Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 Next
Comments 85401 to 85450:
-
chris at 08:59 AM on 19 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Ken Lambert at 23:50 PM on 18 May, 2011 That's silly Ken. There is one bit of evidence that shows that there may have been rather little heat gain in a very short period of 0-700m Argo data. The fact that that's been pointed out in non-science journals and house magazines (and crappy journals) doesn't constitute "5 or 6 other analyses". It's a single analysis covering a very short period that might or might not be completely correct. It is worth highlighting the Douglass/Knox farragos. After all they seem to be the source for you information on this subject. There's a huge wealth of science that bears on this subject (e.g. see below) and yet you bring a truly dismal flawed analysis in support of your viewpoint. If you're not going to be skeptical, then we may as well point out the flaws in your sources. "So you tell me how the heat is getting from the surface down to 2000m and below that" Why not find out yourself? We know that the deep oceans are absorbing heat. There is simply too much evidence to discount that empirical observation (see also Purkey and Johnson (2010) and Song and Colberg (2011), who indicate that a substantial proportion of recent sea level rise may be due to deep ocean heating). I'm not an oceanographer, and so I don't have priviliged insight into the mechanisms of deep ocean heat transfer. In the meantime you could try, for example, Masuda et al (2010) who have identified pathways for deep ocean heat transfer in the North Pacific using simulations, or Kao et al (2010), who have shown that major tropical ocean storms, especially tropical cyclones can transfer surface warmth to the deep oceans. There's a large scientific literature on this. If you're interested you only have to look. Your style of "debate" is boring, since you plump for truly dismal analyses, and argue from there. What's the point? We know that the Earth is warming under the effect of a radiative imbalance (2005 and 2010 had record warmth in the GISS analysis during a period of an extended solar minimum, the largest cosmic ray flux directly recorded etc.), analysis of sea level rise indicates that the oceans continue to absorb heat, evidence supports significant deep sea thermal heat absorption... ..but there are uncertainties. The scientists that are expert in these arenas haven't fully accounted either for the recent short term sea level budget nor the budget in the radiative imbalance. It's very difficult to do so over very short periods of time. So what's the point of "debating"? What are you expecting to discover by "debate" that the scientists haven't already? -
Charlie A at 08:59 AM on 19 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
In comment #10, Bern asks "why pick 2003 as the start date for your comparison?". To which I replied in #11: "2003 is the first year that we had truly global coverage of ocean heat content measurement. Moderator DB jumped in and added into my comment, "[DB] Tamino shows clearly the nature of the "Cherry-pick" that is 2003:" Let's see what NOAA says about this. The Climate Prediction Center has a useful page on Data distribution of OHC measurements. Below I've abstracted a couple of representative plots. If you think I'm cherry picking, click on the link above and compare. It is particularly informative to look at monthly plots. Plot of 500m-1000m temp profiles in the South Pacific vs. year.
Animated GIF showing temp profile coverage over an entire year. The plot starts with 2010, then backwards 2003/2003/2001, then for comparison, 1995. Note that the coverage in the South Pacific before 2003 is virtually non-existent. Go to the NOAA website if you want to look at other depths, or other years, but the evolution of sampling density is very similar.
Note that a reasonable argument could be made that truly global coverage started in 2004, rather than 2003. But there is a qualitative change in both the type of system used to gather OHC content and in the spatial coverage, in the 2003/2004 timeframe.
Response:[DB] Please see Stephen Baines' response to you on the Oceans Are Cooling thread. Keep your responses there, which is a much more appropriate thread than here. Thanks!
-
KR at 05:24 AM on 19 May 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
e - I was discussing that in the light of Jay's claim that industrial energy was 1/10 that involved in the last peak interglacial sea levels, and that AGW provides energy 10x greater than that - 100x overall. Jay - Robert Laughlin's take on climate appears to be a mix of Climate's changed before and It's not bad. Both arguments are discussed here, and shown to be wrong, and Laughlin himself has been roundly criticized for his illogical stand on these matters. Personally, I would not rely on him as a climate expert.Response:[DB] Fixed text.
