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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 85251 to 85300:

  1. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    DB at 3 An honest instructor should make available to the students the sources of all points of views on the topic, and then let them form their own conclusions and opinions. He could arrange a debate on AGW where the "Against Team" challenges the "For Team". After the debate, he could have the audience vote on the performance of the teams. ( -Off-topic and inflammatory snipped- ).
    Response:

    [DB] "An honest instructor"

    A truly appalling way to begin a comment.  While that may be de rigueur in your usual venue of choice, the insinuation of dishonesty you make here is a violation of the Comments Policy.

    An apology to Professor Mandia should be in the offing.

  2. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    Adelady @14
    "Why would sustained, slower, less spectacular, releases of aerosols have different physical characteristics?"
    Because it is convenient for some to believe so, of course.
  3. Chris Colose at 09:48 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    apiratelooksat50, with respect: Your post #12 is backwards. Professionally, these aren't controversial subjects. Personally, they are. This is what separates a proper scientific education from teaspooning some odd sense of democratic sensibility into our youth, and letting them think that "all opinions" are equal. It's also what separates first-rate education at top research universities from second-rate education typical of elective meteorology courses at a community college. This is where Scott Mandia and his class is a strong exception, and I like that. But my textbooks in climate and atmospheric radiation never came with a disclaimer saying "this is all a theory" as some anti-science groups demanded happen to evolution texts. This isn't to say that I agree with the indoctrination of students into a particular world view; rather, a proper evaluation of the relevant physics (or in the case of evolution- the biochemistry, genetics, geological evidence, etc) will inevitably lead the student to the right answers, or in the case of real skepticism, actually learning to ask the right questions. I am of the perspective that teaching someone how something works is better than teaching them what is wrong with 50 fallacious arguments. The latter is how SkepticalScience is set up, which is fine. For some reason, when it comes to climate change and evolution, the latter is sometimes the more efficient setup for educating the casual reader. Furthermore, any real education will give the student a good perspective on the things which are well-known (like the validity of Planck's law) and those things which aren't too well-known (like the magnitude of cloud feedbacks). Teaching something like "anthropogenic global warming," which is not really a theory in itself, but a consequence of many different lines of physics, as intrinsically "controversial" is just doing an injustice to your students and the subject. People pay tuition for a reason, you know.
  4. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    NikFromNYC @ 10: 1) The "very misleading" graph shows the actual temperatures as the GRIP site with the small crosses, and the anomaly relative to the GISP2 core with the higher of the two horizontal lines. This can only be misleading to those who read neither the information on the graph, nor the article, which states immediately below the graph:
    "The GISP2 series — the red line — appears to be identical to Easterbrook’s version. The bottom black line shows his 1855 “present”, and it intersects the red line in the same places as his chart. I’ve added a grey line based on the +1.44ºC quantum calculated from the GRIP temperature data, and two blue crosses, which show the GISP2 site temperatures inferred from adjusted GRIP data for 1855 and 2009."
    It is hard to be clearer than that. Further, to be "mislead", a reader would have to also ignore the information in the graph plotting the temperature change at the GRIP site from 1855 to the present. 2) The clarity and openness with the information in the above article contrasts sharply with the practise of deniers. They either treat the temperature rise evident in the GISP2 core just prior to 1855 as the 20th century temperature rise (as does Easterbrook), or add a bar representing global temperature increase from (typically) 1905. The global temperature increase is significantly smaller than the local temperature increase, and comparing the two is inevitably misleading. Curiously, you find neither of those practises misleading, but find a clear debunking of the worst of them to be misleading because it clearly presents the relevant data. You must be using some non standard definition of "misleading" such as "shows my views on climate to be a house of cards". 3) In addition, Easterbrook's graph is is misleading because it treats a regional temperature index as a global temperature index. As just noted, regional temperatures have greater fluctuations in temperature than do global temperatures; a consequence of the fact that regional temperatures do not vary in synch. As can be seen from this graph of Holocene temperature proxies, regional temperature vary widely, but their average shows little variability: Indeed, the GISP2 record (light blue on the chart) shows more variability than most regional proxies, a fact that should be well known to any frequent commentator on climate. Even the average on this chart probably shows more variability than the true global mean temperatures because of the low number of proxies, and because the proxies in this chart have a Northern Hemisphere bias (with half the the proxies coming from the NH extratropics). As clearly indicated on the chart, 2004 temperatures are significantly above the average of even the Holocene Warm Period. Of course, it is rather difficult for you to comment on Easterbrook's misleading practise of treating a regional temperature proxy as a global record given that you do the same thing in your comment. 3) It is a bit rich you commenting on "misleading ... debunking[s]" when you claim that "If you actually match up the 1855 temperatures, as any sincere effort would require, you get exactly what skeptics claim history is like: a just as hot MWP and a hotter Roman period." As can be clearly seen from your plot, modern regional temperatures on the Northern Greenland ice cap are about as much warmer than the MWP as they are cooler than the Roman WP at that location. And honest description, then, would be that modern temperatures are hotter than the MWP at that location, though the Roman WP was hotter, at that location. Of course, globally, both where probably warmer than the 1950's, but cooler than the last decade.
