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Comments 84951 to 85000:

84951. MattJ at 06:21 AM on 25 May 2011
       Monthly Climate Summary: April 2011
       I am glad this issue points out the danger of 'fracking'. It has, after all, been far too easy for the industry to sweep the problems under the rug, taking advantage of the political climate to make a quick buck -- at great expense to our descendants. The fallacy they use to promote this folly is familiar, too. Of course, the industry response fits the pattern of dishonesty some of us have learned to expect from them, the dishonesty Darrell Huff described so brilliantly in "How to Lie with Statistics". What pattern is that? Why, exactly what industry spokesman Ingraffea did, casting doubt on the conclusion NOT because there is real room for doubt, but because it is inconvenient/embarrassing for the industry. And yes, this is the pattern: emphasize/repeat doubt when the conclusion is not favorable to you, explain it away, distract from the doubt when the conclusion IS favorablle to you. Duff provided a memorable example, the cashier who always claims an innocent mistake, but always makes the mistakes in his own favor.
84952. Paul D at 06:08 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       BTW Mr Cadbury@6, the article is about climate models, so I suggest that before the moderator starts deleting comments, you get back on subject.
       Response:

       [DB] Agreed.  Jay is making an extrapolatory leap from 2+2=4 to calculus.  Do not pass go, doesn't parse, that dog doesn't hunt, etc.

84953. Paul D at 06:07 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       Mr Cadbury@6 Is conducting a massive global experiment to alter climate on top of an existing global climate experiment (AGW) wise? Considering that humanity usually gets things badly wrong with any experiment with nature, I don't think adding another one is appropriate.
84954. Chris G at 05:44 AM on 25 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Thanks, all. Sadly, it would seem that there is little money to be made in saving the planet. (Reading that bit about fossil fuel interests cowing CNN was disheartening. DSL, yeah, I guess Mel sells more copy than a town in the US Midwest, which happens to be near me. Who really cares about Mel's, or Tiger's escapades or how many kids Kate has. CNN let go all of it's science staff some time ago; I've lost interest in watching it since then.) Scientists get paid to do research, and reporters get paid to sell stories. IMHO, the reporters and the scientists are not at fault any more than industrial society at large. Poor education is a problem, but it always has been. That doesn't really matter; in the end, humans are not thinking creatures that feel, we are feeling creatures that think. Denial is a powerful psychological tool for dealing with difficult situations; it enables a soldier to charge into battle and in general, enables us to carry on with life when bad things happen around us. Collectively though, it is preventing action when action is needed. There is a minority of people with vision that can see the climate change catastrophe coming and do something about it, but my guess is that the majority just want to carry on with their lives. They won't buy news stories telling them things they don't want to hear until something bad happens to them personally. Unfortunately, by then, we will all be committed to worse. I don't know what can be done except to continue to talk to those that will listen, and try to relate the change to something that they care about. Honestly, I don't know that most people in industrialised nations care about polar bears or the millions in Bangladesh. Food supply and national security issues sometimes strike a cord. Something in our ancestry must predispose us to worry about food and security. :-/
84955. dana1981 at 05:44 AM on 25 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #2: Green Jobs
       I disagree about jobs being a non-issue, because you have to get public support to make renewable energy investments happen on large scales. If the public thinks investments in these projects kills jobs, they will get much less support. If people realize it will modestly increase employment, they'll be much more likely to support it. If it were a non-issue, then guys like Carter wouldn't make this (wrong) argument to begin with.
84956. Eric the Red at 04:39 AM on 25 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Badgersouth, I do not think the environmental movement has dropped anything with regards to global warming issues. Personally, I think the past two cold, snowy winters have made an impression. People are fickle, have short memories, and react instinctively. During the next major heat wave the issue will be front and center.
84957. Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 03:57 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       This business about the aerosols, if what Hansen is saying is true and the cooling effect of aerosols is being underestimated, doesn't this prove that we can simply geo engineer our way out of the problem?
       Response:

       [DB] "...doesn't this prove that we can simply geo engineer our way out of the problem?"

