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Rob Painting at 19:36 PM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
Alexandre @ 6 - Southern Amazonia will dry out according to most models, because the dry season intensifies and becomes longer. But heavier downpours are expected too. Sorry for the bad news, but they are projections, and might be missing some important details that change the overall picture. -
les at 19:30 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
108 RSVP "Relativity suggests that each person is the center of his own universe." Possible physics abuse alert! Neither the general nor special theorise of relativity do that. You probably mean Relativism -
Rob Painting at 19:21 PM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
Sphaerica @ 7 - I'm unaware of an El Nino prediction for later this year NASA, the BOM & The Japan Met are predicting El Nino, others disagree. I'm basing my prediction on this. We'll see how that works out. -
Kevin C at 18:59 PM on 1 June 2011Antarctica is gaining ice
There's a nice article over at weather underground explaining the Zhang paper in more comprehensible terms. With pictures. It's here: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/comment.html?entrynum=194 -
RSVP at 18:12 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Glenn Tamblyn 61 "The last vestiges of the Anthropocentric view of the Universe reside in the conservative, individualist personality type." Relativity suggests that each person is the center of his own universe. As there might be some truth to AGW, this is not the problem. It comes as a package deal, "deniers" being all those who are not with the program. Thanks to Nature however, humans were created with that individualistic spirit you so much distain. -
adelady at 18:03 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 2: Climate Risks
okatiniko, it's not just where people 'live'. It's where important infrastructure that supports people who live all over a city's region. The 3 biggies, apart from the obvious one of port facilities both for freight and for fishing fleets, would be sewage processing plants, power plants using ocean water for cooling and airports established on flat land near coasts. Less frequent local effects would be saltwater intrusion into groundwaters and wetlands as well as further upriver in some locations. "... your life has nothing in common with your grandparents' one." I beg to differ. In all the important things, my life is a lot like my grandparents. My main interest, as was theirs, is the welfare of my children (and their children). I use technology they never dreamt of, I've never lived through a world war waiting for husbands or children to return, and I don't attend church every week. But people are just people. My concern for my family, my friends, my neighbourhood and society at large is very like the concerns of previous generations. Hopefully, coming generations will have the same chances I had - rather than the ghastly privations of worldwide wars and worldwide depressions of my parents and grandparents. -
Dikran Marsupial at 17:45 PM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
Michael Hauber The trend you plot is not robust, for example the 1974-2009 plot has a warming trend in the Pacific:
Having experimented with the plotting software, the results depend strongly on whether the start and end years were El-Nino's or La Nina's or somewhere in the middle. The difference between two years is not a robust estimator of a trend.
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Nick Palmer at 17:37 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 2: Climate Risks
Okatiniko at #4 People can adapt to a lot. They can adapt to living in a tornado zone. They can adapt to living in earthquake zone. They could adapt to living in a zombie apocalypse. So what? Why should we have to? What appears to be your underlying denialism ignores the blindingly obvious fact that it would be breathtakingly stupid to pursue a course of inaction that brings about a nasty situation that we would have to "adapt" to, that we could avoid by taking action. Only an in idiot or denier could foresee something bad happening and do nothing to stop it manifesting. -
scaddenp at 16:18 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Hmm, looking at previous comments I'd say you were resting your ideas on faith not science. What's the future evidence at which you would decide that you were mistaken instead? For how long do the predictions have to hold? (it's 35 since first model prediction and that holding okay). -
Michael Hauber at 16:11 PM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
The short term (that is 30 year) cooling trend in ENSO region:
I agree there is a robust connection between ENSO and Amazon. I am skeptical of a link between AGW and ENSO in the direction required to cause a drying ENSO.
