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Comments 84351 to 84400:

  1. Harry Seaward at 11:10 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    dhogaza at 45 The point is: if we don't identify the sources, then how do we address them?
  2. apiratelooksat50 at 11:00 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    scaddenp at 42 Totally off the cuff: I think it is the responsibility of every human, every culture, every government, and every country on earth to reduce their dependence on natural resources, and to minimize the generation of waste (hazardous and non-hazardous). Alternative energy sources should be explored, developed, and utilized where applicable. And, by the way, I have had active roles in major industies in achieving the above ideals (goals were proposed to the regulators and accepted) to the extent the companies were awarded recognition from local, state and Federal governmental agencies in the US. The companies include BMW, Michelin, and AVX. I am currently consulting with Koyo Bearings at ICAR on their goals.
  3. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Harry Seaward: "Assuming it is anthro GHGs, is that the sole cause in your opinion? If so, what does mankind do?" No one imagines that changes in GHGs result in the sole changes in forcing that causes climatatic conditions to change. For instance, recently we've seen that "it's the sun, stupid" - the current solar minimum is to some extent mitigating the positive change in forcing resulting from increased GHGs over the last decade or so. What is the point of such a question?
  4. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Harry Seaward: that's where the "it's obviously more complex than that" bit comes in. Anthro GHGs aren't the only forcing pushing the climate away from quasi-equilibrium, but they're currently not only the biggest one, but the only significantly positive one. But you should really read the relevant article about it here on SkS. If you read & understand the Intermediate level explanation, you'll be in a good position w.r.t. the science. For your second question: I'm also interested to hear what you would propose, as scaddenp asks. For my part, I go with Hansen: phase out coal, completely, within 20 years. Oil is running out, and when the coal phase out demonstrates how things can be done cleaner, I suspect gas will be relegated to a feedstock for chemical processes. Yes, it'll be expensive. Not as expensive as doing nothing, though. Back on-topic: I note there are now over a hundred comments approved by the mods at the ABC, and they're only up to 7pm last night... gonna be a biggie!
  5. apiratelooksat50 at 10:52 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    scaddenp, My post had nothing to do with me backing any viewpoint. My post was concerning AT making a statement that either one agrees with immediate active mitigation, or you are a denier. And, I never even implied I was publishing in the climate science field. However, unlike you, I have actually been published and have been referenced by other scientists in my discipline. Nope, it's not climate science, but in aquaculture.
  6. Can we trust climate models?
    Charlie A @66:
    "I started reading this thread of "Can We Trust Climate Models" with the expectation that there would be a discussion regarding the assessment of skill and the testing and validation of models. Unfortunately, this most important point was omitted."
    Annual variability of global mean surface temperatures are in a range of +/1 0.2 degrees C per annum (approximate 90% confidence range). Atmosphere Ocean Global Circulation Models predict temperature increases of around 4 degrees C by the end of this century with Business as Usual. Frankly, it is irrelevant whether that turns out in reality to be 3.8 degrees, or 4.2. What matters is, do the models get the overall trends right given the right forcings as imputs? And if they do, what can we do to ensure forcings are not such that AOGCM's would predict such large temperature increases given those forcings? Thanks to your excercise, we now know that given a feed in of forcings, the GISS-E model predicts long term trends to a accuracy not significantly less than a 1 year lag of actual temperature data. We also know that the GISS prediction pretty much always lies within 0.2 degrees of the actual temperature. You want to quibble about that 0.2 degrees. My concern is the four degrees which you are entirely neglecting. So, we know that the models are accurate enough that they cn predict long term trends given the forcings. What then can we do to ensure forcings are not such that the models will predict 4 degree plus temperature rises remains as the only significant question.
  7. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    "If so, what does mankind do?" I asked you earlier the same question. What effective means of reducing GHGs is compatible with your political values? This isnt rhetoric either. I really want to know what conservative political opinion considers to be viable other than simply deny that the problem exists.
  8. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Camburn @93, the rate of expansion of water with increasing temperature changes with increasing temperature. And increase from 0 to 5 degree C will cause the sea water to contract. Another 5 degree increase will result in a four times greater expansion. A further increase of 5 degrees will result in a further expansion at nearly four times the rate for the preceding 5 degrees. Consequently, increases in temperature in the cold depths cause a smaller increase in MSL for the same amount of heat when compared to the surface. So, a reduction in the rate of steric sea level rise may only be telling us that heat is moving from the surface to the depths faster than it is accumulating at the surface.
