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Bern at 13:43 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Marcus: he's a politician, so, sadly, we pretty much *expect* him to be a hypocrit (although there are, fortunately, some politicians who aren't). Re the "CAGW" label - I've only seen that used by the Watt's Up With That brigade. Ironically, it is the intransigence by the deniers that will be responsible for the "Catastrophic" part of the term, if it comes to pass. -
Albatross at 13:26 PM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
CW, Have you noticed that none has bothered to answer your missive @110? Have you asked yourself why? And I am willing to bet that you will provide yourself and readers here the wrong answer as to why. -
KR at 13:20 PM on 16 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Stephen Baines I think that being bought out requires a very different mindset than the general scientist. I say that as someone whose close relative (sibling) was a mouthpiece for the tobacco industry for denying "second hand smoking" dangers. Scientists know that if they state something ridiculous, they will be caught out. Whereas advocates don't care, as long as the discussion/disagreement continues, and no action is taken. The more irrelevant issues, the better, for them! -
Albatross at 13:16 PM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Ken @95, "There are a few great minds who don't subscribe to the AGW theory." A moot point, but wrong anyhow. Dyson does accept the theory of AGW: "One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas." [Source] Also, there are probably some great physicists you do not believe the Americans landed men on the moon. And thanks, but I and other scientists do not 'subscribe' to the theory of AGW. You see Ken, your innuendo and rhetoric and attempts at using pejorative text belie your intentions and undermine your credibility. And you avoided answering my question @93. So when can we expect the manuscript by you and BP available online? And no, I am not being facetious. -
Marcus at 13:16 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Got to love Abbott's extreme oversimplification of the impacts of a Carbon Tax today. He was at a Leather-goods manufacturer saying "well their electricity bill is X now, so under a carbon tax it will be X+(X/10) dollars a year extra". Well *sure*-if said manufacturer continues to source *all* its energy from fossil fuels & *if* they don't implement any demand management strategies, then that is what will happen, but the Carbon Tax isn't simply going to happen in a vacuum. Of course the irony for me was this-what impact did the GST have on this leather-manufacturer's costs? Not just electricity, but *everything* they purchased became about 10% more expensive-& no way to avoid it either. It was also ironic given that it was manufacturers like these who got *stiffed* by the unilateral reduction of tariffs. Sorry, but Abbott is a complete *hypocrite*. -
Michaelf at 12:57 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Seriously brilliant. So worried that the debate was being hijacked by herald sun commentators and politicians more worried about getting into power than the planet itself. Great idea Thanks -
Stephen Baines at 12:52 PM on 16 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Think of how much money individual scientists could get from vested interests for stating that climate change isn't happening, or, if it is, that it can't be caused by humans. Now compare that to the amount of money they could hypothetically get from the government after slavishly writing multiple grants a year and being raked over the coals by reviewers. If opinion followed money, the 97:1 consensus for AGW should be in the opposite direction. So I find it amazing how few scientists have been actually been bought off in the end to hold a position they feel is scientifically untenable. It's reassuring actually. -
SteveS at 12:30 PM on 16 May 2011There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
michaelkourlas @6: Where is this image from? The top graph contains one curve, but is labeled "Air Temperature at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet" on the left and "Approximate global temperature anomaly" on the right. Unless these track exactly (which would seem surprising), something's wrong there. Greenland temperatures wouldn't be useful in comparison. I think the author of the graph should include more recent CO2 values to show that the current spike in temperature is matched by the current spike in CO2. He/She could have used a dotted line similar to the one in the temperature graph. Additionally, I was under the impression that the correlation was only for the latter part of the 20th century (another reason why the author should have included the current CO2 values). Previous to that, I was under the impression that other climate forcings were stronger than CO2; eg, the sun in the early 20th century. As such, it would seem that this graph is a strawman. -
Chemware at 12:23 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Well done John ! The very best of luck at Parliament ! Patrick @5: This is a science blog. It is not the comments column of a trashy News paper. As such, you need to support your claims by reference to peer-reviewed literature. In contrast to your claims that "the science is not settled", there is ample evidence in the peer-reviewed literature - see Skeptic Argument #4: There is no consensus. -
Riduna at 12:23 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Senator Christine Milne will definitely read this book from cover to cover before handing it to her staff. Let us hope it receives the same attention from Greg Hunt and, for that matter, Greg Combet. Let me guess the answers to the questions posed by actually thoughtful #7. Are they: a lot, very bad and before 2100 ? -
Stevo at 12:19 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Michael Hauber, Thankyou for the explanation. I guess I'll just have to keep watching to see how weather patterns match up to the model projections. Also glad you helped me to identify what are real trends and what are cherry picks. Wet in the North and dry in the South certainly fits the current weather patterns. (Now I know to wait some more years in order to determine if it is just weather or a real change in climate, but if I was a gambling man I'd put my money on climate change.) -
Riduna at 12:07 PM on 16 May 2011Who Ya Gonna Call???