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Riduna at 16:03 PM on 1 June 2011The Climate Show Episode 13: James Hansen and The Critical Decade
In this Episode of the Climate Show, lack of government support for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions was noted. A comment was made to the effect that the Prime Minister when told of the harm caused by GHG emissions had responded by saying he could produce scientists who would refute that GHG emissions were dangerous. Has the Prime Minister been challenged to produce a scientist who can substantiate that Global Warming is not caused by GHG emissions arising from human activity. Why has the PM not been publicly challenged by NZ’s climate scientists to produce a single scientist who can offer proof which has not already been shown to be wrong? It is all very well to lament that NZ does not have the equivalent of the Australian Climate Change Committee – but does that prevent NZ climate scientists from forming their own Climate Change Council? Does it prevent such a Council from making statements calling for government action, warning of the consequences of not doing so, discrediting and proving statements of deniers to be wrong? -
okatiniko at 15:34 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 2: Climate Risks
It is certainly alarming since the projections of SLR show that it does depend only very weakly on the scenario, and that's because the acceleration term described by Rahmstorf et al. is a very long term one and is quite insensitive to the details of the future evolution of GES emission.In other words it is already set up now. But we have to keep in mind that in 100 years, most of the current infrastructures won't exist anymore. Which part of Sydney or Perth did exist 100 years ago ? But very strangely, you seem to think that people will keep living in those parts of the country that will be flooded "almost every month" . But just think of what "flooded every month" really means : it is just the part of the coast that is flooded at each high tide (actually twice a month) ! and it already exists everywhere. Nobody leaves here, or if we really want to live there, we just build some levees to protect the place. And the new building are not really a cost since they will be build anyway in all cases. Why would people living in 100 years be unable to do the same reasonable things as we do now ? humanity has always adapted to varying conditions, including SLR that exists since the end of glaciations. It has adapted to huge changes of way of life since the beginning of industrial civilization - your life has nothing in common with your grandparents' one. Do you think that your current life would have been absolutely impossible if the SLR would have been twice or three times as high as what it has really been in the XXth century ? why ? -
Ari Jokimäki at 15:32 PM on 1 June 2011Database of peer-reviewed papers: classification problematics
Sorry, I'm not ignoring all of you, but I don't think I have much time today to participate to the interesting discussion here. I'll be back later, though. -
barry1487 at 15:27 PM on 1 June 2011Database of peer-reviewed papers: classification problematics
This is the following graph on BPL's page;
showing how the estimates have converged over time. just the sort of thing I'm thinking of. Thanks again Alexandre.
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barry1487 at 15:22 PM on 1 June 2011Database of peer-reviewed papers: classification problematics
Thanks for the link, Alexandre. I'll check it out after this post. Eric, yes, I thought of that, too. Is there a way to amend the idea to account for publishing abilities/re-published papers, etc, that a skeptic would find acceptable? Even if the cluster was centred outside consensus values, at least the extreme outliers would still be isolated (I suppose). A temporal x-axis, like the graph in the top post, would also show how the science has developed. In the climate sensitivity example, the bars would shorten (I suppose) as ranges become more contained over time. A short-hand way of showing diminishing uncertainty - on most, but not all topics. -
Charlie A at 15:10 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
@103 Adelady says "my reading is 40-60 years for 'fast'" ... "Long-term? 100 years more than that." The fast response is at 2000 year after CO2 increase. 40-60 years is definitely fast, as is 160 years. The 3C "fast" response quoted by Michael Sweet in #91 is only fast compared to geologic time scales such as CO2 removal by the weathering of rocks. The GISS-ER model transient sensitivity after 70 years is 1.5C/doubling of CO2. http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-2-3.html -
Stevo at 14:52 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 2: Climate Risks
Thanks, Dana, for a very informative article. Opponants of the report accuse it of containing alarmist language. From the quotes in this article it seems sober and measured to me.Response:[dana1981] Thanks. I think certain parties confuse "alarmist" with "alarming". I agree, there's nothing alarmist about this report, but it does contain some alarming information. Unfortunately reality is rather alarming right now.
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macoles at 14:52 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 2: Climate Risks
As a Perthite my "wow" moment in Section 2 was on page 35: Figure 22. Trend in total annual stream flow into Perth dams 1911-2010 I knew we were short on water here, but I've never seen it in historical context like that before. Looks like more desalination plants will have to be built, and hopefully using windpower. -
alan_marshall at 14:49 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 2: Climate Risks
Dana, well done! The Climate Commission is an important initiative of the Australian government, and high profile Dr Tim Flannery, author of "The Weather Makers", is an ideal chairman. Their report is timely and your summary is helpful.Response:[dana1981] Thanks very much. I agree it's a very good report.
