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Dikran Marsupial at 21:36 PM on 16 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
The hubris of Christopher Booker never ceases to amaze! The Surface Temperatures project has been set up to look at homogenisation issues and data provision, which addresses many of the criticisms of surface temperature datasets. Their webpage is here -
MA Rodger at 21:08 PM on 16 May 2011Is the CRU the 'principal source' of climate change projections?
The sceptics would point out that UEA, GISS & NCDC all use the same source of raw data. Indeed a certain Mr Watts has expended a vast amount of effort in recent years to demonstrate that the surface temperature sites are not fit for purpose. (I recall he has even recently been published with some finding from this work.) Such a view does appear a little strange as the satellite data used by UHA & RSS give pretty much the same results as the surface data. Even arch-sceptic Roy Spencer has made this observation that both surface & satellite sourced records giving similar results. -
E Sat at 21:00 PM on 16 May 2011Climate's changed before
I read the comments of Quietman and I feel refreshed. You are able peel a lot of the scientific language away from many of the theories like the skin of an old banana. What is left behind is not worth digesting. I really like the sections about the people you have labelled "Nemesis hypothesis' writers. There are always some people out there who reckon the world will end tomorrow and we are the cause. We took years to learn that there is an El Nino - La Nina cycle. Before that we just had bad weather and managed to live through it. What about the effects of the many wobble cycles of the Earth's axis? We are only beginning to understand their effects now. Why do we have to panic whenever a new piece of science causes the alarms to go off, bringing our day of doom even closer? I am sometimes forced to think that there are times when there is too much science out there for our own good. This is an ironic point to take, I suppose, as I am using the Internet to post this comment. How are we meant to be able to tell what is an honest scientific theory from one that is popular just because it has been better financed and makes better sales for the media? We know that the climate is changing and we know that it has changed before but isn't a bit arrogant to think that at this exact point in time we are in a position to predict the climatic future of our planet?Response:Welcome to Skeptical Science! There is an immense amount of reference material discussed here and it can be a bit difficult at first to find an answer to your questions. That's why we recommend that Newcomers, Start Here and then learn The Big Picture.
I also recommend watching this video on why CO2 is the biggest climate control knob in Earth's history.
Further general questions can usually be be answered by first using the Search function in the upper left of every Skeptical Science page to see if there is already a post on it (odds are, there is). If you still have questions, use the Search function located in the upper left of every page here at Skeptical Science and post your question on the most pertinent thread.
Remember to frame your questions in compliance with the Comments Policy and lastly, to use the Preview function below the comment box to ensure that any html tags you're using work properly.
Actually, most of the effects you describe in your comment are pretty well-understood. That the planet is warming is now considered an established fact. That humans are the principal cause behind most of the warming since about 1970 or so is very likely (greater than 90% likelihood). All that's left to be determined is how much warming is to come - and how soon - and what its attendant effects will be.
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RSVP at 20:37 PM on 16 May 2011Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
muoncounter 410 "No, 'heat transfer fundamentals' are not enough to explain this behavior" In reference to the graph appearing above this sentence, and all other hockey stick curves for that matter. Supposedly, GHG warming increases as a log of CO2 doubling, and yet the portion of the graph where temperature starts to "take off" is always a straight line, or at best global temperature increase tracks linearly with CO2 concentration. Nevertheless, the caption here reads, "No, 'heat transfer fundamentals' are not enough to explain this behavior". I would say its just the other way around. Given this jibberish about logarithic behavior, a GHG temperature increase would be bending over asymptotically for a linear increase in GHG.Response:[DB] Both here and elsewhere: PRATT.
