Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings

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.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  1541  1542  1543  1544  1545  1546  1547  1548  1549  1550  1551  1552  1553  1554  1555  1556  Next

Comments 77401 to 77450:

  1. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    #177 "It certainly must have done so during ice ages for example." Doug! Check the definition of 'ice age'. I'll leave others to deal with the rest of this one.
  2. SkS Weekly Digest #11
    Funny Cartoon- sadly true. but those who are lying- the question in the future are they criminally going to be responsible?
  3. SkS Weekly Digest #11
    Nice 'toon. I deal with reassured people every day.
  4. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Tom #173: Regarding your point on thermal inertia, let me start with an analogy which I will come back to at the end: Imagine a small glass of water in an air conditioned room. The water represents the oceans and the room represents the whole of the Earth beneath the surface. Leave the glass for a few hours and the water ends up at the same temperature as the room. Drop a hot coin in the glass (representing the warming by the sun that day) and it also cools down to a "base" temperature supported by the heat in the room. To warm everything you have to alter the air conditioner setting. Now, as we have seen in this Trenberth article, the heat above the crust is contained in (roughly) 90% ocean, 6% land, 4% atmosphere. Compared with all of this, the heat in the rest of the Earth below the surface (and below the floor of the oceans) is many orders of magnitude greater. What the atmosphere and oceans "see" is what I call the "break out" temperature at the surface (or floor of ocean) of the temperature gradient of the heat flow from the core. For example, German borehole data showed 270 deg.C at 9,000 metres with a linear trend down to about 12 deg.C at the surface. (I suggest it would be about 25 deg.C at the equator and well below freezing point at the poles. It is roughly the 4am temperature on a calm night.) I suggest that this "break out" temperature can vary naturally for whatever reasons. It certainly must have done so during ice ages for example. It is the "temperature in the room" in my example, and the natural causes affecting it are the air conditioner. The oceans, the land and the atmosphere are all controlled by it, just as is the temperature of the water in the glass and that of the coin.
  5. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    Dale, seriously. Do you not understand how the economic activity of just ten billion human beings over the course of the last century has significantly altered the biosphere, atmosphere, and geosphere? The published evidence would take days to sort through, but the observable evidence is all around.
  6. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    "The system is so complex that our understanding of how climate inter-relates is still really just scratching the surface." Not really, Dale. Atmospheric composition is well established. The physics of the components are well-established. Cyclical processes are well-understood. Long-term cycles are less well understood, but the range of possible basic mechanisms has been narrowed considerably. "To say that humans are 'almost entirely responsible' . . ." I believe the claim was that humans are responsible for the increase in CO2. Do you not find this to be likely with a very high level of confidence? If so, why not? " . . . for climate change is, IMO, a bit silly considering the power of nature to alter its own course," Yikes, talk about religion. If nature can alter its own course without recourse to its physical 'laws' then we can toss the entire project of science right now. This is why religion and science truly cannot co-exist, unless the deity/ies is/are constrained by their own initial laws. "and the fact we still really don't know how each part of the system inter-relates and feeds back on itself. To not acknowledge these facts is a form of denial itself." We have a very firm grip on this, Dale. Are you suggesting that we stop trying to learn more? Because if you're suggesting that 150 years of our best efforts have ended up fruitless, you truly have a lot to learn. Grab a textbook, dude.
  7. Soil Carbon in the Australian Political Debate (Part 1 of 2)
    LazyTeenager. If you look at the archeology of terra preta soils you'll see that if manures and other nutrients are combined with charcoal, the structure and carbon content can be retained for millennia. Without using charcoal or biochar, you may not get much more than a century or so. Seeing as farmers are committed to improving their soils on decade/generation timescales, this isn't much of a problem. They already spend bulk money on their current land management practices. It's really a matter of finding ways to make a different regime of land management maintain profitability. (Fertility is not the main issue because higher humus soils are almost automatically more fertile.) The central problem is that this issue has been ignored for such a long time. The research is likely to be playing catch-up (or leap-frog) with implementation for quite a while. The eternal issue in farms and forestry is continuation of good practice when land is sold. Every farming community has horror stories of how a 'beautiful' property was absolutely wrecked by a new owner (or the next generation) overgrazing or denuding vegetation or drying up a creek by their incompetent management. I think it will eventually become a bit like windfarms. A small annual payment for increasing and maintaining carbon values - by some agreed formula for measurement. That word 'agree' will likely ensure that the policy won't be easy or quick to implement.