-
Sea level rise is exaggerated
KR>Hence the greenhouse forcing is 10x what you describe in your post, more than sufficient to be an issue. Actually it's 100x more, sufficient indeed. -
Sea level rise is exaggerated
@Dr. Jay, Sea level rise is caused by increasing global temperatures and ice melt (which itself is caused by increasing global temperatures), so my comment is transitively relevant to global sea levels. -
KR at 04:52 AM on 19 May 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
Jay - That's what 'e' said. Note, however, that human energy use is 1% of the energy trapped by anthropogenic greenhouse gases - it's 2 orders of magnitude smaller. See the interminable waste heat thread for details. Hence the greenhouse forcing is 10x what you describe in your post, more than sufficient to be an issue. Nobody is predicting complete melt of the Antarctic ice caps, mind you. More appropriate comparisons are with peak Holocene or Eemian conditions: global temperatures ~2°C warmer, 4-6 meter higher sea levels, which would take quite some time to occur. And it looks like we're committing to an even higher temperature with AGW. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 04:35 AM on 19 May 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
@e Did you mean the waste heat is too small to have an impact on "global sea level"? -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:35 AM on 19 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
"you can have nothing of consequence above ground unless supported by solid root structures" What in the world is this supposed to mean and what is the relevance? The soils in tropical forests are thin and severely limit how deep the roots can go. Tropical trees have horizontally spread root structures and extensive butresses to account for that. -
Sea level rise is exaggerated
Dr. Jay >So we can conclude that our energy consumption is far too low to significantly impact sea levels. Your conclusion is invalid. The heat energy that drives global warming comes from the sun, not from human energy consumption. Humans emit CO2 which increases the amount of solar energy retained by the earth. The "waste heat" produced by humanity is indeed too small to have a significant effect on global temperatures, a topic that is covered in the waste heat post. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 03:06 AM on 19 May 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
Okay so that would be a 2% rise in average sea level, that is reasonable. I think Robert Laughlin's take on sea level is the most accurate, however. "the amount of water on the earth hasn’t changed significantly over geologic time, and that the rise and fall of the oceans is adequately accounted for by the waxing and waning of the polar ice sheets and slow changes in ocean basin volumes. The sea level has had a complex and interesting history, but it has never deviated more than 200 meters from its present value." Also "The last glacial melting, cross-dated at 15,000 years ago by the radiocarbon age of wood debris left by the glaciers as they retreated, occurred rapidly. The sea rose more than one centimeter per year for 10,000 years, then stopped. The extra heat required for this melting was 10 times the present energy consumption of civilization. The total meltwater flow was the equivalent of two Amazons, or half the discharge of all the rivers in all the world." So we can conclude that our energy consumption is far too low to significantly impact sea levels. -
Stephen Baines at 02:38 AM on 19 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
Nando is now taking us down the Models are unreliable path. I don't see how a discussion of the difference between curve fitting and hindcasting as validation is relevant here.Moderator Response: Concur. Further discussion of that topic must be on that other, relevant, thread. -
arch stanton at 02:18 AM on 19 May 2011Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming
Some folks like to pretend that the majority of NASA’s budget is devoted to “proving” some aspect of climate change. -
Albatross at 02:12 AM on 19 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Arkadiusz @36, "Furthermore, please do not ignore the most important sentences - with my commentary: “... no big differences in the greenness level [!] of these forests between drought and non-drought years ...” I will address this confusion when I have some time. You are ignoring the die back issue....more later. Feeley was a field study, real world data-- so I have no idea what you are trying to say. -
Stephen Baines at 02:07 AM on 19 May 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
-
arch stanton at 01:52 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Doctor, I don’t see how the depth of the sea is relevant to your question unless of course you were going to include the effect of thermal expansion of sea water. A more relevant question would be the total volume of global land based ice (km^3) / (the total sea surface area (km^2) + whatever new sea surface area would be incorporated by the rising sea level)….I hated calculus. -
nanjo at 01:51 AM on 19 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
Michael Hauber at 09:41 AM on 18 May, 2011 My apologies. This is what i wrote: The graph you have shown was published in 2005. It uses data up until 2003. all the graph before 2003 is is not a forecast by any model. They were the data used in coming up with model(s) in that Hansen paper. This what I meant: The graph you have shown was published in 2005. It uses data up until 2003. all the graph before 2003 is is not a forecast by any model in that graph. They were the data used in coming up with model(s) in that Hansen paper. Remember a model includes not just the concepts and terms. but also the parameter values generated using the data that was incorporated in that study.Response:[DB] Please, no more all-caps.