       Umm, nottasomucha.  There is a logical disconnect in your thinking.  Discussing hypotheticals and theoreticals based on not-yet-published works is pretty off topic for this thread "Can We Trust Climate Models?"

84958. Paul D at 03:42 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       "A Climate Modelling Primer" by McGuffie and Henderson-Sellers is quite a good book on the subject. Goes through the historical development of climate models and covers some detail. Having said that, it is a bit over the top if you only want a basic understanding.
84959. Eric the Red at 03:36 AM on 25 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #2: Green Jobs
       I agree with Paul. Employment may rise as construction commences (per CB above), but is really a non-issue in the green scheme of things.
84960. John Hartz at 03:30 AM on 25 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       There's another dimension to the issue -- the role of envornmental organizations in communicating the "urgency of now." This dimension is addressed head-on in "Americans Tuning Out Climate Change", a well-written and informative article by D.R. Tucker posted on FrumForum (May 22). "According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans are less concerned about climate change than in the past. Has the environmental movement dropped the ball on keeping the issue in the public eye?" http://www.frumforum.com/americans-tuning-out-climate-change
84961. Paul D at 02:13 AM on 25 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #2: Green Jobs
       Creating jobs is always going to be a short term vote winning issue and I don't know of any period in history where there has been stability in jobs for longer than a decade or a few decades. That is really short termism in the grand scale of things but is a plus point in votes if you can claim jobs are going to go up for a few years. Really jobs shouldn't be an issue, we all have to work and do our thing for the community in order to deserve a roof, heat and food. Whether renewables or fossil fuels are involved isn't important regarding basic duties and work. People are generally resourceful over long time scales, so despite short term losses in employment, always find other work to occupy themselves given the right positive attitude and more importantly education. Hence the real issue is climate and the environment, what impact renewables or fossil fuels have on that. Clearly renewables are designed to environmentally sustainable as much as is possible and are being improved continuously.
84962. dana1981 at 02:05 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       That model evolution figure is very cool. I hadn't seen that before.
84963. michael sweet at 01:58 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       It is also important to remember that models can underestimate problems as well as overstate the case. In the reverence you cited they state in the abstract that sea level rise has been faster than estimated in 2000. The sea ice in the Arctic is also melting much faster than expected. Does anyone have similar examples where change is happening slower than expected?
84964. Tom Curtis at 01:45 AM on 25 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming
       jonicol @42, I am not going to wander of topic so far as to debunk kinninmonth's various presentations, nor your argument here. I will, however, suggest that you present your argument on the thread about the saturation of the Green house effect where it is probably on topic. Take care to read the advanced version of the article and relate your discussion to that article. I suspect that if you just post a screed again without relating it to the appropriate article it will once again (and rightly) be considered off topic. When you relate your argument to the article, please take care to explain why your result is so different from that obtained by Line by Line models using exactly the same physical laws that you appeal to. Also explain why we should accept your approximate calculation based on energy transfers at just two levels of the atmosphere over detailed calculations over multiple levels of the atmosphere that ensure conservation of energy between each level, and account for all energy transfers between levels. I find your claims about Australian climatologists frankly incredible (ie, unable to be believed). I believe you have either misunderstood their communication with you, misrepresented it, or have simply been fobbed of.
84965. Berényi Péter at 01:37 AM on 25 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
       #131 Ken Lambert at 23:41 PM on 24 May, 2011 Squirting heat from vents driectly into bottom water and conduction from a warm immersed bottom would be much more efficent heat transfer mechanisms than radiant heating of the surface. Yes, its role is discribed by the following paper in some detail. Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, 2001, 106, (C12), 31141-31154. doi:10.1029/2000JC000532 Geothermal Heating and its Influence on the Meridional Overturning Circulation Jeffery R. Scott, Jochem Marotzke & Alistair Adcroft Anyway, the upshot is that in order to keep MOC moving, heat has to get into the abyss by whatever means, including geothermal flux at the bottom and deep turbulent mixing at boundaries driven either by wind stress or tidal forces. However, the net heat storage resulting from this flow is very small, because there is a feedback loop that readily removes (or resupplies) most of this heat again by feeding in just the necessary amount of very cold polar water. Journal of Climate, 2011 ISSN 0894-8755. On the linkage between Antarctic surface-water stratification and global deepwater temperature Ralph F. Keeling & Martin Visbeck This loop is not controlled by average surface temperature, but by the coldest surface water temperatures available, which in turn are fully determined by physical properties of water/ice (at least as long as there is sea ice anywhere on the globe). The bulk of oceans is a polar thing, even in the tropics, warmth is only a thin top layer. Average temperature of seawater is close to 3°C while about 57% of it is below 2°C. This is how we know we are still in an ice age. In the good old days when there was no sea ice, deep water temperatures exceeded 20°C (as it is the case with present day Red Sea).