  5. citizenschallenge at 09:37 AM on 22 May 2011
    Book reviews of Climate Change Denial
    Yippy my copy showed up today. I've read through chapter 2 and am impressed. Well written! Thoughtful and I'm looking forward to digging into the next chapter's deconstructing of the five types of denial arguments. It'll come in very handy. Very nice clean formatting, enough references to keep me reading from here to eternity. Thanks for all the effort you folks put into it.
  6. Abraham reply to Monckton
    Kane. You might have time to watch an occasional video presentation. There are 3 here at Fool Me Once And this is the first of 4 items on Monckton's presentations at Potholer.
  7. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    apiratelooksat50 "Anytime I teach a controversial subject such as AGW or evolution.." Erm, they aren't controversial. Or rather any controversy is not universal. It maybe controversial in the US, which is rapidly losing any direction due to internal extremism, but it isn't very controversial in the UK.
  8. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    Nik, aerosols "They might not have any truly discernibl­e and certainly not modelable cause at all.." I realise your response slipped straight over to models and maths and never got back to the physics. But I'm still concerned about the physics and observable responses to aerosols. Just looking at the histories of calamitous volcanic eruptions near the equator which spread dust and all manner of gunk across the skies worldwide. We know from written records about the effects on temperatures, colder, and agriculture, ruinous, of these events. Why would sustained, slower, less spectacular, releases of aerosols have different physical characteristics?
  9. David Horton at 09:04 AM on 22 May 2011
    Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
    Whenever I read about Spencer's stuff the same simple (I think) unanswered question always comes to me instantly. If there is a "silver bullet" which will prevent increasing ghg emissions from warming the planet - why didn't it operate in the past?
  10. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Harry Seaward at 01:24 AM on 22 May, 2011 says Pirate's post begs a question: what if the student decided the skeptic argument was valid? What if a student "decided" (interesting choice of words) Beer-Lambert's Law, or Planck's Law was wrong? Well, he could be a genius, but chances are on the side of his being just a pranck trying to draw attention to himself. Anyway, if you "decide" established science is wrong, be prepared to back your assertions with very good data. Better data or better explanation of the data than the previous theory.
  11. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    "if it wasn't the aerosols, how do you account for the physics of excluding them" They might not have any truly discernibl­e and certainly not modelable cause at all if in fact climate represents a chaotic system on century time scales. And what system might be less expected to be prone to chaos than a huge land/air/o­cean biosphere subject to solar output and orbital variations­? The argument from ignorance of "forcings" is thus even less supportive of CO2 as the only alternativ­e than I had thought. Forcings might not even be required if suddenly the ocean currents shift drastically to alter now heat is released or withheld by them for a century or two at a time. There's too many formal mathematical Platonists in climatology and not enough dynamicists, I suggest. It's assumed that weather is chaotic, but why not climate too? I suddenly have a hilarious vision of a watchmaker riding a bull.
  12. Stephen Baines at 05:03 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    JMurphy. Don't generalize to broadly about american education from someone posting on a general public blog about climate science! That said, I know people in certain parts of the country who, even at university level, feel pressure to "teach the controversy," despite the fact that there is none on scientific grounds. It's a trend that blurs the lines between "current events" curricula and science curricula. I can see nothing good coming of it, at least in this manifestation. But, people often surprise me.