-
KR at 01:47 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Jay - I have replied on the far more appropriate How much is sea level rising thread. -
nanjo at 01:47 AM on 19 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
dana1981 at 04:51 AM on 18 May, 2011 dana, Hindcasting is the way you develop/perfect/tailor a model. the R**2 value and deviation events ( eg. when the model is hopelessly off for a period indicates a large influence is not included in the model ) tells you how good the model is in fitting the past. but, because you do not ever know if all independent variables have been included in the model and you never know if the domain covered in the past is similar to the domain that is going to follow, you have no idea what you are going to see in the future. you have to be a bit humble when you are modeling. George E. Box is purported to have said "All models are wrong. Some are Useful". When I met the man, It was a breath of fresh air to see his humility. When pointed out of a small error, he said he will look into it. A few months later, my advisor got a letter thanking us!!! ( -Snip- ).Response:[DB] Inflammatory snipped. Please keep it clean. And no all-caps.
-
sduford at 01:45 AM on 19 May 2011Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming
You didn't mention the isotope signature of the carbon in man-made CO2 vs naturally occurring CO2. I believe it is the main signature of anthropogenic climate change.Response:[dana1981] Only if you accept that CO2 is causing warming to start with
-
KR at 01:45 AM on 19 May 2011Sea level rise is exaggerated
Jay - Googling "average ocean depth", as I noted earlier, provides the average depth of 3790 meters in the summary of the first link.Response:[DB] Fixed link.
-
JMurphy at 01:45 AM on 19 May 2011Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming
Carter is a polemical idealogue first and foremost, and a scientist (just about) last. He should be ashamed of himself but is probably proud of his disseminations. -
Paul D at 01:41 AM on 19 May 2011Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming
$100 billion sounds like a fantasy figure plucked from the ether. Does Carter believe that nothing should be spent on climate research? Or does he believe that the results should be neutral and effectively show nothing, as if a god were magically balancing things? -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 01:25 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Okay Arch, somebody earlier said "Fully melted Antarctic and Greenland ice caps would raise sea levels by 80 meters, according to the USGS. " That number seems to be way too high to me so I want to know the global average sea level depth and calculate what percentage average sea level would rise. Somebody also said this number is easy to come by, I've been googling and don't see it. There is also no hard numbers for total number of glaciers, globally. -
Stephen Baines at 01:24 AM on 19 May 2011Temp record is unreliable
Joe RG Those changes, besides being very small, do not increase the appearance of global warming in the data set. You have to pay attention to the timing. The diffs in temp anomalies are similar for the most important part of the record from 1950 and on, and the increase in late data is matched by an increase in very early data. If you want to do a proper comparison that prvides the correct context, you should compare the NCDC records on the same graph before and after the corrections. You should also calculate the temp change since the 70s in the two data sets - that's the period when we think GHG forcing has become dominant. When I do the latter in excel, very quickly. I get a 0.164C/decade in the first and 0.166/decade in the second. Those are within 1% of each other and certainly within the error in the data. It would take not just 10, but 100 such revisions (all in the same direction) to produce anything near the temp trend apparent in the record. Your doubts are unfounded, and the insinuation unnecessary. -
Albatross at 01:15 AM on 19 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Arkadiusz @36, "Furthermore, please do not ignore the most important sentences - with my commentary: “... no big differences in the greenness level [!] of these forests between drought and non-drought years ...” I will address this confusion when I have some time. You are ignoring the die back issue....more later. Feeley was a field study, real world data-- so I have no idea what you are trying to say.Moderator Response: Fixed unclosed HTML tag -
CBDunkerson at 01:13 AM on 19 May 2011Temp record is unreliable
