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skywatcher at 02:09 AM on 30 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
#51 ... and just what proportion of the whole record is 2002 - 2011? When did we start calculating climatic trends on ~9 years of data? 1992 - 1997 looks slower too, yet the overall trend is clearly much larger than your cherry pick. This reminds me of the way in which you can break down the entire 100+ year GISS tmperature record into short (<10 years or so) negative-trending segments, yet the overall trend is still resoundingly upwards. #51 KL and #48 okatiniko: On acceleration. If there is no acceleration, or indeed if there is a 'flattening' of the trend, then why is it that when you plot the GISTEMP temperature data trend from 1981-2000, then plot the temperatue trend from 1981 to 2010, the trend line steepens up? Do this on woodfortrees if you like. Doesn't look awfully much like a 'flattening' or 'decelerating' trend to me. In fact, it looks rather more like an accelerating trend with entirely expected noise. With HADCRUT3, despite it being very much a non-global series, there's also an acceleration, though smaller, and in UAH there is a large acceleration when 'noughties' data is added. I'll second Tom Curtis' comment in #35 - the diversion by KL onto East Antarctica is truly disingenuous - does he really think we should not worry about Greenland and West Antarctica's melt (which will lead to metre-scale sea level rise) just because East Antarctica is currently relatively stable? To Gish Gallop and plant the seeds of misinformation in the unsuspecting readers takes seconds; to debunk even obvious disinformation like #13 takes rather longer. -
KR at 01:45 AM on 30 May 2011If It's Not Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll, what is it? Creativity maybe?
NikFromNYC - Excellent graphic, a rare presentation of the Gish Gallop in visual form. If you're not familiar with the Gish Gallop, it's the spewing of half-truths, inaccuracies, misstatements, etc, hoping to overwhelm any rational response. It's the embodiment of "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull." I spent a few moments looking through the various statements in your poster, and I believe that ~95% could be located in various discussions in Skeptical Science by using the "Search" box. They just don't hold up to a rational point of view. Which isn't terribly surprising, given the emotional approach your poster presents. Perhaps better points of optimism might be reaching the Moon? Or the Peace Corps? The post-WWII support of and economic redevelopment of Europe? -
DSL at 01:39 AM on 30 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Mike, I think you're referring to "post-structuralist" views of language. Postmodernism is, as Fredric Jameson has it, "the cultural logic of late [global] capitalism." While the post-structuralism of the 60s and 70s may have been energized by the general postmodern conditions within the larger middle-class segments of the economy, the slipperiness of the link between signified and signifier has been noted for quite a while. Interestingly, post-modernity is expressed (well, one expression) in the rejection of metanarratives, and some view the scientific method as a metanarrative, one that places the mind exclusively within the material context, contradicting all other bases of "reality." Science is not, however, an individual pathway to reality. Science is socially developed. This makes it resistant to postmodern conditions. I strongly suspect, given Tom's record, that you'll find little postmodernity expressed in his comments. What the postmodern boils down to for Jameson, Baudrillard, even Hutcheon, et al., is that the generation of capital has become the central logos. People in the postmodern condition are willing to do anything--revise and mix up history, treat science as a cafeteria, treat anything and everything as commodity, etc.--in order to accomplish the neverending quest to generate more capital [Hi there, Michaels, Lindzen, Watts, et al.]. -
Tom Curtis at 01:23 AM on 30 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
trunkmonkey @57, Dikran Marsupial's response is more than adequate. However, as a simple matter of logic, with a fluctuating CO2 level as has occurred over deep time, if the the relationship was not reversable, than any doubling of CO2 would bring a small increase in temperature, but halving the CO2 back to the original level would bring not bring temperatures back down to the original level. Over time, CO2 fluctuations would act as a ratchet, and in a fairly short time in geological terms you would have a runaway greenhouse. No climate scientist, however, is that alarmist - and the relationship is fully reversible. -
trunkmonkey at 00:53 AM on 30 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
Tom Curtis @ 43. It is not clear to me that the logarithmic incremental forcing works in reverse. The logarithmic effect is due to crowding, saturation etc.,that only apply for increases. If CO2 is the "relentless ratchet", should it not, like a ratchet, spin freely in reverse? Isn't this the reason in paleo studies CO2 is treated as "feedback only"?Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] The logarithmic relationship applies both for increasing and decreasing CO2, as for decreasing CO2 there is a complementary de-crowding and de-saturation etc. In paleoclimate studies CO2 is primarily treated as a feedback as the only source/sink of CO2 that counts as a forcing is volcanic emissions and changes in geological weathering due to e.g. plate tectonics. Neither of those things have a great deal of effect on climate on the timescales we are normally interested in. -
Riccardo at 00:51 AM on 30 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
The Jason 1 and 2 data taken from the homepage you linked to gives 2.3 mm/yr, not 1.7-2.0 as you say. Be carefull when quoting numbers if you care of being taken seriously. To explain why you drop part of the record with no apparent reason is another story. -
Ken Lambert at 23:56 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
For those who want to check SLR see this link: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ For Jason 1 & 2 - note that 2002-07 half of the smoothed curve is above the 3.1mm/year trend line and the 2007-11 half is below the trend line. Jason 1 & 2 are clearly on a lower slope trend line which is estimated at 1.7-2.0mm/year. -
Ken Lambert at 23:45 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Agnostic #34 "Hansen et al (2011) warn that as a result of anthropogenic emissions and these slow emissions, polar temperature can be expected to more rapidly reduce sea ice and increase Arctic amplification. This is predicted to result in decadal doubling of ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, initiating its eventual collapse and raising sea level by 5m before 2100." The SLR for Jason 1 and 2 is flattening to a global 1.7-2.0mm/year - down fom the official longer term trend of 3.1mm/year - and tide gauges are showing less than 1.7mm/year. Jason 1 & 2 have been in operation since 2002. What could be explanation for this slowing of SLR when CO2GHG forcing and ice melts are supposed to be accelerating? BTW, Hansen has just reduced the warming imbalance from roughly 0.9W/sq.m to 0.6W/sq.m for the 2005-10 period. While his underestimated Aerosols presumably coming from 'unmeasured developing countries' is a feasible explanation, his delyed Pinitubo effect is quite preposterous. His own charts show no forcing from Pinitubo after year 2000. -
okatiniko at 23:39 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
DB, is it correct to say that the trend doesn't show any significant acceleration as well? an average 0.17°C /decade means that we would need 120 years to reach 2°C - is it the correct order of magnitude, or is a significant acceleration term expected, and when is it expected to be measurable ?Response:[DB] Currently the obfuscationists deny that it is warming at all AND that what warming is occurring is natural and less-than-linear in rate. Tamino debunks that last point here and here.
