus.' That's utterly incorrect: scientific consensus is never 100%. Accepting that fact, I suppose you can worry about how many dissenters it might take to 'break' the consensus. Once again, that's silly; especially when we read just how weak the case of some of these 'skeptics' turns out to be. Quoting their talking points, rather than analyzing their substance, reduces the discussion to the level of many other climate blogs and that is not what we're about. No, consensus is obtained by the weight of the evidence -- and the quality of the work done by those who assemble it. There will always be someone in the background shouting 'but it could be ___'; that does not alter the evidence in any way whatsoever. When you speak of the science is settled, its the weight of the evidence that settles it.
77011. SRJ at 20:33 PM on 19 August 2011
       Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
       In the blog post it is stated that: "In this there is no way to infer from GISP2 alone that any rise or fall in the record is a function of global temperature changes without looking at a wider range of site records". I think the reason that people sometimes get confused and use GISP2 to represent global/large scale temperature changes - is caused by the text in the abstract that is quoted in the GISP2 data file The abstract states: "Greenland ice-core records provide an exceptionally clear picture of many aspects of abrupt climate changes, and particularly of those associated with the Younger Dryas event, as reviewed here" The only data in the file is from GISP2, one needs to read the full article to find out that the statement in the abstract is based on multiple data sets.
77012. Dan Olner at 20:01 PM on 19 August 2011
       Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
       rhjames, just to back up the moderator response (and presuming you're not just a robot), please go read Tamino's most recent. You'll find some data where the later values level off in just the way you describe. Problem: it's model-produced data: just a positive linear trend with noise. As Tamino says: "There is absolutely no doubt, none whatsoever, that the actual trend is not only upward, it’s at exactly the same rate throughout, it didn’t stop or slow down or level off. We can be quite certain, because the data were made that way." The point: even in data we know 100% has a positive trend, there will be fluctuations given noise. So: fluctuations in real data doesn't mean there isn't a trend, any more than a chilly April after a warm March means it's winter. Not rocket science.
77013. Paul D at 19:36 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       I was also wondering if Muller should be on the list?? I am not up to date with his thinking, but aren't some of his skeptic comments been superseded recently, or is he still plying them?
77014. garethman at 18:45 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       garethman at 08:16 AM on 19 August, 2011 CBDunkerson at 01:41 AM on 19 August, 2011 Ryan, actually we DO exercise scientific skepticism here. Really? I note you address climate change scepticism in an assertive and evidence based fashion, But to be honest I’ve never noticed any sceptical publications or ideas being flagged up here. Apologies if I miss the point. Response: [DB] "But to be honest I’ve never noticed any sceptical publications or ideas being flagged up here." Eh? You've lost me. What I mean is that if we take skeptic proposals to be something that opposes the currently accepted viewpoint on climate change, it appears that this site uses scientific evidence and methodology to debunk such claims, but I have not noticed you posting skeptic material with the comment that “this is interesting, it may be right” I know it’s not your role to do that, and in addition amongst the masses of material on this site, I may have missed it, but that essentially is my point.
77015. Dikran Marsupial at 18:45 PM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Dr Doom In a scientific discussion it is perfectly reasonable to point out when someone doesn't understand something. In scientific discussion if someone suggests you don't understand something, standard practice is to assume that they are right and go and check, rather than to take it as a personal insult. Scientists tend to have this sort of defensiveness knocked out of them pretty quickly by the peer-review process, which is all about poking holes in your science. As I have already pointed out, the fact that climate sensitivity is described in terms of the effect of a doubling of CO2 already takes this into account. For a logarithmic function, you get the same change in the logarithm for any doubling of x, regardless of the value of x. The sensitivity per doubling of CO2 is the same, regardless of the starting concentration. Now in practice, I suspect that the logarithmic law holds while CO2 is a trace gas, and will breakdown once it is a substantial fraction of the atmosphere. However that point is so far down the track as to be wholly irrelevant to the discussion of AGW, as scaddenp points out it will have reached toxic concentrations by then, so the greenhouse effect wouldn't be our primary concern.
77016. Dr. Doom at 18:31 PM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Dikran, Apology accepted and your point well taken. Please refrain from concluding “you don’t understand.” I do. Just explain your point and focus on the argument and not on me. In the logarithm function y = ln (x) where y is temp. and x is CO2. The CO2 sensitivity is the derivative dy/dx defined as the change in temp. per unit change in CO2. This approaches zero as CO2 approaches infinity. It means that temp. is becoming less and less sensitive to CO2 as CO2 increases. Let me rephrase my question: At what CO2 level will the sensitivity become close to zero or insignificant? This is of interest to me since when this CO2 level is reached, adding more CO2 will no longer increase temp. Please no ad hominen. Let’s just discuss science. Scad, thank you. It's not there.
77017. rhjames at 18:23 PM on 19 August 2011
       Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