  13. Antarctica is gaining ice
    Because of errors in Grace data extrapolation, it has been determined that the ice mass on Antarcica is neither shrinking nor growing. So, no net change there.
    Response:

    [DB] Umm, you seem to be confused.  Please read the OP and the comments, with particular attention to Ned's comment at 30 above.  If still unsure, try the Intermediate version of this post.  The totality of Antarctica (the Antarctic Peninsula, the WAIS and the EAIS) are all losing mass, beyond that of the error bars.  And the rate of mass-loss is itself increasing.

  14. Ari Jokimäki at 04:30 AM on 22 May 2011
    Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
    It should be noted that Spencer's inclusion of OHC down to 2000m doesn't fix the problem. Recent research has shown that there's significant amount of warming in the very deep ocean (below 2000m).
  15. Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature
    Indeed, Rosco - as Tom Curtis points out, do you have your graphs mixed up ? Whichever you intended, I can't recall the media "sensation" you mention. Do you have any examples you can link to ? But, some questions : What propaganda or message do you believe the IPCC were supposedly trying to put out "at the time" ? (You can respond here) How can the IPCC have been trying to validate anything "for decades" ("deceptively" or not) when it only began in 1988 ? (You can respond via the above link) What examples can you give, in the real world, of this "huge backlash" ? (You can respond here) When do you believe that the term "global warming" was dropped for the term "climate change" ? (You can respond here) What is the "consistent" 'sceptical' "point of view" ? (You can respond here) Finally, can I tell you what I think is "more corrupt to the public" ? Corruption.
  16. Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
    Great post, Barry. Spencer seems to be forming a pattern of making faulty modeling assumptions which happen to give him the answer he's looking for.
  17. Stephen Baines at 04:00 AM on 22 May 2011
    Abraham reply to Monckton
    KaneWilliams at 88 I coudn't disagree more strongly. You (and others) should listen to the slide in Abraham's talk more carefully. It's a good indication of how wrongheaded Mockton's criticisms of Abaraham are. Abraham said that Monckton modified a graph from Hathaway and, by adding lines to it that emphasize the long term increase in solar radiation after the Maunder Minimum in the 1700s, used it to argue that warming could be caused by long terms variation in solar energy. I think that's a fair assessment of Mockton's intent with that graph. Abraham then contacted Hathaway to get his sense of whether it was appropriate to interpret his data in the way Monckton has. Hathaway said no. Specifically, in his email he said solar variability is not a major driver of climate - el Nino, GHGs and aerosols from volcanoes are more important (slide 94 of Abraham's presentation). That statement cuts right to the core of Monckton's argument since it suggests that long term increases in solar flux are not relevant to climate in the way Monckton suggests. Of course, that is only the first step in Abraham's argument. He then goes on to point out many papers showing that the science is in unform agreement that solar variation have contributed little if anything to the recent warming over the last 40 years. This context is directly pertinent to Mockton's argument, but not provided by Monckton. Monckton certainly has the right to interpret that graph from Hathaway anyway he wants. And Abraham has the right to point out that Monckton has not provided a lot of relevant information that may alter our assessment of his positions. We are then allowed to draw our conclusions. That is what scientific debate is about. As for Abraham's tone, if all reviewers were as civil and fair as Abraham was about this, my life as a scientist and editor would be a lot easier! Most reviewers would be absolutely livid at Mockton's repeated failure to acknowledge large bodies of literature and to twist interpretations of the original work. Scientist are not allowed the privelege of only aknowledging those pieces of evidence that agree with our position. As has been pointed, Monckton has been far less civil in his responses to Abraham as well, not to mention in his suggestions of conspiracy. In my opinion, critizing Abraham for lack of fairness and civility in this case is kind of like criticizing the victim of a mugging for using his/her face to hit the mugger's fist.
  18. Peter Bellin at 04:00 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    I think this is a good model for a course directed at students generally. The skills learned can be expanded to other 'controversies' such as the value of immunization. I would love to see this course developed for a Moodle (online) environment, publically available, for other educators to copy and model for their own use. Moodle allows easy use of the internet, video, etc. in the course material. I would like to work with faculty interested in teaching the science, not the false controversy, of climate change. Can we develop a course that can be public domain? How about a series of courses that touch on climate change and its impacts?