Little wonder that the valves in my wireless overheated and the loud speaker has never been the same since listening to this wrap-rap for the 15th time. I never knew that climate scientists took their science so .... “seriously”? -
villabolo at 12:02 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
"Today, just three months after that dire outlook, the doom and gloom is lifting. The Amazon and its species have made a dramatic comeback, so much so that the river populations of dolphins now exceed pre-drought levels, even in one of the hardest hit drought areas" I'm not allowed to say where Solomon pulls his information from but I can tell you that Amazon dolphins have a gestation period of 9-12 months. -
Marcus at 11:33 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Wow Patrick, how many denialist memes can you fit into a single post? As always you play up the "lack of certainty" straw-man, then tell us how rotten renewable energy is....well, Wind Power at any rate-as if that's the *only* renewable energy technology currently at our disposal. Then you refer to the CAGW "Brigade", as if there's a bunch of people out there who actually *want* the planet to warm. Might I suggest, Patrick, that this kind of ill-informed sewerage would find a better reception at WUWT. -
Ken Lambert at 11:24 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Albatross #93 and Sphaerica #94 Why don't you leave Chris to respond to my arguments? He is more than capable and civil in demeanour. A great mind I do not have - a reasonably experienced and servicable one perhaps. There are a few great minds who don't subscribe to the AGW theory - Freeman Dyson for one. Sphaerica - we could move to the Flanner thread for more instruction on elementary planetary geometry if you like. -
michaelkourlas at 10:51 AM on 16 May 2011There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
My mistake, I forgot to resize the above image to 450 pixels. Mr. Cook, could you please edit the post to fix the problem? -
michaelkourlas at 10:49 AM on 16 May 2011There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
A very devoted scientist at the University of Oslo has put together this graph:
Where's the correlation between CO2 and temperature over the last 11000 years? That's pretty long-term...
Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Please restrict image width to 500. -
nico at 10:36 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Congratulations. The book is as good as the website ... need I say more? But be sure to put the Parliamentary Edition into the hands of the Parliamentarian's staffers, who (in many cases) do the actual thinking on behalf of their masters. And be sure to put the book into the hands of the Parliamentary Library, a great and under-used facility with admirable science librarians. -
ClimateWatcher at 10:35 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
108: See the images in post #4 of this thread. Note the differences in albedo between the albedo used in Hansen's model and the ones estimated by Trenberth's two energy budgets. Note the differences in outgoing longwave radiation between Hansen's model, Trenberth's two energy budget estimates, and the series from all the NOAA satellites. While they could conceivably all be wrong, at most, only one can be correct meaning the others are wrong by more than the signal we're looking for from CO2 forcing. Notice the seasonal variation in outgoing longwave radiation as estimated from the NOAA satellites. Also notice the change from year to year. Is that accurate? Probably not, there are a lot of uncalculable changes in calibrations taking place on so many different sensors. But now look at the thick lines representing the linear trend in outgoing longwave radiation. Notice how the GISS model indicates falling outgoing (as AGW predicts) and contrast that with the RISING outgoing energy as estimated by the satellite series. There are questions that we have to humbly recognize we cannot answer. -
KR at 09:35 AM on 16 May 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Of some interest: Jo Nova has posted a thread by a guest poster that states quite clearly that the radiative greenhouse effect does not violate thermodynamics. There's still a lot of arguing that the effect is small, that feedbacks are negative - but I find it very interesting that a major skeptic website has posted this. It takes a lot of effort at times, but it is possible to convince the skeptical of the validity of physics sometimes. The thread is currently >230 comments after a couple of days... many of the regulars there are quite displeased.Moderator Response: Link here -