JoeRG wrote: "It is not apparent why the first half of the last century should have been overestimated while the rest until now should have been underestimated." You do realize that the 'change' in the trendline is 0.0002 C per year, right? If you find that to "really create doubts" it doesn't seem like this has anything to do with logic or reality. The variation between the old and new results is a tiny fraction of the stated margin of error and leaves these anomalies still in close agreement with the GISS, NASA, UAH, RSS, and other data sets. -
arch stanton at 01:12 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
I missed a response… Doctor - what would be the usefulness of calculating the sea level rise as a percentage of average sea depth? -
Albatross at 01:11 AM on 19 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Ken @112, Stop misrepresenting me re Dyson....the way you quoted those phrases (first one yours, second one mine) makes it look like am am of the opinion that Dyson is "dishonest and disingenuous", which is not true. I was, of course, referring to a "skeptic" who was misrepresenting his stance on the theory of AGW, you. And you doing that latest trick just supports my claim. The fact remains the slope of the line increases (compare to that for 0-700 m) when one includes OHC down to 2000 m. You asked, you got an answer, yet you will not accept it. That is not 'skepticism', that is ideology Ken. And Josh said "most", not "all"-- Trenberth's figure is consistent with that. Now please go and argue strawmen somewhere else. And again, please provide some context--what the does this all have to do with Lindzen's illusion about the warming arising from internal variability? Re your question to Chris: "So you tell me how the heat is getting from the surface down to 2000m and below that." I am emailing a colleague (an oceanographer) to ask him about that today. -
Byron Smith at 01:09 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Warming Indicators: The Motion Picture Yes please. That would be excellent. -
arch stanton at 01:05 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Adelady (13), I like suspense too, but the question was ambiguous, and no matter how I interpret it, the answer is irrelevant when judging the (human) impact of sea level rise. The doctor has dug himself into a hole (average depth = deep). -
Charlie A at 00:58 AM on 19 May 2011Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Climate Scientist Fears His "Wedges" Made It Seem Too Easy is a recent article in National Geographic in which Robert Socolow, one of the two authors of the "wedge" paper, discusses how his work has been received and used. ""The job went from impossible to easy" in part because of the wedges theory. "I was part of that.""Response:[dana1981] Socolow clarifies his comments
-
JoeRG at 00:31 AM on 19 May 2011Temp record is unreliable
What I did is just to download the data of version 2 and of version 3, copy them in an Excel sheet (sorry for misspelling above), compared them and made a graphical output. As scientific as a simple comparison can be. I had used the original (NCDC) data to show that there is an odd behaviour when making the recent update of data and methods. OK, I should have linked these data in the comments before. Sorry for that. The summary of the changes that you mentioned does not explain the behavior of the corrections at all. It is not apparent why the first half of the last century should have been overestimated while the rest until now should have been underestimated. Even if one would follow the statements, the behavior in general or the reason are quite unclear. This, of course, is odd and it really creates doubts. It is nearly impossible for an outstanding to follow these procedures, even if there are summaries. But this would be an off-topic question about scientific transparency. If you look on top and read the question of this topic, my answer would be (and i've tried to show it with actual data) "there are doubts, indeed". But I wonder how you can accuse me to make "insinuations" although the data speak a very clear tongue.Moderator Response: [e] Please review the advanced version of this post. The raw data has been analyzed and plotted several different ways by several different organizations and citizen scientists. The result is always the same. Implying wrongdoing simply because you do not understand one of these reconstructions is not a valid scientific argument and is a violation of this site's comment policy. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 00:23 AM on 19 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
I've just checked some of these links people have posted and it appears somebody else is using my same name. I have never heard of a Dr. Shooshmon. The reason I was asking about average global sea level in meters is because I wanted to compare estimated sea level rise rates based on average global sea level and also based on percentage of water glaciers in question of melting hold.Response:[DB] This is off-topic for this thread.