84966. Eric the Red at 01:31 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       Kevin, Much has been written in the blogosphere recenty about aerosols, probably a result of Hansen's recent paper. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110415_EnergyImbalancePaper.pdf Hansen surmised that we have been underestimated the cooling effect of aerosols, and thereby overestimating the rate of heat uptake by the oceans, suggesting that the models need to be adjusted. His latest aerosol forcing is about half the GHG forcing, but with a rather large uncertainty. In fact, he states that many climate models only use the direct aerosol forcing, and ignore the indirect forcing which may be twice as much.
84967. Tom Curtis at 01:21 AM on 25 May 2011
       Temp record is unreliable
       giniajim @177, yes! Go to each separate national meteorological agency that supplied the data to either the Hadley Center/CRU or NOAA and purchase the data of each such agency, or arrange access to the data on a research basis. That is what has been done by each of the major global temperature indices, and each is bound by contract to not release the individual data, which remains the commercial property of the particular national meteorological agency that supplied it. You may want to note, however, that every independent attempt to determine the mean global temperature, whether based on thermometer or satellite data, has come up with effectively the same trend, including Muller's BEST project, and most recently (for US data only) Anthony Watt's team. The chance of finding significant error, therefore, seems remote.
84968. DSL at 01:14 AM on 25 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       RobH: Ugh. Bad logic. All humanities graduates are not journalists. Indeed, few are. I work in the humanities, and I've encountered probably five students in the last five years who aren't concerned about/don't believe the warming planet. Many of the students who are concerned couldn't explain the physics of radiative transfer (they'd think that GHGs "trap" "heat" rather than lengthening the path of OLR), but then 95% of the students in general at my university couldn't explain the physics, and this is a highly-selective university. "You wouldn't believe the naive bloopers that come out on public and commercial radio from the mouths of out arts graduated journalists - the newspapers are just as bad." I would believe, but you wouldn't believe how many smart journalism graduates I know who don't have jobs in journalism. Question: does Fox News hire the best journalists? Does CNN? Do the major media outlets publish the best in investigative journalism? Was CNN focused on Mel Bloody Gibson the other night while a massive tornado mowed down Joplin, MO (USA)? Media owners, their editors, and their managers are much more to blame than even their selected journalists for what gets published and what gets hyped. "Sadly, 90% of Australians, probably better educated than the US lot, aren't that interested in science to tune in." Everyone in the U.S. is interested in science, but many are only to the extent that either A) the results coincide with their existing beliefs, B) the results are sensational but not threatening (robots connected to Facebook but not robots that take your job), or C) the results can be used to generate profit. No one wants to hear that their way of life is responsible for the destruction of their way of life. For most people, science is an explanation for things that already are or have been. Science cannot explain to people what those people have not yet experienced. These people will have to experience global warming. After all, how much energy and time does it take to convince people that a particular God exists? Even after 15-20 years of daily teaching during the most impressionable time, there is still doubt--and often rejection. Why? No direct evidence/experience for the theory, and plenty of evidence/experience against. My lower middle-class, hard-working mother-in-law, when confronted with the idea of a warmer future, will say "it doesn't feel warmer to me." No evidence. We can teach students to think critically about the information they encounter--teach them to understand the experience and evidence of others--, but we can't teach them to have the time to process the information to the degree that it needs to be processed over the course of their lives (and certainly my mother-in-law does not have the time to explore the evidential basis of AGW). For the past fifty years and for the foreseeable future, people have had to--and will have to--choose how to spend their time thinking about the world. The complexity of the modern world descends upon us like a giant blanket, threatening to suffocate, and we flop about trying to find an edge--some place to catch a breath and make sense out of things. If we had enough leisure time to engage in lifelong education, we would, but we don't. Most of the people in this world at this time are trying to keep jobs within an economic mode that only demands more and more of their time and energy. Are they stupid? When time becomes available, basic de-stressing is needed (not heaping more stress by trying to find out where the world is headed). The people who do regularly have the time (including students, business owners, well-paid managers, and professional educators (excepting K-12)) are mostly dependent in a variety of ways on the people who don't have the time, and so they, the former, are interested in keeping the latter in their current positions. Solution: fundamental change. Probability that solution will be self-authorized: .01%. Probability that solution will be forced: 99.99%. Percentage of people who will kick and scream in resistance to the change: 25%. Percentage of current world wealth these people control: 95%. By the way, I'd love to see an analysis of the economic positions of the people who post to the major climate blogs. Ugh. Huge post.