Michael Hauber at 09:32 AM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Stevo, the situation on rainfall in Australia is complicated: 1. Some models predict less rain, and some models predict more rain. There are more models predicting less rain, which suggests it is more likely that one of the less rain models is correct, but there is no reason one of the models showing more rain might not be correct. 2. Uniform dyring is not predicted. The average case of all models is for drying in the south, particularly during winter, and more rain in the north, particularly during summer. The reflect the processes of a strenthening monsoon driven by increased water vapour supply, and a strengthening high pressure belt in the subtropics, which seem both to be robust and common features of all climate models and are both being observed. What other processes may change is a mystery. 3. One of the key mystery processes is ENSO. During the 80s and 90s ENSO was the warmest (dry for Australia) it has ever been in over 100 years. This led to much speculation that Co2 was to blame, as the average SOI index during the 80s and 90s reached unprecedented dry values. Since then it has recovered, and the La Nina just ending has the wettest SOI value ever recorded over a 6 month wet season period. Climate scientists are divided over whether warming should lead to a cooling or warming of the ENSO. 4. The recent Australia drought is not unprecedented (in rainfall terms), unless you narrow the rainfall defencies down quite a lot, to SE Australia during April and May, and SW Australia during the entire year. Choosing only specific regions and times is cherry picking, so the results may still be valid, but you can't claim that the results are a significant proof of anything. 5. Although the low level of rain is not unprecedented, the combination of low rain and high temperatures is. The high temperatures make the drought worse. Also last time we had a drought as strong as what we recently experienced the tropics were also in drought. This time the tropics are quite wet during summer, which lines up with the general pattern predicted by models. To summarise the models predict wet in the north and dry in the south. We don't have clear cut evidence that this is definitely the entire story for Australia rainfall, but the trends we do see are certainly in the right direction. -
Stephen Baines at 09:10 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket... "Your move." So are you implying that this is just a chess game to you and not a rational discussion of the data and its meaning? Perhaps that is why you never seem to address the nub of the question. I still don't see how you intend to explain the persistent post industrial increase in CO2 with a natural net source given that... 1. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is less than predicted if all CO2 released by human activities remained in the atmosphere. 2. The change in stable isotopic composition of that CO2 indicates a source that is plant matter in origin. 3. The reduction in atmospheric O2 and the acidification of the ocean indicates that the ocean can't be the source and is instead a sink. 4. The change in terrestrial pools hasn't been nearly large enough to explain the increase in atmospheric CO2 5. The changes to terrestrial pools that have occured are due to human activities anyway. -
Michael Hauber at 09:10 AM on 16 May 2011Who Ya Gonna Call???
Besides assessing an expert on their credentials, you can assess an expert on the quality of their past work. In climate science past work is the predictions made in previous decades, and these predictions can be compared to what happened. Consider that a prediction that is often quoted by deniers is the Hansen 88 prediction. This is because it was one of the more extreme predictions on the warm side. However we have still have seen about 2/3rds of the warming predicted in this projection. In contrast deniers rarely make predictions other than in general sweeping terms such as 'aren't those scientists going to be shocked when the cooling from the new Maunder type minimum kicks in'. Of the few specific predictions that I have seen they have always been predictions that it will get cooler, and aside from predictions that span a short period from a warm ENSO to cool ENSO event, all such predictions I have seen have failed. The failure was not just with 2/3 of the cooling predicted, or even 1/4 of the cooling predicted. The failure was that we saw warming instead of cooling, with the current La Nina well on the way to being the warmest La Nina ever. -
Ken Lambert at 09:09 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