  9. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Well Apirate, you seem to having trouble backing your skeptic viewpoint with published science. If you are sufficient informed in the field to be publishing yourself, then a contrary opinion would be interesting and presumably published, but so far your skepticism seems be based on blog postings and opinion. This doesnt smack of science to me.
  10. Harry Seaward at 10:21 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Bern @ 38 Thanks for you answer. I am truly not trying to put words in your mouth when I ask this. Assuming it is anthro GHGs, is that the sole cause in your opinion? If so, what does mankind do?
  11. Can we trust climate models?
    "Your interpretation transforms PaulFP's statement of "Even climate skeptics use models but, for many, the model is simply that next year will be the same as last year." into the statement that the climate skeptic model is "the temperature is forever the same." Well how else do you parse it? If B=A,C=B,D=C ==> A=D. For the detail on how models are really evaluated, that would be all of chapter 8, AR4, WG1
  12. apiratelooksat50 at 10:09 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    AT @ 34 Whoa there, hoss! So, I either need to agree to active mitigation, or if I don't then I am a denier. You don't leave much leeway. And, I have real trouble with your phrase "pro-science". I am a scientist and believe in science (educated in science, teaching in science, certified in science, degreed in science, working in science, etc...). You are stating that if I don't fall in lock-step with your views, then my view is of no interest to you. Well, AT, you are demonstrating that you have absolutely no idea of what science is. The one thing you stated correctly is, "I suffer from a little "brilliant in his own mind" syndrome." Do you mind sharing with me your science background?
  13. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    Any chance of uploading your full database to Zotero ? And creating a guest account with read-only privileges ?
  14. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Harry Seaward: in a nutshell? Changes in climate forcing. The obvious follow-on is then: "what changes in forcing have happened recently?" The simple answer to that one is: "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions", although it's obviously more complex than that.
  15. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    The reason for the slowing or the rate of rise seems to be this: "The reason seems to be that ocean heat storage decreased in the past five years reducing thermal expansion." So, that also tells us that the OHC of the ocean is going down. I have tried to show that to no avail, but at least the Univisity seems to understand this.
  16. Can we trust climate models?
    Charlie A @63, forcings are not temperatures, and nor is it an easy matter to derive temperatures from forcings alone, as the GISS-E run demonstrates. Nor where the forcings for a given year applied in determining the temperature for prior years. Consequently making use of each years annual data for the "skeptic model" does constitute a loaded test @64, yes, annual variability affects both models, but not equally. Specifically, the "skeptic model" has a negative mean (based on eyeball mk 1) from 1970 on showing that it does not predict the temperature trend. In contrast, the GISS-E model underestimates temperatures around 1910, and over estimates them in the 1940s but is otherwise superior to the "skeptic model". (If you could post a plot of the 11 year running averages it would be easier to see the relative performance over different periods.)
  17. Can we trust climate models?
    @65 Scaddenp "His assertion would have the corollary that there would be no [long] term temperature trend." [I assume you omitted "long"] Your interpretation transforms PaulFP's statement of "Even climate skeptics use models but, for many, the model is simply that next year will be the same as last year." into the statement that the climate skeptic model is "the temperature is forever the same." If we compare the GISS-E AOGCM to a forever fixed, constant temperature, then it does indeed have some skill. If we compare GISS-E hindcast (with full knowlege of both past and future forcings) to the naive model of assuming that the yearly global average temperature will be the same as the prior year, then GISS-E loses. There is an interesting progression in model skill. My default guess for tomorrow's weather is "same as today"; but I prefer to look at a weather forecast because they have great skill in predicting weather for the next 2 or 3 days, and reasonably good skill out to a week or 10 days. For seasonal forecasts, the skill of models goes down. I assume that somewhere there has been a formal skill assessment of seasonal models done somewhere, but am not familiar with the literature. I assume, but am not positive, that seasonal forecasts have more skill than a simple naive climatological history or the Farmer's Almanac. I started reading this thread of "Can We Trust Climate Models" with the expectation that there would be a discussion regarding the assessment of skill and the testing and validation of models. Unfortunately, this most important point was omitted.
  18. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    Oooh, that's a good idea, Tor B. Perhaps add a red circle to the bundle when papers are refuted by subsequent research? That'd be interesting to see where all the red dots ended up, and how big they were.
