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Kevin C at 21:45 PM on 29 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Sphaerica: Does anyone remember the tobacco-scientists? (Or at least, would they be remembered if not for the fact that some have shifted to the climate debate?) On past experience I think it unlikely anyone will care much about the ringleaders of the stupidity of previous decades, either to be angry or to laugh at them. More likely they'll just get old and drop out of the limelight. And people don't become intellectually more flexible with age, so I suspect most of their followers will go the same way. -
Eric the Red at 21:25 PM on 29 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
So, starting in 2007, we have the Easterbrook prediction of -0.4C by the year 2035, and the IPCC prediction of +1.2C by 2038. Let the race begin. -
mspelto at 20:53 PM on 29 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Riccardo where does the sound reasoning apply in this case. To look at sound reasoning based on observations from many scientists look at the BAMS State of the Climate 2010 that just came out. As one of the chapter authors (alpine glacier and ice sheets) I can tell you the editorial process is thorough. -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:23 PM on 29 June 2011Uncertainty in Global Warming Science
Camburn I suspect Heaviside would have gone for a physics based mathematical model to decide whether integrated forcings were relevant. As he was very good with his differential equations, I suspect he could have easily shown that they are not, as he would undoubtedly have included the terms representing outbound IR. It isn't rocket science. -
Dikran Marsupial at 20:19 PM on 29 June 2011Uncertainty in Global Warming Science
Ken Lambert You are still ignoring the point that the integrated forcing gives a deeply misleading picture because it ignores the fact that outbound IR increases and restores a (different) radiative equilibrium. There isn't much point in discussing the more subtle issues with you if you repeatedly turn a blind eye to your fundamental misunderstanding. The same story is true for CO2 (pointing out that they are estimated independently is transparently a red herring), but I suspect you would be up in arms if we were to go on about the area under the CO2 radiative forcing curve. -
Michele at 20:06 PM on 29 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
@ Patrick On the idea that heating of the thermosphere heats the surface - The EUV dissociates/ionizes all molecular gas within the thermosphere and so, whatever is the characteristics of the molecular gases below the thermosphere, they will be heated from above and, if the layer surface-thermosphere is perfectly transparent, this heat will be radiated to space only by the surface where it can be carried only by conduction. In this case all the heat radiated by the mesosphere in the reality must be subtracted to albedo and Te increases. You do not need to have an isothermal region in order for photons to be emitted (or absorbed). Yes if the photon is absorbed/emitted with a EM forcing. Not at all if the photon is created/destroyed with a thermal forcing. We can continue to argue until infinity if we don’t know the order of magnitude of all the contributes, or their weighted contributes, because you continue to consider very marginal (pretty negligible) the role of the fluid dynamics. In the preceding post I saw that,e.g., the heating power yielded by a column radiator within a room is about 75% by convection, 25% by radiation, as certified by the engineering physics laboratories. What occurs, really, within the atmosphere, what will be the ratio convective/radiative? We cannot say anything (at least we cold guess something) without a well-advised synthesis of the fluid dynamics and the radiative transfer which, actually, represents the one way to obtain weighted answers and so to have realistic reasons for neglecting or not some aspect. -
skywatcher at 19:54 PM on 29 June 2011New Zealand Snow No Show = No Jobs
Morph, did you read my comment at #2, where I said exactly the same thing, but with context? There are hypotheses that the cause is down to Arctic air not being kept in the Arctic during winter months, and spilling out into mid-latitude areas (while the Arctic is replaced by much warmer air), perhaps down to reduced sea ice. Whatever it is, it's led to years that would be snowy in Scotland by 1960s or 1970s standards, let alone 1990s. The problem is that it's perfectly clear from global temperature anomaly maps that those conditions are not a symptom of general cooling of the NH, but of localised winter cooling surrounded by general warming. The prognosis for Scotland is not good as the NH warms up, these bizarre winters are inevitably doomed to mild out as well, or to suddenly flip back to warm and snow-less. Anyway, this post is about NZ - I think there were other posts about NH winter snows / WACCO? -
skywatcher at 19:47 PM on 29 June 2011A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
#13: justmeint. Please remember that gravity is also "just a theory", one which is just as well-verified by experiment, and just as well supported by physics, as the theory of climate. The theory of gravity, as it is, has its problems too, and so the current explanations may yet be superseded by something that explains all the existing evidence, as well as the current issues. However, gravity is an excellent theory, and explains nearly all the evidence very well, as does the current theory of climate and of the trapping of infrared radiation by certain molecules in Earth's atmosphere. I don't suppose you would ignore gravity because it's 'just a theory', would you? Theories represent the most well-tested, well-verified parts of science. "Proof" only exists in mathematics. -