84969. Eric the Red at 01:11 AM on 25 May 2011
       UQ Physics Colloquium this Friday: Communicating Climate Science and Countering Disinformation
       Well, I guess we just have to disagree on the validity of the survey, and yes the actual spelling is Yooper, sometimes abbreviated as UPer. It was not meant to be taken seriously anyway.
       Response: [JC] Let's not forget there are two separate surveys using completely different methodologies, both finding a 97% consensus. The Doran et al 2009 interview directly asks Earth scientists "are humans significantly changing global temperature?" The Anderegg et al 2010 survey examines publicly signed declarations by climate scientists to see whether then agree with the tenets of AGW. Two independent approaches arriving at the same conclusion.
84970. giniajim at 01:07 AM on 25 May 2011
       Temp record is unreliable
       Does anyone understand how to get to the raw data (i.e. the actual individual temperature measurements)? All I can find on line is various averages.
84971. adelady at 01:04 AM on 25 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Eric, the big problem for relating climate events in Australia to climate change lies with the concept expressed so neatly in a famous poem, the land of "droughts and flooding rains". The simple fact is that we've had much, much more of both than historical averages. Lake Eyre has filled 3 years in a row, that's unheard of. The first time it filled there were huge contingents of people who went to see the water and the wildlife because they never expected to see it again in their lifetimes. Now it's almost expected as an annual event. As for smarts. Just try getting people to explain why we have seasons. There's a very good reason why old-fashioned classrooms had a globe on the shelf. It's not just for the geography of the continents. It's a constant image of axial tilt. Add atmosphere and hey, presto! we have a liveable climate with identifiable growing seasons in the temperate zones and a couple of nice neat icecaps at the poles to provide much needed albedo.
84972. Kevin C at 00:30 AM on 25 May 2011
       Can we trust climate models?
       Is it worth reiterating at this point that you don't need a climate model if you just want to compute future temperature trends? All you need is an energy balance calculation or some kind of empirical model of it. Hansen point this out here, and numerous bloggers (including Tamino, Arthur Smith and Lucia) have reproduced the empirical calculation. The 20th century climate is enough to determine the parameters of the system (although not the climate sensitivity, which requires longer timescales but for that reason is irrelevant over the next few decades), allowing forecasts for the next few decades at least. The principal uncertainly according to Hansen is the values of the aerosol forcing. But even if this is wrong, the response function mops up the error to a large extent when tuning against the 20th century climate.
84973. JMurphy at 00:24 AM on 25 May 2011
       Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
       Arkadiusz Semczyszak, why don't you wait until the papers are actually peer-reviewed and published, rather than pre-reviewed, when you can cite them directly ?