  19. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Is apiratelooksat50 showing an example of the type of teaching now going on in American schools (where evolution and creationism, AGW and denialism have to be taught side-by-side in science classes) ? If so, I am aghast. How will American children, being taught in this way, be able to develop any form of scientific method ? It is faith-based thinking gone mad.
  20. Abraham reply to Monckton
    When Kane first posted here, their post hinted at concern troll-- and their link to the disinformer blog WUWT did not help. I did not jump in right away, as I wanted to see how things progressed. Sadly my suspicions have been confirmed.
  21. Abraham reply to Monckton
    Come off it, KaneWilliams - you may see nothing wrong with Monckton using that particular graph (and a reference to an IAU conference, alongside clearly denialist views about the sun's impact on our climate) and implying support from that graph (and conference), in order to try to bolster the scientific case for his nonsense. He's very good at implying and creating associations, without actually stating the facts : in fact, he makes up his own 'facts' and tries to use the work of others to fit in with his own agenda, thereby misleading the credulous and the naive, while denying having actually intentionally creating any such implicit associations. The only manipulation going on here is being carried out by Monckton and the way he tries to broadcast his propaganda. Don't be taken in by it - stick to the views of the scientists, not the propagandists.
  22. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    ProfMandia - very good. Not on only from the perspectives you describe - but your students are fortunate to be guided through what 'debate' looks like, sometimes, in the public sphere, compared with the world of science etc. e.g. apiratelooksat50 "Personally, evolution is not controversial. Professionally, it is." It may be like the dark ages where public opinion goes bad! So, ProfMandia, I'm very glad you're not confusing your students by bowing to this silly trend of agreeing that evolution, AGW etc. are scientifically controversial!
  23. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    apirate@15, You are going to have to do much better than that. Empty rhetoric does not advance argument, whatever that may be.
  24. apiratelooksat50 at 03:28 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Skywatcher @ 13 You're right, climate change theory is not controversial. Anthropogenic climate change theory is certainly controversial.
  25. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    The course outline clearly shows how the content is developed for the course. Natural climate forcing is carefully explained as well as human climate forcing. There is no controversy about evolution and there is no controversy about what is causing most of the modern day global warming. You do not need to take my word on that because there is overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus. Where there is a debate is which solutions and policy choices we need to make and that is clearly where students will make up their own minds after presented with choices. I chose this particular assignment to illustrate the various myths that are prevalent on the web and in books but do not appear much in the peer-reviewed literature. This site does a very good job of carefully explaining why these myths are not accurate and how the scientific method is used to show the holes in these arguments. This is one assignment and not a representative catch-all for the entire course. It is not wise to judge the entire course based on this blog post. :) Their weekly HW assignments were also illuminating. Each week they had to do a Google News search, find a climate change-related article, and explain the content while also relating that content to what was learned in class. Frequently they found very scientifically-weak articles and then proceeded to show why the "science" was wrong. Given that these students are freshman and non-science majors, I was quite impressed.
  26. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Seeing as the fundamentals of the theory of climate are not controversial, and validated many times over, it would be very hard to grade a student highly that considered one of the main skeptic arguments valid. One of the reasons would be that they would have to come to this conclusion without the support of the peer-reviewed literature, and therefore would not have done their research properly. 'Controversy' in climate theory is limited to such questions as 'will the warming be bad, very bad or horrific for modern civilisation as we know it'?, or 'will the Arctic be September sea ice-free in 2020, 2030, or as late as 2050'?, or 'Will doubled CO2 lead to a 2C, 3C or even a >4C rise in temperature?' The problem with these questions is that although there is room for 'controversy' (really just valid scientific debate), the underpinning basics of climate theory are entirely sound, and there is not room for people with the view that everything will be just fine if we continue BAU...
  27. apiratelooksat50 at 03:16 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    JMurphy@11 Personally, evolution is not controversial. Professionally, it is.
  28. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    apiratelooksat50, do you really think that evolution is "controversial" and that your students should be able to form their own opinions about it ?