justmeint at 19:29 PM on 29 June 2011A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
gotta watch what they teach the kids! Just a general conversation with young kids, about (so called) Climate Change, will reveal that they are being fed much disinformation – be it via the media, the school curriculum or even from their parents and close relatives. It seemed to me that much of the ‘knowlege’ espoused from these children’s mouths was very biased towards the THEORY of Carbon Based Man Made Climate Change (CAGW). Please remember a theory is still unproven. My Husband remembers that in 1943 – while in the 4th grade at school, in his weekly reader, it taught that within ten years America would have used up all of its oil reserves…. never happened yet the kids were fed that information! Reading my news online I came across the following, which I believe backs up what I was thinking/experiencing. Get the children young enough, teach them what you want them to know and believe, therefore indoctrinating them, and you have the whole future society doing your bidding (perhaps?). For complete story follow the link http://justmeint.wordpress.com:80/2011/06/29/are-we-polluting-our-childrens-minds/Response:[DB] Surely as a meteorologist you can appreciate having all the facts at your disposal before going in front of the chroma key screen and going live? Well, when it comes to things climate science, Skeptical Science is the teleprompter for you!
Let me start off by saying "Welcome to Skeptical Science!" There is an immense amount of reference material discussed here and it can be a bit difficult at first to find an answer to your questions. That's why we recommend that Newcomers, Start Here and then learn The Big Picture.
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JoeRG at 19:12 PM on 29 June 2011It's the sun
@scaddenp #845 The solar forcing remained nearly constant since the 60th and was higher after the break in the 40th. So there was no significant change, even a slight rise. - For the backyard experiment: we had a constant high level of the heatplate. The only forcings that were removed partly are the causes of global dimming, but these were negative. - The insulation was removed. In result, the temperature rise in general is physically to expect, naturally, by how much is quite uncertain. This leads to the conclusion that we have to search for the natural behaviour. If we want to know this and with it about the anthropogenic influence we have to know the natural equilibrium temperature at a comparable solar activity. Naturally means that we have Temp=Func(Sun, Albedo, Aerosols (incl. Clouds & Volcanoes)). So we have to search for times with similar conditions. The uncertainties lay in the amounts of albedo and aerosols because for former times we know little about. But we can certainly assume that the natural values might be similar. For the sun it means a similar activity level. Solanki tells that this happened at about 8000bp, other studies point it at 5000bp. But these times have one in common: in most studies / proxies they show a warmer climate than today. With this knowledge gained we are now able to amount the antropogenic influences and forcings, both the negative and, of course, the positive (GHG, antropogenic aerosols and changes in planetary albedo etc). One can conclude that we are not far away from the natural behaviour that could be expected. But it is necessary to broaden the view and put away the look at a cherry of only 35 years. -
JMurphy at 19:08 PM on 29 June 2011New Zealand Snow No Show = No Jobs
Morph, Scotland used to have long-lasting snow far more in the past - I think the mid-90s was the last time the snow was as good as it has been there over the last couple of years, and the early 80s were good for that too. Who knows if it will carry on but, long-term, the advice would be : 'Enjoy it while you can' ! -
Kevin C at 18:24 PM on 29 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
The content is pretty cool too. -
scaddenp at 17:21 PM on 29 June 2011It's the sun
JoeRG - the "broken correlation" just tells you that some other factor is more important now. The sun is always important. When the real relationship with temperature is: Temp = Func(Sun, Albedo, Aerosol,GHG) (which when you right it out properly tells you the temperature on the surface of any rotating planet) then you can hardly make sense of correlation by just looking at Temp = Func(Sun) Right through 20th century, all the other factors were changing too. The problem with delays (ie "recovering" from LIA) is where's the springs in the climate system? Of course there are delays between applying a forcing and getting a response - it takes a long time to heat the ocean - but if you remove the forcing, then by what mechanism can you continue the warming (same applies in reverse too). Even more puzzling, these hidden "springs" must produce an accelerating response after the removal of a forcing. There is no known mechanism for this whereas our ordinary climate understanding explains observations fine. -
Kevin C at 16:53 PM on 29 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
ClimateWatcher @33:Why do you post a chart that does not represent measurement?