       1998 is still the hottest year in recent times, and this year is shaping up to maintain the lack of warming. It's a bit hard to have confidence in these models when they predict warming, but Earth stubbornly refuses to cooperate. It would be nice if, after 13 years, we actually saw some real warming. Long term, the models might be right, but eventually we need some correlation with current data, if we are to believe them.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] "It hasn't warmed since 1998" is currently the 9th most popular skeptic canard. Ocassional periods of a decade or so are expected to show little or no warming (or even slight cooling), even in the presence of a long term warming trend (see Easterling and Wehner for details). This happens because natural variability (due to things like ENSO) have a larger magnitude than the expected warming trend due to CO2 radiative forcing, and so the former can temperarily mask the latter. However the variability is quasi-cyclical and so averages out to zero on climate relevant timescales (e.g. 30 years). If you want to defend your analysis, please do so on the "no warming since 1998" thread where it will be on-topic.
77018. Tom Curtis at 18:06 PM on 19 August 2011
       Where have all the people gone?
       Agnostic @37, yes then all bets are of, and our goose is already cooked. For policy consideration I ignore such early trigger catastrophes, not because they are unrealistic or implausible. They are certainly a real possibility. But if they are early trigger events, then it is too late to do anything about it. As no current policy can have an impact in such scenarios, such scenarios have no relevance for current policies.
77019. skywatcher at 17:53 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Hi Rickoxo, thanks for your clear explanation of where you're coming from. I'll try and tackle one or two points. On ice, there's not much ice at all that is growing. The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are both showing overall retreat (Greenland in particular), and the vast majority of mountain glaciers are retreating. Global sea ice area, and most especially Northern Hemisphere sea ice area, is also shrinking. See the various relevant links around the site. The only ice that shows any increase is Antarctic sea ice, and there are dynamical reasons as to why that behaves very differently to Arctic sea ice. Do you know which ice you thought was increasing, and what the source was? Future climate is all about boundaries, a little like predicting the weather next summer on a winter's day. I can't tell you that midsummer's day will be exactly 25C, or 18C or whatever, but I can say confidently that it will be considerably warmer than the 7C winter's day I'm experiencing, because the boundaries have shifted. We know that CO2 is by a large margin the strongest forcing agent in operation at present (and still increasing in strength), and so unless our emissions decrease substantially, annual temperatures by the end of the century will definitely be a lot warmer than now. We can't say with certainty if the temperature in 2100AD will be exactly 2C, 4C or 6C warmer than temperatures today, because that depends on the overall emissions between now and then. With a particular emissions scenario (say one producing 3C warming by 2100), the variability of ENSO, volcanic and solar may make 2100 individual year slightly warmer or slightly cooler than 3C (+/- up to 1C). The overall emissions act like the warming between winter, spring and summer, and the additional forcings of ENSO, volcanic and solar act like the weather on a particular summer's day. We don't need to know the exact values of ENSO, volcanic* and solar** to know that it will be warmer 90 years from now if we keep emitting prodigious amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. *all this assumes there will be no supervolcano eruption which would have a large magnitude impact. **even a Maunder Minimum-like period of solar activity would only slow warming a little by introducing a depression of something like 0.3C to the rise in temperature. It is harder to forecast climate in five years than it is to forecast climate in 50 years, because in only 5 years, a great deal depends on the variability caused by ENSO, solar and volcanic activity. The first decade of the 21st Century is a classic example of that, as was much of the 1980s. CO2 forcing hasn't stopped in the past decade (like the progression from winter to spring), but the 'weather' of the variable elements has given us a progression from El Ninos to La Ninas alongside a progression from high to low solar activity. Like having a spell of northerly winds in April in Britain washing away the memories of the warmer weather in late March...
77020. scaddenp at 17:49 PM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Well there is a limit - when the atmosphere is only water vapour and CO2. Beyond my skills to calculate it however. Perhaps just consider CO2 at 10,000ppm (at the concentration it is toxic)? Dr Doom, considering your pseudonym, you may find the CO2 series at Science of Doom. Rather more detail than a blog comment will allow.
77021. Dikran Marsupial at 17:25 PM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Dr Doom My comment was not intended as a personal attack, but constructive advice, I appologise for not making that more apparent. Your post demonstrated a lack of understanding of the difference between equilibrium and transient climate sensitivity, until you appreciate the difference between the two, you would not be able to understand the flaw in your argument, and hence you need to do some background reading. Now your grasp of mathematics also appears to be a little shaky; the logarithm does not approach a finite value as x tends to infinity, it approaches infinity as x tends to infinity, as I pointed out here. If you don't believe me, look it up.