As far as the warming in the pipeline, consider this and this. The thermal inertia of the oceans, coupled with the albedo changes due to the loss of the Northern Hemisphere's refridgeration system (the ongoing loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean) and increasing outgassing of GHG's from melting permafrost & clathrates mean that our descendants will have a rough go of things. Especially if we continue to refuse to do anything about it now, while our actions can still make a difference.
Time remains to have a say in our descendants future, should we demonstrate the collective will to do so. Or not.
Our history we write daily will testify about us rather starkly.
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Charlie A at 23:39 PM on 29 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
Kevin C @51, myself @52 .. Like many things, it is obvious in hindsight. The correct expression for each R(t) coefficient is {exp(-t/tau) - exp(-[t-1]/tau} * step size. The step size in this case is 1 year, so it drops out. Since integral of exp(-x) = exp(-x), the above equation is the area of the response curve for that year. The area of R(t)becomes 1.000 using the above equation for the coefficients, since the sum of the R(t) series becomes exp(-0)-exp(-infinity)=1. This means that the scale factors for the two boxes (0.0434 and 0.0215 in your post #33) will become the equilibrium temp rise for a unit step, i.e. 0.0889 and 0.5440. This revision to the equation might help your optimizer routine, since tau would no longer affect the total equilibrium delta T. -
heystoopid at 22:44 PM on 29 May 2011Climate Change Denial book now available!
Say, I went down to the local shopping centre book store, the lass at the counter was not interested in ordering it in at all, although they had a copy of Naomi Oreskes book "Merchants of Doubt". Interestingly, you have appeared to have severely rattled the cages of Jo Nova, Bob Fernley-Jones and Anthony Watts, who are calling the Robyn Williams interview "The Worst “Cook”book Interview Ever?". Keep up the good work! Since the book store doesn't want my money, I shall be ordering this book on line in due course. -
NikFromNYC at 22:10 PM on 29 May 2011The Climate Show Episode 13: James Hansen and The Critical Decade
James Hansen? Oh that's the 1988 prophet, "the first to ring the bell" which lead to the IPCC! How is his prophecy working out, I wonder? But wait, I thought it was worse than predicted, and then worse still, even though his best case scenario has not been exceeded (not even by GISTEMP). Hmm.... He makes the circular argument that the much higher past T shown in the Greenland ice core didn't matter since mud cores from non polar regions show lesser high past T since warming is "amplified" on top of an ice sheet. But he fails to complete the circle of logic, by rights discounting in kind that current T rise in Greenland must also be "amplified" instead of representative. What he should have said, of course is that mud cores UNDERNEATH THE OCEAN are in fact attenuated due to the massive thermal inertia of the oceans, and the much vaunted Global Average Temperature does not refer to the bottom of the sea but to the air and the top of the sea. He again mentions massive sea level rise that will require a rate 5X as high as what actual sea level rise has been stuck at 3 mm/year (and recently plunging) for decades and tide gauges still show more like 2 mm/year instead ramping up to match the satellite record. And yet I'm in "denial" if I don't believe his prediction of the future? I certainly do deny that his past predictions have shown any competency whatsoever. That NYC where I live two blocks down from Tom's Diner and GISS was to have the West Side Highway next to the Hudson River under water in 20 (later retroactively switched to 40 by the reporter involved) years from 1988, well, wouldn't *that* require that the NYC tide gauge would show some sort of trend change? It doesn't. Have any of you taken the time to actually browse single site tide gauge records to confirm what you would expect, namely that the oldest records that continue to this day, dozens of them, should mostly show a recent upturn in the rate of sea level rise? Good luck hunting for any that do! I think I found one or two, a tiny minority, that did in a literal sea of unwavering trends. Those that show declining trend also show no slower decline, recently. But, never mind, at least you have statistical studies that prove your case even though the input data doesn't support the results.Response:[DB] Thank you for providing a clear example of the non-contextual cherry-picking that "squeptics" typically use to distort & dissemble in their promulgation of their ideology. Your link to "Triple-Point/CO2 Snow" Goddard is revealing as is your focus on single data points to conflate into global trends. Please refrain from the use of all-caps.