Because, as a scientist, I'm interested in understanding, not just accumulating numbers. Here's some images from a different field. On the left is an image of the observations. On the right is the image that gets published. (The data is deposited elsewhere.)
Which one do you think is more useful in understanding system under study?What peer reviewed journal has 'Tamino' published this in?
You may have overlooked my very brief post @20, which links a peer-reviewed publication showing that the same method over a much longer time frame gives a good reconstruction of the temperature record using the smoothly increasing GHG forcing instead of a linear term. And consequently, if you subtract out the solar variation, El Nino and volcanoes, what is left is a steady increasing function of time. But the calculation is simple enough to do in a spreadsheet, and the data is all publically available. Try it for yourself. -
Rob Painting at 16:45 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman - "Jeff Masters may have something with the Amazon droughts...very hard for me to find historical information on droughts in the Amazon. One paper describing the cause and another is only an abstract with some graph data...don't want to comment unless I understand the graphs correctly" See Amazon drought - A death spiral? - parts 1 - 3 In the process of writing further chapters, but drought is likely being driven by the anomalous warming of the tropical Atlantic, and Eastern/Central Pacific sea surface. Historical extreme droughts have, of course, occurred before, but not 2 1-in-a-100 year events spaced so closely together. If El Nino takes hold later this year (coupled with the warm tropical Atlantic) we may see yet another extraordinary Amazon drought next year. We'll see I guess. -
JoeRG at 16:35 PM on 29 June 2011It's the sun
@KR Honestly, I know that there is more than one driver of climate and currently no correlation between TSI and temperature. The question is here (because of the topic): when did this correlation break? As it is to see in the graphs it was NOT in the 60th or 70th as the basic or intermediate section suggests, it was obviously earlier: in the 40th. The TSI rose until the 60th while the temperatures had a kind of timeout. So, and thats is the main part of the question, why we don't speak about the area from the 40th to the 60th - the time when the correlation was broken? To speak only about the last 35 years is a false trail. To imagine what I mean you can make a little backyard experiment: Take a cattle full of water on an oven, bring a kind of insulation between cattle and heatplate (so that the water temperatur would be constant at higher power) and turn the plate up to a almost constant high level. After a while remove the insulation. What would you expect? Would you really mean that the water would stay with the constant temperature? No? So I wonder why the climate science does. Of course, we had some kind of climatic insulation in the past: global dimming in general and, according to a recent study, possibly a little impression what a nuclear winter can look like. Finally, a possible conclusion is that we had a delayed (but not unexpected) warming that is caused mainly by the sun, resp. by its near constant high level of activity (until the beginning of the last decade). But if you look only at the recent three decades you wouldn't / can't see it (or possibly not want to? - just a general question, not personally). -
Riccardo at 16:28 PM on 29 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Dana "To be a good scientist you do not have to be right, the important thing is that you have reached your conclusions by sound reasoning with the concepts and observations available at the time you made them" (A.O. Persson). I think it will be interesting to also look at wrong predictions by good scientists and understand why they failed. -
Humanracesurvival at 16:14 PM on 29 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Solid cms choice. -
adelady at 15:59 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Lake Eyre has 2 sections, Camburn. For much of last century it was believed that one part was permanently dry. Then it was regarded as unusual when the water made it undeniable. Now? Who knows? Many Australians travelled there 3 years ago because it's a 'once in a lifetime' event. Not at the monent it's not. -
Morph at 15:58 PM on 29 June 2011New Zealand Snow No Show = No Jobs
Scotland has just had a record couple of years for winter sports, the snow lasted longer than for previous years. -
Camburn at 14:42 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom: I missed your posted paper, and shall read it. scaddenp.....must have missed yours as well. Will look at them and read them. mclamb6: Nope, the reason for the 500 year event is to filter out the noise. You cannottttttt make a good assumption on anything on a short time period.Response:[DB] "You cannottttttt make a good assumption on anything on a short time period."