  29. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    To look objectively at AGW, one must look at all the science. The little presented on this site is informative, but deffintely not the defintive source of knowledge. There is a lot more to climate than the level of co2 in the atmosphere. I don't know if we will ever be able to quantify all the variables, and their relationships. I would hope that Prof Mandia understands this when he is teaching. I would also hope that the use of this site encourages students to broaden their knowledge of understanding as to the uncertainty that we are at the present time.
  30. KaneWilliams at 02:53 AM on 22 May 2011
    Abraham reply to Monckton
    Thanks JMurphy I had seen those links, although not read through them in their entirety. I have heard Monckton say that Abraham's 83 page assignation of his talk does indeed make him sound bonkers and that he has misrepresented other's scientific studies, but that is only because Abraham has cleverly twisted and misquoted what he actually said. One example is states Abraham claimed he said in his presentation that David Hathaway concluded that Solar activity is the dominant cause for global warming, when in fact all he did was use a graph produced by David Hathaway and drew his own conclusion from the graph, never once stating that this is the conclusion reached by Hathaway. He did however site the conclusions made by Skaffeta and West regarding solar activity and climate change. This is just one example and it does seem like some manipulation of Monckton's words has taken place?
  31. Eric (skeptic) at 02:45 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Send them all to remedial English class.
  32. Harry Seaward at 01:24 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Prof. Mandia, Pirate's post begs a question: what if the student decided the skeptic argument was valid?
  33. apiratelooksat50 at 01:17 AM on 22 May 2011
    Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    As a teacher myself, I like the layout of the course description and the term paper grading rubric. As a matter of fact, I'm going to "borrow" both for my own classes. However, it bothers me greatly that the students' weren't presented data and allowed to form their own conclusions. Anytime I teach a controversial subject such as AGW or evolution, I start the unit by plainly stating that my personal views do not matter and I want them to form their own opinion. As long as they follow the scientific methond, think rationally, and adhere to the course guidelines - they can earn an A regardless of their conclusions. I do my best to not allow my viewpoints to influence theirs until after the unit is over when we usually have a roundtable discussion, or the students are divided and prepare materials to present their standings in a debate. This class would be much more effective in creating minds that can think rationally if the students were presented all available scientific information and allowed to formulate their own thoughts. Instead, it is more of a writing class where information was regurgitated in the assigned format.
  34. Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
    @Charlie A. #14 There are lots of guyots in the tropics. Go to the Seamount Catalog and have a look around the Marshall Islands and the Johnston Seamounts areas of the map.
  35. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Jimbo @ 4: You don't have to be a trained scientist to debunk the claims of the deniers. You at least need some passing familiarity with scientific method as well as some capacity to detect internal consistency and consistency with other data we know about the world at large. Herein lies the difference between science and religion which is held as an article of faith and which admits the possibility that some knowledge, eg, the true essence of God who is infinite and eternal, is utterly beyond our human comprehension. In science, by contrast, knowledge may be too extensive and complex to integrate into a coherent whole by any one individual but at least is notionally understandable given adequate effort and resources insofar as we are dealing with finite quanta of knowledge no matter how vast. All of which makes for fascinating debate. Moreover, we should distinguish between religious faith and humanistic ideologies which pretend to capture truth whilst enslaving it. If you wonder about the difference, consider only Mao Zedong's famous saying, "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a a hundred schools of thought contend," following which he was able to flush out dissidents by encouraging them to show themselves as critical of the regime, before wiping them out.
    Response:

    [DB] Fixed link.

  36. Oceans are cooling
    Charlie A #66 Your 9 points are a pretty reasonable summary Charlie A. What is very clear from the 0-700m OHC Charts 1993-2010 is the step jump in the 2001-04 period when the changeover from predominantly XBT to Argo occurred. If you plot a separate XBT trend up to 2001 and an Argo trend after 2004 the step is most apparent and can only be an artifact of the transition, because the deltas from satellites show no such step up in radiative imbalance at that time. Linearizing the spliced XBT to Argo with the step jump in place produces an inflated slope on the combined curve.