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Tom Curtis at 21:56 PM on 29 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
mike williams @42, the reason I refer adversely to your character is quite simple, you have taken my words and misrepresented their content. I am careful with my wording because I am used to that tactic by both evolution deniers and AGW deniers (not to mention various 911 deniers, lunar landing deniers and other kooks I have had the misfortune of encountering on the internet) I stated that the sentence, "The biggest misunderstanding about the tropospheric hot spot is the mistaken notion that it's caused by the greenhouse effect" was poorly phrased because it did not properly express the intended meaning of its author. That intended meaning was "that the tropospheric hotspot is not uniquely caused by the greenhouse effect", as I stated in my 36. And of course, that is true. Therefore the original sentence was poorly phrased, not "wrong" because that would be incorrectly interpreted as an error of belief by the author, where no such error existed. Of course, you wanted that misinterpretation to flourish, hence your post 40. You show the same trolling pattern in your 42 when you bring in the term postmodernism as a rhetorical cudgel (which you incorrectly apply, and misdiagnose). What is more, instead of directing it at my actual response to you, you just choose technical terms at random (and evidently without understanding) to support your rhetorical attack. Plainly, for your, effect is far more important than relevance or cogency. -
Tom Curtis at 21:41 PM on 29 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
mike williams, you have been posing as a fair minded enquirer seeking illumination, but it is quite plain from the tenor of your questions and comments that you are in fact a denier trying various rhetorical gambits. For example, let's take your question about in what other fields is wind shear used as a measure of temperature. Clearly your purpose is to delegitimize the method on the basis that it is not used in any other field (if that is in fact the case). That represents an evasion on your part in that you are avoiding discussion of the physical basis of the method, a ground on which, no doubt you have no ground. So rather than tackling the science where it is strong, you use innuendo. Now, the correct answer to your question is, who cares? It does not matter that variation in the propagation speeds of sound waves is only used to measure the temperature beneath the surface of the sun (if that is in fact the case). What matters is whether temperature affects the propagation speeds of sound waves, and sufficient data can be gathered from this to determine internal temperatures. So, if it happens to be the case that only the sciences of meteorology and climatology use wind shear to measure temperature, so what? If oceanographers do not use wind shear to measure temperature, that is irrelevant to the use of the method. Likewise if metallurgists have also neglected this technique, or geologists. In fact, only sciences which measure wind (of which their are only three) could conceivably use this technique and two of those are so closely related that in this area they are not separate fields. The third science that could conceivably use this technique is astronomy. Whether astronomers ever have or not, well I hardly claim to be up on all the papers in that field, and I doubt many contributors to Skeptical Science are. But it is irrelevant whether they have or not. So, the proper interpretation to the silence that met your question (silence, note - not evasion because there was no response to your initial question at all by anybody), is that nobody cared. Your question was irrelevant. Of course, when you asked it a second time, it was clear what your rhetorical game was. So I provided an answer to the rhetorical point, your unsubtle suggestion that the method was ad hoc. And by the way, the method has been used before, though not in another field. In fact, the method was first used (that I know of) in climatology by that well known champion of AGW denialism, Roger Pielke Snr in 1998. As always, it is not the method deniers really have a problem with - it is the result. -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:20 PM on 29 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
GC@53 If you mean this diagram,
then I rather doubt Hubert Lamb would have approved of anyone in 2011 preferring an essentially qualitative plot based on central England (rather than global) temperatures as a proxy for global paleoclimate, when there is far more global proxy data available now and 30 years more research on paleoclimate.
See Appendix A of P. D. Jones et al., The Holocene 19,1 (2009) pp. 3–49, High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects available here, for details.
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NikFromNYC at 20:57 PM on 29 May 2011If It's Not Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll, what is it? Creativity maybe?
"How would Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix tackle global warming?" By writing songs that point out how oppressive and totalitarian the alarmist movement is. As a person who grew up with The Whole Earth Catalog as my adolescent bible (one that championed Bucky Fuller's anti Malthusian and anti Ehrlickian sense of optimism), as a person inspired to pursue chemistry due to an interest in neurochemistry inspired by having read all of Tim Leary's books, I can tell you that the counter-cultural swing of the 60s was very much anti-state, anti-war and very libertarian. Your whole vibe is however authoritarian, statist and left wing. It is profoundly anti libertarian. I was inspired recently to capture some of this bitter pill flavor in a new poster graphic that I call Authority. Several quotes from your book with Hayden feature in it. Since you are pursing a statist solution to a perceived problem, I suggest looking not at counter examples like the dionysian 60s but to other successful statist youth movements. History has a few to offer. First you need to demonize a perceived enemy.... -=NikFromNYC=- Ph.D. (Columbia/Harvard) -
RyanStarr at 20:48 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Page 9, 'Climate Commission, The Critical Decade', A recent model study comparing the relative importance of various greenhouse gases for the climate estimates a sensitivity of approximately 4 °C for a doubling of CO2 (Lacis et al. 2010). Lacis et al 2010, For the doubled CO2 and the 2% solar irradiance forcings, for which the direct no-feedback responses of the global surface temperature are 1.2° and 1.3°C, respectively, the ~4°C surface warming implies respective feedback factors of 3.3 and 3.0 (5). (5) Hansen et al 1984, Our 3-D global climate model yields a warming of ~4°C for either a 2 percent increase of So or doubled CO2 1984 is recent? -
mike williams at 20:39 PM on 29 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
"As to using wind speed as a measure of temperature, we currently use the following methods to measure temperture:" Thats correct Tom..but as you are more than aware..I was not asking you what other indirect ways do we measure temperature,I was asking you about using wind. My original question was What other fields is wind shear used for measuring temperature.? And you still didnt answer it..I will not bother you on this "sensitive" point anymore Tom.. The answer to my question from the silence and evasion was probably...None.. :) -
mike williams at 20:13 PM on 29 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