Chris #95 Quite a reasonable sounding summary Chris, except it is really only the story of 'trapping' the outgoing energy and not what is happening with the incoming. The thrust of Hansen's new paper is that Aerosols are reflecting much more incoming than previously thought, and together with a Solar minimum, the imbalance over the last decade has reduced from about 0.9W/sq.m to 0.5W/sq.m via von Schukmann's Argo OHC analysis. The 11 year Solar ripple has an amplitude of about 0.25W/sq.m which is 0.13W/sq.m either side of a mean. Therefore, your statement that: "indicates with very little room for doubt that the Earth is currently in radiative imbalanace (absorbing around 0.75 Wm-2 excess solar energy averaged over the solar cycle, as Ken Lambert has informed us elsewhere in reference to a recent summary by Hansen)." Is not quite right. The imbalance number would be 0.63 +/-0.13 W/sq.m over the Solar cycle based on Hansen's paper which is a third less than the 0.9W/sq.m used by Hansen, Trenberth et al. to date. This is at a time when CO2 concentrations have never been higher, and WV feedback is at a maximum. Hansen argues that the Aerosol cooling has increased to about a value of -1.6W/sq.m which effectively cancels out the +1.7W/sq.m from CO2 GHG effects (at 390ppmv it would be +1.77W/sq.m). The big issue for Hansen, Trenberth et al., arises if the warming imbalance measured by OHC change is far less that 0.5-0.6W/sq.m and heads toward zero. Do we increase the implied Aerosol cooling?, what happens to WV feedback?, and do we really have a closing imbalance gap which mitigates the effect of AGW? Increasing CO2 emissions increases Aerosols which reduce incoming energy which closes the imbalance gap. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the process is reversible, so that the planet has time to economically reduce both emissions and aerosols, and perhaps keep the gap closing. -
KR at 09:05 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket - Why are you referring to particular molecules of anthropogenic CO2 in that equation, when Dikran specifically defined it as the total CO2 of whatever origin sequestered by mankind? If you insist on such a term, you will be required to add an additional term for natural origin CO2 also sequestered, or the equation will not contain all the sums. And Dikran has already done that by using a single term. -
KR at 09:01 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket - The appropriate term for your last post with a large list of items is a Gish Gallop; a long list of untruths, misconceptions, and errors. I will not attempt to answer each of these, but I will note that if you look at the Most Used Skeptic Arguments list on the upper left, you will find that most of these items have been addressed in the appropriate threads. -
drrocket at 08:22 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
Dikran Marsupial, 5/16/11, 6:23 AM, CO2 residence OK. Good approach. Answer: No. I disagree with your definition and evaluation of U_a. U_a are those particular molecules of ACO2, whether from fossil fuel combustion or land use, that end up in the surface reservoirs per year. I agree that man's sequestration of CO2 is negligible, limited, for example, to the manufacture of dry ice and tankage of CO2. So we don't have to worry about the apportionment of that sequestered CO2 between ACO2 and nCO2. But U_a must include the processes implied in Figure 7.3, i.e., the land-sink and dissolution in the surface waters. It wouldn't matter that U_a is inferred, and not directly measurable. That's true of all thermodynamic macroparameters, and we still deal with Global Average Surface Temperature and Global Average Albedos. Your move. -
kampmannpeine at 08:20 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
also from my side: congratulation .. and best of luck. As I said yesterday: I got my copy already (here in Germany) -
drrocket at 08:04 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
Dikran Marsupial, 5/16/11, 6:13 AM, CO2 residence No one but you, now, said "about 90 GtC/yr", and about 90 does not mean 90. What you can support off Figure 7.3 is 92.2. That's the sum of 70 nCO2 plus an arbitrary 20 deduced to be ACO2 formerly nCO2, plus a critically important 2.2 ACO2. You can't just round off these numbers because that scraps a critical 27.5% of the total ACO2 flux. My fluxes are fully consistent with IPCC's fluxes. I do not rely on competing data sets, competing means of data reduction, or competing climate models, except to fill an IPCC void. I rely on nothing to contradict IPCC but the following: ( -Long rambling list of points snipped- ) ( -Long rambling discourse on ethics snipped- ). ( -Allegations of impropriety snipped- ). ( -Inflammatory snipped- ).Response:[DB] Please follow Dikran's lead; a better compliance with the Comments Policy is also requested. Gish Gallop's normally get deleted en toto.