  8. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    In response to all: Please respect the fact that I am behind with business matters and, whilst I believe I can respond satisfactorarily to all points raised, posts on here are not the place because it will require much more detail. I will be adding a page about all this (you know where) in about two weeks time. In the meantime I shall address the key issue in the final paragraph of #165, because, unless anyone can show sound reasons (based on physics) that what I say there is incorrect, then my case stands. Here then is a more detailed explanation which needs to answer the question ... What happens to back radiation (which I have also called feedback) in particular that from CO2 when it strikes the solid surface? It creates heat which flows into the surface during the "warm-up" phase in the morning and maybe early afternoon. As the night approaches that heat can flow out at a similar rate to which it flowed in. Allowing for cloud cover, there are less than 12 hours of direct sunlight on average, so it has a reasonable, though not certain, probability of cooling off by about 4am (say) half way between summer and winter. In summer it may not cool off entirely, so heat builds up in that hemisphere, particularly in the oceans which hold about 90% of all heat (continents ~6%, atmosphere ~4%.) We know the local surf is warmer in summer. So, what comes in as CO2 frequency photons then becomes heat. Then that heat (along with the heat that came from direct sunlight) is radiated as the surface cools and that radiation contains many other IR frequencies (ie it is "full IR spectrum" near enough.) From the area of the notch in the chart Tom provided, we can see that only a small percentage is captured by CO2. And so, when the process repeats over and over, it rapidly approaches a limit where virtually all go to space. It makes little difference what size that notch is because it is still a small portion of the total area under the curve.
  9. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    Dale @18, "to preach", according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, is to "pronounce a public discourse about sacred subjects", or "to utter an earnest exhortation, especially moral or religious". Consequently your claim that "preach" is not specifically religious is dubious, and to suggest that the IPCC "Summary for Policy Makers" or the various testimonies of scientists to Congress are preaching is an abuse of the word. It is also clearly suggests their evidence constitutes, at minimum, a moral exhortation rather that what it actually is, the presentation of scientific fact.
  10. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    Dale#18: "to preach is to urge or publicly proclaim" Cherrypick! The full definition your cut from (google dictionary): Publicly proclaim or teach (a religious message or belief) -- emphasis added This is not how science is communicated.
  11. Soil Carbon in the Australian Political Debate (Part 1 of 2)
    I'm afraid that LazyTeenager is correct. Though Soil Sequestration in an option, certain people have massively overstated its benefits, usually as a means of overlooking the obvious-namely reduction of our use of fossil fuels!
  12. Soil Carbon in the Australian Political Debate (Part 1 of 2)
    One crazy idea I had was that soil carbon could be increased by forestry slow burns. As long as the temperature was not hot enough to oxidize the soil and the charcoal yield was high, the sequestration rate would be high and cumulative over time as the process was repeated. Charcoal of course is very resistant to oxidation when buried and so the sequestration time scales should be very long.
  13. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    Dale, there are very few advocates of AGW who are of the view that climate change has *no* natural component. The problem is that all the recent, natural climate change factors-like Sunspots-should have resulted in a modest cooling, if anything, yet we're currently encountering the most rapid warming we've ever seen in the historical records. Yet we have people like Watts denying that its even happening!
  14. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    @Mod #16 The terms "preach" and "doctrine" do not specifically have religious definitions. To preach is to urge or publicly proclaim (which is exactly what the IPCC "Summary for Policy makers" does as well as scientists in front of Govt hearings), and a doctrine is a position in a branch of knowledge or belief. These terms fit very tightly with AGW, as the position of the branch of knowledge is proclaimed publicly through the urgings of scientists and the IPCC. Doctrine is also the term used for Govt agreements on an International level, which as far as I'm concerned what a lot of all this is about, how we deal with this at a global level. Also, Albatross wrote "The underlying foundation of the theory of AGW, is as the name suggests that we are almost entirely responsible for increasing CO2 (and other GHGs), so to deny that or not accept that is to be a denier of AGW." That humans alter the climate is no argument. That the Earth has warmed is no argument. The extent to which humans are responsible for the warming, IS the argument. The term "almost entirely responsible" is the real unknown in climate science. The system is so complex that our understanding of how climate inter-relates is still really just scratching the surface. To say that humans are "almost entirely responsible" for climate change is, IMO, a bit silly considering the power of nature to alter its own course, and the fact we still really don't know how each part of the system inter-relates and feeds back on itself. To not acknowledge these facts is a form of denial itself.
    Response:

    [DB] "the fact we still really don't know how each part of the system inter-relates and feeds back on itself"

    When you say "we" you really mean "I".  The people who've made a profession of studying climate science actually have a pretty good handle on all of the things you mention.  That you characterize it as being (in large part) uncertain merely demonstrates that you haven't put much time and energy into its study.

    Albatross, being a working scientist in the field, speaks from a point of strength of knowledge about the subject.

    Per Dictionary.com:

    preach

    [preech]
    verb (used with object)

    1.  to proclaim or make known by sermon (the gospel, good tidings, etc.).

    2.  to deliver (a sermon).
    3.  to advocate or inculcate (religious or moral truth, right conduct, etc.) in speech or writing.

    verb (used without object)
    4.  to deliver a sermon.
    5.  to give earnest advice, as on religious or moral subjects or the like.
    6.  to do this in an obtrusive or tedious way.

    doc·trine

    [dok-trin]
    noun
    1.  a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated, as of a religion or government: Catholic doctrines; the Monroe Doctrine.
    2.  something that is taught; teachings collectively: religious doctrine.
    3.  a body or system of teachings relating to a particular subject: the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
  15. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Thanks Tom. I started by including some remarks about oceans, but I cut them out to keep my contribution short. (And I've not looked at Doug's site so I had to go on what I've seen here only. I'm not wonderfully well right now and I'm grumpy enough without deliberately seeking things out to worsen my temper.) And Doug. If you were not thrilled with RC 1978, you might do better with an overview like Spencer Weart's. Look through the Contents-Site Map here and you can choose topics that interest you. Follow the references as you come across them. And I heartily endorse the previous referrals to Science of Doom. Lots of good science, presented in digestible amounts. It's not as simple as reading a novel, but it's an excellent self-education resource.
  16. Soil Carbon in the Australian Political Debate (Part 1 of 2)
    The whole natural sequestration seems to me to be full of dubious propositions. Sequestration by forestry is one because as far as I can tell a mature forest should have respiration and photosynthesis in balance and therefore no sequestration can occur. The article of course emphasizes humus but I missed any figure for it's actual soil lifetime. A few years ago I buried a large amount of plant matter in the garden and within a year the soil had reverted to clay. I attributed this to the activity of worms. So I am guessing the lifetime of humus is 1 to 5 years. Therefore to maintain humus-based soil carbon would take constant I tensive soil management. i imagine you would get no increase in carbon past the first 1 to 5 years of management. Feel free to provide better figures.
  17. One Confusedi Bastardi
    Sphaerica#2: "Faux News has lots and lots of issues" Issues, yes. How about this headline for a 'review' of Spencer's recent Remote Sensing paper? New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole in Global Warming Alarmism No bias there. We report, you decide, you swallow it whole. But to illustrate the comprehension level of their audience, I overheard someone in a restaurant saying 'and there's new NASA data that proves CO2 doesn't cause the ozone hole!'
  18. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    DC - Ramanathan & Coatley lay the foundations, and you need to understand these first. Since you have now switched to discussion of feedbacks associated with clouds etc., can we now assume that you accept that the greenhouse effect is real and that these climate scientists do actually understand radiative physics? Changing your website to reflect this would be nice. Discussion of feedbacks (ultimately a discussion about climate sensitivity) is a different proposition and should do that on an appropriate thread.
  19. OA not OK part 14: Going down
    Doug M#3: "denialists are over represented by geologists." I don't think rates of change are the root cause. Consider where many geologists find employment: oil, minerals, coal. Denial comes with that territory. If you want a high proportion of deniers, look at engineers -- especially those who claim to 'understand' thermodynamics.
  20. OA not OK part 14: Going down
    It is also my impression that denialists are over represented by geologists. This has been covered many times elsewhere but, briefly, I think the reason is that they are unable or unwilling to understand rates of change. Take the recent glaciations: CO2 changed by ~100 ppm, ranging between 180-280 ppm, with each transition taking 10,000-20,000 years. We have changed CO2 by over 100 ppm, from ~280-393 ppm, in 150 years. Life itself is in no danger – bacteria have run this planet for 21/2 billion years and will continue to run it whatever the Johnny-come-lately multicellular creatures do to the planet – but complex ecosystems cope very poorly with rapid change. One might imagine that because the divisions of geological history are marked by such change events then it would give geologists a head start in appreciating the likely effect of such change.
  21. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    Dale, a true skeptic weighs the evidence and develops an ongoing theory that takes into account as much evidence as possible and a solid physical model. A skeptic can only be on the fence because he/she has yet to work through all of the evidence--or if he/she has done so and has relatively solid reasons for riding a fence. If you have relatively solid reasons for riding the fence, I'd like to hear them. Every day I hope someone presents evidence that throws doubt on the seriousness of this problem. Your reasons, however, can't be "just because." They have to be worked through critically, and the scientific community is the best place to do that work. "preach"? Come now, let's not wander down that bizarre road. After all, if I decided to be a skeptic (or, rather, a so-called skeptic) about the sun rising tomorrow, and you defended the idea of the sun rising tomorrow, you'd be on the same ground as your imagined "preacher." The theory that predicts a rotating Earth and the short-term continued active sun is the best fit for the physics and observations. So too is the theory of AGW for recent warming. Hardly a religion.
  22. Murry Salby - Confused About The Carbon Cycle
    @Albatross If a "denier" does not accept the AGW argument, and an "advocate" preaches the AGW doctrine and does not accept any natural cause, and a "sceptic" is on-the-fence/unsure/undecided, then what do you call someone who accepts that humans can change the climate but not to the levels claimed? It IS possible to "deny" the mantra but not be a "denier".
    Response:

    [DB] Dale, denier in this context is being used for those who deny observable data and trends (indeed, to the point of saying blue is green and the sun orbits the Earth). 

    At this point, those who say that "this is what the science says" and back it up with links to peer-reviewed published literature are hardly preaching doctrine.  That you phrase it in that context is revealing as to the ideology underlying your position.  It is a false equivalency to say that in this scientific dialogue that there are "two sides", unless you mean one side that is backed by 200 years of science and physical observations and the other side which is basically saying "no it isn't" without anything to support their nay-saying.

    In that regard and context, yes, they are deniers and denialists.  QED.

    Note further that the resident skeptics who regularly inhabit SkS are nowhere to be found on a thread like this and in the various ongoing discussions with Mr. Cotton; that would violate the "Skeptic's Code".   Aargh.

  23. One Confusedi Bastardi
    As bad as Bastardi is, Fox News should be crucified. To have a "news" outlet that knowingly gives a platform for this cr@p is where the real problem lies. And yes, I know, Faux News has lots and lots of issues, and they rather pathetically cross the line for all of them. But to put on a discredited nonsensical weatherman, present him as an expert on global warming, then let him prattle on with what is utter and complete nonsense is just too much. Fox News needs to be crucified.
  24. One Confusedi Bastardi
    He also made up a phony "trend" for the Hadcrut data from 1996 to May 2011 on his WUWT post. He has the correct graph, but he drew a curved line that ends with an arrow pointing down, even though the actual trend for the 15 year period is a rise of .008C/yr, which comes to about .12C in warming over the period. His line is a fabrication.
  25. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    I sea a game of ice hockey in the near future.... Sharpen your blades and repair the goal.
    Moderator Response: (DB) I hear spring training has lifeguards. Long term, will be an indoors-only pasttime.
  26. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    Sniff sniff . . . I smell a penguin BBQ.
  27. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Adelady @169, DougCotton appears to believe the that all the heat in the surface layers of the ocean can be dissipated in a matter of seconds, or minutes, so that the only think that preserves the warmth through the night is the feedback loop of back radiation re warming the surface after some heat is initially dissipated. In other words, he has no concept of thermal inertia. It is easily determined that it would take approximately 28 days without sunshine for the surface 100 meters to lose 1 degree C with a net upward flux of 160 Watts/m^2. The 160 W/m^2 is just the average net upward flux from the surface excluding solar radiation, while the 100 meters is an underestimate of the typical depth of the mixed layer, in which turbulence caused by winds keeps temperatures near constant with depth. That being the case, the temperature drop at night in the ocean is negligible, except at the very surface where the heat escapes to the atmosphere quicker than it can be replenished from below. As always, Science of Doom has an excellent post (in fact four) on the subject, and even developed a model of the diurnal temperature range in the ocean: And for some empirical results: As you can see, even under calm conditions the top most layer only varies in temperature by about 3 degrees at most, for a 40 W/m^2 variation in the surface IR radiation at most. In other words, the up welling IR radiation from the surface is near constant over water, and the dissipating feedback loop imagined by DougCotton is simply unphysical. Over land, there is substantially greater variation in temperature, but temperatures are normally kept within a narrow range for all that. Because of this, the up welling IR radiation, which is in fact black body radiation from the surface also persists through the night with only minor variation. This can be seen in actual measurements of the surface radiation, in this case over a banana plantation in Brazil: The thing to note is the Net Radiation (Rn), ie, down welling solar radiation minus the up welling IR radiation. At night that becomes just - the up welling IR radiation, and as can be easily seen, it is near constant through the night. Once again how Doug imagines things to be has no support either in theory or observation.
  28. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    You know that stuff that ain't happenin'? Still ain't: [Source] Shows over, folks. No warming here, nothing to see.
    Response:

    [DB] Fixed images.