mike williams @40, my statement was correct. If you want to replace it with a falsehood for your own rhetorical purposes, it is only informative about your character. Hi Tom... You have to love postmodernism views on science and the meaning of words.. :) "The biggest misunderstanding about the tropospheric hot spot is the mistaken notion that it's caused by the greenhouse effect." Turns into "enhanced greenhouse effect" The IPCC use the term greenhouse effect Tom.. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-1-3.html And there doesnt appear to be a difference between greenhouse effect and enhanced greenhouse effect in their interchanging usage in the IPCC papers either Tom.. As for your strange and slightly juvenile "attack" on my character Tom..I gather you are exempt from the "ad hominem comments will be deleted" policy on the board..or do post modernists have a new interpretation of ad hominem as well as other words. ? : ) As to using wind speed as a measure of temperature, we currently use the following methods to measure temperture: Thanks you very much for those examples Tom..much appreciated. ! You learn something new every day.! "As you have not advanced a single argument against the method beyond your disbelief, that shows us only that you are rejecting the analysis because you dislike the conclusions." I had no belief either way..there are papers for it..there are papers against it..their are scientists for and against.. I was just puzzled about the use of wind for temperature..sorry to express my puzzlement.. :) -
mike williams at 19:55 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
"When preparing for negotiations, you must have a clear idea of what you are prepared to concede..Again in short, we need to take action now or we will not be in a position to comply with any global negotiated agreement." Yes Tom..I understand that...but the elephant in the corner of the room is the comments by the chief climate scientist. Now, as many suspect, the "big polluters" like India/China/Russia/USA etc will never cut back on CO2 emission..and ,,lets face it..unless we spend more money on alternative energy systems..dirty old coal technology will still be powering alot of things in the future. And I assume Australia will still take the moral high ground..but as you and I both know.. but only one of us will admit..if this happens..then our actions are a complete and utter waste of time. Perhaps I have missed something in the media recently. So my two questions are 1/Does a minority of CAGW supporters/enviromentalists etc disagree with Flannerys statements and if so can anyone please point to MSM reports/interviews etc where these views are expressed and on what technical grounds. 2/Will someone in this interesting thread be explaining how a tax on CO2 in Australia will make Australian climate "better" in the future when the other industrial "polluters" dont reduce their own CO2 emissions. Thanks..!!Response:[dana1981] This is seriously off-topic, but China is preparing to implement a carbon cap and trade system, Europe already has one in place, and the US EPA is regulating carbon emissions from large sources (and eventually we'll have a cap and trade system too, once Republicans stop blocking it). Anyway, your argument is Tragedy of the Commons - please take further discussion of the subject to that thread.
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Tom Curtis at 19:25 PM on 29 May 2011Climate Change Denial book now available!
tallbloke @30, your remind me with the denier search for an "honest broker". By that they mean somebody who will largely agree with their talking points, but an honest broker is actually one that tells the truth, no matter how unpalatable. In the global warming debate, it is the Gavin Schmidts of the climate science community who are honest brokers, not the Judith Currys, and most certainly not the McIntyres. In this case what we in fact have is in fact an even handed book, one which distributes praise and damnation based on merit and without regard to person. Unfortunately for the opponents of climate science, that means they cop a lot of criticism in it, as they would in any genuinely even handed book on the climate debate. -
newcrusader at 19:23 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Hansen & Sato feel the sea rise estimates to be a non linear process in their recent research paper 'Paleoclimate Implications for Climate Change..... January 2011 They feel that up to 5 meters is possible by 2095. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf -
Tom Curtis at 19:17 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
mike williams @40, while hoping not to tread on toes for future contributions to this series, let me state the obvious. When preparing for negotiations, you must have a clear idea of what you are prepared to concede, and what is the minimum reasonable position you will accept from other participants. If you have that in mind, then it will restrict your current strategies. It will restrict them because some actions, if taken, will prevent you ever being able to concede what in theory you are prepared to concede; or require of your negotiating partners more than the minimum reasonable position. In short, some actions will guarantee failure of any potential negotiations by changing the facts on the ground to such an extent that no reasonable negotiation can succeed. If you are seriously intent on a negotiated solution to a problem, you will not take actions that preclude a successful negotiated solution. How is that relevant to climate change? Well, by the best available evidence, if humans do not restrict their future emissions to under one trillion tonnes of Carbon, they will face damages from climate change sufficiently severe that the continuation of our civilization (civilization, not species) is in significant doubt. So any serious negotiation must be premised on keeping total emissions under 1 trillion tonnes of carbon. Further, any serious negotiations must also be premised on equitable burdens. That means in the simplest terms equal per capita emissions quotas for all nations. Considered in those terms, we face the unpleasant fact that the US will exceed its "carbon budget" within six years, even with no growth in emissions. Australia will do the same. It is not possible to eliminate US or Australian emissions in 6 years, and nor do they need to do so within a negotiated emissions trading framework. However, to fit within even a negotiated emissions trading solution, we need to be reducing our emissions now. Failure to do so simply is a vote for a "solution" to the problem of global warming that will not save the great barrier reef, or our economy, or (in all probability) our civilization. Again in short, we need to take action now or we will not be in a position to comply with any global negotiated agreement. Put another way, if we don't take action now, you can be very sure that any negotiated agreement that is signed when the world's leaders finally become desperate enough to take proper action will include the requirement to buy emissions permits retrospectively for our emissions now. The fundamental equation is this - the longer you wait to take action, the more expensive it will be to take adequate action. Waiting for negotiations to succeed will not save us one iota of that cost. But acting early may well help get an earlier negotiated agreement. -
newcrusader at 19:14 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
What I feel some here are implying, is that the event of 1944 proves that the arctic melt minimum of 2007, but also the ice losses in 2008, 2010 where not unusual- which is basically saying that what has happened the last 6 years is nothing to be concerned about and there is no danger from CO2 and its GHG warming. Denialists? Likely. -
tallbloke at 19:12 PM on 29 May 2011Climate Change Denial book now available!