  37. Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
    Stephen Baines #124, #125 For those in/out heat fluxes to be balanced, an equilibrium temperature or temperature profile of sorts must have been established in the 0-700m layers. The surface exchange includes direct radiation, evaporation, rainfall, ice freeze and melt etc. The exchange between the 0-700 and 700+ depths would include conduction and what else? Is there any study which describes these heat flux transport rates and shows comparable fluxes at the top and bottom?
  38. Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
    Oh, & here is yet more proof that your whole "international air travel" argument is entirely bogus. A Boeing 747-400 consumes an average of 2.6L of fuel/100km/passenger (assuming at least a half-full plane). A mid-sized vehicle consumes about 10L of fuel/100km/passenger *if* the vehicle contains only the driver (as it frequently does). This can go up to 12L/100km in peak hour traffic, as cars can consume an additional 20% of their fuel simply idling. It is this kind of driving that makes cars such a massive contributor to GHG emissions, *not* the difference in the number of people using them.
    Moderator Response: (DB) Ok, this has gone far enough; future off-topic comments by all parties will be deleted.
  39. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    Nik "... there is a very good chance that recent warming may be a peak that is about to plunge back down..." and "...there's about 40 years of downswing in the works that will also mask CO2 warming..." I know you refer to oscillations - but what would be the physics driving such phenomena? At least the physics of aerosol effects on climate are pretty straightforward conceptually (even if the measurements are as difficult as most others are). And if it wasn't the aerosols, how do you account for the physics of excluding them (or double counting them if there's a 'cycle', 40 years or otherwise, with the same characteristics).
  40. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    H Pierce. Why would Science Students have any interest in a Site which is clearly nothing but Denialist Cult propaganda? I took a look at the headline articles, & its nothing but the usual politically motivated & completely unscientific clap-trap that we've come to expect from the Usual Suspects in the Denial Movement (such as yourself....oh, & Cloa513 of course). If this is the "resource" you & your mate Cloa rely on, then its no wonder that your "contributions" here-if such pointless distractions can be given such an august label-are so vacuous & easily shot to pieces.
  41. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    This post tells me three things, at least. 1. SkS is a useful and easily accessible resource. 2. Professor Mandia is a creative teacher whose students are learning critical thinking. 3. You don't have to be a trained scientist to debunk the claims of the deniers.
  42. Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
    Well yes the difference by 2050 is only about 2cm/year-4cm/year but-as can be seen from where the lines end up, that *small* difference will make the difference in (a) how long we have to evacuate the more low lying atolls or build protective structures to hold the waters at bay, (b) probably protect some of the higher atolls for significantly longer & (c) decrease the amount of time it will take before sea levels actually begin to fall. Yet if we listen to people like you, we should just accept the BAU approach, & simply aim for the worst case scenario by 2100-even though the BAU approach will probably result in an even *worse* sea-level rise than what's currently predicted. Its exactly this kind of Denialist Cult thinking which has preventing action being taken earlier than now-all to protect the profits of your beloved fossil fuel industry.
  43. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    Oh wow, if I now look at my correction of your final chart, now that the modern warming is about twice as much as Easterbrook's, it becomes suggestive that there is a very good chance that recent warming may be a peak that is about to plunge back down, masking greenhouse warming for up to a century or more. That the AMO correlates nearly perfectly with decadal variation in the global average T also suggests there's about 40 years of downswing in the works that will also mask CO2 warming. It looks like it might not have been aerosols after all which caused the last downswing but was due to regular ocean oscillations.
  44. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Hello Scott! Did you make available to your students "Global Warming Science" available at: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/ Probably not.
    Response:

    [DB] Your use of quote marks is very apt, given the disinformation nature of your linked site.