  29. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    DougC: How about a new version of this? It's been such fun playing question time; it is now time for you to provide some answers that are substantiated and based on researched self-consistent science rather than your opinion. Following are questions based on several points in #165. Think of this as your homework assignment; don't come to school without doing it first -- and don't ask someone else to do it for you. 165 #1: In your model, conduction/diffusion 'prevails'. Yet you state there have been cooling periods; cooling requires a heat deficit. What causes this? Your answer must be detailed and not just 'natural cycles;' that's a cop-out of the uninformed. Hint: much is fully explained on other threads. Find them. Read. Learn. 165#2: Why does the surface warm during the day? What happened to the ability of your conduction/diffusion mechanism to 'prevail'? 165#3: Incorrect. Go find out why measuring radiation is not the same as measuring temperature. What have we learned (hint: a great deal) from such radiation curves? Hint: read TomC's excellent comments in this thread - again. 165#4: Incorrect. Go find out why it is the trend in temperature and heat gain that matters. What is that trend over the last 40 years? You state that O2 absorbs UV: Find out how much of the incoming solar energy is UV. Then see if UV even has a place in this discussion. What are 'feedback photons'? Please describe the conversion of heat to 'full spectrum IR.' Why does this 'conversion' only occur at the surface? Is there a difference between IR photons leaving the initially warmed surface vs. those leaving the surface after feedback? Please provide some substantiation that 'all can get out' by '4am'. Include in your answer a discussion of the significance of an increase in nighttime temperatures over a multi-year period. You conflate seasonal temperature variation with the multi-year warming trend. Why does the fact that it cools in the winter not have any significance in this discussion? If, as you've claimed, 'conduction will prevail,' why do we have seasons at all? Until you can answer some questions, in self-consistent detail, your understanding still has gaping holes (and you now know that it does). SkS is not a soapbox; this is a place to test your ideas and accept that others know this science better than you. Sphaerica gives excellent advice. I can add only this: Think about what you read. And more importantly, think about what you are going to say before you write it. Always ask yourself, 'is what I have to say really that new and important or might someone already have this figured out?' Try to avoid adding to the noise; add instead to the useful dialog.
  30. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Doug, You have wandered through a trail of 100 posts now, hitting everything you can and being soundly refuted at every turn, and yet you keep finding new reasons to ignore what you are told or educating yourself beyond your ignorance. You continue in pursuit of more and more reasons to declare scientists wrong and ignore the problem. If this topic concerns you so much, you need to put more time into studying, and less into posting. When you study, you need to open your mind and learn, instead of starting with a desired outcome and trying to interpret everything in terms of that outcome. You need to recognize that you have a problem, a very serious bias towards arriving at a predetermined conclusion, and that bias keeps you from adequately learning the science. You need to recognize that the science is very, very, very complex. There is a lot to learn, and in a lot of different areas. You need to trust other people, and ask questions to learn instead of trying to score points or find weaknesses for the sake of later scoring points [And after 100 posts your score right now is zero, by the way]. In a nutshell, you need to become a skeptic. A skeptic doesn't believe anything, and refuses to commit until he is sure that he solidly understands and has no doubts. You are not a skeptic. You believe a lot of things, like in the magic of ENSO, which is really nothing more than a global game of oceanic peekaboo. You may actually be on to something in thinking of it as the globe's pressure valve, but if so, it is one that is inadequate to counter the forces that are building beneath it. But this is good evidence of your own approach. When you find a concept you like, you accept it with extreme prejudice and without hesitation, even when you do not have enough facts to quantify the effect enough to justify your own position, and in fact when all evidence points away from your desired conclusion. You also refuse to believe in a lot of things, like the complex and irrefutable physics behind the greenhouse effect. You also, clearly, are not trying to learn everything you can, but rather only those things that you hope will support the result that you'd like to believe is true. Please become a skeptic. Please. Beyond that, this thread has grown extremely tiresome and has wandered way, way off topic. I'm amazed at the patience that all of the (well educated) SkS regulars have shown you here. A large number of people have gone to great lengths to help you, in a carefully reasoned tone that your own hubris and attitude does not mirror. It's time for you to do some serious studying, and to avoid nuthouses like WUWT in the process. Go learn the science. This site is a good place to start, but certainly shouldn't be your only resource. It's actually better as a place to figure out what else you need to learn (in my opinion). But look around, follow tangents, and educate yourself. Until then, you are just confused and passing your confusion to others. The world needs skeptics with the energy to educate themselves, not ignorant ideologues with the energy to broadcast their hoped for assumptions.