84974. Rob Painting at 00:22 AM on 25 May 2011
       Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
       Arkadiusz Semczyszak- coral bleaching is a natural phenomenon, often found in colonies of corals - and often quickly reversible No. See comment at @ 32 and note the peer-reviewed studies provided. Coral bleaching that killed ancient atolls was natural. Earth was in a "greenhouse" phase then, and the equatorial regions not conducive to coral survival. No humans around back then. As discussed here- mass coral bleaching, a thread you have previously commented on, mass coral bleaching has only recently emerged, coincident with human-caused global warming. And note the lack of recovery of bleached coral reefs in the eastern tropical Pacific, especially the Galapagos Islands. As for Suggett & Smith (2010). So they're upset about media reports confusing all coral bleaching events with mortality. So what?
84975. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:55 PM on 24 May 2011
       Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
       @JMurphy The first link is a figure cited by a number of websites - it’s from the pre-review paper. The next two figures originate (unchanged) also pre-reviewed the papers. I did not quote “a word” of comment to them - nor Idso or WUWT. My information comes only from work Suggett & Smith1, 2010.. They are workers: Coral Reef Research Unit, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, UK. Instead of looking for "conspiracy theories", we respond to their proposal: that even strongly coral bleaching is a natural phenomenon, often found in colonies of corals - and often quickly reversible. It is worth to discuss their work in detail but we can not ignore.
84976. Ken Lambert at 23:41 PM on 24 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
       BP #130 I have often thought that the geothermal heating from the ocean floor (reputedly 0.1W/sq.m) globally must have a confusing effect on OHC measurement. Squirting heat from vents driectly into bottom water and conduction from a warm immersed bottom would be much more efficent heat transfer mechanisms than radiant heating of the surface. With a 0.1W/sq.m flux constantly rising from the bottom through the column toward the surface - some effect on mixing and other transport mechanisms would be expected.
84977. Chemware at 23:37 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       @9 Alexandre It will look exactly like the attacks on Jewish Physics in the 1920s and 30s. Albert Einstein said it best: This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation. Albert Einstein, 1920
84978. Kevin C at 23:28 PM on 24 May 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
       Or to put it more simply: Let's define a new plot, which is the step-function response curve scaled by the sensitivity. Paleoclimate gives us the height of the plateau at the end of this plot (the fast feedback sensitivity). Recent climate gives us the slope at the beginning. The curve in the middle is ambiguous. A wrong estimate of aerosol forcing means that we have the gradient at the beginning wrong, and thus the time to reach the plateau is out too.
84979. MarkR at 23:26 PM on 24 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #2: Green Jobs
       #2: I don't see that the 'jobs created' figure should always be directly proportional to cost. Market coal prices are generally cheaper than, say, wind (especially once you include backup or storage). So going wind likely adds to the cost of energy (and also labour use I suspect) Higher energy costs can impact other sectors and it's not necessarily linear. Maybe the higher cost of doing industry means other companies shut down. But on the other hand, coal power plants cause damage to people's health and the environment. In some studies a very large amount and this could translate to a significant employment effect (thousands of people unable to work properly because of health problems, say) So I suspect it's not just as simple as cost = some constant x labour use and then relating direct labour changes to cost.
84980. The Skeptical Chymist at 23:24 PM on 24 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #2: Green Jobs
       Macoles @ 11 I see what you are saying there but I disagree with part of your conclusion. The Álvarez "study" is trying to argue that investment in renewables causes net job losses, but as you point out the investment in the Navarre region helped lead to lower unemployment. So this does help rebut Álvarez claims.
84981. Ken Lambert at 23:23 PM on 24 May 2011
       Shapiro et al. – a New Solar Reconstruction
       Sphaerica, Riccardo Thank you Sphaerica for your generous defence. I am simply saying that the Earth has a natural cycle of warming and cooling and it is never at equilibrium, but cycles around some mid point. Excluding CBD's orbital forcing over 100Ky time scales, Solar irradiance variation prior to AD1750 is the driver. Increase the TSI and the Earth receives more incoming energy, warms up until temperature rise increased S-B outgoing energy and the warming is arrested and temperature stabilizes at a higher level. Drop TSI at this higher temperature level and the S-B outgoing exceeds the incoming and the Earth temperature cools. It seems to me that this underlying cycle has an amplitude of natural temperature range and that will follow the natural TSI variation over centuries (excluding the 11 year sun spot ripple). To tell how much Solar irradiance is warming or cooling the Earth we need to know the point we are at in this natural cycle - and that supposes an 'equilibrium' TSI or an average TSI over the cycle.