"would be surprised if the person offering the negative review has even read the book in its entirety." " I added my review (having read most of the book). Definitely worth 5 stars!" Clearly, people form opinions of books without reading them in their entirety. However, the negative reviewer makes statements which (s)he couldn't be certain of without doing so. I think (s)he misses the point though. Why would (s)he expect a book with this title and cover to be a middle of the road, even handed review? -
Tsumetai at 17:54 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
According to my Data UAH shows a warming trend of +0.0174 degrees per year for the last decade (2000-2010), RSS shows a warming trend of +0.009 degrees per year for this same period. GISS shows a warming trend of +0.015 degrees per year for the last decade. Oddly, the CRU (the ones the Contrarians accuse of "doctoring" climate data) show only a +0.005 degree warming per year for 2000-2010.
I'd imagine the error bars on each of those encompass the point estimate for the trend over the previous 20-30 years, too.Response:[DB] Certainly, one could imagine it. But that would be unnecessary, as the actual analysis has already been done:
Note the error bars do not include zero in either dataset until 2001; thus, the warming since 2000 is statististically significant.
And remember that the Aughts (the decade 2001-2010) were the warmest in the instrumental record, with 2010 being tied for the warmest year on record. So, one can safely say that GW is carrying on its busy, obeying-the-laws-of-physics way, blissfully ignorant to the dissembling of those who would have us debate the existence of gravity.
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Tom Curtis at 16:49 PM on 29 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
mike williams @40, my statement was correct. If you want to replace it with a falsehood for your own rhetorical purposes, it is only informative about your character. As to using wind speed as a measure of temperature, we currently use the following methods to measure temperture: a) the expansion of metals in glass tubes; b) the differential expansion of different metals; c) the change of plasticity in waxs and other compounds; d) the change in colour of waxes; e) the change in conductivity of metals; f) the colour of light from a source; and g) the change in the velocity of sound. Those methods are just the ones that come immediately to mind, and I am sure they are not exhaustive. Apparently you cannot recognise the use of wind shear data as a valid means of measuring temperature. As you have not advanced a single argument against the method beyond your disbelief, that shows us only that you are rejecting the analysis because you dislike the conclusions. -
mike williams at 16:43 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
"In Parts 2 and 3 we will examine the report's chapters on risks associated with climate change and implications of the science for emissions reductions." Should be interesting..will you be explaining how a tax on CO2 in Australia will make Australian climate "better" in the future when the other industrial "polluters" dont reduce their own CO2 emissions. Flannery: Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly. Quote"It's also important to note that uncertainties can go either way, and the consequences of climate change are just as likely to be more damaging than we expect as less. Uncertainty is not our friend." Translated..it might not be as bad as 99% of the stories in the media portray.. I am not sure why a lot of the posters on this excellent site really worry so much about the science being misrepresented or not.. We are getting a CO2 tax..which is exactly what you all wanted..!! We will probably get emissions trading..which is exactly what you wanted right.? The majority of the media never question any statement by anyone rightly or wrongly trying to link absolutely anything on earth to Human created CO2..which is exactly what you want right..? And..who could have predicted the Orwellian term "Minister for Climate Change"..ever being created..You must be happy with that as well. ?? And last but not least..all the political parties support CAGW..at different extremes of course.. CAGW...has won.!! Relax.. : )Response:[DB] "Translated..it might not be as bad as 99% of the stories in the media portray.."
Further translated: It might be worse.
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mike williams at 16:18 PM on 29 May 2011How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
Tom Curtis at 13:51 PM on 24 May, 2011 mike williams @34, the sentence you quote is poorly phrased. As the current warming is predominantly due to the enhanced greenhouse effect, any tropospheric hotspot observed will also be due to that enhanced greenhouse effect. Thanks Tom..perhaps it should be.."the sentence you quote is wrong". : ) I still dont understand if using "..indirect calculations of temperature based trends in the vertical differential in zonal wind acceleration from radiosonde measurements." is using a novel/ad hoc ? method for measuring temperature. When I asked what other areas of science use methods like this no one replied..so i will stay confused. Regarding John Cook`s statement "It fails to explain how we can have short-term positive feedback and long-term negative feedback",, Thanks for that, it rare to see the term "negative feedback" mentioned in the msm. -
Tom Curtis at 16:03 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Camburn @38, in its 1944 voyage, the St Roch sailed north of Victoria Island and South of Banks Island, as shown here. As you can see on the following map, in 2007 it was clearly possible to follow a route north of Banks Island:
The route north of Banks Island was also ice free in 2010, though not in 2008 and 2009:
In contrast, the even the St Roch's more southerly 1944 rout was not entirely ice free.
