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Comments 82101 to 82150:
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Tom Smerling at 07:31 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Thanks everybody! As the new kid on the block, we just so grateful for your feedback and suggestions. Please let us know how we can make it more useful to you - we can have fun with this. -
Kevin C at 07:19 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Sorry, I should have pointed you to Nick's original post here which explains the plot in detail. The CRU curve is CRUTEMP, not HADCRUT. i.e. it is a land only index. The GISS curve is GISTEMP - a land-ocean index. The TempLS60 curve is based only on 60 land stations, but with those stations carefully selected to optimally cover the globe, and weighted according to the area of the globe (land and sea) closer to that station than to any other. The point Nick was making with this figure, which I failed to pass on, was not just that he had a credible approximation to GISTEMP from just 60 stations, but that by weighting the land stations according to land-and-ocean coverage his land temperature record was closer to the GISTEMP land-ocean index than to a pure land index. So he's covering 3x the area with ~1% of the stations. (Admittedly they are carefully chosen stations, but they are chosen on the basis of coverage, not on the basis of value.) That's a pretty startling result for several reasons. -
Eric the Red at 07:08 AM on 30 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Sphaerica, Let me get back to you on precise boundaries, if I can even set up such a thing. Regarding the middle, yes that is perspective. On this site, I am definitely on the skeptic side (or denier by your standards). However, you must remember that this site is highly biased towards those you believe that climate sensitivity is high and warming is imminent. There are others who think that the temperature record is a sham, and that no warming has occurred at all. To them, I look like an alarmist (their term). I am not saying that I am dead center, but there is a rather long continuum. -
Paul D at 07:00 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
BTW the Otago and Clark University links are incorrect. -
Paul D at 06:58 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
It will be good to read something a bit different, by people who clearly know what they are talking about. -
MattJ at 06:56 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
It looks great! -
dana1981 at 06:52 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
I hope this semantics argument doesn't continue throughout the series. The most frequent "response" I see amongst "skeptics" when ocean acidification and the associated dangerous consequences are discussed is this same "oceans aren't acid" semantics silliness. As several other commenters have noted, decreasing pH = becoming more acidic = acidification. That's what it's called, it's an accurate description, now let's move on and talk about the actual science.Moderator Response: Further "look squirrel!" comments about acidification will be deleted . The same goes for "looking for the squirrel" comments. (Rob P) -
Oceancamel at 06:45 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Camburn You do make me laugh! If I am on the south pole and travel north, I am northbound, even though I haven't left the southern hemisphere. For northbound read 'acidification'. -
Stephen Baines at 06:43 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Ricardo is correct. This semantic argument is just a way to distract from the science. -
Riccardo at 06:41 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Camburn please do not continue debating the terminology, it adds really nothing to the science of ocean acidification/decreasing pH/dealkalinization/whatever. And above all, this pseudo-scientific argument is an old and boring way to try to hijack the discussion. Please let people discuss the science. -
Stephen Baines at 06:40 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Camburn...that is simply not true. Adding acid to a solution is acidifying it - you are adding protons and making it more acidic. It doesn't matter what the start and end pH is. That is the common terminology - has been since I was in HS at least. Based on my textbooks, the usage goes back further. Before ocean acidification caught the ire of the antiAGW crowd this standard usage was never questioned. "You can't have an alkaline condition and an acid condition at the same time. It is physically impossible unless you know of a change in the laws?" That's true but it's irrelevant. You can't have something cold and hot at the same time either, but you can certainly heat something that is cold to make it a little less cold. -
Bob Lacatena at 06:35 AM on 30 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