84982. Kevin C at 23:20 PM on 24 May 2011
       Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
       That Hansen article is very interesting though - I'm glad it's been highlighted. I'm struggling with some of the terminology. But if I understand correctly, his argument is as follows:
       • The fast feedback sensitivity s_ff is the equilibrium sensitivity excluding some very slow terms like changes in ice sheets.
       • Hansen claims that s_ff is well determined by paleoclimatology. Here's a counterintuitive point. How come the ice ages tell us about the fast feedback sensitivity, rather than the slow sensitivity? I think the answer is that Hansen is feeding in the additional feedbacks (e.g. ice sheets) as forcings on the basis of known data, rather than allowing them to be included in the sensitivity.
       • The transient response is constrained by recent climate. Thus any model (e.g. GCM, two box, or Arthur's non-physical deconvolution) complex enough to represent at least 2 transient timescales will produce a similar hindcast for the last century, and as a result will also produce a similar forecast for the next century.
       • However, this doesn't nail down the fast feedback sensitivity. What is nails down is the product of s_ff and the response function over the first few decades. Turning this into a sensitivity does indeed involve the length of the long tail of the response function, and thus is poorly determined from the instrumental record alone.
       • Thus if we are interested in the next few decades, the sensitivity is actually irrelevant. It is the product of the sensitivity and response function which matters. The sensitivity will only come into play over much longer timescales.
       • Hansen claims that how much longer is confused by the GCM response being too slow. The main focus of the paper is to justify this claim.
       • Changes in response when varying the aerosol feedback is hard to distinguish from changes when varying ocean mixing, which causes the slowness of current models. Increasing the aerosol feedback requires faster response.
       • Hansen suggests that the planetary energy imbalance be used to resolve this ambiguity. A higher (more negative) aerosol feedback, coupled with slower ocean mixing (thus faster response), makes the apparent energy imbalance go away. In doing so, he resolves 'Trenberth's travesty'.
       • Having done so, he concludes that the human forcing is lower than previously estimated, but that the response is faster: 75% in 100 years. Thus his claim is that the current GCM response (figure 8a posted above) is actually wrong.
       • Another implication of the change is to explain why the IPCC underestimates sea level rise.
       So, in short, he's arguing for the sensitivity to be correct, the forcing to be lower, but the response to be faster. Doing so solves the energy budget problem and the underestimated sea level rise. Presumably, if this is correct, Charlie's '5 year sensitivity' metric would also increase by some amount (~25%?) to allow the reduced forcing to still produce accurate hindcasts. That's a lot of material. I presume I've got at least some of it wrong.
84983. Papy at 23:11 PM on 24 May 2011
       French translation of the Scientific Guide to 'Skeptics Handbook'
       Here is an additional website called "Climobs.fr", a great new french resource for climate change data and graphics. Blogs coming soon...
84984. Tom Curtis at 23:04 PM on 24 May 2011
       How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
       Mike Williams @38: In the words of John Cook:

       "To claim that humidity is decreasing requires you ignore a multitude of independent reanalyses that all show increasing humidity. It requires you accept a flawed reanalysis that even its own authors express caution about. It fails to explain how we can have short-term positive feedback and long-term negative feedback. In short, to insist that humidity is decreasing is to neglect the full body of evidence."

84985. Ken Lambert at 23:00 PM on 24 May 2011
       Shapiro et al. – a New Solar Reconstruction
       CBD #18 #23 You are right about orbital tilt cycles being another 'natural' forcing - however these are on 90,000 - 110,000 year time scales. I was talking about the period since AD1750, which forcings appear in Fig 2.4 of AR4. Going back to AD1750 when fossil fuelled industrialization began - the only radiative forcing is Solar irradiance. A couple of factors need to be held constant - the Earth's albedo and the WV & Ice Albedo feedbacks - but since these are at pre-industrial 'natural' levels and not influenced by human released GHG - the assumption seems reasonable.