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Utahn at 14:44 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Boy, I wish I hadn't been unable to get back to this until now, because I probably could have spared folks some trouble. Sphaerica:"There is no middle ground, let alone 24 flavors of middle ground." I disagree and find it's useful to at least to myself categorize deniers - it helps me to understand the best approach to discussion. I still think there is hope in discussion with many. "Second, I personally think (and by 'think' I mean that everything that I've read and understand about) your own adherence to a mere 2˚C per doubling as a likely or even reasonable possibility is another form of denial. The current consensus is 3˚C or higher, and every new study confirms this while leaning towards the 'and higher' direction. There is very little reason to think that 2˚C per doubling is in the mix. Expecting 2˚C is denial." I do not personally "adhere" to 2˚C. I was just laying out a person's stated climate sensitivity below which I am going to say denial begins. To me 2˚C is perfectly reasonable as a lower bound to label someone "denier", and is the same as the lower bound of the AR4 estimate of climate sensitivity, and with a few papers even recently (look at BPLs chart by time of major GCM estimates for example). Are you all saying 2˚C is not a reasonable *lower bound* for sane discussion of climate sensitivity to doubling CO2? I'm sorry if my initial post was not clear, but I did say "less than 2"! Honestly I'm sorry I even mentioned this, in any case after rolling it around on my tongue I'm not sure I like the word "denier" after all. It is, naturally, name calling. Accurate name calling, but still name calling. From now on I am going to use the more cumbersome, "those who are in denial of the science of climate change" or "those in denial" for slightly shorter. It feels like less of an indictment of the person, and implies my stated belief that some (certainly not all) of those in denial will not always be in denial. -
adelady at 14:33 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
@92, Charlie "Over what time period do you think Hansen meant when he discusses "fast" climate sensitivity?" Didn't find anything explicit on a quick look (obviously too quick) but my reading is 40-60 years for 'fast'. The common reference to 'in the pipeline' and that current warming is the consequence of CO2 from the 70s. Long-term? 100 years more than that. -
KR at 14:15 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
dhogaza - I'll refer you to an illustration that I've pointed out to folks claiming the radiative greenhouse effect violates thermodynamics. Cartoon - warning, mature language -
Tom Curtis at 14:12 PM on 1 June 2011Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
seeker25801 @35, according to the people most in the know, global warming is almost certainly occurring, and it is very highly probable that human activities are the major cause. Whether you think they are telling the full story or not, it is certain they know the full story better than anybody else on Earth. So the question you should be asking, seeing you so strongly disagree with them, is what is it that they know that you do not? If you read the arguments on this site, you will find out, for contrary to your insinuation, the climate scientists, and this site do tell the full story, so far as it is known. -
KR at 14:11 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
J. Bob - "One might also look at who is doing the articles/papers/data, and who is supplying the $’s." That is indeed one of my criteria, J. Bob. Is the data coming from a reputable scientist who regularly publishes peer reviewed works that are well received? Or is the work coming from a "think tank" or other advocacy group, such as the George Marshall Institute, GreenPeace, or the like (particularly from ones who do not disclose their funding)? Because if it's coming from a grant funded scientist, the likelyhood that it's driven by political influence is fairly small. Whereas if it comes from an advocacy group it's inherently biased - towards the positions the group advocates - not driven by the actual science. That is, after all, why advocacy groups exist. Advocacy groups works, data, and conclusions are therefore inherently less credible. -
KR at 14:05 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
J. Bob - Your reference to climate4you was, indeed, fascinating. Majority of plots 1979 on only, very few instrumental records prior to that, most of those from local areas. Heavy focus on GISP2 (a single ice core, not a global temperature), several Central England temperature records (hmm, seeing a pattern here?), statements such as ""net changes since 1998 appear to be small" (see Did global warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?)... Given the cherry-picking and short term focus, I don't know that I would trust the data or the presentation thereof from that site. It doesn't meet my requirements for presenting all of the data, avoiding cherry-picking, or using realistic periods of time for determining climate trends. I would not consider that a good resource - go to the peer reviewed papers! -
Bob Lacatena at 14:02 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
J. Bob, I'd also point out that there is a very clear comments policy, which is listed absolutely all over the place, and usually moderators provide warnings. People must be repeat offenders. Even then very, very few people are actually banned (like I am from WUWT). They are warned, and when they continue to violate the rules, their gibberish... not anything scientific, just the gibberish... is slashed. WUWT is the wild west, with one sheriff in town. He deletes what he wants, and you never see the stuff that's deleted. Here, there is a rhyme and reason to what happens. There, it is at the whim of Lord Watts. And I would also point out that I have had comments edited by moderators here. The rules are the rules. They apply to everyone. They're just broken far more frequently by deniers, and usually those same deniers are so lost in the science that they can't even see that they're breaking the rules. -
dhogaza at 13:59 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
KR: The problem, of course, is that Tamino is a professional statistician who specialized in time series analysis, which proves he's a commie-pinko dictatorship-minded freak, because everyone knows that casinos lose tons of money at the slots despite these do-gooder commie stats types trying to educate the public that the house is rigged ... The trolls here, of course, know better ... -
adelady at 13:58 PM on 1 June 2011If It's Not Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll, what is it? Creativity maybe?