Scientists and time-series analysts can often make detailed, accurate assessments based on actual analysis.
You are the one making assumptions, based on the lack of analysis on your part. And those assumptions so far have not been good ones.
An example of a long-term trend would be that we are in the midst of a run of 315 consecutive months (since February 1985 and counting) with a global temperature above the 20th century average. That, my friend, is a trend.
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scaddenp at 14:31 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn, you seem to have ignored papers I posted not to mention those referenced in the IPCC reports. How about the Min 1951-1999 data set? -
Tom Curtis at 14:25 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn @116, I refer you again to my post 55 above. The charts shown come from a scientific paper. They do not show increase in dollar values, but increase in events. The increase is not small. It is a threefold increase for all weather related disasters, and a two fold increase for major weather related disasters. It was checked for observational artifacts by looking at only major disasters, and by looking at the figures for an advanced western nation that has been densely populated through out the observational period (Germany), with a large trend persisting in both cases. Finally, the database is not small, consisting of nearly 20 thousand events. You can only not find scientific data because you carefully turn your eyes away from any that you see. -
mclamb6 at 14:22 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn: And? An above-average, but not historically strong, hurricane was able to cause extreme devastation because it made landfall at a major population center. But for you, unless the storm is orders of magnitude stronger, it's not extreme. You pick a random number that will likely never occur (and as importantly, there's probably no way of knowing--or it would be very difficult to know based existing records--whether a recent storm was a once in a 500 year event) simply so you can avoid being persuaded of the problem. -
Camburn at 14:12 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom@110: The Insuance company report is not a scientific report. It is an economic report. Just as the Missouri River flooding today, while devestating to the communities along the river is certainly not an extreme event. There were multiple floods during the period between 1951 and 1995. Since then, the flood of today is the 1st repeat of any magnitude. Local yes, but a large watershed. I see reports of what some reporter will call an extreme event, but as Norman, I can find no credible scientific data showing that over climatic times there has been a sudden jump in actual events. Yes, dollar amounts have gone up, but that is a factor of population/infrastructure etc density increase as far as I can tell. -
Camburn at 14:01 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
mclanb6: Hurricane Katrina was bad because of where it hit, a major population center. New Orleans levy and dike system needed upgrading, which was well known. If Katrina had hit 200 miles east or west, the damage would have been much less. This is considered a costly event because of where landfall was achieved. -
John Hartz at 13:57 PM on 29 June 2011Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Dana; You'll find some good stuff on Perry in Rick Perry Asks Texans to Pray for Rain -
Camburn at 13:50 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
adelady: How do I regard floods, droughts etc as occuring more often? 1st.....I want to see the data set that provides the baseline that establishes that they are "more often". Once that is established, and accepted, then there is something to compare. And once that is accepted, then one can look at the cause relationship to the result. Previous history of the Lake, according to wiki, shows that it can fill more often than three times a century. "In strong La Niña years the lake can fill. Since 1885 this has occurred in 1886–1887, 1889–1890, 1916–1917, 1950, 1955, and 1974–1976,[1] with the highest flood of 6 m (20 ft) in 1974. Local rain can also fill Lake Eyre to 3–4 m (10–13 ft) as occurred in 1984 and 1989. Torrential rain in January 2007 took about six weeks to reach the lake but put only a small amount of water into it.[2] Wave-built shingle terraces on the shore suggest that during the Medieval Warm Period and centuries immediately prior Lake Eyre possibly held permanent water at levels above those of 1974." If it remains full, it would appear that we are approaching MWP conditions. -
mclamb6 at 13:48 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn...a once in 500 year event is extreme? Do you have any idea what kind of damage that is? Cf. Hurricane Katrina, which wasn't even close to a one in 500 year event. Just ludicrous argumentation. -
Tom Curtis at 13:48 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn @99, Munich Re is a re-insurer. That means they do nt sell insurance to the general public, but to other insurance companies who have their own statistics on the frequency of extreme events. Consequently, if Munich Re was distorting the data, that would only result in their clients not trusting them. -