84986. Mighty Drunken at 22:47 PM on 24 May 2011
       Humlum is at it again
       I do think that Dr. Humlum et al may be correct on the problems of assigning a quantitative value for the probability of AGW. I think this is more a problem for the science of complex systems, not a massive flaw in "AGW theory". Some things are just too complex for us to assign definite values for. What really irks me in the opinion piece is this part; "The CO2-hypothesis as it is formulated right now does not even fulfills the requirements of science, so we are miles away from being able to calculate a meaningful certainty on it. The reason for its lack of scientific foundation is the lack of ability for the CO2-hypothesis to come with forecasts that can be checked now or within a couple of years' time." They seem to be trying to redefine science to exclude complex systems which take a long time to change, or are in the distant past. Things like cosmology, evolution and climate science. They take an extreme view of falsifiability which goes much further than Karl Popper's. Reading Popper talk about evolution in regard to falsifiability is quite enlightening, especially as his views change with time becoming more favourable to the idea that Darwin's theory is testable.
84987. Alexandre at 21:40 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Eli Rabbett had a special post to blame reporters on this. I prefer the message of grypo's post here, at least the way I understood it: the blame game is futile. It's everyone's job to get the truth out. Good science reporters would help, outspoken scientists would help, informed citizens would help too. I wonder what all this would look like as seen from 2050.
84988. Eric the Red at 21:37 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Rpauli, I think the reason that journalists do not include that line is because most scientists don't. While a change in climate will result in a change in weather patterns, extreme weather events (if indeed there is a rise) will not necessarily result. Also, the phrase once bite twice cautious may apply following the claims that hurricane seasons like 2005 will be the norm in a warming world. Five seasons later made those people look foolish, so that scientist are refraining from making such claims (without a scientist to quote, most journalists will back off). The current La Nina has been getting most of the blame (and press) for the recent outburts in the U.S. If adelady is reading, she may relate this to the flooding in Australia. I haven't watched CNN in years due to extreme bias in their reporting, although I am not sure that all the networks do not have biases. http://www.politicolnews.com/cnn-afraid-of-social-media-trust-factors/ If am actually surprised that 45% knew that CO2 trapped heat considering that in one survey 47% could not find India on a map. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12591413/ns/us_news-education/t/young-americans-shaky-geographic-smarts/
84989. Eric the Red at 21:00 PM on 24 May 2011
       UQ Physics Colloquium this Friday: Communicating Climate Science and Countering Disinformation
       Bob, What do you take me for a fool? We both know that using that survey to support global warming is fruitless and open to ridicule. I have even seen one person (jokingly) state that half of the observed warming was due to urbanization and a recent survey showed that it was supported by 97% of climatologists. No, this was not on Pielke's website. You may use the results of this survey if you like, but be warned, it will seriously diminish your credibility in the ensuing argument. The conclusion in the survey is a huge stretch (to use your word) from the actual results. P.S. I grew up in lower Michigan, and have been called that by many a Uper.
       Response:

       [DB] The results of the survey Bob references still stand, handwaving and personal experiences aside.  Natives of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are referred to as Yoopers.  And Bob referred to your comment, not to you.

84990. neilrieck at 20:25 PM on 24 May 2011
       Video and podcast about confusing the hockey stick with the 'decline'
       Not sure how many people saw this piece in the June 2011 issue of Scientific American. The good folks at Climate Progress will probably be able to host it a bit longer than SciAm (who usually keep "the free reading window" open for only 30 days) http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Muller.pdf
84991. RobH at 18:26 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       US Public understanding: I have heard on Australian Public radio that there is a huge underclass of Americans trapped in poverty - the working poor. At the base of this is the US education system funded by local authorities - poor neighbourhood, poor education. Why are so many Americans religious? Same answer. Consequently with a poor educational system, you cant expect people to understand even the fundamentals of global warming - they probably don't even know what CO2 is. Role of Journalists: Similar problem - In Australia at least, journalists are wall-to-wall humanities graduates. You wouldn't believe the naive bloopers that come out on public and commercial radio from the mouths of out arts graduated journalists - the newspapers are just as bad. But we do have the world's best science program - the ABC Science Show. Sadly, 90% of Australians, probably better educated than the US lot, aren't that interested in science to tune in. Secondly, the (commercial) media makes money from controversy. It is not in their interest to either educate or state the facts - even if they understood the facts.