122, Eric the Red, I guess I'd still ask you to quantify... set a precise boundary, for how much of a temperature rise, by what year, accompanied by continued other factors, that would define your "enough is enough" point. As far as your statement about being in the middle... you are entitled to your own perspective, and we've been down this road before, but my perception of you, and I believe most others will agree, is that you constantly argue against climate change. Maybe you think you are providing balance and moving the argument to the middle of the road, but that's not how it comes across. Every single point you make is in contradiction to the AGW perspective. Every comment appears to look for the silver lining that lets us delay serious consideration of the problem for just a little longer. That's why I'd like you to quantify, unequivocally, your limits. I'd like a line that I know you won't cross, and that won't move, so we know when enough is enough by your own standards. -
Robert Murphy at 06:33 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
"You can't have an acid state until your ph drops below 7." Acidification doesn't mean acidic. Basic chemistry. -
thepoodlebites at 06:12 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#40 KR So you are using model predictions to prove that the observed warming is mostly from CO2 rise? And I'll move to the extreme weather thread but let us remember that weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends. -
dana1981 at 06:06 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
poodle #39 - current observations are consistent with a sensitivity of 3°C for 2xCO2. If you use the IPCC range of transient climate sensitivity values, CO2 alone has caused 0.5 to 1.5°C warming so far, most likely 1°C - more than observed due to aerosols and other cooling effects offsetting some of that warming. That physics is how we know CO2 is causing the warming, aside from the anthropogenic warming 'fingerprints'. -
Norman at 06:00 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Albatross @ 134 "AGW is about considering the body of evidence, and the evidence does show a marked increase in extreme heat, extreme precipitation and drought." Does the evidence really show this? Here is a report on British Columbia long term climate... There were some very big fires in the past. British Columbia drought history. Here is one with droughts across North America. In the text they explain that the causes of drought in North America were also responsible for Global Climate patterns (more rain in some areas droughts in others). From this study it states there were much worse droughts in the past than today. They also have graphs at the end of the article which show 1000 years of droughts. I would challenge you to find an increase in frequency of droughts today as compared to the long 1000 year history. 1000 years of drought record for North America. Have not found data on the Heat waves of the past. I know in the US there were plenty in the 1930's decade. This report on the Missouri river has a graph of the drainage from the entire Missouri river basin since 1900. If you remove maybe three years from the graph (anomalous high peaks, there is no upward trend but there are clear wet and dry cycles). 2011 was a super wet year but anomalies happen. If this event would happen for a few years then I would totally agree with most posters. The point of this graph is please show where moisture is increasing. This is not just a small local area, it covers serveral square miles and should contain a clear signal of moisture increase or decrease to be considered extreme. Missouri River Basin drainage data. -
KR at 05:54 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
thepoodlebites - "How do you separate warming from natural climate variability and CO2 rise?" See the post and references here. The rest of your post belongs on the Extreme weather thread; it's off topic in this one. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:51 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Looks like it will be an excellent resource, perhaps it might be worth submitting a version to somewhere like Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, so that it has the added advantage of having been peer-reviewed? -
DaneelOlivaw at 05:51 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Very interesting. I'll take a look the next time I'm writting some rebuttal or explanation on my blog. -
thepoodlebites at 05:48 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#37 skywatcher How do you separate warming from natural climate variability and CO2 rise? How do you know that most of the warming is from CO2 rise? I still think that climate sensitivity is lower than model predictions, based on current observations. I'm reading Jeff Masters post, an interesting collection of weather events. Snowmageddon? Negative AO and El Nino. The moisture plume for the Feb. 6, 2010, storm stretched from the eastern Pacific, all the way up the U.S. east coast. And from what I read, the 2010 Russian drought was an episode of atmospheric blocking, all within the realm of natural climate variability. What about the tornado outbreaks this spring, was all that from global warming too? -
John Hartz at 05:43 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
By coincidence, the following post popped up on ScienceBlog.com today: Climate Change Makes Some Chemicals More Toxic to Aquatic Life The blog is about a new paper published in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. -
Stephen Leahy at 05:40 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
wow that's great - now I don't have to steal from my old articles -- it's a a whole new playground...yea! (and I will be happy to share some of my educational 'toys')Response:[DB] Added missing equals sign to URL tag.