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Rob Painting at 19:38 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Michael Hauber- it's now 4 years since the IPCC AR4 was published. Although by no means definitive, La Nina & El Nino (cool/warm) episodes are now happening more frequently and with greater intensity, within the last millenium at least. Although there is no trend toward greater La Nina, or El-Nino frequency, this still has serious implications (the drying of Southern Amazonia I alluded to in the post). I'll try to get that post knocked out tomorrow or the following night, depends how long it lingers in forum-review before it gets published. I don't want to go over it, in the comments section, before I'm able to provide some further background and context. -
Eric (skeptic) at 18:59 PM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket (#77) you said "...you want first to filter the MLO record with a low pass filter with a time constant between 30 and 2000 years. What do you get then?" My concluding sentence in #75 would still stand (any excess over 10 ppm is man-made since the ice core change is about 10 ppm per degree C). -
Dikran Marsupial at 18:17 PM on 16 May 2011CO2 has a short residence time
drrocket wrote: "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." Sorry drrocket, you are just being absurd now. I set out the mass balance equation and defined exactly what the terms mean. The question is, do you agree with the mass balance equation with the terms having the meanings I defined. If you do not, your position is absurd as it means that you don't agree that the annual increase in CO2 is the difference between total emissions (E_a + E_n) and total uptake (U_a + U_n which is approximately just U_n as U_a is essentially zero). Which is blindingly obvious to anyone capable of balancing a bank account. I suspect your attempt to change the meanings of the terms is just an attempt to avoid properly engaging in a line of discussion that will rapidly prove you wrong. It happens a lot in discussions with "skeptics". So, give a direct answer the question as posed and prove that you are not just trying to evade a line of discussion that will prove you wrong. -
Michael Hauber at 18:12 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Rob Painting - ENSO will be covered. There's a fair amount of evidence that ENSO frequency/intensity increases as the tropics warm. Do you mean more frequent and severe events in both the warm and cool direction with little overall trend towards warming of cooling? That is currently my gut feel. Is there any of the fair amount of evidence you can easily refer me to? Of the top of my head IPCC says nothing much more than ENSO impacts are uncertain. -
owl905 at 17:51 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Mr. Solomon invents generals from exceptions. The 'rebounding' dolphin population probably came from this report: http://www.earthweek.com/2011/ew110513/ew110513c.html Connecting two Amazon studies published years apart, and covering the drought-impact in two very different contexts, probably came from the ScienceDaily article on the second study: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090305141625.htm The sidebar to other articles features the 2007 study. The easiest way to kick out the chair is to challenge the relationship - the response correlated to precipitation levels, not CO2 levels. From the ScienceDaily report on the 2007 study: "The UA scientists and their Brazilian colleague already knew the Amazon forest took advantage of the annual dry season's relatively cloudless skies to soak up the sun and grow." Who would have thought that the canopy cover would grow during warm, sunny periods? Well, apparently everyone but Mr. Solomon. However, this 'Joy of CO2' isn't even his best square dance; four days earlier, he claimed that record tornado levels in the Midwest are part of a global-cooling onset: http://www.financialpost.com/news/Global+cooling+wind/4722245/story.html -
JoeRG at 17:51 PM on 16 May 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Tom Curtis @154 These six predictions are unique to green house theory in that no other method of warming the Earth predicts all six of them. Except 6) these predictions are universal for all warming scenarios regardless of the causes and not limited to the GHG only. Simple physics: 1) Greenhouse warming would be stronger towards the poles than the equator; and A logical behaviour because of the different content of water vapor in cold and warm air. A lower water content means a higher rise of temperatures with the same amount of energy. 1a) The polar warming would be accentuated by the melting of arctic ice. This is of course obviously. Besides, a look to ice cores shows that the actual interglacial seems to be abnormal, because the ice shield of e.g. Greenland is much larger as in previous IGs. 2) The warming would be stronger at night than during the day, resulting in a narrowing of the diurnal temperature range. This behaviour also occurs with more clouds. Warmer air will have more water and therefore the cloud cover will rise. 3) The warming would be stronger in winter than in summer. Same reason as with 1). 4) The warming would be stronger on land than at sea. In short time intervals this is true and also a normal behaviour because of the higher heat capacity of water. In longer timescales the temperatures of land and sea will adjust. Because of the inertia the sea surface temperatures will be higher if the trend turns to negative. 