84992. bartverheggen at 18:03 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Related: Science communication: Who is responsible (for its failing)?
       Moderator Response: [grypo] Thanks Bart. I recommend this to everyone interested in this subject.
84993. Paul D at 17:46 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       Re. DH@3 Campaigns that suit them? Funny, I thought they were supposed to report news. Oops, nope, they have personal opinions and use their 'power' to project it.
84994. ranyl at 17:42 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       There is no trusted word for the public so no knows who beleive about what as all general information resources give bias representation. Can there even be a trusted nowadays?
84995. Paul D at 17:37 PM on 24 May 2011
       Carter Confusion #2: Green Jobs
       Re: coal and labour requirements. Coal today maybe lower in labour costs, but that is due to over 100 years of technology development and improvements in engineering/science. Modern renewable energy technology is about half that age. Indeed, most of the developments that have made renewable energy practical have occurred in the last 10 to 20 years. Renewable energy has a lot more technology innovations to go and that includes cuts in labour which like coal and any other industry will be a strong driving force for innovation and working practices.
84996. Riccardo at 16:50 PM on 24 May 2011
       Q and A with Dr Haydn Washington, co-author of Climate Change Denial
       The Shadow #26 "the scientists who referee climate science papers are strongly pro-CAGW." What surprises so much The Shadow and many other fellow skeptics is what happens when a theory is widely accepted. Should I complain if I find the referees being strongly pro Catastrophic Quantum Mechanics or Catastrophic Evolution or Catastrophic Plate Tectonics? Yes, I know, they should be open to new ideas, but not any new idea. It's upon me to have a good one.
84997. David Horton at 16:30 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       "because the press doesn’t see that as their role" - journalists have some other planet to go to? This one's fate of no concern of their's? Anyway, it is nonsense, they will run campaigns on anything that suits them. Climate change doesn't.
84998. Bern at 16:23 PM on 24 May 2011
       Hooks, Roles, and the Climate Change Blame Game
       grypo: thanks for an interesting article. It does help put into context the sometimes frustrating lack of "news" in the mainstream media about climate change. rpauli: that anecdote suggests that 'news' organisations in the US have stopped undertaking journalism, and are well and truly 'owned' by their advertisers. To hear that even an organisation such as CNN was cowed by the fossil fuel interests is depressing. I wonder what the response would have been if the management at CNN had been less focussed on short-term profits, and had stood up for journalistic integrity?
84999. barry1487 at 16:02 PM on 24 May 2011
       Humlum is at it again
       dhogaza, I have to agree that your comments are nitpicking. 'AGW theory' is vernacular, but it neatly encapsulates the larger issue - that human activity is causing the planet to warm. This is the central pillar of these here debates, and responding to criticisms about this issue is the basis of this website. I also agree that it's not a precisely accurate acronym for the scientific basis. I (lightly) propose that, like common vilifying terms that have been appropriated by those maligned by them (nigger, quuer), common usage of this acronym might render it less effective as a pejorative. As to the skeptics - there's no hope for the vast majority, and it's not worth tapping a few more keys to try and win them over with a different nomenclature. That siad, I don't use the phrase much myself - but then I'm usually arguing these days with skeptics on finer points rather than the overall theory. I previously used the term more often when I used to think a holistic debating approach was more effective.
85000. barry1487 at 15:33 PM on 24 May 2011
       Humlum is at it again
       "A theory is more vague than a hypothesis" 'Vague' doesn't come into it. A hypothesis is advanced, and, if it has a close fit to observations, survives scrutiny over time, provides reasonable predictions that are observed, and is corroborated by other scientists looking at the matter in different ways, it advances to a formal recognition of its potential validity - it becomes a theory. As in: chaos theory, gravity theory, the theory of relativity, evolution theory, etc etc etc.

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