-
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:56 PM on 18 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
@Albatros Recent research has found that the ITCZ can migrate up to 5 degrees - were doing it, and past from natural causes . One of the most recent works says: “Specifically, our data indicate that the ITCZ was 500 km closer to the equator during the LIA than it is today and that it was south of its present position (7 degN) for the last 1,000 years.” You ignored the results from field studies by Feeley ... Ppaper by Feeley, it is typical of Chery Picking - typical, because it is "not reproducible." Paper Smith, 2011. - an analysis recently published a large number of papers - on the impact of extreme climatic phenomena on productivity and 37 other parameters of the ecosystems - in the world. It is “off topic”? All you have demonstrated is that large variations in the degree of biomass burning ... - No. I just wanted to say that biomass burning - SH - is definitely - a record - the lowest in 650 years ... ... of the poor in the reference - the paper Lewis et al., 2011., does not speak. Furthermore, please do not ignore the most important sentences - with my commentary: “... no big differences in the greenness level [!] of these forests between drought and non-drought years ...” -
Ken Lambert at 23:50 PM on 18 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
chris #108 Trying to batter me with Douglass/Knox and their alleged faults elsewhere is a distraction from the numbers which you will not debate. "D/K are obviously having great fun with their very late second careers as climate contrarians; but your reliance on them for info on climate-related matters is misplaced…" I mentioned their paper and its quotation of Argo analyses from data by Willis and others. There are 5 or 6 other analyses which show no or little heat gain in the 0-700m layers. We have as far as I know only one Argo analysis 0-2000m from VS. BP #107 has suggested "Thermohaline downwelling itself does not transfer any heat into the abyss, it removes heat from there." So you tell me how the heat is getting from the surface down to 2000m and below that. -
Ken Lambert at 23:37 PM on 18 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Albatross #109 You are trying hard for a small win Albatross - how about - "Dyson does not subscribe to alarmist AGW." "That is, IMO, dishonest and disingenuous." BTW, allegations of dishonesty are banned under the comments policy. Are you immune from moderation Albatross? Trenberth 2010: "However, independent analysis8 of the full-depth Argo floats for 2003 to 2008 suggests that the 6-year heat-content increase is 0.77 ± 0.11 W m−2 for the global ocean or 0.54 W m−2 for the entire Earth, indicating that substantial warming may be taking place below the upper 700 m." I think you will find that Dr Trenberth is quoting the von Schukmann analysis from September 2009, which is the only 0-2000m Argo analysis published as far as I know. BP raised serious questions about the bumps in the VS global chart and the impossible rates of heat transfer involved. I asked Dr Trenberth about some aspects of the VS paper on 10FEB2010, and at that date he had not read it. Later he started quoting it in correspondence with Dr Pielke, published on his blog. -
Stephen Baines at 23:37 PM on 18 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
@Camburn 32 "you can have nothing of consequence above ground unless supported by solid root structures. " Of course the same could be said in reverse as well, no roots without shoots. Moreover, under a given set of conditions, a plant which apportions a larger fraction of their biomass to root structures must, by necessity, grow slower because their metabolic costs increase relative to their photosynthetic rates. Because of this tradeoff, the root to shoot ratio is pretty constrained for a given biome. In the Amazon (and most wet tropical forests), belowground typically is 25% of above ground, roughly speaking. And there isn't a lot of dead soil carbon as it is quickly decomposed, except in consistently saturated soils. Of course if it gets drier, the root to shoot ratio will increase as plants try to access more water, but that will only happen because root biomass will decrease a little less than above ground biomass. IOW, the below ground biomass will not compensate for the loss of above ground biomass as climate dries in the Amazon. -