  31. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    15 owl: and that's not all. Why is the ocean acidifying? Is ocean chemistry also wrong? What about CO2 fertilisation? It reminds me of something John published a while back: scientists are saying that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Bastardi is saying that not only is something that isn't a duck walking/quacking like a duck, but someone has hidden the real duck... Or perhaps maths or chemistry are wrong.
  32. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Doug "So my question is: Why can't the world just relax, knowing that El Niños will act like a pressure valve and release whatever excess heat any global warming may cause in the future?" You might have noticed that this wonderful El Nino process you're talking about seems quite capable of cooking the whole of Australia - esp when the Indian Ocean gets into the act as well. Sounds a lot like telling people not to worry about floods - after all the water eventually ends up in the ocean or the aquifers so 'Don't worry. Be happy.' And a minor technical quibble. How is it that this 'release' by the ENSO 'pressure valve' doesn't result in temperatures declining back to earlier levels in the following years? If this pressure valve had been doing it's job, surely temperatures would be fluctuating up and down around some level or other rather than steadily increasing decade by decade.
  33. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Doug, I'm having trouble understanding (several of) your responses to Tom's explanations. Especially those that rely on contrasts between day and night observations. These items are important for gathering information about particular locations. For global climate, however, the obvious issue is that when it's 4am in one place, it's 4pm at the equivalent location on the other side of the globe. Whatever is happening in the way of diurnal cooling/warming at one is reversing at the other - with appropriate adjustments for geographical variations. It's not clear to me that your ideas account for this adequately.
  34. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Another question to all: The chart in this topic "Energy Content in the Climate System" shows very clearly the dominance of the energy stored in the oceans compared with everything else. (It is nearly 20 times that in the continents, and nearly 30 times that in the atmosphere.) Even in over 40 years (1961-2003) the error bars still overlap so we cannot prove an increase statistically, though it does look likely and of course an increase would correlate with temperatures. Now, there is also reference to the 1998 El Niño being the biggest in recorded history. El Niños effectively send heat straight through the atmosphere and out to space. So there was some cooling after it especially in 2002. Now, these El Niños will continue happening and we could deduce that the magnitude of the heat which they send to space depends on the the magnitude of the prior build up in the oceans. So my question is: Why can't the world just relax, knowing that El Niños will act like a pressure valve and release whatever excess heat any global warming may cause in the future?
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Because as well as El Ninos, there are La Ninas, which do the oposite. ENSO is an oscillation, so on a multidecadal scale its effects average out to zero and it doesn't have a great effect on multi-decadal trends.
  35. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Tom and scaddenp: Note how this book indicates that radiation measurements are just one of several factors that must all be considered in order to arrive at meaningful results. Understanding Climate Change Feedbacks Panel on Climate Change Feedbacks, Climate Research Committee, National Research Council
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] center tags fixed
  36. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    The never-failing absurdity that the CO2 pollution rise is actually 'natural variation': 1. So where did all the human-generated pollution go? 2. Where did all the natural CO2 come from? 3. Instead of the 1/3-missing puzzle, there's now a 1 1/3-missing puzzle. 4. If .8dC from the 1800s drives CO2 levels up 40%, why didn't this variability ever show up in the paleo-climate proxy record? The Great CO2 Flood only shows up when the EIA is measuring massive and growing amounts of human GHG pollution. 5. 5dC from Ice Age to Interglacial had a 100ppm delta - so in the pointy-hat world, a 5dC drives a 50% rise then, but a .8dC rise drives the delta now. The problem with responding to lunatics is they have the magic spell 'budwaddabout' to avoid every defeat.
  37. OA not OK part 14: Going down
    All very excellent Keith! Can't wait for the complete booklet to hand to a couple of very 'skeptical' (lets say denier) Geologists here. Why is it that there are more deniers per square Km of Geologists than any other science fraternity or am I imagining it? ;-)
  38. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    #162: scadenp: I'm reluctant to place much emphasis on that 1978 paper which acknowledges several limitations and short-comings of the models of the time. They had problems regarding critical lapse rates which implied these were overstated by the models, which they said were in need of improvement. My understanding is that improvements were (are still?) needed in the treatment of marine boundary layer clouds and tropical convective clouds.
    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] The 1978 paper was suggested as a good place for you to start in gaining an understanding of the physics of climate and modelling. Of course there are limitations and there has been considerable progress in the last 30 years, however you need to start with the basics first. Your response is essentially a failure to engage with the discussion and your understanding of climate physics is unlikely to improve if you are unwilling to learn. Continue with this approach and you will find people will no longer respond to your questions as your responses suggest you are not interested in the answers.