5) The warming would be stronger in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern. This behaviour is also obvious because of the larger landmasses in the North. 6) With increased CO2 content, the troposphere and surface will warm, but the stratosphere will cool. To your prediction 6) it is to say, that the observations (see the last of fig. 7: 'LST') counter it. As you may notice, the main drivers of stratospheric temperature rise are volcanic activities. Since the last major event (Pinatubo), what means since 1994 there is no trend in the LST. The lower stratospheric temperatures remain on a constant level. For this, one has to explain whether this prediction is correct at all. Regarding the topic one may say that the consensus is based on predictions that are generally valid for all cases of warming. Of course, this makes it easy to confirm. But, Arrhenius' theory has a small but important mistake. He did not account for clouds in the right way. Correctly he regarded the cloud albedo for the incoming radiation but he did not for the outgoing. (We are able to confirm the reflection by comparing the radiations at a clear sky contition to those at cloudy conditions. If there were no reflection, what means no albedo for the outgoing radiation, one would see the atmospheric window almost unchanged. This, of course, has influence on the emission coefficient of the whole system Earth and with it on the equilibrium temperature. So we finally have to ask whether the consensus is on the right basis. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 16:24 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
John. High 5. If not already considered, how about a press release to the media, including some of the key political journo's to the effect that the polies now have a copy. Then a followup media release in a month or so for the journo's to find out if they have read it. May be an emailed request for feedback to each member of parliament with the responses released to the press as well. Patrick... "green commentariat!" Oh LOL man, can we have some more comedy please. Even J Edgar Hoover is probably chuckling in his grave. -
Marcus at 16:15 PM on 16 May 2011Who Ya Gonna Call???
Come on dhogaza, cut Agnostic some slack. There is taking your work seriously, then there's taking your work *seriously*-like the guys in this Rap video so obviously do ;-). -
Rob Painting at 15:48 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
Michael Hauber - Climate scientists are divided over whether warming should lead to a cooling or warming of the ENSO ENSO will be covered. There's a fair amount of evidence that ENSO frequency/intensity increases as the tropics warm. -
alisha66 at 15:39 PM on 16 May 2011Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
Thanks for sharing this important information effect of global warming. We should concentrate more on alternative energy to reduce carbon emissions and save the earth. -
David Horton at 15:13 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
#14 villabolo Yes, and in any case I may be wrong but my impression was that there is little if any population ecology data available, and certainly none in the kind of time frame he is talking about, but that these are very rare animals. So how does he come to make a statement like that which will almost certainly be repeated on denialist blogs, become established as "fact"? -
John Brookes at 14:12 PM on 16 May 2011Special Parliament Edition of Climate Change Denial
Well done John! But I'm not sure the Nationals will appreciate a book - if you could somehow write it on stubby labels, you might get through to them.... -
dhogaza at 14:02 PM on 16 May 2011Who Ya Gonna Call???
" I never knew that climate scientists took their science so .... “seriously”?" Every professional takes their profession seriously. So do many non-professionals. I can only assume that Agnostic does not take *his* job seriously, which is odd, because even a burger-flipper asked for medium rare rather than well done will cook his patty with diligence ... Agnostic is less concerned with his job than a burger flipper? I only hope he's compensated accordingly ...Response:[DB] As Marcus notes below: Poe's Law.
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dhogaza at 14:00 PM on 16 May 2011Who Ya Gonna Call???
Michael Hauber: Look, it's worse than you say ... they've been talking about the risk of a new ice age because of the solar minimum for a decade, at least. Laughable ... but ... don't ignore them, because you'll miss an opportunity to laugh! -
Albatross at 13:52 PM on 16 May 2011Drought in the Amazon: A death spiral? (part 1:seasons)
CW @10, "The ITCZ is NOT driven by solar heating but, as its name implies, by CONVERGENCE of polar air masses from each hemisphere." No. From Wang and Wang (1999): "The antisymmetric solar forcing due to annual variation of the solar declination angle can convert a stable latitudinal symmetric climate into a bistable-state latitudinal asymmetric climate by changing trade winds, which in turn control annual variations of the ECT. The ECT then interacts with ITCZ, providing a self-maintenance mechanism for ITCZ to linger in one hemisphere, either the northern or southern, depending on initial conditions. The establishment of the bistable-state asymmetry requires a delicate balance between counter effects of the antisymmetric solar forcing and self-maintenance." -
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.
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