Recent Comments

Prev  1708  1709  1710  1711  1712  1713  1714  1715  1716  1717  1718  1719  1720  1721  1722  1723  Next

Comments 85751 to 85800:

85751. RickG at 22:28 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       kdkd, Many people misunderstand what a scientific theory or scientific law is. Laws "describe". Theories "explain". A theory never becomes a law nor are there any proofs in science.
85752. kdkd at 22:27 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       Ken. Nice spot on the typo. It's a good job I'm not an electrician ;)
85753. kdkd at 22:27 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       Kevin, I'm familiar with popper, kuhn and feyarbrand, however I have only read kuhn's book from cover to cover. Feyarbrand gets me in trouble relatively often, both with my wife, and my job. But he's also useful :) The point is that if a scientific theory is proven, it's only proven in the sense that a mathematical proposition can be proven. Once you move outside the scope of the propositions, the proof is no longer valid. So really a scientific law is a proposition where there is a strong belief that the premises are valid. However this means that the scope of scientific laws are always extremely valid. For the vast majority of scientific questions, proof, and therefore scientific laws are unattainable as there are too many parameters involved to be able to develop a proposition which is tractable for proof. So yeah, I agree with you.
85754. Ken Lambert at 22:18 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       Hello kdkd, (i.e. in the case of the law of gravity to weak gravitational fields, ohms law to constant currants). I was a bit of a fan of Sunbeam's law of self-raisins, which of course was falsified by John Cook's observation of the transit of the Venal.
85755. Kevin C at 22:02 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       kdkd: I think you might want to read some philosophy of science. Start with Popper, father of the scientific method as we now understand it: Karl Popper then go back to Bacon and forward to Kuhn and possibly Feyerabend. The idea that gravity is 'proven', or indeed that any theory can ever be proven is the problem here. The best we can do is repeatedly fail to falsify a theory. A theory which has withstood many severe tests (test which would be likely to falsify it) is considered to be a strong theory, but can still not be said to be proven. Gravity is no exception. Part of the problem is that scientists suffer all the same cognitive biases as normal people. Training and discipline in application of the scientific method help, but are not sufficient. As a result, there have evolved a set of social structures around science (the scientific institutions and journals, peer review, and consensus) which also tend to counteract the problem of the cognitive bias of the individual investigator. (I tend to refer to the social structures and conventions as 'how science is done', to distinguish them from 'the scientific method'. Consensus and peer review are a case in point, and highly relevant to the current discussion. Scientists tend to think highly of their own intelligence, and indeed we get in the habit of thinking we are smarter than other people. So our natural inclination presented with the work of others is to find holes in it to show our own cleverness. This is good, because it helps to weed out the errors which are present in every piece of work due to the cognitive biases of the investigator. But it also means that if, in a field in which there are a reasonable number of testable hypotheses, some sort of consensus is reached, then there can be a fair degree of confidence in that consensus. The comparison to gravity is thus, in scientific terms, completely valid. The real difference between gravity and AGW is that AGW is not 'self-evident' to the man in the street, because the man in the street has not examined the data systematically. We can envisage events which might change that, for example in the case of an early loss of the arctic ice cap.
       Moderator Response: Just a nit: Popper is not really the father of the scientific method as we know it. He had the best public relations campaign, though, and so is the best known. One good summary is by Martin Gardner.
85756. kdkd at 21:09 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       Now, here's the right forum where I can get this off my chest :) Gravity is a law, not a theory. Although when it was originally proposed, Newton'proposition was a theory. However, it has subsequently been proven, so while it started life as the theory of gravity, now it's the law of universal gravitation. The reason that has been proven, is because it can be postulated as a set of propositions (parameters), for which the final proposition (conclusion) is self evident. Of course if the propositions that describe a law are found to be invalid, the law is then shown to be false, or that the law is only applicable to a specific situation (i.e. in the case of the law of gravity to weak gravitational fields, ohms law to constant currants). For that reason, scientific laws only tend to apply to very specific situations that probably won't arise in the real world. Gausses' law of competitive exclusion is a classic example of this, and about the only scientific law in the whole science of biology. *phew* I'm glad I offloaded that I feel so much better now.
85757. trunkmonkey at 20:25 PM on 14 May 2011
       Models are unreliable
       scaddenp 373. Thanks for the Wally link. That is a very impressive paper. The models get the jist of the YD but they don't relicate it's full amplitude. From what little progress I have made in the decade of study you guys have prescribed I've gleaned that models have their own logic when they find a stable sweet spot. You guys know better than anyone that when you do certain things the model gets crazy and runs out of bounds like a kid who's eaten too much candy. So we have this happy model that refuses to reproduce the amplitude of YD by adding a reasonable amount of meltwater. Models have a good track record in these situations. So either the proxy data are wrong, there is anther stable point the model should be initialized at, or another unknown factor is contributing. I still do not understand exactly how CO2 works in the models. I played with the edgcm model but all it will let me do is imput a ppm for CO2. In the idealized model in my mind I would be able to right click on CO2 an pull up its properties. A screen would pop up showing all the relationships for CO2 and the values applied to these relationships. For example the absorbtion of outgoing IR would show a relationship to air temperature at 6 w/m^2 or so and there would be diminishing relationships to soil, ocean and plant sequestration, an exaggerating relation to temperature as it feeds back to increased microbial activity, etc. My suggestion on the control knob is to back off these values to bare bones. Can YD be too fast for CO2 if sucking 380 ppm of it out of the atmosphere today would drop GAT 6 degrees in a year?
85758. chris at 19:27 PM on 14 May 2011
       How people are using the Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
       haven't yet congratulated you John on a really dogged effort over the years to rachet up the scope of your contribution to the promotion of clear thinking on climate sience. Truly from little acorns...!
85759. ScaredAmoeba at 18:04 PM on 14 May 2011
       How people are using the Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
       John, Thanks for all your hard work and for the scientists who collaborated with the project. However, when I was reading it, I spotted on page number 6:

       ...levels unseen for at last 2 million years[14].

       when I looked at the endnote it was a reference to Tripati (2009). I had remembered a figure of 15 million years. Since I don't have a copy, I checked SKS to see whether my memory was playing-up. When I looked at http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-or-hockey-league.html

       .... a level unseen for at least 15 million years (Tripati 2009).

       I believe that something seems to have gone wrong.
85760. Rob Painting at 17:54 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       I've watched that clip a few times, still difficult not to laugh. Good to see more climate scientists stepping up to the plate.
85761. Marcus at 17:05 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       CW. You are aware that the Satellite Data (RSS & UAH) doesn't cover the poles, which have been shown to be warming much faster than the rest of the planet. HadCru also suffers from a lack of coverage. GISS is actually the most accurate because it relies on the greatest number of weather stations covering the greatest portion of the globe.
85762. Marcus at 16:50 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       Its funny how if a Climate Scientist claims the planet is warming, people like Cloa513 tell us that they've been "bought" by some vested interest, rather than telling us the truth. Yet when the likes of Lindzen, Christy, Plimer et al tell us that Global Warming isn't happening, then people like Cloa513 just accept it without any doubt whatsoever, & certainly without daring to question the motives of said group. There's a word for that-*selective* skepticism.
85763. Bern at 16:40 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       cloa513: thank you for providing a case in point for why we need to listen to actual climate scientists on climate issues... :-) Seriously, if my car is broken (even a ridiculously expensive one!) I'm taking it to a mechanic, and not even thinking about calling a politician, or a talk-back radio host, or a geologist. And while some mechanics may specialise in, say, tuning of fuel injection systems, that doesn't mean they have no idea what a muffler is. They've probably got a much better idea how everything in the car works than you or I do... And, yes, there are good mechanics & there are some bad mechanics. Fortunately, unlike mechanics, there's an easy way to tell who's a good climate scientist - their peer-reviewed work is cited frequently. How many mechanics can you assess by looking at whether other mechanics think they've done a good job?
85764. cloa513 at 16:22 PM on 14 May 2011
       Who Ya Gonna Call???
       Is this Rediculous Week? Taking your comparison of a calling a mechanic. So you'd call any mechanic to work all parts of your extremely expensive car say the price of the Space Shuttle even he has never fixed a whole one before. He has a vague idea of some of the systems or a general idea of the whole thing. He makes predictions such it will burst into flames which are proved wrong. The long term world weather system or thermohydrodynamic system is not a climate (it is hot/cold/wet/dry at the same time all year round no climate is that at once) so your not expert in that. Noone is an expert in that.
       Response:

       [DB] Weather is not climate.  Conflating "A" mechanic in general into one capable of fixing an expensive Italian sports car is simply wrong and at the same time a wondrous example of "skeptic's" skepticism.  And in the pole position here no less.

85765. alan_marshall at 15:52 PM on 14 May 2011
       How people are using the Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
       John, It is just awesome what you have achieved in the last year.
85766. Stevo at 15:15 PM on 14 May 2011
       How people are using the Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
       This is the only resource I've so far found which neatly encapsulates the case for AGW. It is a great guide to the big picture and cites plenty of sources so that one can make investigations in further depth and detail. I won't travel without a copy of it now.
85767. Bob Lacatena at 14:50 PM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       drocket, I don't understand why you can't get this. It's simple. You are confusing yourself. I also don't understand why [ - snip - ] have to debate every single niggling detail of climate science, as if climate scientists can't get the slightest thing right, and it's amazing that they even find their way to work every morning. I mean, debate climate sensitivity or cloud feedbacks or something. Debating this is beneath everyone here. Really, something like this should not be this hard. Go study some and stop wasting everybody's time with utter and complete nonsense. Hint #1: Study basic chemistry, diffusion, and rates of reaction, and then come back. Hint #2: Sometimes an ability to put things into numbers and equations translates into an inability to grasp the basic, underlying concepts.
85768. Tenney Naumer at 14:49 PM on 14 May 2011
       How people are using the Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
       This is a wonderful work, John! Kuddos to you!
85769. KR at 13:54 PM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       drrocket - "Note that 45% of ACO2 has remained in the atmosphere." That is actually quite incorrect. An amount of CO2 equivalent to half the anthropogenic emissions has remained in the atmosphere. Not the individual molecules, but a sum total. This is because the natural sinks (as we don't act as a sink to any significant degree) have absorbed an excess amount of CO2 equivalent to 55% of our emissions. There is no difference to the sinks (especially in the ocean) between anthropogenic and natural CO2, aside from the slight plant preference for one isotope over another. Each CO2 molecule has about the same chance of being exchanged. It's just that the sinks don't match up to the sources, drrocket. By an amount equal to not quite half to what we emit.
85770. Rob Honeycutt at 13:49 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Camburn... The problem is that Lindzen is claiming lower sensitivity with very little to no evidence to back it up. In the meantime there are a wide range of other studies that come to a range f results but none of those authors are touting their results as a definitive answer the way Lindzen does. Lindzen is taking aim and firing a gun at the rest of the scientists when he has no bullets while the rest of scientists are busy making real bullets and lack the weapons to fire them.
85771. James Wight at 13:33 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       All cranks like to compare themselves to Galileo. There’s a book out there arguing the Moon was intelligently designed by time-travelling humans – the authors compare themselves to Galileo too.
85772. Camburn at 13:09 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       dana1981@84: Yes, Dressler, but his paper doesn't agree with observed trends and if you incorporate the error bars, once again, nothing is certain. I found this to be a good analysis of the current understanding: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.80/abstract 3. In addition to better routine observations, underpinning reference observations are required to allow analysts to calibrate the data and unambiguously extract the true climate signal from the inevitable nonclimatic influences inherent in the routine observations.
       Response:

       [dana1981] Firstly, his name is Dessler.  Secondly, your claim about his error bars is nonsense.  Thirdly, even though I only quoted Dessler's, I referenced a number of studies.  Fourthly, your reference pertains to the tropical troposphere 'hot spot', not the water vapor feedback.