Eric "...it was directed at any policy that inhibited freedom." I'm more mature (OK, older) than you, and my reading of the times was that it was about personal freedom. Being young people in the main, that was about Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, but it was also about the freedoms denied by corporate and government restrictions on personal behaviours and circumstances. Denying jobs entirely on the basis of race and gender, paying less on the basis of race or gender, and sacking for things like women marrying or anyone divorcing. And conscription is not a favourite item for those wanting personal freedom to choose. Speaking to the 5 years 'more mature' member of this household, his view is that the movement was anti-capitalist and anti-military rather than anti-state. 'Our government should change' rather than 'We want no government at all'. You might be more influenced by the extreme ends of the general movement in much the same way as many women don't identify as feminists because their image is of the 'overalls and no lipstick' very public extreme end of that movement. All you need to do is to juxtapose an hour of the music of The Beatles or The Beach Boys or Jimi Hendrix and an hour spent reading Ayn Rand. (I never managed the whole hour, let alone the whole book. The afore-mentioned older person said he found the whole book amusing, he saw it as a kind of self-parody.) The idea that we of that liberal-minded generation wanted libertarianism in the untrammelled corporate power facing hamstrung, limited government style is just not true. We didn't like the "Little boxes on the Hillside" lifestyle, that's true. We wanted attention, and money, for the issues of poverty, injustice, violence, pollution - all of which require better government, not no government. Just as now. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:56 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
88, J. Bob,...and who is supplying the $’s.
This is the sort of conspiracy nonsense that shows when someone has no hope of understanding the science. If you honestly believe that some guy who's making $50K or $75K a year to spend half of his life trudging through the Arctic or the Amazon, or hoping to write a paper that will get him noticed for a few years among his peers, with a maximum attainable salary after that success of merely exactly what he's making now... because contrary to conventional wisdom, winning a research grant does not pay for a new Ferrari for each of the head researchers. Researchers get paid a salary by their universities, are expected to teach, and to do research and publish. They get research grants to go towards equipment and assistants to allow them to continue to pursue viable research. If they don't get grants, and publish, and teach, and work, then they fail. A career in science is not a stepping stone to babes, bucks and fame. "Who is supplying the $s" is a joke. My daughter was listening to a documentary today that went on and on about how coal is "Americas energy" that creates jobs and is crucial to the economy. That's where the money is going... not into research and science, but into propaganda. You're right about looking at the money, though. Is it coming from and going to real research, just as is done in agriculture and medicine and biology and most other branches of science, or is it coming from an energy industry with an agenda and trillions of dollars of income at stake, and going into propaganda? -
dhogaza at 13:53 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Oh, and BTW, J. Bob ... reminding us of the fact that Watts is an a-hole isn't likely to warm our hearts to you. Just sayin' Glad to hear that you have denialist cred, though ... wear your denialism badge with pride, you've earned it. -
dhogaza at 13:52 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
I have been censored and deleted repeatedly.
I, like many others, was quickly banned. And my name outed by the site owner. -
dhogaza at 13:50 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
J Bob:If a site has to delete items based on scientific analysis, and interpretation of said results, it shows it's true biased colors, and demonstates their position is on shaky ground.