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scaddenp at 08:02 AM on 16 May 2011Models are unreliable
Truckmonkey, you are missing the CO2 handle. Firstly, in paleoclimate CO2 is ONLY a feedback. It responds to temperature and amplifies whatever else is happening to temperature by changing the radiative forcing. There are two things to note about this. 1/ The CO2 feedbacks are SLOW. They are thought to have minimal if any effect over climate in next century. This is NOT to say that the effect of CO2 forcing is slow - only that the change in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere in response to temperature is slow. When CO2 concentration does change, then the effect in instantaneous more or less. 2/ Most AR4 models dont even consider the CO2 feedback. AR5 will, but with what skill? For paleoclimate, studies do have to consider that. However, at every time step in the model, you have to know boundary conditions. One of these is CO2 concentration in atmosphere. Now to determine climate in say 2-300 years, you would need to what the CO2 concentration is. You have do this with a combination of both scenario - how CO2 are humans likely to emit - and a carbon cycle model - how much will CO2 change due to temperature rise. For paleoclimate though, you dont have to have a carbon-cycle model at all. You can just put in the CO2 concentration at that time. Of course if you are trying to understand what happens to carbon cycle, then you need model, but my understanding is these are so far somewhat unconstrained - there are many ways to reproduce the CO2 response to temperature change without so far easy ways to favour one versus the other. You comment on models parameter implies you really need to study how these models work. The only thing in climate model that changes with CO2 concentration is the radiative forcing. There is no link in the code between that and the other factors you mention (which are mostly carbon cycle model parameters and not in models for reasons above). Climate models get complicated by feedback and this is related to temperature, not directly to CO2. There is no control knob in the model like you imply to "turn down". Alley comments are an observation about what model imply, not a description of the model. -
citizenschallenge at 07:22 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Congratulations and best of luck. I'm looking forward the arrival of my copy. -
Albatross at 07:17 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Patrick @5, The defeatests and obstructionists arrive on cue. Presumably to "balance" the fact that John Cook is being proactive and positive and actually trying to make a difference. The strawman raised here about the "science being settled". The term, "the science is settled", as has been explained many times-- whether or not it is true depends on which science one is referring to. Also, an analogy, the medical science concerning the links between tobacco and cancer is not settled on all fronts, but that has not prevented huge advances being made, action being taken with astoundingly positive results. The defeatests would, it seem, have us do nothing until we know exactly how tobacco causes each kind of cancer and that each treatment is demonstrated to be 100% effective. However, unlike the link between cancer and tobacco we actually know for a fact that increasing CO2 causes warming, and have known that for well over 100 years now. Patrick, it is not CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming)-- that emotive and alarmist term was fabricated by those in denial about AGW and by "skeptics". The reality is that it is you and your ilk who have their heads firmly entrenched in the sand, preventing you from seeing and hearing about the problems, not to mention potential solutions. Now kindly please step out of the way. Thanks. -
actually thoughtful at 07:01 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Patrick Kelly, to the contrary - renewable solutions, even starved for funds and ridiculed by the right and policy makers, continue to improve, and are already available to solve this problem. If the science wasn't settled when Al Gore said it was in 2007, it IS settled now. All that is left is to iron out small (but important) details - how much, how bad and how soon. (and I note it turns out Al Gore was right - the science is settled, and we need to take immediate action. Some on the right try to attack Al Gore as if killing the messenger will change the physics. It won't.) -
actually thoughtful at 06:45 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
What is the disagreement between Trenberth and Hansen? -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:23 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