Norman at 13:44 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
KR @ 97 My posts are always changing as different views or questions are asked. Some of my posts are based upon someone's specific question. I do try to get global information but it does not seem so easy. As you stated it does take a lot of work to find information. I do keep working on it. My own belief is that weather is not getting any worse as I have lived through many years of variability. My study was Chemistry but I have always been interested in weather and climate. The post above is a list of extreme weather events that took place in 2010. I will attempt some more if you are interested. If not someone else may be. The first point in Jeff Masters post is about the hot temperatures. 19 Nation's set record high temps in 2010. That leaves 176 (of the 195) that did not break a record. I am still working on the other Nations to see what was their record high temps and when did they occur. I stated already on one post, are other record breakers in clusters? At this time it is not known to me if a cluster of 19 national records in one year is super extreme. Need the rest of the data to determine this one. On the AO and NAO I found a link that strongly challenges this as an unusual or extreme event and also has many links to articles (some may be peer-reviewed) that discuss it at greater length. They do explain how blocking patterns are created. I do like that part of this link. AO and NOA information page. I will agree with Jeff Masters on Greenland. Greenland in 2010. ENSO has been talked about already in other posts on this thread. I don't know much about Coral bleaching so I will have to accept this one as stated. His percipitation graph looks highly variable and would suggest that whatever forces are responsible are chaotic and even Jeff Masters does not believe this one is significant. Jeff Masters may have something with the Amazon droughts...very hard for me to find historical information on droughts in the Amazon. One paper describing the cause and another is only an abstract with some graph data...don't want to comment unless I understand the graphs correctly. Abstract on Amazonian droughts with some graphs. Causes of 2005 Amazon drought. I always like to read causes and links, more satisfying. Floods in China are not extreme events. On a previous link I posted there was a flood in China every other year. Floods in Pakistan are quite frequent. 2010 may have been the worst in recent history but it is not an unusual event to have floods there. Pakistan's recent floods. Guess that is enough for now. I will have to see what your response is to what I posted. -
Tom Curtis at 13:43 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn @107, I do not think there is a comprehensive definition of "extreme weather" because I do not think there can be. For some types of events, floods, for example, you can classify rainfall events which exceed two standard deviations from the mean as extreme. For others such as thunderstorms, that is not so clear. Perhaps exceeding two standard deviations from the mean of wind speeds would make an event extreme, but it is not clear that that is the case. Perhaps a better guide is that any wind strong enough to blow down trees means the accompanying storm is extreme. So the definition of "extreme event" is a little fuzzy. That, however is not a problem because nobody is saying that global warming is causing extreme events, and that they did not occur before. Even for events such as the 2010 Moscow heatwave which had an Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) of 1 in 260, and the like of which had not occurred in Moscow for over a thousand years, climate scientists say that such events could happen without global warming; that it might not have happened without global warming in this particular case; and that global warming will make such events more frequent. In other words, even for the most extreme events, the argument about global warming's involvement is heavily statistical. Given that, the evidence is clear that there has been an increase in weather related extreme events. Research funded by Munich Re shows a threefold increase in weather related disasters over the last thirty years, and a two fold increase in major weather related disasters (which will not have been under reported). Given the magnitude of those increases, the fuzziness of the definition of an "extreme weather event" is not a major factor. Therefore I think the evidence clearly shows that there has been an increase in extreme weather events over the last thirty years. That does not mean the increase in extreme weather is not just chance. It does not prove that global warming is a factor. Given the evidence available, I think you can rationally believe that AGW is not a factor in the increase in extreme weather events. But I do not believe you can rationally believe there has been no such increase. In this respect, I disagree