  45. Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
    "your argument only relies on the fact that air travels are restricted to a very small part of the world population, (the richest one most obviously), whereas cars are used by much more people. If you take the consumption PER CAPITA, considering only those who are actually using them, the use of airplanes is of course much more energy consuming than cars - just because as you notice yourself, the energy used per mile is comparable, but people traveling by air do much longer trips !" Your entire argument is completely & utterly *false*. I already pointed out that cars generate *more* CO2 per person-km than a plane flight, that long-haul flights generate fewer emissions per passenger-km than shorter domestic flights (as much of the fuel is used in take off & landing-not in actual flight) & that the number of km driven-by a single driver-per year is *greater* than the average distance traveled by an air traveler over the same time period. Your claim about air travel being restricted to a rich subset is equally ludicrous. The US alone records as many as 2 million people flying *per day*-& therefore probably around 370 million people flying per year....in America alone. Hardly sounds like a tiny subset of rich people. Again, though, as I said (but clearly you missed), no-one is telling people to simply *cease* driving-so that's just another straw man. They're simply being asked to make more sensible use of their cars-by car-pooling &/or using public transport for instance-or using cars powered with alternative fuels. So going without a car for day-to-day commuting is a much simpler-& probably more cost effective-prospect than asking those hundreds of millions of people, world wide, currently traveling by plane to find some other means of traveling overseas. The upshot being that, in spite of your original, ludicrous claims, attempts to reduce CO2 emissions will *not* necessarily result in a halt to international tourism-& certainly not the very small subset that visits the Pacific Islands. So your entire argument is a *straw-man*, & none of the logical fallacies you've provided in between have made it any less of a straw-man-which is pretty typical of the card-carrying members of the Denialist Cult.
  46. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    This very misleading graphical debunking of Easterbrook fails to switch to the required anomaly scale instead of an absolute scale to deal with the mismatch between his chosen recent temperature reconstruction and the long ice core. He plots two 1855 temperatures instead of one. If you actually match up the 1855 temperatures, as any sincere effort would require, you get exactly what skeptics claim history is like: a just as hot MWP and a hotter Roman period. Plot "It’s also clear that there is a mismatch between the temperature reconstructions and the ice core record. ... How that might be resolved is an interesting question, but not directly relevant to the point at issue." The way you resolve it is to use anomalies like the pros do. You have left the graphical impression that the present is hotter than ever. At best you've has corrected an error that the ice core ends in 1855 instead of 2000 (or 1950), even though this claim is not in any primary article I can find. I had been posting a GIF animation of the Greenland ice core far and wide and this "debunking" gave me pause as I prepared to yank it from my arsenal based on this post. I may have to edit it a bit now though to increase the instrumental "hockey stick" blade from the animation I have. Hereis another blogger combining two Greenland data sets into a single chart without matching them up properly.
  47. Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
    and I have no idea of which Gilles you're referring to , but it is totally irrelevant for the discussion of SLR time scale.
  48. Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
    Marcus, your argument only relies on the fact that air travels are restricted to a very small part of the world population, (the richest one most obviously), whereas cars are used by much more people. If you take the consumption PER CAPITA, considering only those who are actually using them, the use of airplanes is of course much more energy consuming than cars - just because as you notice yourself, the energy used per mile is comparable, but people traveling by air do much longer trips ! so what you're really saying is that you would ask modest people to accept the constraints of public transportation, car pooling, and so on, but let a very small subset of rich people spend freely their vacation in very distant islands ? extremely weird, and politically totally unacceptable. concerning the rate of SLR, just have a look on the peer-reviewed literature, such as : http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_science_2007.pdf and look at figure 4 : what is the difference between the "extremes" B1 (yellow) and A1FI (blue) scenario around 2050 ? what is the difference of the time needed to reach a given level ? some years, not more. That's what I said. The difference is in the uncertainty of the acceleration term, which is a totally natural factor - it is pretty insensitive to the scenario actually. What it really means is that if their is a very long term acceleration factor, we are already much above the equilibrium value needed to limit the SLR before 2050 , and it is much too late to avoid it.
  49. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    cola513, I'm not sure what you are getting at. From reading the post I thought the assignment was to review and understand the science, not do the science.
  50. Skeptical Science Educates My Students
    Do these students understand the scientific method? The scientific method applied to a problem is the science. A review of other studies only guides the new experiments needed- its not a replacement. Medical scientist understand this. Despite only the massive study of the human body and drugs in isolation, nothing substitutes for testing of drug on humans after testing on the nearest analog species. The human body is still too complicated to be substituted by models or individual studies. The Earth is equally too complex for part-wise studies to tell you the whole stories or even a major part. The IPCC did no science- summarising other papers is something a reviewer could have done.

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