  39. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    Or if their motivation is self-interest the problem is the same. Scientists want more funding for research, but they think that scientists jig their research to get more funding. Again, they superimpose their own worldview on any given subject. Reason, rather 'truth' is the first casualty in the climate wars.
  40. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Tom, thank you for your time in replying. I have read and understood your argument, and did in fact already know about what you have said. I will endeavour to explain what I believe to be the fallacy and why what you say "And that can only be achieved by the surface of the planet, the source of the rest of the radiation, warming" does not give reason for assuming that long-term warming is happening. My points are ... 1) Obviously there have been times of cooling for several years, eg after 1960. Yet at those times there was CO2 in the atmosphere and that would have given a similar plot, complete with notches. 2) We all have walked on hot sand or rocks, so we know the surface warms temporarily on hot days, and cools at night. So that is all your quoted sentence is actually confirming. 3) You might as well just measure the inward and outward bound radiation at the top of the atmosphere, from a satellite I guess. In general, in regard to warming or cooling, it won't tell you any more than what you already know from temperature data. 4) There can, however, be differences between (3) and what temperatures tell us due to build up or decline in potential (stored) energy, such as ice melting, water vapour forming by evaporation etc. So, unless we can quantify these factors over the time span measured, the information is useless. (A company cannot work out its sales from its purchases unless it knows opening and closing stock.) Just one other point, O2 absorbs at various altitudes - UV-A and UV-B higher up, but UV-C right down to the lower troposphere. In general, UV has much more energy than visible light, let alone IR as everyone here knows. (The O2 may become O3 in the process which is, of course, relatively unstable.) That energy will end up, after collisions, as photons both surface-bound and space-bound. (It has to, or the atmosphere would warm excessively in the long term.) Finally, feedback photons from CO2 to the surface, convert to heat and thence back to (nearly) full spectrum IR radiation, and so most will not be absorbed by CO2 on the second iteration, or perhaps the third etc. (Feedback is a multi-iteration process.) In the limit, all can get out regardless of the amount of CO2 - within reason - usually by, say, 4am the next morning. But if some heat in the oceans builds up in summer months, it then has winter to cool off - as we observe happens.
  41. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    Just goes to show the power of denial blinders. They seem to completely shut down critical thinking.
    They confuse the political consequences of the study of climate change in the modern age with its scientific underpinnings. The political focus on anthropogenic global warming is a consequence of scientific inquiry, but they think the scientific focus on anthropogenic global warming is a result of political aspiration. And they think that because their own focus is politically motivated. It's no surprise they defer to ideas that get cause and effect backwards, because that is the root of their intellectual malady.
  42. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    It comes down to this-if, as the deniers claim, warming is causing the rise in CO2, then *what* is causing the warming in the first place? We've had 6 consecutive decades of rising temperatures & atmospheric CO2 concentrations-but over that period we've had 3 decades of stable sunspot levels, followed by 3 decades of falling sunspot levels-not to mention above average volcanic activity over the 1990's. So again I ask- "where is the warmth coming from?"
  43. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    Tom @10, Indeed. Re Fig. 17. Of course correlation is not causation, but one could argue that the increase in CO2 explains ~71% of the variance in the temperature anomaly. That is, most of the warming is attributable to human's burning fossil fuels.
  44. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    TomC#10: Nice! Just to be clear, the third graph's vertical axis is the change in CO2 over the 1900 concentration. I assume the horizontal axis, showing emissions as a volume fraction has been converted from the way it is usually reported - as mass in Gtons. Hard to argue that the linear fit in the 2nd graph makes any sense whatsoever. Although it does reinforce the point that both warming and cooling must be increasing CO2, just as the goblins want us to think. They are that good!
  45. Blaming nature for the CO2 rise doesn't add up
    Ferdinand Engelbeen has three diagrams of particular interest to this debate: The first amounts to a visual presentation of the argument above: The second plots CO2 concentration against temperature anomaly: The third plots CO2 concentration against cumulative human emissions: (Note, cumulative emission, not annual emissions as shown in the graph @7) Salby and the denier cohorts are in effect asking us to ignore the 0.9966 correlation (R^2) in the third graph because they are impressed by the 0.719 correlation in the second.