Ken Lambert at 23:20 PM on 18 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
BP #107 A useful contribution BP. I was listening to a radio interview with Josh Willis, and he made the point that most of the heat transfer action was in the top 10-20% of the oceans. With an average depth of 3700m - that puts it in the 0-700m layers. Maybe Albatross and Chris could also benefit from your contribution. -
JoeRG at 22:03 PM on 18 May 2011Temp record is unreliable
Yes, I agree with you regarding the need of progress. But if the progress looks like this, it is a bit odd. I made it by myself with a simple Excess table which compares the GHCN-M version 2 with the version 3 regarding the yearly anomalies. And it looks ... strange.Response:[DB] This is a science-based website. Merely attaching an "odd" or "strange" appellation/connotation to something adds nothing positive to the dialogue. If you have constructive criticism of the changes you reference you will need to perform a more robust analysis to back up your "insinuations" (which veer into Comment Policy violation status...).
-
sime at 21:11 PM on 18 May 2011National Academy of Sciences on Climate Risk Management
Sailrick @ 12 "If I'm not mistaken, it is mostly limited to the... England... " I'm not sure I agree with England as in the UK being in that category. The UK is not in general terms in denial about climate change. With 83% of the UK public apparently viewing climate change as a current or imminent threat http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/31/public-belief-climate-change Add to that the fact that yesterday 17/05/2011 "Britain pledged to cut carbon pollution in half by 2025 (from 1990 levels)" OK so the devil is in the detail, but that is as the NY Times put it "...A striking example of a government committing to big environmental initiatives while also pursuing austerity measures.” http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/17/britain-pledges-to-cut-carbon-pollution-in-half-by-2025/ As for Scotland the first minister Alex Salmond does not give a hoot about what people say is possible or not and simply ignores the nay sayers and is now now comitting the Scottish to "generating the equivalent of 100 per cent of Scotland’s own electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020" http://www.newenergyworldnetwork.com/renewable-energy-news/by-technology/water/scotland-reinforces-100-renewables-by-2020.html The UK is not in any way either in or on the US GOP / Tea party style "road to doom" denial train, despite what the disinformers would have you believe.Response:[DB] Hot-linked URLs.
-
JMurphy at 20:02 PM on 18 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Southwing wrote : "Dear folks, Dr. Jay is rather obviously a "seeker after truth" troll. Back to the topic, please." I'm not convinced, especially after this comment from a Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd over on the DeepClimate thread about Wegman's current difficulties : Whatever at least this Wegman guy didn’t try to make a fake graph... -
JoeRG at 19:20 PM on 18 May 2011Temp record is unreliable
With May 2 the NCDC changed the dataset and calculation. This change has a very strange effect. The NCDC uses the period of 1901-2000 as reference. With the "correction" (if one really will call it this way) the anomalies from beginning of the reference (1901) until the mid 50th are lowered while all other following values rised. Of course, not in significant ranges. But having this three or four times happened we will see differences to previous calculations in a significant range of approx. 0.1K. So the question arises again: are the data reliable?Response:[DB] Hey, progress happens. You're not against improvements to increase accuracy, right? After all, insinuations of something nefarious are beneath us...especially when the details of the change are made transparent, as you note.