77022. Rickoxo at 16:58 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       And to restate the question I'd like to talk about, Doran (2009), a survey of 3000+ scientists with questions about global warming science, describes what he calls the two main questions: have temps warmed since 1800's and has human activity played a significant role? Questions about consensus have everything to do with the statement in question. Has the planet warmed since 1800, I don't know too many folks who would argue with that. Picking 1800 seems a bit odd since from what little I know Europe was going through the little ice age so it seems likely that temps have risen since then. Asking about has human activity had a significant impact is the wrong question. Questions of statistical significance don't say anything about effect size or interactions, both of which are the more critical issues. So the Doran (2009) 90%+ consensus only affirms that the planet has warmed since 1800 and that human activity has played a significant part. That to me does not equate at all to a statement like, the science of AGW is settled or concluding that the same percentages of scientists would agree with IPCC 2007 conclusions. Am I missing something or is the Doran (2009) study not that significant of a piece of evidence in favor of the consensus position? Btw, can anyone provide a link to something bigger than the two page summary I keep finding? I've googled and followed every link I can including using my university account to search published research and I can't find the original study. I'd mainly like to see all of the survey questions that were asked and the results for all of them. Thanks for any help.
77023. Stevo at 16:45 PM on 19 August 2011
       Soil Carbon in the Australian Political Debate (Part 2 of 2)
       Abbott's current trick is pretending to have a policy to deal with climate change while at the same time leaving his ideological supporters in no doubt that he intends to do nothing at all. By stating that he will dismantle the carbon tax as soon as he takes office as PM leaves nobody in any doubt at all. Your article, Alan, hammers home the point that he hides any talk of carbon pricing arising from his own policy. I can only conclude that his existing policy is only for show and he intends to do nothing - just as his mentor Minchin would advise him. (For any non-Australians reading this, we have a situation here where one side of politics has a record of well meaning policy failures and an almost certain likelyhood of falling at the next election versus another side who need no policies at all to win. In fact the recent track record is that one only exposes oneself to attack if one reveals policies so it is better to have none at all. Sad but true. And no, I'm not a supporter of either party.)
77024. Rickoxo at 16:41 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       But what about things like volcanoes, tectonics, solar activity? All of those things (and I'm guessing others as well) can significantly affect climate and are basically impossible to predict, no? How many of the factors that significantly affect long term climate trends are predictable 100 years into the future? 50 years into the future? So would there be the kind of Doran (2009) consensus on what the climate will look like in 100 years? Or would there be more of a spread out distribution of predictions? Is your point the consensus would be stronger on the types of things that would happen (i.e. ice sheets melting) if climate goes up x degrees?
77025. Riduna at 16:32 PM on 19 August 2011
       Where have all the people gone?
       Tom Curtis @ 28 You are quite right. Even with a decadal doubling of the ice loss from the GIS, the earliest indicated date for 1m RSL is 2065 - not 2050, unless of course the Kraken Wakes or Arctic CH4 emissions reach 1,500 million tonnes per annum before 2030. Then all bets are off!
77026. adelady at 16:11 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Rickoxo "I can't imagine you're saying that climate predictions 100 years into the future are the kind of settled science like basic Newtonian physics?" Me? I'd say it is (see later) - unless you think that a double pendulum violates Newtonian physics. Later. The real uncertainties in climate 100 years hence relate to the things we cannot yet know. The main ones being - things we do - exactly how much CO2 will be emitted in what timeframe, and how much CO2 will be extracted from the ocean/atmosphere by deliberate action. Things we cannot possibly know with any reliability - when will icesheets slide into the sea given persistence of any given temperature rise, when will methane from its many available sources release and how fast, when will the oceans/land become net sources rather than sinks of CO2. We know they will happen in high temperature conditions. We just don't know whether it might be decades rather than centuries or millennia for any, some, many of the worst effects to kick in.
77027. Dr. Doom at 15:45 PM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Skywatcher, I asked the question so I know what my point is. You may have a different point but this is my point: people suggested that CO2 sensitivity is logarithmic. That means it has a limiting value. I want to know what that value is. I don't mind if that value is 1C or 100C. People here are so eager to prove that it must be high. That is not my point. I just want to know what it is. Now, if there is no limiting value, fine. If there is, what is it? That's all. This is science not propaganda.
77028. Tom Curtis at 15:45 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       guinganbresil @40, prominent members of the "rogues gallery" above have frequently, and justifiably accused climate scientists of fraud. They have held up individual scientist by name for ridicule and calumny. On one occasion they published the address of the office of a scientist known to be receiving death threats, complete with a convenient picture pointing out the appropriate office window. They have called climate scientists conspirators, communists and (because consistency has never been their strong point) Nazis. One of them on a recent tour of Australia called for them to be seized, prosecuted and jailed; a call that was not an empty threat with one climate scientists under constant harassment by a State Attorney General, while a wild life scientist is being persecuted by Federal authorities for no other reason, so far as can be determined, than that he suggested that retreating sea ice might result in more frequent drowning of Polar Bears. And in the face of all this, you think Skeptical Science has personalized this. Quite frankly, your rule 12 looks like the play book of the denier community. And you have the gall to insist that not only should deniers be able to libel climate scientists and launch vicious attacks against climate scientists, but they should also have the advantage of effective immunity to any challenge by keeping the spotlight very carefully of them.