  19. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Skywatcher: From the link so graciously given by Albatross: "Greenland and Antarctica have begun to melt faster in the past few years, as shown on Ice Sheet Disintegration page, yet sea level rise slowed slightly in the past few years." So, someone else seems to think that the rate of sea level rise has slowed as well?
  20. actually thoughtful at 09:51 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Bad fingers! The crux of my last post should have read: The body of evidence in climate science REQUIRES an active mitigation response.
  21. Harry Seaward at 09:49 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Before I label myself, can anyone say in a nutshell: 1. What the cause of climate change is?
  22. Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
    Damorbel: Please provide citations to literature to support your assertions. The bloggers posting to this site and the commenters adding their two bits (or responding to posters making contrary efforts, such as yourself) generally take the time and effort to do so. It would be a minimum courtesy to back up your claims with evidence of similar quality, rather than with snide insinuation.
  23. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    I just went back to look at the comments thread on the article. Interesting to see what sort of comments the moderators are letting through... I can't recall exactly what I posted yesterday, but it obviously didn't make the cut. Perhaps I made the mistake of supporting your argument, rather than trotting out a long-debunked denialist argument, like so many of the comments do? :-) I tapped out a couple of quick replies to some of the comments there. I wonder if any of them will make it through moderation either?
  24. actually thoughtful at 09:32 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    I think an interesting point has been raised here - what is a denier? (OK sure - we have raised it thousands of times on this site). I think the answer is finally available (it does contain a value judgement, but anytime you call someone a denier vs a skeptic you have made a value judgement). The value judgement is: The body of evidence in climate change REQUIRES and active mitigation response. If you agree with that statement you are pro-science. (Even as you wonder about the precise nature of sensitivity, how we can accurately measure OHC, precisely when the oceans will swamp low-lying cities, how global warming will affect the West Anarctic ice sheet, etc. etc.) If you disagree with that statement - you are a denier. The particular stripe of your denial is of great interest to you perhaps, but not to the rest of us. Does that satisfactorily encapsulate the issue for anyone else? I like it - but I suffer from a little "brilliant in his own mind" syndrome. And long time readers KNOW I have a strong bias towards action on this issue.
  25. Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
    Damorbel @16, a correlation of 0.5 is quite low. That is why the GISS method assigns a station a weighting to a station 1200km away of (1200-1200)/1200 = 0. A station 1199 km away will receive a weighting of (1200-1199)/1200 =~= 0.00083. In other words, it will have a significant influence on the GISS tempurature if there are very few, and very distant stations from that location. This, as with the rebuttal of all your other objections, was clearly explained in the article above. Nice piece of trolling about the ice ages, by the way. Transparently the lack of correlation of the existence of a continental ice sheet in the middle of the northern USA and the middle of the Antarctic Ocean has nothing what so ever to do with correlation of temperatures withing a 1200 km radius over land, but still you snuck it in there. As GISS (nor any other temperature index) does not use southern hemisphere temperatures at equivalent latitudes to determine northern hemisphere temperatures (except within 1200 km of the equator), your comments about the ice age are a complete red herring. Transparently so! Actually on topic, if you do not like GISS's 1200 km smooth, their website allows you to create anomaly maps with a 250 km smooth. It even computes the global anomaly for you using only the sub cells within 250 km of a surface station (over land). This is not a superior measure because, unlike the 1200 km smooth it de facto must assume that the temperature anomaly over land of any area more than 250 km from a surface station equals the global average. In effect, it does assume that the temperature anomaly in those isolated regions can be determined by measuring the temperature anomaly at arbitrary longitudes and latitudes in the opposite hemisphere. So I guess your red herring does have a point. It clearly demonstrates the superiority of using the 1200 km smooth over using a 250 km smooth.
  26. Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
    "The Patagonian Ice Sheet covered about 480,000sq km from around 41 deg S down to Cape Horn." 55 degrees south, the "thin finger" I mentioned above. The southern tip of africa is only about 35 degrees south, so it's not surprising it didn't get covered by ice sheets during various ice ages. Damorbel need to take more care that he doesn't fall off while galloping gish's horse.
  27. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    okatiniko. Land rising and coastlines? Remember that GIA includes downward as well as upward movements. Britain is the classic example. The 'advancing' sea in southern England coastal regions is really more like a leverage effect from the rising Scotland land mass. The sea is not advancing so much as the land, in some areas of England, is lowering. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that the rising/ lowering effects will be matched either in time or in extent. So the GIA numbers are calculated separately to be introduced into the SLR calculations.