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scaddenp at 15:21 PM on 29 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
No GC - history also show MCA occurring at different times in different places in agreement with paleoclimate reconstructions. History shows it was cold globally, especially in NH, also in agreement with paleoclimate. Where is problem there? No denial of history at all. What you falsely claim is that models cant reproduce this. I just showed you that they can. Any of them on that diagram. Still think TV trumps science? The gist of your argument I guess was that if models couldnt reproduce historical climate then there is some deep mysterious forcing at work that is miraculously going to save us. However, not so, when you have a global picture which show that you can reproduce it all from known forcings. That is not to say that there might not be something that somehow eludes our measuring systems but that is hope in the face of data. By MBH 1998 and related, can I take it you mean all paleoclimate reconstructions done since then by all groups? with all sorts of proxies. You seriously think that is a realistic position that we should respect? -
Camburn at 14:57 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
JMurphy@24: The passage that the St Roch sailed has not been sailed since. The ships are so far using the southern route in the NWP. The northern route that the St Roch sailed is still closed. I can once again only suggest that you contact the museum in Vancouver to get the book that has the logs of Capt Larson in them. I have asked for permission to post them online, but so far it has not been granted. -
Camburn at 14:55 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Tom: From your quote on the link embedded: "This evidence clearly supports the view that ice loss from West Antarctica significantly excedes that from East Antarctica, but is ambiguous about whether East Antarctica is loosing ice. On balance, it is probably loosing ice, but the GRACE experiment may well be overestimating the rate of loss" When you read current literature about East Antarctica, no one is claiming that it is loosing ice. They all admit, as you do, that there is no trend plus or minus. -
Marcus at 14:52 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Ken Lambert. According to my Data UAH shows a warming trend of +0.0174 degrees per year for the last decade (2000-2010), RSS shows a warming trend of +0.009 degrees per year for this same period. GISS shows a warming trend of +0.015 degrees per year for the last decade. Oddly, the CRU (the ones the Contrarians accuse of "doctoring" climate data) show only a +0.005 degree warming per year for 2000-2010. Either way, there is *no* real flattening of the warming trend-especially when you take into account the decade of deep solar minimum that we've been through. Also, why were 8 of the 10 hottest years in this decade, if the warming trend had leveled off? -
Tom Curtis at 14:48 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Ken Lambert @13 pt 4 As discussed here, the balance of evidence suggests that East Antarctica is loosing ice, though at a slower rate. Even if it was not loosing ice, however, one wonders at the relevance of a specific mention. The volume of ice from just Greenland and West Antarctica is more than sufficient to drive sea levels many meters higher, and projected accelerations of the rate of loss in these two regions are sufficient to drive sea level gains of from 1 to 2 meters in the coming century, with potential but contentious rises as high as 6 meters. Given these facts, is it really so urgent to advise the Australian public that East Antarctica is not expected to contribute significantly to the deluge for another century or so? (On a side note, you will note the difference in word count between a rebutall of Lamert's inane suggestion and that needed to make it. It is that difference which makes his post a clear Gish gallop.) -
Riduna at 14:37 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Apart from the point raised by boba 10960, I have only one minor quibble with this informative article, which states … “humans are causing dangerous global warming”. I would argue that the past tense would be more accurate …”humans have caused” or … “humans continue causing dangerous global warming”. Humans have now emitted sufficient greenhouse gases to initiate methane emissions from onshore permafrost and offshore clathrates, both entering the atmosphere as CH4. Those emissions were 4 and 8 tonnes per annum in 2005 and neither the melting of ice or the magnitude of their release is going to decrease. Both are predicted to increase –Shakhova et al (2010). Hansen et al (2011) warn that as a result of anthropogenic emissions and these slow emissions, polar temperature can be expected to more rapidly reduce sea ice and increase Arctic amplification. This is predicted to result in decadal doubling of ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, initiating its eventual collapse and raising sea level by 5m before 2100. Hansen goes further. He expresses the view that as ocean warming continues it will result in them releasing CO2 and those releases increasing in magnitude such that the net ability of oceans to absorb CO2 reduces. It should be noted that this outcome is expected to occur during a period when human emission of greenhouse gases can be expected to increase. It seems to me that these developments provide sufficient pointers to the fact that humans have been causing dangerous global warming for well over a decade and are continuing to do so, irrespective of consequences which are dire indeed! -
Tom Curtis at 14:36 PM on 29 May 2011Antarctica is gaining ice
Following up on posts by Camburn here, the most recent paper on Antarctic Ice Mass Balance I can find is Rignot et al 2011, published in March of this year. It finds:"In 2006, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets experienced a combined mass loss of 475 ± 158 Gt/yr, equivalent to 1.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr sea level rise. Notably, the acceleration in ice sheet loss over the last 18 years was 21.9 ± 1 Gt/yr2 for Greenland and 14.5 ± 2 Gt/yr2 for Antarctica, for a combined total of 36.3 ± 2 Gt/yr2. This acceleration is 3 times larger than for mountain glaciers and ice caps (12 ± 6 Gt/yr2). If this trend continues, ice sheets will be the dominant contributor to sea level rise in the 21st century."