O.K. Drrocket, lets try and make some progress and try again to go through this step by step. Conservation of mass suggests that any carbon emitted into the atmosphere that isn't taken up by the environment will stay in the atmosphere and cause atmospheric concentrations to increase. More specifically dC = E_a + E_n - U_a - U_n where: dC is the annual change in atmospheric CO2 in GtC/yr E_a is anthropogenic CO2 emissions, from land use changes and fossil fuel use U_a is anthropogenic uptake. This is not the amount of anthropogenic CO2 removed from the atmosphere each year. It is the amount of CO2 (from whatever source) removed from the atmosphere as a result of human activity. This means things like carbon capture and storage. Please pay particular attention to that point as you have already misinterpreted it twice. U_a is effectively 0GtC/yr. Our efforts at carbon capture and storage so far have been negligible compared with our emissions. E_n is natural emissions from the carbon cycle, in other words respiration, volcanic emissions, emissions from the surface ocean. U_n is natural uptake as part of the natural carbon cycle, in other words CO2 removed from the atmosphere as a results of chemical weathering, gross primary production, and absorption by the surface ocean (organic pump + solubility pump). Now please, no long rambling list of points, just give a direct answer do you agree with the carbon mass balance equation I have given in this post? -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:13 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket wrote: "2. The 120 GtC/yr, above, equals GPP on Figure 7.3, but the gross natural flux of 90 GtC/yr is awkwardly not confirmed there." No, actually the figure does confirm the 90GtC/yr figure, add the 70GtC/yr pre-industrial flux into the surface oceans and the 22 GtC/yr post-industrial change, you get something "about 90 GtC/yr" "IPCC seems to have arbitrarily and pointlessly converted ± 20 GtC/yr of natural air-sea flux into ACO2." Yes, it would indeed be arbitrary and pointless. For most people that would be an indication that perhaps that is not what the IPCC has done and that perhaps they had misinterpreted something somewhere. As it happens it is not what they have done. "7. IPCC used color to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic CO2 and CO2 fluxes, and not, as you imagine, to distinguish between 1750 and modern CO2" My interpretation is consistent with the caption of the figure that explicitly states the black arrows represent the pre-industrial natural fluxes. "The global carbon cycle for the 1990s, showing the main annual fluxes in GtC yr–1: pre-industrial ‘natural’ fluxes in black" Your interpretation is inconsistent with the figure caption. That suggests to me that your interpretation is incorrect. My interpretation also gives figures for the 1995 fluxes that are consistent with those given in the papers referenced by the IPCC. Your doesn't. Again that suggests my interpretation is correct and yours is incorrect. However, it is clearly pointless discussing this any further, as you appear to know better than the IPCC and more than virtually all of the skeptic climatologists, of whom only Segalstad appears to believe the rise in CO2 is not anthropogenic. That should tell you something. -
Riccardo at 06:13 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
RW1 yes, kind of. Applied to a climate system with a single characteristic time ts, you get a the response with amplitude proportional to 1/[1+(2*pi*ts/tf)**2] with tf period of the forcing. It's a crude model, but should give you the idea. -
Rob Painting at 06:08 AM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Pohjos - Some additional explanation of the connection between ITCZ and rainfall would be helpful Thks, will be discussed in a later chapter focusing on the ITCZ & Amazonian rainfall. Climatewatcher - as above. Stephen Leahy - will correct, thks. -
Paul D at 06:03 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Re: Les@5 Yes indeed, for the first time that I can remember the Treasury lost the argument. The time of the old school economists (left and right) seems to be ending. Common sense appears to be driving green policy through the sticks in the mud. -
Patrick Kelly at 05:03 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
".. we commend this book to you so you can consider the problem of denial in society.
You really must do better than this. The attempt to continually present the "science is settled" view is increasingly hollow. That approach will no longer cut it except in the increasingly irrelevant halls of the ABC and BBC. If there is a dire threat, which is by no means certain, the solutions proposed by the green commentariat are risible. Wind power will not suffice. Hydro and nuclear are condemned. This is a multi faceted discussion and I suspect that the CAGW brigade are the ones mostly with the heads below the sand level.Response:[DB] Patrick, this has been brought up, discussed and refuted a thousand times before (PRATT).
Those who have taken the time to study the primary literature and the fundamentals of the science of climate change agree:
- That our world is warming is an established fact
- That humans are very likely (>90%) responsible for most of the temperature rise post-1970 due to fossil-fuel GHG emissions (primarily CO2).
All that is left to decide is what to actually DO about it. Bandying about ill-defined labels like CAGW contribute nothing positive to this discussion.