So if a geologist site deletes items claiming the earth is 6,000 years old, this is evidence that the earth is, indeed, only 6,000 years old. Quit being silly. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:46 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
93 J. Bob, Sure you haven't been censored or deleted, because you say what they want. I have been censored and deleted repeatedly. Usually, merely for quoting the science. Then 50 people start calling me names, and any post defending my position is deleted. So... take your statement about "if a site..." and think about it. WUWT isn't on shaky ground, it's on fog. If you honestly think you are getting truth or science from a cesspool like that, you are lost. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:43 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
apiratelooksat50,Where do you look for further information?
I almost always find and read the original papers. When I don't understand the background science, I study that (but finding that is not controversial... I don't need to find a "balanced" site to explain how ice cores are analyzed to construct a proxy, or to understand how the satellites or radiosondes work, or the details behind molecular physics, and what the issues and complications and limitations are for any of them). I also usually read supporting, preceding, or conflicting papers. I will look at various sites to see what their "argument" is against a particular point of view, but I only use that to see what threads to pursue. Reading the actual studies... and understanding what they say... always leads to fair comprehension, not only in what I know and they know, but also what everyone doesn't know. By contrast, sites like WUWT and CA are nothing but vitriol and misleading misrepresentations. One can get absolutely nothing of value from those sites. -
J. Bob at 13:41 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Sphaerica 76, makes a comment about looking at various sources, but stay away from the likes of WUWT. While I have posted items at that site, I have yet to be "censored" or deleted. In contrast, some of sites advocating AGW have no problem deleting posts, such as those Sphaerica posts on. If a site has to delete items based on scientific analysis, and interpretation of said results, it shows it's true biased colors, and demonstates their position is on shaky ground. KR 90, A couple of of the sites that have a very good summaries, and links to basic references are: http://www.climate4you.com/ for historical temperature & other data: http://www.rimfrost.no/Response:[DB] Fixed links.
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KR at 13:26 PM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Ken Lambert - The charts DB posted came from one of the links he provided, to Tamino's "5 Years" post. These are (to minimize arguments about data manipulation, and to remove high frequency noise) simple 5-year non-overlapping box averages, with <5 year periods being represented by the remaining data available (hence less smoothed). It's a nice illustration of what the long term trends are, with the short term noise averaged out. And it's an especially good antidote to some of the cherry-picking that goes on, for example, at WUWT, where they tend to select tiny periods to find short term down-slopes, and from that claim SLR is negative. -
Charlie A at 13:11 PM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
#91 Michael Sweet says "James Hansen estimates the fast climate sensitivity as 3C based on paleoclimate data. " Over what time period do you think Hansen meant when he discusses "fast" climate sensitivity? -
pbjamm at 12:17 PM on 1 June 2011Climate Change Denial book now available!
The discussion with tallbloke should be taken to the censorship free zone on his blog. I can tell by his reply to me : "Yes, they must be mighty tired of nature refusing to co-operate with their co2 hypothesis." that it will be a most fruitful discussion. -
michael sweet at 11:33 AM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
James Hansen estimates the fast climate sensitivity as 3C based on paleoclimate data. He further estimates a climate sensitivity plus albeido change from melting ice as 6C based on the paleoclimate data. The ranges of climate sensitivity range from 2 up to 10 degrees. The limits on the lower end are strong but the upper limits are much harder to define. 2C is a denier position without allowing the possibility of 7C which is just as likely. That 3C is only a fast feedback estimate, the slow feedbacks are all on the upside. Can the skeptics please start to link their opinions to some data. I see a lot of unsupported opinions about climate sensitivity ("the climate sensitivity was between 0.5 and 4.5C / doubling") without links. Without links to data these are just your opinion. -
Ken Lambert at 11:19 AM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
DB #102 Could you explain the origin of the charts you posted in the 'green box' at #102. -
Ken Lambert at 11:14 AM on 1 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Albatross #105 Readers can judge for themselves when the my post being answered by Albatross at #105 has been deleted by Moderators without even a (snip). Hansen's latest synopsis explicitly draws conclusions about the reduction in warming imbalance from the OHC record for the period 2005-10 - 6 years. Yet I am criticised as a 'cherry picker' by drawing conclusions from the UCAR chart for the Jason 1 & 2 records over a 9 year period. This is then turned by Albatross into; "Not true-- and your accusation of cherry picking against Hansen is ridiculous and unfounded, or are you simply musing about scientific misconduct by one of the world's leading climate scientists?" I did not accuse Hansen of cherry picking. I said explicitly that if the likes of Albatross and DB want to label analysis and conclusions of short term records (in Hansen's case, 6 years) as 'cherry picking' then we are in the good company of Jim Hansen. -