77029. Rickoxo at 15:06 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Sorry, double post, I must have mis-hit something as I was typing. Sorry for the repeat Skywatcher, sorry, I would have responded to you too, but your post came in as I was writing this last one. I'm going to avoid the question about money and research because it seems to get me in trouble and stick with the development of scientific knowledge. I'm betting there is much science in climate science that is as you describe it. No way it could be faked, years and years of confirmation, pretty much absolute clarity, like basic Newtonian physics. I don't question that at all. I don't know enough about climate science to know where that line ends and we move into theory, conjecture and debate over inconclusive evidence. I'm pretty sure from what I've read that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and when studied in a lab setting, it causes warming, that doesn't seem to be debated. That it causes warming in our climate, I'm pretty sure about that too. How much warming it causes and how much other factors influence and affect what CO2 does and how strongly it does it doesn't hit me as the same kind of settled science. But, I'm clearly not an expert about even that statement and that's some of what I'm here to find out. But think about something like, what the climate of the earth will be like 100 years from now? I can't imagine you're saying that climate predictions 100 years into the future are the kind of settled science like basic Newtonian physics? Estimations of the effects of predicted global warming on polar bear populations? Settled? In areas where the science isn't settled and the evidence is inconclusive, education researchers, sociology researchers, economists, politicians and even hard scientists are influenced by a host of factors as they make research decisions. It's not unique to any community nor is any community immune to it. This brings up a couple of great questions that hit me as critical to the larger GWS debate. 1. What are the clearest, simplest, most accessible and most incontrovertible facts that support GWS? (i.e. oceans are warming, ice is melting, etc.) 2. What is the proof that these facts are caused by people and are not natural? I get that's what this site is all about, but there's a great strategy in argument that says present the simplest, cleanest, most irrefutable point that supports your position first and start there. When people tell me there are hundred of threads and tons of articles discounting every skeptic argument, that doesn't help as much as here is the best piece of evidence available demonstrating human influence on the climate. I would love to know that about GWS science if it exists. Sometimes, in education, politics, philosophy and science, this one shining example doesn't exist and there's no "easy" way in to helping someone shift their perspective. But I offer you that if this site could put its considerable energy into thinking through the simplest, clearest and most irrefutable evidence support AGW, it would be a huge benefit to the independent community, attempting to choose between two presentations of alternate perspectives.
77030. owl905 at 15:01 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       What a great rogues gallery! Don't worry about the missing mugs ... a little harumph at not being a first round pick serves them right. The most depressed may be Bjorn Lomborg - he's spent half a lifetime trying to qualify for this kind of grouping. Simply a great idea.
77031. calyptorhynchus at 14:54 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       Whoops "rogues' gallery"
77032. scaddenp at 14:54 PM on 19 August 2011
       Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
       I am guessing 80 comes from the Trenberth energy budget. On the same diagram, notice that total backradiation is around 333. The CO2 radiation flux is more like 66 (see Schmidt et al, 2010 - the 1.7 (<2) is forcing from pre-industrial levels. However, I am somewhat lost on Anthony Mills question. latent heat transport is of course part of a model, but I am lost as to how this is much affected by anything except temperature and isnt an energy transport off-planet. I think discussion of this belongs in Model are unreliable
77033. calyptorhynchus at 14:52 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       This is a great resource. But can I add another thought on the way it can evolve in the future. The way I see it the common or garden agw denialist is getting more infrequent these days. Instead, and much more insidious, are those who, grudgingly, accept the science on global warming, but deny the need for any action, the 'we can adapt' crowd. Perhaps you could divide the rogue's gallery into these two types.
77034. Rickoxo at 14:44 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Skywatcher, sorry, I would have responded to you too, but your post came in as I was writing this last one. I'm betting there is much science in climate science that is as you describe it. No way it could be faked, years and years of confirmation, pretty much absolute clarity. I don't question that at all. I don't know enough about climate science to know where that line ends and we move into theory, conjecture and debate over inconclusive evidence. I'm pretty sure from what I've read that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and when studied in a lab setting causes warming, that doesn't seem to be debated. That it causes warming in our climate, I'm pretty sure about that too. How much warming it causes and how much other factors influence and affect what CO2 does and how strongly it does it doesn't hit me as the same kind of settled science But, I'm clearly not an expert about even that statement and that's some of what I'm hear to find out. But think about soemthing like, what the climate of the earth will be like 100 years from now? Are you telling me that climate predictions 100 years from now are the kind of settled science like basic newtonian physics? T
77035. mullumhillbilly at 14:39 PM on 19 August 2011
       It's waste heat