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KR at 05:37 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman - I believe that is because your last post was various thoughts on damage per Richter number and distance, rather than observed frequency of 'extreme events' recorded by the insurance industry. I'm not surprised you didn't receive a direct reply to that. I don't believe that the number or strength of earthquakes have increased over time, although population spread and (in the other direction) building codes have affected the damage thereof. As I stated earlier, you can use observed 'extreme events' from earthquakes to scale population and construction effects out of other extreme events. -
John Hartz at 05:34 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Kudos to Doug Mackie, Christina McGraw, and Keith Hunter for taking this on. Out of curiosity, where are the University of Otago and Clark University located? -
Norman at 05:31 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
KR @ 129 I have been debating the earthquake point with Tom Curtis. My final post on it was at 94. Tom Curtis did come up with good arguments but I did not see a comment to my final response to his points. -
KR at 05:24 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Camburn - Acidification is the correct terminology, describing something changing pH towards the acid end of the scale, a reduction in pH value. On a side note, it's only 'basic chemistry' until the pH drops through 7.0! :) -
Camburn at 05:19 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Actually, to make this easier to grasp one should use the proper terminology. The ocean is alkaline with a PH slightly over 8.0, and co2 reduces the alkalinity. Basic chemistry. -
stefaan at 05:10 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
This article of Easterbrook is similar to this chinese article Periodic oscillations in millennial global mean temperature and their causes in which they just keep combining solar cycles and some marine influences untill they find a more or less good fit for the temperatures the last 1000 years. Of course by adding enough cyclic events you can fit any curve (probably in 2030 they will publish an article with maybe 20 cycles to fit the temperatures) but the link between correlation and causality becomes unexisting. -
John Hartz at 05:04 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Kudos to Tom Smerling & Don McCubbin for creating ClimateBites. It is indeed a nice supplement to SkS. Let's grow the synergistic impacts by continuing to coordinate our efforts. -
skywatcher at 04:40 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#36: climate sensitivity to doubled CO2, I wasn't entirely clear about that. So far we have most of about 0.8C due to a 35% CO2 rise, with more in the pipeline, so well in that ballpark for 2-4.5C rise. More info at Climate sensitivity is low. More info about climate disruption at Jef Masters' recent post - extremes of heat (high temperatures), drought (more evaporation) and flood (more available water vapour) appear to be increasing as predicted, and all this after relatively modest warming of 0.7C to present. I'd call that disruption when it causes food (wheat) prices to spike, as well as the obvious damage caused, and it's only expected to get worse with continued warming. -
Tor B at 04:35 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Quote: "... So there is an intermediate organic molecule that is neither a nutrient for plants (dissolved salts), nor food for bacteria. My measurements showed that the sea is awash in this mysterious substance that I named slush. In fact the biomass in slush is far larger than all life on Earth combined. Reader please note that this is a very serious omission by mainstream science, and cannot be disproved!" link Mainstream science to the rescue! -
Humanracesurvival at 04:34 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Checkout http://www.rockettheme.com/ for the best cms templates and http://jomsocial.com if you like to offer your user facebook walls and such. If you need help contact me at http://climateprogress.net -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:23 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
studentnigel.... You might try actually reading the article posted here from Dr Masters before you comment. Under the heading: "Global tropical cyclone activity lowest on record" he clearly makes statements that are consistent with Dr Maue's paper. -
thepoodlebites at 04:20 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#23 skywatcher What observations are you referring to? The UAH satellite record is showing +0.2C per decade since 1980. How is 2-4.5C rise related to current observations? And what exactly are you talking about with the term "climate disruption"? -
dana1981 at 04:17 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric - this 'apples to apples' comparison is what was done in the post."Between 2000 and 2010, Easterbrook's 1945-1977 scenario (which we call "Easterbrook A") projected a cooling of approximately 0.19°C, versus a cooling of 0.38°C over this period in his 1880-1915 scenario (Easterbrook B). The observed temperature change from 2000 to 2010, on the other hand, is approximately 0.12°C warming, according to the Wood for Trees Temperature Index, which is the average of the four main temperature data sets (HadCRUT3, GISTemp, RSS, and UAH)....In short, over the first decade of his global cooling projections, Easterbrook has already been wrong by between 0.3 and 0.5°C."
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Eric the Red at 04:09 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Kevin, The difference between GISS and CRU is not that great. In fact, the trend since 1880 for both is ~0.6C / century. In your plot, CRU has a higher slope than GISS. The shapes are the same, and the overall statistics are similar, but show slight variations during specific timeframes due to data analysis. -
Albatross at 04:05 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Way up thread people were asking about the source of Trenberth's much quoted 4% increase in atmospheric moisture. The science behind this statement was published in a paper by Trenberth et al. (2005) in Climate Dynamics. If one looks more closely at the stats. it turns out that is estimate of 4% may be on the conservative side. -
Eric (skeptic) at 04:04 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
#127, Sphaerica, it's a false dichotomy to be either in favor of climate action or to be callously "opening another beer" while watching disasters on TV. The main reason is that I, and perhaps Norman, feel that we can best help people cope with disaster by helping them increase their resilience. A few policy changes would help like emptying out the dams in April and May rather than hoping for a slow melt of record snows. Norman and I both realize that disasters will happen regardless of any actions we take on climate. For example natural blocking weather patterns have played a role in many disasters. Even if the frequency of those disasters is increased, that doesn't really change the cost of preparation. The magnitude of the disasters is the obvious potential long term concern. I could certainly be accused of being callous about that potential threat, but it is one abstract threat of many. -