with Chris Masters when he says, " The best science we have right now maintains that human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases like CO2 are the most likely cause of such a climate-altering force." Indeed, contrary to Chris Masters, the most likely "weather altering force" that is the predominate cause of the large number of disasters in 2010/11 is the conjunction of a strong El Nino followed immediately by a strong La Nina. But I think the best science we have right now shows that it is likely (>66% probability) that global warming is a significant factor in the increase in extreme weather events generally, and the very large number of extreme events in 2010/11. I believe this because there is a direct causal explanation as to why increased surface temperatures will result in in creased humidity (and hence rainfall). There is also a direct causal explanation as to why increased humidity will increase the strength of convective events. There are also reasonably clear correlations between increased global warmth and increased extreme events generally, and increased frequency and intensity of ENSO oscillations. None of this takes away from the fact that 2010/11 have been extraordinary on any terms, and Masters is probably right that they are the most extreme years since the eruption of Tamboro. But sometimes things happen by chance, at that may still be what this is. Only time will tell. If such extreme years become decadal events, the case that AGW is a factor will become very hard to reject. And if weather related disasters continue to rise as shown by Munich Re, it will become impossible to rationally reject. But we are not at that point yet. What I do know, however, is that it is a mark of the irrational denial of a theory that it cannot accept even the theories rational points. In this case, inability to even accept that extreme events are on the rise despite the mountain of evidence is irrational denial.Response:[DB] Added in a missing bold closing tag (I had to guess as to the intended location).
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adelady at 13:33 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
camburn "Provide a disaster that exceeds that 500 year time frame..." Provide a disaster?? So you're only interested in severity, not in frequency or persistence? My example isn't even a disaster, but you'll get the idea. Lake Eyre South, in the arid north of South Australia, has filled this year. The third year in a row. (Note, the floods from the Gulf area of Northern Queensland that provide the water are not the catastrophic kind that affected Brisbane and Toowoomba.) 3 years in a row. The normal? 3 times a century. Obviously north Queensland floods more regularly than that, and a lot of the water gets to Lake Eyre North. The big issue is whether it fills all the way across to Lake Eyre South, >9000 sq km. This year the pelicans are partying again. How do you regard floods, droughts, storms the same severity as previously but occurring 10%, 30%, 100% more often? -
dana1981 at 12:32 PM on 29 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
adelady - thanks, that's another good article. I like this line explaining why Carter's article ever got published:"There is, in truth, nothing very scientific about the processes that determine what makes news in this critical debate. It's a crap shoot. Often, you get crap."
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dana1981 at 12:27 PM on 29 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Sphaerica - to be honest, part of the motivation behind this series was to get the 'skeptic' predictions 'on the record' and hold them accountable for their inaccuracy thus far. Though frankly at this point I'm more interested in looking at the good predictions, by the non-'skeptics'. -
scaddenp at 12:21 PM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman, I support your position that posts have to be based on scientific evidence but you do come across as trying to desperately find some reason not to accept the science when presented to you. However, in terms in of published science on the subject I so far havent noticed references to Min et al 2011 mentioned at a forum I've just returned from. Does this meet your criteria? Even if you dont agree with the conclusions, the data on extreme precipitation events from 1951-1999 is cause for pause.(note the 8M of supplimentary notes if you are wanting more detail on methods etc). On the insurance industry - I find it interesting to see the insurance industry lobbying for climate action. I liked the Lloyd's quote "the world cannot insure its way out of climate change". Dismissing the Munich Re data as self-serving way to jack up a premiums seems a lot less likely than self-serving in trying to protect against massive payouts. I would trust the insurance industry second only to science for investigating the likely effects of climate change. Have a look at global insurance statements at this site -
Daniel Bailey at 11:55 AM on 29 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
@ ClimateWatcher (33) Off the top of my head, there's this. -