       KR@70 ...keeps on giving... What's till puzzling me is Flanner 2009 magnifying the original fire *100 every year with GHGs, where my calcs above (noting the corrected arithemetic to convert W->J) suggest magnifying the fires heat by just 1.5 with GHGs, and that only after CO2 has doubled (ie the original heat reproduced every 0.66 yrs). I suspect (not being able to access the original) that Flanners figure probaly includes the whole of GHG effect, not just the marginal AGW additions that I used. Either way, this is one amazing "eternal flame". So analogy good, Gedankenexperiment bad ? OK so you don't like the glasshouse, or the fridge. Well, could you perhaps address the questions anyway ? Maybe they are already dealt with elsewhere on this site, but its rather labyrinthine, and too voluminous to wade through all the comments (which dont get included in the search engine), and I havent found an answer with the search terms I used. So apologies if you feel your time is being wasted, but I am genuinely interested in finding an answer, not arguing from an entrenched position. Rather than two glasshouses, can you imagine two identical planets Earth.2x and Earth.1x ? On Earth.2x, the atmosphere with doubled load of GHG will slow down the rate of night cooling (heat loss) compared to that on Earth.1x. However in the absence of new forcings (the sun), the amount of heat energy held in Earth.2x atmosphere and oceans will eventually equal that on Earth 1.x. , and that would happen well above zero energy point on both planets. Would you agree with that in principle? If we can agree on that, the key question would be "how long is eventually ?" If its less than 12 hours, it seems to me that, nightwarming and rises in "average" temperature notwithstanding, there is nothing that constitutes "climate change", no residual energy to drive the cyclones, floods and ice melt. So can you point me to anywhere that empirically demonstrates or explains why it takes more than a few hours on average, for the obstructed/trapped/retained energy to make its way to TOA and get lost from the system?
77036. Rickoxo at 14:37 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       DSL and scaddenp, thanks for the responses and I'm terribly sorry if somehow I came across as saying that climate scientists are intentionally, fraudulently doctoring their data. I sure don't think I said that and I don't think that. The point I was trying to make was the general principle that funding can influence research. The farthest far extreme is deliberate intentional fraud and that is exceptionally rare. On the other end are the legitimate things researchers do every day in trying to frame and present their research (or proposals to get grants) in a light that makes it sound as compatible and supportive of the goals of the granting organization as possible. In between those two are a whole host of options and possibilities. One that happens in education frequently is setting up an experiment so that I collect actual data that simply proves what I set out to prove. It's real data, no fudging, no fraud, but I set up the experiment such that I was pretty likely to get the outcome I wanted to get. Skeptics could use this strategy easily to "disprove" warming by collecting data from locations they have reason to believe would support their argument of no warming. No one falsified data, but the data itself doesn't tell us much. Can you imagine it being possible that researchers could design experiments or data collection strategies such that they increased the likelihood of getting data they wanted to find? Take something like arctic ice melting. Skeptics and GWS folks have conducted studies saying ice is growing and ice is shrinking. Both have what I believe to be legitimate data. It would be easy for either side to select sites to support their data collection. Whether or not that gets called out has a lot to do with the broader community of scientists in which the research is conducted. There's a lot of bad research on phonics instruction for early reading right now, mainly because phonics instruction had to fight through years of bad research to get its place in the forefront of educational practice and now many folks are unwilling to critique any phonics research for fear it will reignite the reading wars once again. Please don't read this as me saying that all climate science researchers are faking data and that now I'm adding in the entire climate science community is complicit in the coverup. Not all research is equivalently useful and valid (even if it's not fraud) and no research community is perfect at policing everything that gets produced by its members. And please, if you think you're hearing anything in what I'm saying as an underhanded sneak attack on climate scientists, I'm starting with education researchers of whom I am one (grammar? :-) and I believe this to be true of researchers in general, as a general principle. Scaddenp, in response to your question, there are a range of "payoffs" in academia other than getting rich. Getting tenure, getting conference proposals accepted, getting published, getting grants to conduct research, getting hired at a specific university, none of these get one rich, but all of these influence how researchers conduct themselves. Because I come from a balanced literacy perspective, there are universities I could never work at and journals I could never get published in. Making choices about what I choose to research, the types of data I try to find, the conclusions I draw from the data I collect, all of this has huge implications for my future. It's not just about getting rich. I picked this thread because the topic involved, the question of consensus isn't a hard science question. It's pretty easy to think about and I thought a good place to try out talking about. Your framing (DSL) about the choosing between two presentations is an excellent description of what I'm up against and in the discussion about consensus there are two presentations. I started by asking about a quote from an editor of the american physical society newsletter saying there was considerable presence of folks who don't accept IPCC. We moved onto Doran as good discussions move from initial questions to analysis of evidence. I read Doran and then asked questions about that study, but it seems like the conversation has mostly been off-topic. I would actually love to talk about Doran and the idea of consensus ... Again, I'm sorry for whatever part I played in getting us off topic and for making it sound like I think climate scientists are frauds. I don't think that at all and I'll restate it as often as is helpful :-)
       Response:

       [DB] Well-spoken and much clearer; thanks for taking the time to add clarity to your position.

77037. Sceptical Wombat at 14:31 PM on 19 August 2011
       Climate Skeptic Fool's Gold
       Could you give a source for your figure of 80 W/m2?
77038. skywatcher at 14:26 PM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Dr Doom you're avoiding the point. Your example in #230 is a basic calculation of transient sensitivity as Dikran pointed out. The equilibrium sensitivity is higher than that, and well confirmed by palaeoclimate to be so. And there's plenty room for enough doublings for us to get uncomfortably hot, trend to infinity or not... But we should be glad that the gain in the positive feedback between CO2 and temperature is significantly less than 1 (though it is still unquestionably a positive feedback) - otherwise we would not be here having this discussion.
77039. skywatcher at 14:10 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       Excellent comment DSL. Rickoxo, in the kindest possible way, think about what you were trying to say by suggesting the possibility that the science has been twisted by people in it for the money. For that to be true, many thousands of scientists over the course of more than a century, and particularly all those sice the 1930s-1950s work of Plass and Callender would have to be twisting their work, all in the same direction, all for a little more grant money (which often does not contribute directly to salary). Does that sound likely? The basic science is much older than the politicisation of the issue. Yet in all that time, nobody has managed to come up with an internally consistent un-twisted view of atmospheric physics and palaeoclimate that fits the evidence, despite the great rewards that would be on offer for such an academic achievement! The theory (note I say theory, like gravity or evolution, rather than hypothesis) of climate is based on many decade of work by thousands of people, each of whom would love to have proved their predecessors wrong, but each of whom have failed to do so, but whose evidence has confirmed and strengthened the theory. This site is awash with the products of their work. On top of that, there is a strong financial motive (billions of dollars in whatever currency) for the organisations responsible for supplying us all with carbon-based fuels to continue to do so for as long as possible. Can you think of circumstances where billion-dollar incentives have got in the way of ethical thinking or driven industries to be economical with the truth?
77040. Rickoxo at 13:39 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       I'll give this one more try. First, DB, you make a huge assumption about when I get older--I'm 47. I decided to get a PhD in education after teaching and a bunch of other jobs for 25 years. Any chance at all you could see in this that you making assumptions about me could be part of the problem we seem to be having? Second, this whole thing started with me asking about the APS newsletter where one of their editors said that there was considerable presence in the scientific community of those who don't agree with the IPCC conclusions. I was attempting to do exactly what you said, discuss this piece of literature in the spirit of peer review. CBDunkerson brought up petroleum geologists and then muon brought up how money-influenced the science of petroleum geologists is. I asked if it was possible that argument cuts both ways and from that point, no one has mentioned the APS quote or the questions about the Doran survey. The only thing people are interested in talking about is me supposedly attacking climate scientists and how I don't have any evidence. I didn't come here with evidence disproving global warming. I'm not a climate science like I said from the beginning. I've read quite a bit critical of GWS and came here to see what discussion I could find that presented an alternative perspective. The consensus topic was one I was intrigued by and one that requires little scientific expertise, so it seemed like a good place to start. Read my few posts and the responses again and try believing for a second that I'm actually here asking questions I don't know the answer to and would like other people's opinions on. I asked a simple, straightforward question about the APS newsletter quote. CBDunker referenced the Doran study and like I do with all research relevant to something I'm studying, I went out and read it and then had some questions about it. I thought the side note would be a tiny clarification that of course anyone engaged at any level of academia and research knows the difficulty of integrity and the influence of money and that everyone has to be wary of it--something I've learned in 25 years of work in the non-profit and education research world. It obviously didn't turn out to be a simple clarification :-)
       Response:

       [DB] I withdraw that portion of my comment possibly ascribing your position due to perceived youth on your part.  My apologies.

       The remainder, including the various guidance to focus on the science & to avoid ideological assignations and aspersions, remains.

       If you can adhere to the Comments Policy here, then there will be no problems.

77041. DSL at 13:38 PM on 19 August 2011
       How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
       Agreed, Muon, but I still want Dr. Doom's stated opinion on the matter, particularly in light of your comment.
77042. muoncounter at 13:33 PM on 19 August 2011
       How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
       DSL#66: "I'm not going to immediately dismiss him" I don't dismiss the person; I dismiss the source for the assertion - as did the APS when they printed Monckton's piece of work.
77043. DSL at 13:26 PM on 19 August 2011
       How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
       Actually, I'd like to invite Dr. Doom to discuss the relevance of his assertion. It must have relevance, because s/he took the time to write it. I'm not going to immediately dismiss him as an agent provocateur, but after spending over a year on this site, I can understand the overwhelming desire to do so.
77044. DSL at 13:15 PM on 19 August 2011
       There is no consensus
       I'm a professional near the same area, Rickoxo, and I understand where you're coming from re education and grant writing. Education tries very hard to approach its very human subject matter scientifically, and professional efforts like the scholarship of teaching and learning movement are evidence that it is a challenge to keep the research based in the scientific method. Don't mistake the discipline of education as a hard science. Climate science is based in observation and a well-established physical model that has a number of theories that have reached the Law stage (unlike education). Many of the attacks on the theory of AGW are not supported by those laws, and the attackers refuse to recognize it. To people unfamiliar with the science or non-scientists, especially those exposed to mass media, it looks like there is serious doubt about everything in climate science. There is actually very little doubt among climate scientists, and then only in certain areas (cloud feedback, aerosols) and only to a very limited extent. The kicker is that you, who know far, far less about climate science than working climatologists, must be forced to choose between two presentations. You sound like you want to believe the science, but you have doubts because climate scientists speak with such confidence in the face of their attackers. How could they be so confident when so many people appear to reveal holes in the theory? Look at the list of "skeptic" arguments for this site. The attackers have tried everything, over and over and over again. Every few months, the same tired and easily rebutted arguments get trotted out again and again. If no one rebuts these arguments--every one of them, down to the most ridiculous and supernatural--then climate science fails in its mission to educate the democracy. People on this site have been over the science hundreds of times, explaining patiently to both the willfully ignorant and the actual skeptically intelligent. You're in education. If someone makes an argument that is rebutted with quantified evidence and a theory based in established physics, how do educators respond? Here, we get attackers who simply ignore the rebuttal and make the same argument the next day, over and over again. When you come to this site and see the overwhelming resistance to attacks on the theory, you shouldn't read the moment a-historically. Understand that the same script has been repeating for years, with the occasional "skeptic" paper being reviewed, and a steady stream of mainstream science incorporated. Understand that most of the attacks are truly bizarre and have no foundation in established physics--indeed, many are self-contradictory in their implied physical model. Attacks that look legitimate come from people who readily accept the basics of radiative transfer. For them, it's all about the level of forcing. Those arguers are few and far between, though. Some start with the ostensible position that they are lukewarmers, but when confronted by physics they go into refusal mode. For many commenters and doubtful lurkers, this site must provide a disorienting dilemma (since we're in the education lexicon, I'll whip out transformative learning theory). It's very hard to invest yourself publicly in something and then find out you're wrong about some of the fundamentals. It takes time to work through the dilemma. Some people never do. They simply back themselves into a corner where they're forced to cast doubt on the data itself. You might be thinking that we could say the same thing for climate scientists and those who support the theory of AGW. Climate science claims to base its theory in observed data and a sound physical model. Until you're able to argue through the data and physics, you'll never be sure. You should be able to intuit, though, based on what you should know (by now as a graduate student) about the social construction of knowledge, that any real doubt would be reflected in the working scientific community. Look at the scholarship. The theory, which has been around for 150 years, is not an issue in the scholarship. Only the fine details remain. There are thousands of papers that do not directly attempt to question or confirm the theory but end up confirming it anyway. Similarly, because of the nature of the hard sciences, scientists offering "doctored" data would soon be exposed. Again, in education, theory can rest on a foundation not wholly constructed of scientifically-produced knowledge. Assessment of transformative learning, for example, is an extra large can of worms. In education, people can advance interpretations that rest on weakly-supported assumptions about human behavior. Not so for the hard sciences. Weakness in a theory is quickly rooted out and, if not corrected, made widely known within the discipline's community (and related communities). Finally, if you think that climate scientists are deliberately fudging data, then you are implicating thousands of people, all of whom must be motivated to dismiss their integrity toward their discipline and toward the greater project of human progress. There are countless examples of people in all fields of human labor doing just that for the sake of financial security. There are conditions that make such moves more and less likely. Government-supported science should be one of the "less likely" contexts, because the institutional goal is human progress and the accounting is heavily scrutinized. Privately-funded science should be one of the "more likely" contexts, because the institutional goal is the generation of capital, and the books are pried open only through the efforts of legions of lawyers and watchdogs.
77045. muoncounter at 13:12 PM on 19 August 2011
       How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
       Doom#64: "Physics & Society Vol. 37 No. 3. " Interesting source. You select a graphic (seen more frequently from the famous geocraft.com website) buried within an article with the following preamble: This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions. Author: Christopher Monckton of Brenchley That's why we like to see sources for such sweeping statements. Did you happen to note the lead article in the same volume? The abstract: In this paper, we have used several basic atmospheric–physics models to show that additional carbon dioxide will warm the surface of Earth. We also show that observed solar variations cannot account for observed global temperature increase.
77046. Dr. Doom at 12:56 PM on 19 August 2011
       How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
       Gentlemen, I'm sure Ms. Anne is perfectly reasonable. When communicating science to the public, it's important to be precise to avoid misunderstanding. The relevance of pointing out that today's temp. is one of the coldest in 600 million yrs is simply to support the fact that we are still in an ice age. It is relevant to this tread since we are talking about ice age today or in the near future. The source is the journal Physics & Society Vol. 37 No. 3. Temperature reconstruction by C.R. Scotese and CO2 reconstruction by R.A. Berner.
       Response:

       [DB] Pedantry is not particularly becoming.  But since that is the sole point of this comment, I must point out that we are in an interglacial period within said ice age.  Given the CO2 we are injecting without sign of letup, some literature suggests we have already averted the next glacial phase; another 700 Gt or so will avert the next 5 glacial phases.  Google it if curious.

       Let's move the dialogue back to matters of substance, please.

77047. RyanStarr at 12:46 PM on 19 August 2011
       Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle
       OK lets correct the statement "any current trend is also natural". They state internal variability is sufficient to counteract anthropogenic forcing in the 2-20 year time frame (hence a positive trend can be observed). With that in mind I don't see how we can categorically state what is responsible for any short term trend, it will be a combination of anthropogenic and interal forcings. Those "ice loss is accelerating" claims based on short time frames need to take this into consideration.
       Response:

       [DB] "Those "ice loss is accelerating" claims based on short time frames need to take this into consideration."

       Short time frames...you mean like that covering the entire satellite record, perchance?:

       

       Or this, hiliting that climastrological seasonal cycle?:

       

       [Source]

       So, when we've endured 316 317 consecutive months of global temperatures above the 20th-Century average (the last cooler-than-average month was Feb 1985), and the Arctic Sea Ice trends are linearly to greater-than-linearly down (that Arctic Amplification thingy), where's the recovery for crying out loud?

       Regular readers are surely noting the zeal displayed by those that seize upon every last vestige of hope to deny the obvious:  recently the world is warming due to human activities (fossil fuel derived CO2), and the Arctic Sea Ice is in a downward spiral as a result.

       I repeat:  only Maslowski's model comes anywhere close to replicating the metric-ed trend observed in the Arctic.  And his model predicts a summer minimum with mostly-ice free Arctic Ocean by 2016, ± 3 years.

       But by all means, that's only natural...

77048. guinganbresil at 12:34 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals Let's stick to the science... I do not like where this is going.
       Response: [JC] The backbone, the guts of this resource is the same Skeptical Science information - denier myths and the scientific responses. But I'm finding many people seem to be having trouble finding the information on this site so this feature is an alternative way of organising the information, to make it easier for people to find what they're looking for. I'm looking at adding other ways of accessing the information in the not-too-distant future.
77049. RyanStarr at 12:04 PM on 19 August 2011
       A new SkS resource: climate skeptics and their myths
       @DB, actually on the topic of "magical cycles" they've been critically debunked at 'another prominent skeptic site' too. See July 30, 2011 'Riding a Pseudocycle' by WE (and others). Further evidence of the robustness of debate that occurs on that side of the fence.
77050. Dr. Doom at 11:52 AM on 19 August 2011
       Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
       Dikran, With due respect, your comments policy states "No ad hominem attacks. Attacking other users or anyone holding a different opinion to you is common in debates but gets us no closer to understanding the science." Your statement "It is quite obvious from your comments that your grasp of what climate sensitivity actually is is fairly weak" sounds like a personal criticism. If you don't think it's a personal criticism, then allow me to reply: "It is quite obvious from your comment that your grasp of what logarithm function actually is is fairly weak." A natural logarithm function y = ln (x) has a limit on y such that as x approaches infinity, y approaches a finite value. In climate sensitivity, y is temp. and x is CO2. As CO2 increases indefinitely, temp. approaches a finite value. What is that finite value? That's what I was asking. Now, if you're saying there is no limit to temp., then it is not a logarithm function. It may be linear, exponential or polynomial. But you claim it's logarithmic so what is it really?

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