  28. Can we trust climate models?
    Charlie A, "Do you have a better suggestion on how to test the hypothesis (or assertion) put forward by PaulFP". His assertion would have the corollary that there would be no term temperature trend. This is easily tested. By comparison, the robust prediction from climate models is the 30 year trend. Climate models make no pretense of being able to predict year to year temperatures or even decade to decade temperatures with current skill.
  29. Climate Change Denial book now available!
    #66 As you know, there are many ways of measuring sensitivity, not just the one you cherry-picked (e.g. Knutti and Hegerl). It's rather hard to have ice ages with low sensitivity. Tom analogises your approach nicely. Actually, I think this thread illustrates very well some points in Haydn and John's book, including deniers using cherry picking, claims of science suppression, use of unsupported science, and diversion when inconvenient truths are pointed out. No denier is willing to evaluate the full gamut of evidence, including all the many different lines supporting each part of the science, and then come up with an hypothesis that both explains all that existing evidence and gives us a reason not to change our carbon-emitting ways. Such an hypothesis does not yet exist, and given the level of testing that climate science has survived over the past century and a half, is extremely unlikely to materialise. So what is left is that we must do something about our carbon-emitting ways.
  30. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    This seems to be a great tool to look for certain types of historical papers, especially after including DaneelOlivaw's (#4) idea. To look at a particular year, I went to the previous year, then slid the bar to add one more year, and watched where the circle landed. I've read in Sks, Climate Progress and elsewhere that some scientific papers specifically skeptical about one or another AGW topic have been demonstrated in subsequently published papers to have serious errors, making the skeptical paper's existence (or at least part of it) moot. As I read into CBDunkerson's comment above (#9), all sorts of papers get left behind by developing science. I'm sure there are recently published pro AGW papers that have been effectively refuted by subsequent publications (undoubtedly also pro AGW papers). Could the database identify at least the most grievous of such subsequently refuted or "left behind" papers? Perhaps little circles showing publication years of subsequently refuted papers? Perhaps footnotes by the actual paper titles identifying "partially refuted by subsequent literature" or "substantially refuted by subsequent literature." I'm curious about the 1960 CO2 concentrations paper (pro AGW) Table 1 with some hand written numbers and checkmarks!
  31. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Camburn, do you still assert that sea level rise is decelerating, having seen the graphs and sources presented by Albatross in #81 and #87?
  32. actually thoughtful at 08:29 AM on 31 May 2011
    An Interactive History of Climate Science
    I don't understand what makes a paper neutral. I think this particular graphic is hampered by the large number of neutral. A skeptic will think "well all those neutrals are ACTUALLY skeptical" and all the pro-science people with think "well all those neutrals are ACTUALLY pro-AGW". I think a different metric is needed. Maybe "supports current understanding" or "supports climate myths". I am not saying it is easy.
  33. Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
    No point in arguing with someone who thinks they're in the business of educating us about the ice ages, or thinks that how you compile a temperature record depends on what you think changed the temperature record. But in case any lurker thinks that mid-latitude ice sheets did not grow in South America and New Zealand (the only land masses at mid-southern latitudes of 40-60S), here's a little info. The Patagonian Ice Sheet covered about 480,000sq km from around 41 deg S down to Cape Horn. Geomorphology is unequivocal on this, though many key references on mapping tend to predate the Internet era - the existence of this ice sheet is not exactly scientific news! A small fraction (~4%) of this ice sheet remains as the North and South Patagonian Ice Sheets. A similar linear ice sheet grew on the Southern Alps of New Zealand, covering ~25% of South Island. Ice sheets grew where they could, but ice sheets don't tend to grow in deep oceans!
  34. Can we trust climate models?
    Diran Marsupial @62 "the errors depicted in your graph are dominated by high-frequency annual variations, something that no model would claim to be able to predict." and "I am assuming that the GISS model E prediction is actually the mean of an ensemble of model runs (comparing the observations with a single model run would be an obviously unfair test). If this is the case, you appear ignorant of the fact that the models attempt only to predict the forced component of the climate. " The GISS-E model response is per the Hansen 2007 paper and data is available at Data.Giss:Climate Simulations for 1880-2003. These are ensembles of 5 runs, GISS-E, ocean C, Russell Ocean. My plot of this data appears to be identical to that of figure 6 of Hansen 2007. Yes, the largest component of the residuals is due to natural climate variability. However, both the naive model and GISS-E are on equal footing in regards to the effect on their errors. Do you have a better suggestion on how to test the hypothesis (or assertion) put forward by PaulFP in comment #59? His assertion is relatively straightforward: "Even climate skeptics use models but, for many, the model is simply that next year will be the same as last year. That sort of model is indeed unreliable. " In keeping with the "Can we trust models" topic of this thread, I think it is an interesting exercise to compare the performance of PaulFP/Skeptics naive model and the GISS-E model.