Camburn at 11:36 AM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom: I have not seen anyone here provide a comprehensive deffinition of extreme weather. I posted mine. The variables in climate are such that a few years baseline is not adequate over a climatic period of time to prove anything of substance. That is why I used 500 years. Enough time for the normal variations to even out. Provide a disaster that exceeds that 500 year time frame....an now we are talking extreme.....IMHO. -
Patrick 027 at 11:18 AM on 29 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
If it helps, here's one way to picture dry convection along adiabats with net radiant cooling: Picture the temperature profile with an adiabatic lapse rate through the troposphere. Now zoom in and notice that the temperature profile splits into two lines at the tropopause and remains split down to the surface. There are two lines both following adiabatic lapse rates, one with higher temperature and one with lower temperature. So rising air can follow the higher temperature adiabat and sinking air can follow the cooling adiabat. Notice that air parcels do not all need to follow each of these adiabats all the way from the surface to the troposphere; they can rise or fall to some height and then shift over to the other and reverse direction. This shifting requires a diabatic process, and so we can have net radiant cooling or heating within such a troposphere (the surface air would make the shift with a contribution from conduction/diffusion from the surface). In Earth's case it will tend to be net radiant cooling. Now you can have a continuum of adiabats, closely spaced, and the parcels follow trajectories up, down, and around within the range of adiabats. -
Phila at 11:11 AM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn @91, massive move of the goal posts there, Camburn. I also love the idea of prefacing the comment in question with "IMHO." Whether you're imperiously turning standard scientific language on its head, contradicting experts whose knowledge and experience dwarfs your own, or accusing Munich Re of agreeing with mainstream science for profit, it's important to emphasize your humility. -
Camburn at 11:10 AM on 29 June 2011Uncertainty in Global Warming Science
I am wrong in my previous post. The Royal Society granted him membership in 1891. He did face an uphill battle with his ideas etc as they were radical at the time. -
Patrick 027 at 11:05 AM on 29 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
If it were only the solar heating of the ozone layer that stood in the way of having continuous convection from the surface to 85 km, then the surface would have to be warm enough for an adiabat from the surface to intersect the temperature profile as is at about that level, 85 km; - actually higher then that, because they'll be some cooling effect when you let convection from the troposphere get higher by removing overlying solar heating. The thing is, if you draw such a line you'd see it would be warmer than all points are in between already. How can removing solar heating of the ozone layer result in warming there? Actually I didn't account for moist advection; the lapse rate of the mesosphere as is is significantly less than the typical moist adiabatic lapse rate in the troposphere; however, starting at ~ 260 or 270 K at a pressure ~ 1 mb with saturation vapor pressure for water vapor, you have a much higher mixing ratio than you would at the same temperature at lower tropospheric pressures, so the moist adiabatic lapse rate could be much reduced. Still, if we add 10 W/m2 heating to the troposphere+surface, and are still such a long, long way from Venus territory, with the tropopause still well below where the stratopause is now, then, after that, removing 10 W/m2 of solar heating from the ozone layer cannot have any warming effect anywhere (at least in the 1 dimensional equilbrium climate - maybe with some complexity in the feedbacks in the 4-dimensional system you could find some warming somewhere). With less solar heating in the ozone layer, the ozone layer now has excess emission (more than absorption) and so the temperature falls there. And then what? The emission falls there. Some fraction of that emission had been absorbed elsewhere in the system, and so the cooling effect now spreads there. Etc. The tropopause may rise, but only because the layer above it is colder, not because the troposphere and surface are warmer. Have you ever seen the incandescent glow of an electric range on a stove top? Well I think you're not supposed to leave a burner on with nothing on it, but you can look sideways and see the glow; you may notice the glow fading after you turn it off and remove the pot/whatever. Safety first! Okay, I'm done here. -
Camburn at 11:03 AM on 29 June 2011Uncertainty in Global Warming Science
KL: Some of the variables in climate that we are learning, but are resisted every step of the way....I call the "Oliver Heaviside" variables. He faced an uphill battle against the "established" at the time. He was right.....they were wrong. The Royal Society would not even grant him membership...a true travesty as he had a most wonderful mind. -