Tor B at 04:03 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
I'm so glad this series is coming! Ocean Acidification (OA) may be the biggest short-term threat we face in relation to anthropogenic climate change (ACC). I attempted some internet research a few weeks ago on the chemistry of OA, and the first blog I came to was decidedly bogus (a denier’s paradise with “un-disprovable” made-up facts that prove – with formulas – OA isn’t happening). I’m not the only one who needs help. OA is my number one reason why geo-engineering from space (decreasing solar gain and allowing increased CO2 emissions) would be total foolishness. -
Eric the Red at 04:02 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
michael, I was following the links, and using the projections in the report referenced - 2008. Going back to the older projections, he projected ~0.15C temperature decline from 2000-2010 (based on eyeballing figure 3). The 60-month moving average from CRU has fallen 0.05C since then, while GISS has increased by a similar value. When making comparison, it is nice to compare apples to apples. -
Albatross at 04:00 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
StudentNigel @131, Your posts adds nothing to the thread-- in fact it smacks of trolling/baiting. Regardless, you are also making the mistake of citing one source about one weather phenomenon and because that papers makes the case that a particular weather phenomenon is not on the increase you seem to be falsely concluding that all extreme weather phenomena are not on the increase. AGW is about considering the body of evidence, and the evidence does show a marked increase in extreme heat, extreme precipitation and drought. -
Albatross at 03:52 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Sphaerica @88, Like your thoughts and insights on this (yes, early days indeed), and the analogy is great. Thanks for that. -
DSL at 03:19 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
studentnigel, what do you make of Maue's work? What does it mean to you and your understanding of climate? What do you take from it? -
studentnigel at 03:06 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
More extreme weather recently? This post from Florida State seems to have a contrary view. http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/ -
michael sweet at 02:39 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric: We need to start Easterbrook at his 2000 prediction. Why do you give him tie first eight years when he has been wrong for free?? If you always choose the most optomsitic prediction, and then let them correct it when they are wrong, it will always look OK. -
dana1981 at 02:33 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Riccardo - I agree. When I say "good projections", I mean projections which are based on sound physics, not projections which are necessarily spot-on. We'll be looking at some projections from studies in the 1970s which may not be perfect, but which we can learn from, because unlike Easterbrook's, they were based on sound physics. Eric - I'm pretty sure Hansen's Scenario B projection (made in 1988) was closer to reality in 2010 than Easterbrook's projections (first made around 2000). But it's true that Hansen was "wrong" in the sense that his climate model was too sensitive. Had his model sensitivity been about 3.4°C as opposed to 4.2°C for 2xCO2, he would have been "right". You can't say that for Easterbrook - his fundamental approach is wrong. -
Kevin C at 02:16 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Hmm... This should be something which could be tested without too much difficulty. If stations are being extrapolated over too large a radius, then working with a subset of the data should make things much worse. So take something like clear climate code and throw out a lot of the stations. In fact they did exactly that here, throwing out all but 440 stations. It's noisier, but shows the same basic shape. Nick Stokes goes further with TempLS and produces a global land and ocean reconstruction from only 60 land stations, chosen only on the basis of geographical distribution and longevity, by introducing a proper Vorenhoi area weighting term (compare GISS vs TempLS60):
Maybe I've overlooked something, but I don't at the moment see how you can get that good an agreement if the temperature record is being biased by poor sampling and over-extrapolation.
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Dan Olner at 01:42 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Reading the last para on using stats... I'm reminded of hearing a talk from a meteorologist on early weather prediction methods. They were entirely statistics based - and completely rubbish. The history of meteorology has been all about understanding the mechanisms better, leading to increasingly accurate forecasts. I wonder if anyone out there could do a little comparative history? Relying on Easterbrook's methods would be like going back to statistics-based meteorology for predicting the weather. (i.e. it doesn't work...) -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:33 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric, a fairer comparison would be to compare Hansen's projections (which is an estimate of only the forced response of the climate without natural variability) with ENSO-adjusted temperatures (which give a better indication of the forced response by attenuating a major component of the unforced response). E.g.:
If you do that, you will find that Hansens projections appear better and Easterbrooks rather worse, as I suggested.
IIRC Easterbrook produces his projections in exactly that manner. Using such a daft way of making the projection should give pause for thought to anyone taking him seriously. His basic prediction is basically that there will be some unspecified cooling, but he makes that rather vague and unsubstantiated prediction look more scientific than it is by drawing some scientific looking plots. Sadly in doing so, he gives a hostage to fortune and voila his projections are demonstrated to be wrong. It would have been better if he had simply hand drawn his projection (c.f. the famous Lamb medieval warm period plot used in the first IPCC WG1 report).
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Eric the Red at 01:14 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Sky, The correlation may increase at that point. The question is whether they are valid now. As I stated previously, the correlation is poor during the summer. How accurate is the GISS extrapolation out to 1200 km, when the maximum summer correlation is only 500 km?
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