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drrocket at 04:12 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
Dikran Marsupial, 5/16/11, 2:28 AM, CO2 residence You took what IPCC wrote out of context to misconstrue it. Here's the full paragraph, with your extraction underscored: In Figure 7.3 the natural or unperturbed exchanges (estimated to be those prior to 1750) among oceans, atmosphere and land are shown by the black arrows. The gross natural fluxes between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere and between the oceans and the atmosphere are (circa 1995) about 120 and 90 GtC yr^–1, respectively. Just under 1 GtC yr^–1 of carbon is transported from the land to the oceans via rivers either dissolved or as suspended particles (e.g., Richey, 2004). While these fluxes vary from year to year, they are approximately in balance when averaged over longer time periods. Additional small natural fluxes that are important on longer geological time scales include conversion of labile organic matter from terrestrial plants into inert organic carbon in soils, rock weathering and sediment accumulation (‘reverse weathering’), and release from volcanic activity. The net fluxes in the 10 kyr prior to 1750, when averaged over decades or longer, are assumed to have been less than about 0.1 GtC yr^–1. For more background on the carbon cycle, see Prentice et al. (2001), Field and Raupach (2004) and Sarmiento and Gruber (2006). Bold added, AR4, ¶7.2.1.1 The Natural Carbon Cycle, p. 514. 1. The natural flux estimates are updated as of 1995. 2. The 120 GtC/yr, above, equals GPP on Figure 7.3, but the gross natural flux of 90 GtC/yr is awkwardly not confirmed there. IPCC seems to have arbitrarily and pointlessly converted ± 20 GtC/yr of natural air-sea flux into ACO2. If you wanted to change the red-black assignment, I would have no objection to you converting this ± 20 GtC back from red to black. That would be harmless and would not change the natural balance, nor for that matter, the absolute anthropogenic imbalance. Best of all, that conversion would support the 90 GtC/yr figure from ¶7.2.1.1. 3. You might misread "these fluxes" in the fourth sentence, but, being plural, it is a reference to the gross natural fluxes in the second sentence plus (reasonably and without loss of generality) the Richey flux. This assignment follows since the Richey flux immediately preceding in the third sentence is not only inconsequential, but singular and not plural, confirmed in Figure 7.3 at 0.8 GtC/yr. 4. The gross natural fluxes are approximately in balance when averaged over longer time periods than year to year. 5. Because natural fluxes are approximately in balance over periods of longer than one year, IPCC justifiably modeled them as in balance going back to 1750, the nominal start of the industrial era. 6. Therefore the natural fluxes in Figure 7.3 are as of 1750, revised in 1995, and are still valid "as of end 1994" (caption, Figure 7.3). The natural fluxes are not, as you suggest, just preindustrial values, but fluxes for all seasons. 7. IPCC used color to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic CO2 and CO2 fluxes, and not, as you imagine, to distinguish between 1750 and modern CO2. Figure 7.3 is not an illustration of carbon cycle change during the industrial era. It is a diagram to teach Policymakers how IPCC models climate. -
Stephen Leahy at 03:48 AM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Some context: Solmon's piece is not an article but an op ed. He's not a journalist nor did he interview anyone. He's a well-known denier who is a regular columnist for National Post, a right-wing rag in Canada that has never made money but somehow continues to be published and given away. Solmon's speciality is the cherry pick. I actually interviewed Lewis, as well as a tropical biologist in the Amazon and Thomas Lovejoy who headed a huge metastudy last year for this article published by IPS - a global news wire. One of the warnings: 'forests are also shifting from absorbing CO2 to emitting the global warming gas' Amazon Drought Accelerating Climate Change -
ClimateWatcher at 03:43 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
In particular "...climate is completely INsensitive to changes in CO2..." is not a possibility. Of course it's possible. The theory of AGW is that GHGs will reduce earth's emission to space until earth's temperature rises to a level at which output again matches input. The theory is not without merit. But to know what the equilibrium level is you must know how much energy is entering the earth system. The chart shows a range of close to 10 W/m^2 for input (albedo estimates). You must know the amount of energy exiting the system. The chart shows a range of around 8 W/m^2. Solar variation is actually known much better, but still adds another 1 W/m^2 uncertainty for current levels. Who is right Trenberth or Hansen? or neither? or the NOAA satellite series? We do not know what the budget is. We certainly have no inkling how it has changed before even the contradictory satellite measurements. The above error bars easily cover the 4 or so W/m^2 for a still future doubling of CO2. -