Rob Painting at 11:05 AM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
Mike Hauber - Shorter term trends are for a cooling of the key ENSO regions, not warming Not sure what you mean. A vast body of scientific literature expects the tropics to warm, thats what the climate model studies I linked to suggest. This could be the cooling cycle of the PDO Or might not be. Might cover that in part 4. Over 1900-2010 there appears to be a slight cooling of the nino regions as well, or maybe more accurately a lack of warming while everywhere else warms Sorted that too. A recent study addresses the lack of warming of Pacific SST's. It ain't going to last. Over the longer term there doesn't seem to be much of any pattern in the Atlantic, but I'm not sure how good the data quality is going back to the start of the 20th Century. Yup, that too. Tropical Atlantic SST warming is connected to the lack of Pacific warming. I don't want to thrash it out here in the comments. I'll discuss it in chapter 4. So I'm pretty skeptical of any link between warming ENSO regions and Amazon drought Again, not sure what you talking about here. ENSO shifts the Walker Circulation, pretty robust connection with Amazon rainfall throughout the observational record, and in the paleoclimate proxies too. -
Camburn at 10:51 AM on 1 June 2011Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle
An interesting historical record of life and Arctic Sea Ice. http://paleoforge.com/papers/EnvironArchaeo.pdfResponse:[DB] Hot-linked URL.
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dhogaza at 10:49 AM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
joehopkins ... You're wrong about ice ages but ... 'I have difficulty being convinced with "We don't know what causes massive climate changes in the past but we have configured a computer model that can predict future climate."' It's actually hard to even *determine* past climates in many cases - look at the evolution of paleoclimate reconstructions for the last 2000 years (yes, that long series of "hockey sticks". We haven't had satellites measuring solar output for all of the past several billion years, good thermometer coverage of the earth's surface for the past several billion years, etc. So of course uncertainty going back into deep time is much, much higher than uncertainty today. I'm amazed that the fact that there are some issues pinning down climatic details in the uninstrumented past would lead you to reach the conclusion you do. What's amazing to me is the amount of knowledge about past climates that scientists have been able to glean from indirect evidence, not the fact that they can't do a perfect job. -
scaddenp at 10:31 AM on 1 June 2011Amazon drought: A death spiral? (part 2:climate models)
joehopkins - perhaps you could enlighten us about which disagreement over cause ice ages you are referring to over in the Climate changed before thread -
KR at 10:30 AM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
apiratelooksat50 - I don't know about Sphaerica, but I go directly to Google Scholar (a lovely tool) and start searching on the terms of the discussion. I weight references that are more recent and more cited (with a look at the citations for more 'revolutionary' claims) as better references than older or less cited works. So personally, I do my best to look at the primary sources. If I don't understand what's going on in them, I follow up with searches on topical tutorials, review articles, and the like. What do you look at for further information? -
scaddenp at 10:24 AM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Climate sensitivity is a genuine source of uncertainty, no question about it, but the pseudo-skeptics are only interested in the possibility of it being lower than 3, without consideration that it could be higher. The luke-warmer category at moment would also include those how postulate there is some hidden natural forcing that has somehow eluded science and is going to either save us all because its negative or let us off the hook because its natural. They should be in different category from those arguing about the science in the determination of climate sensitivity. -
J. Bob at 10:18 AM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
apiratelooksat 50 You say, “And, to take it a step further, even if the source is a compilation of articles/papers/data more than one site should be used”. I’ll see you, and raise you. One might also look at who is doing the articles/papers/data, and who is supplying the $’s. -
apiratelooksat50 at 10:10 AM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
Sphaerica at 76 Where do you look for further information? -
dana1981 at 09:56 AM on 1 June 2011Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
I'm also curious why you've chosen 2°C, since the main difference between a skeptic and a denier is the basis of their opinions. I'd like to know if you have a valid scientific reason for believing 2°C is correct, particularly since it's on the low end of the probability range.
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