-
Rob Painting at 18:36 PM on 18 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Adelady - a vast amount of carbon is stored underground. A multitude of factors lead to drying of the forest. I'll get to that eventually. Camburn- I think it is very safe to say that there are published papers showing a large climatic variation in the Amazon in times past Perhaps not as large as many readers may think. IIRC, during the ice ages for instance, mean annual temperature in the Amazon is thought to have fallen only 1-2°C, and this was mainly due to frequent outbursts of friagems being channeled up the Andes into the Amazon. Were it not for that, temps would have been closer to modern day. And, of course, when it was too dry in South America in the deep past, the Amazon didn't exist at all -
Derek B at 17:44 PM on 18 May 2011Greenhouse effect has been falsified
I'm seeing references to a paper by a Joseph Postma, also denying any greenhouse effect. His argument boils down to this: 1. Thermodynamics says the effective black body temperature of the earth is -18C, and this is matched by observation from space. 2. We observe much balmier temperatures at the earth's surface in practice. 3. The Greenhouse Theory says the difference is down to the greenhouse effect. 4. Postma observes that the temperature of -18C occurs at 5km altitude: "This altitude is found at about 5km in height above the ground surface by observation. " 5. He calculates from more thermodynamic theory (the adiabatic lapse rate) that we should therefore expect the temperature at the surface of the earth to be 14.5C. Voila! No need for a greenhouse effect. The blunder, of course, is that he offers no explanation for the -18C line being at 5km. And the explanation is ... the greenhouse effect! He also makes this confusion on thermodynamics, which I've seen elsewhere: "something which is cool cannot transfer heat to something which is warm". Clearly he is thinking of net transfer, but that's not how he uses this principle. -
Paul D at 17:20 PM on 18 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Dr Jay: "And before anybody goes after me for the question of the empirical evidence for the melting ice caps, I'm just trying to figure out if anyone knows how much the sea level will rise because that is the danger to humans, correct?" Not exactly. Reducing the area covered by glaciers has a number of impacts. 1. Changes to fresh water and hydro-electric schemes. 2. Increased ice loss further in land (Greenland, Antarctica), which reduces albedo, increasing the warming etc. 3. Probably changes in weather patterns, possibly water circulation to. 4. Sea level increases due to land based ice dumping into the seas. 5. Changes in wildlife and migration, impacts on food chain etc. -
adelady at 16:44 PM on 18 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Camburn - "...you can have nothing of consequence above ground unless supported by solid root structures." But I thought the big issue with tropical forests was that there is little to no 'solid root structure' below ground. Practically the whole of the growth, carbon, nutrient cycles occur above ground which is why clear felling and/ or burning such forests depletes those soils so much more quickly and completely than soils in other regions. -
Michael Hauber at 15:36 PM on 18 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
Tamino charted averages over a 5 year period. To get a flat spot within a rising trend on such a graph you need more than 10 years of flat data so that two complete 5 year periods give the same average. Using a 5 year moving average is a different calculation and requires more than 5 years of flat data to get a flat spot in a rising trend. You use a charting method that is twice as sensitive to noise as the chart that Tamino uses, and then accuse Tamino's chart of being bogus. The chart you use which is more sensitive to noise also picks up a flat spot just after 1990. The trend then resumed its upward climb. Why would we expect the current flat spot to be any different? -
scaddenp at 14:45 PM on 18 May 2011Another animated version of the Warming Indicators Powerpoint
Bern, see the first link at RealClimate (Moderators comment) and then this one where the commentator "Jay Cadbury" explains why he changed name from "Dr Shooshmon". Whether this is the same "jay Cadbury" and "Dr Shooshmon" as at Realclimate and Blackboard cannot of course be verified. However the "concern troll" type posts are pretty similar. -
JoeRG at 14:39 PM on 18 May 2011It's cosmic rays
A new study could heat up the discussion again, I think. -
Bern at 13:51 PM on 18 May 2011Book reviews of Climate Change Denial
marcusbondi: actually, if the book succeeds in opening a few eyes to the science, then it may end up saving far, far more carbon than it cost to print & ship a few thousand copies... Speaking of which: if I may ask, purely out of curiosity, what was the first edition print run?
Prev 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 Next