KR at 03:19 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket - I quoted what I saw, which appeared to be your words; my mistake. Rereading your post you were re-stating an earlier IPCC statement. However, what I was responding to was your apparent misunderstandings on CO2 sources/sinks and the mass balance issues. Preindustrially CO2 exchanges were in rough balance between sources and sinks. We've added ~29GT/year to the sources, and we're observing an atmospheric increase equal to ~13-14GT/year. Natural carbon sinks, primarily the ocean, are absorbing more than half of the excess, but we're still seeing rising atmospheric CO2. Without our CO2 contribution, given the observed rates, atmospheric levels would be declining at ~2ppm/year. Hence we are responsible for the rise in CO2. I'm also under the distinct impression that you are overemphasizing residence times for individual molecules of CO2 versus adjustment times for total concentrations - our primary concern is the adjustment time, which is hundreds of years at a minimum. Finally, you've made a great deal of the isotopic differences in carbon. Those isotopic differences make it possible to determine attribution of the CO2 present (source determination), but don't affect carbon sinks. Nobody claims (as you stated) that "Natural CO2 is far more soluble than anthropogenic CO2" - that's a complete strawman. You've made a number of strawman arguments, much discussion of detail while overlooking the big picture, all for what to me is a rather unclear claim that our CO2 emissions are not significant. I would disagree. -
ClimateWatcher at 03:19 AM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
the ITCZ travels north to the area of most intense heating, This is a misleading statement with the obvious exceptions: In the Eastern Pacific, the ITCZ is ALWAYS in the Northern Hemisphere. The ITCZ is NOT driven by solar heating but, as its name implies, by CONVERGENCE of polar air masses from each hemisphere. It is the seasonal change in the relative intensity of each hemisphere's polar air masses that determines the location of the ITCZ. This is certainly consistent with the 'wet sahara' associated with the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Northern summers were warmer, Southern winters were colder and consequently the ITCZ was pushed north by the relatively pushier southern air masses. -
les at 03:04 AM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Well done. Take some courage from the the recent news of the UK ship of state starting to set a reasonable course. -
KR at 03:01 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
RW1 - "Any GHG 'forcing' would be rolled in on top of seasonal solar 'forcing', and it would only a be a few extra milliwatts per year." A few tenths of a watt, actually. And over time that constant offset will shift the centerpoint of ocean temperatures, with lows, highs, and averages shifting to a warmer point driven by the constant imbalance. "I know of no reason why this would be any different for GHG 'forcing' than for seasonal solar 'forcing'." Really, RW1? You know of no reason why a constant offset would cause a different response to a system with thermal inertia than a rapid variation with a constant average? If that is the case, I fear you will continue to have a great deal of difficulty understanding response times. Please read the 40 year response for short term climate change. -
Bob Lacatena at 02:51 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
93, Albatross, Amen. -
Albatross at 02:29 AM on 16 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Ken @92, "I am not comfortable with that at all as it splices XBT with Argo and produces the step jump of 2001-03 which we have argued extensively elsewhere." Please check your ego at the door. Do you really believe that the scientists practicing in this field give a hoot what you or BP are "not comfortable with" or what you might think? There is a term for that. Some great minds are seriously looking at these relatively new data, it is complex. Now with that said, if you or BP honestly think that you are on to something, then please do submit a paper to a journal. I am quite serious. Because this persistent/perpetual nitpicking, talking-through your hats, and claiming that the AGW theory is in trouble by looking at < 10 years of OHC data (which happens to include a prolonged solar minimum) in the upper levels of the oceans and pontificating from the sidelines is getting incredibly annoying and is not at all constructive. But being perhaps to be constructive is not your goal/objective, but obfuscating is and exaggerating uncertainty is. I highly recommend that you read a recent post by Chris here. And please remind me what this has to do with Lindzen claiming that the observed warming is because of internal climate variability? -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:28 AM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
DrRocket wrote: "Natural fluxes used in IPCC's model, IPCC shows in black in the figure, and anthropogenic fluxes in red. You may not change those assignments and have any claim to being rational or honest." You obviously didn't read the caption, the black arrows represent the "pre-industrial ‘natural’ fluxes in black". In the section below the figure, it says "In Figure 7.3 the natural or unperturbed exchanges (estimated to be those prior to 1750) among oceans, atmosphere and land are shown by the black arrows." The red arrows show the anthropogenically induced post-industrial changes in those natural fluxes. These changes are partly due to increased temperature and partly due to increased atmospheric CO2. For example consider the red arrow labelled "land sink" - it represents the increase in GPP due to the additional "plant food" (CO2) in the atmosphere. Of course prior to 1750 the natural fluxes were in close balance, at that time atmospheric CO2 was essentially constant and anthropogenic emissions were negligible. That doesn't mean natural fluxes are exactly balanced now - nobody is claiming they are. The direct anthropogenic fluxes are the two labelled "fossil fuel" and "land use change". The other red arrows represent feedback responses of the natural carbon cycle to the anthropogenic emissions. That is why they are described as "anthropogenic", note the use of quotes in "and ‘anthropogenic’ fluxes in red".
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