  46. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    DougCotton @160, the atmosphere absorbs around 78 W/m^2 from the Sun, mostly as a result of H20 and aerosols (which each account for nearly 50% of the energy absorbed). Most of the rest of the energy absorbed is absorbed by O2 in the thermosphere, and O3 in the mesosphere and stratosphere. If we supposed that all of the energy absorbed by the atmosphere was absorbed in the lower 2 km of the atmosphere, that would represent just 16% of the energy absorbed by the surface at that level. The immediate effect of that would be to slightly warm the lower atmosphere with respect to the surface, thus causing conduction to be a net sink of atmospheric heat rather than a source. It would also cause precipitation to be reduced in the lower atmosphere resulting in energy from evapo-transpiration to be released higher in the atmosphere than it currently does. It would also increase the backradiation. Most importantly, it would increase the rate at which convection carries heat away from the surface and lower regions of the atmosphere. The net effect would be negligible. Importantly, the CO2 in the upper troposphere would still be much cooler than the surface. Consequently, CO2 radiation from the upper troposphere which escapes to space would be much weaker than the radiation from the surface (and the CO2 in the lower troposphere) that would have escaped to space if the upper tropospheric CO2 had been absent. Consequently, the net effect of the CO2 would still be to warm the surface.
  47. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    DougCotton @161: 1) The first spectrum shows a black body radiation for the surface of about 275 K. As black body radiation, it is a function of the temperature and emissivity of the emitting source, in this case the surface, which indicates the surface at the particular location and time the spectrum was observed was about 275 degrees K (or 2 degrees C). Spectrums at other times and places will show different temperatures. For example, the Sahara spectrum (third image, part a) shows a black body radiation of approximately 325 degrees K (52 degrees C); that for Antarctica shows 180 degrees K (-93 degrees C); and those for the Tropical Western Pacific and Southern Iraq show 295 degrees K (23 degrees C). If you divided the Earth's surface up into equal cells of about 2 to 4 times the size of the instrument resolution, and took a spectrum for each cell, then determined a mean spectrum for the whole Earth, then the mean black body curve shown would be for approx 288 degrees K, and the area under the curve would be approx the same as the area under the curve of a smooth (no notches or peaks) 255 degree K black body curve. 2) To quote the conclusion in full, so that it makes sense:
    " As, on average the energy radiated to space must equal the energy received from the sun, if the area under the curve is reduced by the absorption of IR radiation by green house gases, then the area under those parts of the curve in which IR radiation is not absorbed must increase in order that the same overall energy output is obtained. And that can only be achieved by the surface of the planet, the source of the rest of the radiation, warming."
    Consider, as a simple analogy, a water filled ballon. As water is uncompressible for normal pressure ranges, the volume of the balloon is constant. Therefore, if you press down on one part of the balloon, it will bulge out at other parts, of necessity. If it did not, the indentation from your pressing down would have resulted in a loss of volume. Returning to the spectrums, the area under the curve is the power output at the location measured. As indicated above, averaged over the Earth's surface, the area under the curve is the same as the area under a 255 degree black body curve. It must be, or else the energy coming in from the Sun will not equal the energy going out by IR radiation, and the Earth will be either heating or cooling to compensate. Because the area under the curve averaged over the globe is effectively a constant, if some part of the curve lies below the 255 degree black body curve, then other parts must lie above it to maintain the constant area. This is an exact analogy of the situation with the balloon. As it happens, the areas lying below the 255 degree curve do so because they are emitted high in the atmosphere by CO2. That means the areas emitted from the surface must lie above the 255 degree curve to compensate, and the only way they can do that is if the surface is warmer than 255 degrees K, on average. I have treated the averaged case because it is easier. It would be equally possible to treat each cell (see (1)) seperately, and determine the area of a black body curve having the same area under the curve as does the spectrum from that location and time. Any part of the observed spectrum lying below that curve represents greenhouse forcing, and needs to be compensated for by parts of the spectrum lying above the curve, ie, being warmer because of greenhouse forcing.
  48. Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
    Doug, you are asking some question that actually requires doing the maths - (and thus avoiding hand wavy answers). The place to start is Ramanathan and Coakley 1978. To see what that looks like when you do the calculations then look at Modtrans code pointed to earlier. You will note that this mathematical model is extremely successful at predicting power and spectrum of both OLR and DLR. An alternative formulation would need experimental confirmation at least as good. For more on why stratosphere cools but troposphere warms with increased CO2, try looking at here. Again, same underlying mathematics.
  49. Climate Denial Video #3: Polluters Use Same Tactics As Tobacco Industry
    While on the topic, I cannot be the only person here to have noted the linguistic similarity between "ratio" and "rational". In fact, as confirmed in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, they stem from the same root, and where originally the same word. In other words, to be rational literally meant to keep the ratio in mind (or more colloquially, to keep things in proportion). Thus, in the strict use of the language, somebody who insists that we ignore the denominator, and hence the ratio, as apirate is doing, is strictly speaking not rational. Make of that what you will.
  50. Climate Denial Video #3: Polluters Use Same Tactics As Tobacco Industry
    apirate @24, Dikran @25, and Muon @26 have more than adequately responded to you. I will point out that the actual survey included eight questions, and so would have taken more time to complete than signing the petition.

Prev  1541  1542  1543  1544  1545  1546  1547  1548  1549  1550  1551  1552  1553  1554  1555  1556  Next


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us