Tom Curtis at 10:44 AM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Camburn @91, massive move of the goal posts there, Camburn. I take that as a concession that you have lost the actual argument, which is about extreme weather as the term is used by scientists (and just about everybody else). -
Phila at 10:37 AM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
And if they exagerate, they can justify increasing the premium, hence the profit. This reminds me: I've been amused lately to see a "skeptic" I know -- who normally worships the Free Market -- wringing his hands over the horrible effects of the Profit Motive on professional honesty. It's all very earnest. If I hadn't been hearing the "private vice = public virtue" boilerplate from him for years, I'd almost think he meant it, and wasn't simply eager to beat his opponents with any stick that comes to hand. -
adelady at 10:34 AM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
norman, it's just a newspaper report with a brief overview of their work. The important things a) it's obviously a comprehensive database b) they're obviously good at it. Why? Because they're still in business. If they'd been under or over estimating risks they'd have been put out of business either by overcharging for risks and losing customers or by undercharging premiums/ paying out too much on insured events and going bankrupt. Note their overview is pretty general. I doubt very much they'll give away their commercial advantage for nothing. They use the expertise they have to maintain commercial viability. Following their links eventually leads you to an invitiation to sign up for their services. No surprise there, they're not NOAA or NSIDC. -
Ken Lambert at 10:32 AM on 29 June 2011Uncertainty in Global Warming Science
KR & DM DM - Yes the same is true for CO2 radiative forcing and all the other AG forcings. All the Radiative Forcings in Fig 2.4 of AR4 are 'looked at in isolation'. In AR4, CO2GHG is estimated at about +1.66W/sq.m, Aerosols estimated at -1.3W/sq.m, Solar (TSI) at +0.12W/sq.m etc, etc That is how the sum of all AG radiative forcings is computed. In AR4 the sum is +1.6W/sq.m. The climate response forcings are S-B (-2.8W/sq.m and WV + Ice Albedo Feedback at +2.1W/sq.m) (Trenberth). Total forcings: Radiative + TSI: +1.6W/sq.m Total responses: S-B + WV etc: -0.7W/sq.m Net Imbalance: +0.9W/sq.m This Net Imbalance has been reduced by Hansen to 0.59W/sq.m 2005-10, due to his assumed increase in Aerosols and other factors. These are instantaneous (power) quantities. To get the history of the energy added - you need to look at all the forcing curves wrt time (in isolation) and add them together to produce a composite curve. All the AG forcing curves are grounded to zero because they did not exist in AD1750. The TSI curve is not. We don't know if the TSI was producing 'equilibrium' or zero imbalance in AD1750, hence the area under its curve is an unknown component in the composite forcing curve over time. This is one of the uncertainties relevant to this thread. -
Sarah at 10:12 AM on 29 June 2011Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
A recent update from AGU: http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml -
Norman at 09:46 AM on 29 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
adelady @95 I checked your Scientific American link and did not see what I was hoping to see. What do they call a climate disaster, what is the criteria, where are they taking place, is it as Tom Curtis states...they take one huge tornadic event that might destroy multiple sites and call this one disaster? Here is all the link provided. "Researchers at the company, which obviously has a keen financial interest in trends that increase insurance risks, add 700 to 1,000 natural catastrophes to the database each year, explains Mark Bove, senior research meteorologist in Munich Re's catastrophe risk management office in Princeton, N.J. The data indicate a small increase in geologic events like earthquakes since 1980 because of better reporting. But the increase in the number of climate disasters is far larger. "Our figures indicate a trend towards an increase in extreme weather events that can only be fully explained by climate change," says Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Center: "It's as if the weather machine had changed up a gear." -
Bob Lacatena at 09:32 AM on 29 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
15, Alexandre, I've said it before and I'll say it again. The day is going to come when the history of all of this is written, and certain weathermen, creationists, tobacco-scientists, retired geologists, British "lords" and many others are going to be the laughingstocks of the scientific world, and also suffer the anger of a rather disappointed (but ultimately culpable) public who will feel that they were grossly mislead (and will steadfastly feel that they were mislead, and it wasn't their own lazy recalcitrance that lead to their ignorance, and everyone's dilemma).
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