  35. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    "However, I think the 'enhanced' warming of 3 C cannot be supported. What does that make me? " Someone who has been puzzlingly unable to understand the science despite the enormous effort some people have explaining it to you .... or a wishful thinker who blanks out evidence that is challenging to your position.
  36. Eric (skeptic) at 07:47 AM on 31 May 2011
    Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    KevinC, the link on Prall's site leads here http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/list_sources.html which contains lists of "activist" documents and statements (their wording) that is an incomplete starting point for examining the whole of the science. OTOH, starting with a list of papers the way Rob Honeycutt did here http://www.skepticalscience.com/meet-the-denominator.html can ultimately separate AGW with CAGW which have two different bodies of evidence behind them (with some overlap). Then one can say that 97/100 climate experts support the need for immediate action (or something similar). There's a good chance that the (relative) 100 will increase faster than the relative 97 if Prall moves beyond lists of activists.
  37. Can we trust climate models?
    Tom Curtis @61 "The GISS model is not updated annually with real temperatures". The GISS model hindcast was updated each year with the real forcings. In fact, the GISS-E model was able to look forward into the future and know the forcings for the coming year to make the forecast for that year. The naive model of "next year same as last" didn't get to look into the future as did the GISS-E hindcast. I further handicapped the naive model by not adjusting the mean guess. For the GISS-E model, I reduced the error by adjusting the anomaly mean to match the observed mean.
  38. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    @Jampack: I would tend to think that those that have been grouping these papers are more careful than that. Did you go to the page that has the papers (so on) sorted by argument? There is an option to only filter down to peer reviewed papers, were you sure to click on that?
  39. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Bern & Dhogaza : I don't understand what you mean by local effects and land rising - I thought that satellites measure only the sea level, so why would they be influenced by land rising and anything that happens to coastlines ? I understood that GIA was a global -not local - effect increasing the overall volume of the ocean basin, but it is a real effect. In any case it doesn't change anything to the acceleration term Albatross : the plot of Church & White 2006 is without GIA correction, so actually the rate would have been 3.4 mm/yr in 2006 with GIA correction, and now it is only 3.1 mm/yr, right ?
    Response:

    [DB] Actually, glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), or isostatic rebound, is a regional effect, confined primarily to areas formerly and currently covered (but losing mass) by continental ice sheets and the areas immediately adjacent to them.  As the basement rocks are relieved of the immense overburden of ice, they rebound upward.  Since the areas next to them had been pushed up slightly while the glaciated areas were depressed, those adjacent areas tend to sink back downwards. This is all well-studied and understood and is incorporated into tide gauge and satellite data.

    For further reference, I suggest this Wiki page as a start, plus this page at SkS:  Greenland-rising-faster-as-ice-loss-accelerates

    You may want to look into the Geoid and Datums if you want even more detail.

  40. Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
    Readers Please note that damorbel has a history of arguing for the sake of arguing.. this includes contradicting himself to prolong a discussion. The'2nd law of thermodynamics' thread shows this clearly. I'm seeing the same pattern starting here.
  41. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    The possibilities inherent in this graphic approach are stunning for so many areas of human discourse. However, in this case, I wonder about the use of the term "peer-reviewed" when it seems that a skeptic argument published in a known echo chamber for a specific political agenda is given, at least visually, the same weight as a paper published in a peer-reviewed scientific publication. The first skeptic article I checked was published in "American Thinker" which is not a science based publication.
  42. Mike Lemonick at 06:40 AM on 31 May 2011
    Even Princeton Makes Mistakes
    Rob@109: I wasn't entirely clear, I think. I totally agree with the policy of refuting Happer's ridiculous claims, thoroughly and often. The "banging your head against the wall" comment refers to the idea that Princeton can do anything about him.
  43. Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built
    Damorbel's riding that galloping horse hard ...