It does not distinguish between ice lost from West or East Antarctica. The most recent article I found that does distinguish between them is a review article by Cazenave and Llovel (2010) which finds the majority of the ice loss on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with East Antarctica being found to be "in near balance". The most recent GRACE data I can find is from Chen et al (2009) which finds:"In agreement with an independent earlier assessment, we estimate a total loss of 190 +/-77 Gt yr^1, with 132 +/-26 Gt yr^1 coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of 57 +/-52 Gt yr^1, apparently caused by increased ice loss since the year 2006."
This evidence clearly supports the view that ice loss from West Antarctica significantly excedes that from East Antarctica, but is ambiguous about whether East Antarctica is loosing ice. On balance, it is probably loosing ice, but the GRACE experiment may well be overestimating the rate of loss. -
gallopingcamel at 14:06 PM on 29 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
scaddenp @49, You should be aware that AR1 included a paleo temperature reconstruction that Hubert Lang would have approved. The TAR showed an entirely different paleo reconstruction based on MBH 1998. In this analysis the MWP disappeared and the LIA was just a gentle dip in temperature. It was really easy for the climate models to create hindcasts that agreed with the TAR reconstruction as the temperature from 1000 A.D. to 1850 was shown as a gently falling straight line. What I am trying to tell you is that the TAR and subsequent IPCC publications demand that you ignore history. [snip] History Rools!Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Moderator trolling snipped. -
Camburn at 13:53 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
More on Black Carbon; http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.119-a172 As I have stated before, I am very keen on seeing particulate pollution reduced as the health benifits are without question. -
Camburn at 13:40 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Tom Curtis @27: I must be getting either older or tired. Here is a link to the effects of black carbon etc on Arctic temps: It was Shindell, not Lindell. That is the reason both of us had such a hard time finding it. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html -
Camburn at 12:55 PM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Tom Curtis @ 27: It was published in science, the paper by Schmidt/Lindell. I will see if I can find a link. As far as East Antarctica, where over 90% of the worlds ice is, there is no conclusive evidence that the ice in increasing, nor is there evidence that the ice is decreasing. It appears to be static at this time.Response:[DB] Please take further discussion of this to the Antarctica Is Gaining Ice thread.
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SoundOff at 12:02 PM on 29 May 2011Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1A. A Primer on how to measure surface temperature change
Glenn, will you be addressing in a later part why station numbers might change? For example, in the GHCN the Toronto Canada temperature station has one of the longest records of both max & min temperatures in the world so it’s a good one for certain analyses. But it had Station ID CA006158350 from 1840 to mid 2003 and then temperature reporting ceased (though precipitation records continue until now). There’s a gap of a few months and then from 2004 to present Toronto temperatures are reported as Station ID CA006158355 instead. The latitude, longitude & altitude are identical for both Station IDs. Major instrument changes maybe? This complicates getting the full data set. -
scaddenp at 11:54 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Camburn, the paper you are looking for is Chen 2009. There is some small ice loss in East Antarctica but as everyone points out, the is net ice loss for all of Antarctica and it appears to be accelerating. -
Bern at 11:20 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Ken Lambert: here's an SkS post from a year and a half ago that suggests that the East Antarctic Icesheet is now losing mass. I'd say, though, that more data is needed over a longer timeframe to definitively answer that question. I'd suggest the "Antarctica is gaining ice" thread is the appropriate place to discuss this, though. -
Tom Curtis at 11:07 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Ken Lambert @26, yes cherry picking because you continue to insist or reporting only the recent short term trend when the duration of that trend is no where near long enough to determine if it is a genuine change in the long term trend, or merely a short term fluctuation. Labelling of the various denier cherry picks and gish gallops as cherry picks and gish gallops may have become uncomfortably frequent, but the solution lies entirely in denier hands. Stop producing them and we will no longer have to call you on it. -
Tom Curtis at 11:03 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Camburn @18, can you provide a clearer reference to Schmidt Lindall et al. I can find no relevant paper from them in a search of google scholar. What I did find was a paper by Screen and Simmonds (2010), who write:"Here we show that the Arctic warming is strongest at the surface during most of the year and is primarily consistent with reductions in sea ice cover. Changes in cloud cover, in contrast, have not contributed strongly to recent warming. Increases in atmospheric water vapour content, partly in response to reduced sea ice cover, may have enhanced warming in the lower part of the atmosphere during summer and early autumn. We conclude that diminishing sea ice has had a leading role in recent Arctic temperature amplification. The findings reinforce suggestions that strong positive ice–temperature feedbacks have emerged in the Arctic, increasing the chances of further rapid warming and sea ice loss, and will probably affect polar ecosystems, ice-sheet mass balance and human activities in the Arctic."
(My emphasis) Black carbon is, it appears, hardly worth a mention in the Arctic. That is not surprising given the large distance to the primary sources (India, China) and the low residence time in the atmosphere of black carbon. -
Ken Lambert at 10:23 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
"[dana1981] I don't have the time to respond to this entire Gish Gallop, but you're cherrypicking. The last 30 years includes the last 10 years." I was responding to the "main points" of the report in your original post. So that is a cherry pick? Labelling uncomfortable facts 'gish gallops' and 'cherry picks' is becoming a devalued currency on this site.Response:[dana1981] Pulling 10 years out of the 30 year period being evaluated is pretty much the definition of a cherrypick.
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Ken Lambert at 10:11 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Southwing #15 #20 I pointed out that the report highlighted the Greenland and West Antarctic ice loss without mentioning the majority of the planet's ice in East Antarctica. An AGW cherry pick par excellence I would have thought. Last time I looked, East Antarctica was neutral or slightly increasing ice mass, and the overall Antarctic was a slight loss (Camburn might correct me on this if I am not right up to date). This overall loss equates to a 0.12mm contribution to the global SLR which is officially 3.1mm/year, but Jason 1 and 2 show 1.7-2.0 mm/year. Global tide gauges are showing even less than this. Overall global ice melt is very small contribution to the net global energy imbalance even when Hansen's smaller imbalance is taken into account. -
JMurphy at 09:57 AM on 29 May 2011The Critical Decade - Part 1: The Science
Anyone who really wants to know the facts about crossings of the Northwest passage (as Tom Curtis has noted), can easily discover the truth and will notice the difference between previous trips and those that are currently undertaken : In 1944, St. Roch returned to Vancouver via the more northerly route of the Northwest Passage, making her run in 86 days. The RCMP ship was the 104-foot, schooner-rigged St. Roch, which was specially built for resisting the crushing pressures of sea ice that would destroy her. Although the return trip to Vancouver presented certain navigational difficulties, these were far less life-threatening than the ones encountered on the more southerly route. It took only 86 days to sail from Halifax to Vancouver. The route taken, through Parry Channel, and then Prince of Wales Strait at its western end, will most certainly be the one first used by commercial shipping as global warming accelerates the thinning of the Arctic ice cover. 1st commercial ship sails through Northwest Passage. Rayes, who was on the vessel during its trip through the Northwest Passage, said the company informed the coast guard, which put an icebreaker on standby. "They were ready to be there for us if we called them, but I didn't see one cube of ice," he said. "They were informed about our presence [and] they were ready to give us the support needed. However, since there was no ice whatsoever, the service was not needed, we didn't call for it." In 2009 sea ice conditions were such that at least nine small vessels and two cruise ships completed the transit of the Northwest Passage. On 28 August 2010, Bear Grylls and a team of 5 were the first rigid inflatable boat (RIB) to complete the North West Passage [in 11 days]. -
Charlie A at 09:38 AM on 29 May 2011Can we trust climate models?
Re Kevin C #51. Glad to see we get the same results. I used the RadF.txt file from the same page as your NetF.txt file. It has the radiative forcing components broken out separately. The sum of forcings differs from your file by 0.0001 W/m2 here and there from roundoff errors. No real effect. It is interesting to compare this dataset of forcings with the ones in Hansen et al 2011 white paper. The ones used for the 1800-2003 AR4 simulations flatlined the aerosols at the 1990 levels. The Hansen whitepaper sets the sum of forcings from aerosols to be exactly -0.5 time the sum of wmGHG forcings. I'm still looking for a copy of the latest forcings from GISS, but lacking that, I'll just estimate them from the Hansen paper. ------------------------ One other thing to consider in your model is the effect of doing annual steps rather than continuous integration. A reasonable argument can be made for replacing your R(t) = 0.0434*exp(-t/1.493) + 0.0215*exp(-t/24.8) with R(t) = 0.06066*exp([-t+0.5]/1.493) + 0.02194*exp(-[t+0.5]/24.8) Where the time constant is long compared to the step (as in the 24.8 year exponential decay) the annual steps are reasonable approximation of exponential decay. But for the 1.493 year time constant, having the first coefficient of R(t) be a 1.0 isn't as good of an approximation as having the 1st coefficient be the value of R(t) at the midpoint of the year. Another way of looking at this 2 box model is that the forcings are passed through an exponential filter. The sum of the 1st 250 coefficients is 25.3023 for the 24.8 year filter, and 2.0484 for the 1.493 filter. For a continuous exponential filter, the area under the weighting curve is simply the tau. The discrete version is only 2% high for the long filter, but is 37% high for the short one. Shifting R(t) over 1/2 year makes the sum of coefficients 24.7973 and 1.46545 -- essentially equal to tau for the long filter and about 2% low for the fast one. Replacing your 0.0434 weighting factor for the short filter with 0.06066 compensates for the change in sum of filter coefficients. I haven't done the calculations, but I'm pretty sure that moving from annual to monthly calculations won't change the optimization as much if you start with R(t+0.5)as the estimate for annual response. The sum of coefficients makes for an easy test on the equilibrium sensitivity: 0.0434*2.0484 + 0.0215*25.3023 = 0.6329 C step response from 1 watt m-2. So if CO2 doubling is 3.7W m-2, the doubling sensitivity will simply be 0.6329*3.7= 2.3 C/doubling of CO2. ------------------------------------------------ Next on my agenda is to look at the correlations between various models and global anomaly time series, and then see what happens when different forcing sets are used with my emulations of the various AOGCMs. Some prelim data is that my ultra simple model using just one exponential, approximated by 6 coefficient terms, has R of 0.99 or R-squared of 0.98 with the GISS-E model. GISS-E model to GISS observed Global-Average-Temperature-Anomalies is only 0.76 r-squared. Your parameters do better than GISS with r-squared of 0.82. If the GISS observed GATA was filtered a bit, I'm pretty sure your model will come out even better in comparison to GISS-E AOGCM. IPCC suggested a 5 point filter with coefficents of 1-3-4-3-1 to reduce the year-to-year and El Nino timeframe variation. It still leaves most of the decadal variation.
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