    A feature of historical climate change are the ice ages; these were times when large sheets of ice formed over the land masses of the Northern Hemisphere
    45 south is in the middle of the ocean (the "roaring 40s"). 45 north lies about about 30 miles south of where I'm sitting in Portland, Oregon. South America's a thin finger pointing southward, Africa's a blunt thumb, neither is in the least as massive as north america or eurasia and of course the latter two lie at much higher latitudes on average than the southern continents. Antarctica already had a large sheet of ice, BTW.
  44. Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
    Kudos to RW1 for being honest enough to declare that yes, he is a denier, rather than respond with faux "how dare you equate me with holocaust deniers" etc blah blah blah. Refreshing honesty ..
  45. DaneelOlivaw at 05:56 AM on 31 May 2011
    An Interactive History of Climate Science
    Would it be possible to see the raw data in a spreadsheet format? (just like Information is Beautiful usually does)
  46. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Albatross: I have no quible with your post at 76, nor am I alarmed by it at present. Sea Level. 1. first off, what are the error bars of the satillite data. The authors of the papers take them into account and present them. 2. GMSL.....both papers that are being talked about express the difficulty in even DETERMINING current GMSL. 3. GPS as an added source to verify information. Not enough time yet, but hopefully within the next 10 years this valuable tool will provide insight into sea level rise, rate, and actual GMSL.
  47. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Camburn, I repeat, "Are you going to deny the findings in the scientific literature that I posted @76?"? Also, I am not sure how your quote @85 is meant to support your argument...nice cherry picking too. From Church and White's (2011) abstract: "There is considerable variability in the rate of rise during the twentieth century but there has been a statistically significant acceleration since 1880 and 1900 of 0.009 ± 0.003 mm year-2 and 0.009 ± 0.004 mm year-2, respectively. Since the start of the altimeter record in 1993, global average sea level rose at a rate near the upper end of the sea level projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third and Fourth Assessment Reports" Sea level change for 1870-2001, based on tide gauge measurements, from Church J.A. and White N.J. "A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise" Geophys. Res. Lett. 2006; 33: L01602. University of Colorado data are shifted to have the same mean for 1993-2001 as Church and White. The trends were computed for 1870-1920, 1920-1975, 1975-2001 for Church and White data, and 1993 - late January 2011 for University of Colorado data. [Source] As for the recent increases, from Tamino's analysis: "Well well … there seems to be change after all, with both acceleration and deceleration but most recently, acceleration. And by the way, this fit is significant." Tamino also makes this sage observation and calls the 'skeptics' on their game: "And now to the really important part, which is not the math but the physics. Whether sea level showed 20th-century acceleration or not, it’s the century coming up which is of concern. And during this century, we expect acceleration of sea level rise because of physics. Not only will there likely be nonlinear response to thermal expansion of the oceans, when the ice sheets become major contributors to sea level rise, they will dominate the equation. Their impact could be tremendous, it could be sudden, and it could be horrible." Next...
  48. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    Fab! I've dropped a heads up to Info is Beautiful.
  49. An Interactive History of Climate Science
    This is very cool and highly useful for tracking recent research, but I have to wonder about the accuracy of the early tabulations. For instance, Fourier's 1824 paper is listed as 'pro AGW'... but the concept of AGW wasn't even suggested until Arrhenius in 1896. I can sort of see this as 'pro AGW' in that Fourier detected the existence of additional warming which we now call 'the greenhouse effect', but he thought it was most likely due to cosmic rays... which we would now call a 'skeptic' argument. It could be said that Fourier's paper 'supported basic AGW principles' and the things it got wrong were reasonable mistakes at the time (in contrast to arguing cosmic rays NOW)... but it's a fine line. The other thing is that I have to wonder how complete the database is in regards to failed ideas in the early years. There were unquestionably alot of papers on the glacial cycle which suggested all kinds of causes having nothing to do with greenhouse gases. Again, taken a certain way it could be argued that as the AGW theory was not well known (or yet extant) at the time these papers were not 'skeptical' of it per se... but that inherently introduces a paradigm where papers would be classified as 'skeptical' more often as AGW theory became more established. Still, a great resource... and these definitional issues fall away as we get closer to the present and the most up to date science. Indeed, I'd love to be able to exclude years and thus easily see just what 'each side' has put out in the past few years.
  50. The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
    Dikran: If you cared to read the whole Houston and Dean paper, you will realize the analysis is much more than US tide gauges.

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