85773. drrocket at 13:09 PM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       Eric (skeptic), 5/14/11, 12:05 PM, CO2 residence Let r = S/M, the ratio of the uptake from the reservoir, S, in a period to the volume in the reservoir, M, at the start of the period. Mean Residence Time = M/S = 1/r in periods. Half-life = log(0.5)/log(1-r) in periods.
85774. drrocket at 12:48 PM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       Dikran Marsupial, 5/14/11, 4:49 AM, CO2 residence You claim, In fact about 20% of the ACO2 in the atmosphere is shunted into the other reservoirs each year, and that rate of absorption is the same as it is for NCO2. Please supply a citation. You say, That is because the residence time for both ACO2 and NCO2 is about five years. However, as has been pointed out to you, residence time is not what controls the rate of growth or decline of atmospheric concentrations, that is decided by the adjustment time. (1) As pointed out to you on 5/13/11, 2:36 AM, the formula provides 1.51 years if leaf water is included, and 3.48 years otherwise. (2) The fact pointed out is false. (3) The actual definition of adjustment time has nothing directly to do atmospheric concentrations. I provided you the official IPCC definition of adjustment time on 5/13/11, 8:06 AM. You ignored it. It contradicts your unsupported claim. You say, The residence time depends on the volume of the flux of CO2 out of the atmosphere (which is vast, hence the residence time is short). The formula in the TAR and AR4 glossaries is T = M/S, where T is the Turnover Time, aka the Mean Residence Time. M is the volume in the equation, but it is the volume of the reservoir, not of the flux. S is the flux in the equation, but it is a rate not a volume. There is no volume of the flux. You say, The thing you don't seem to understand is that the atmosphere exchanges vast quantities of CO2 with the oceans and terrestrial biosphere each year. However, this is an exchange, with natural emissions approximately balanced by natural uptake, so even though it make residence time very short, it has very little effect on atmospheric concentration. I agree; I don't under gobbledygook. Natural emissions are exactly balanced by natural uptake, as modeled (incorrectly) by IPCC. (It's incorrect because natural emissions follow sea surface temperature, keeping the atmosphere perpetually out of balance as it responds to the long term waxing and waning of the Sun.) (1) The fact that it is in balance, i.e., that E_n = U_n does not make the residence time either short or long. (2) What does determine the residence time is [CO2_air]/(U_n + U_a). It is the ratio of the concentration in the reservoir to the uptake rate. (3) The residence time of each type of gas has a huge, proportional effect on its atmospheric concentration. See the details in my post of 5/14/11, 9:25 AM. On 5/13/11, 20:18 PM [sic], you correctly noted that I had in one place written E_a for U_a.
85775. Ken Lambert at 12:43 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Climatewatcher #60 Your points are valid ones. [- snipped-] Strangely enough, I speculated on the accuracy of the Earth's albedo measurement some many threads ago. A 1% error in measurement of the roughly 100W/sq.m reflected is 1W/sq.m - greater than the proposed warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m which is now probably reduced by Hansen to 0.5-0.6W/sq.m "Is it the 29.8% in Trenberths recent paper" - could you point me to that paper?
85776. dana1981 at 12:42 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Camburn #81 - it's 2011. There has been a lot of research on the water vapor feedback since 2007, which I referenced in LI #4. The water vapor feedback is positive.
85777. dana1981 at 12:33 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Camburn - being consistently wrong doesn't necessarily make a person an idiot, and I never suggested otherwise. In fact I think Lindzen is a very smart guy. But the fact is that he's been consistently wrong. All I did was point out that reality.
85778. Camburn at 12:31 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       To the moderator: Please remove this after you have told me how to find a link to my previous posts. I was just reading a paper about two climate models, and the descriptions of the models were dynamic and slab. I want to post the paper to the thread where I was lamblasted for using the word slab to describe a model. Thank you in advance.
       Response:

       [DB] AFAICT, your first usage of the word "slab" occurred here.

85779. Camburn at 12:29 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Rob: Yes, he is claiming sensativity lower than other research. But that does not make him wrong, nor does it make him right, as all research at this point is subject to correction. I know there was a thread about h2o vapor etc. The following highlights the ongoing research....two different conclusions. A 2004 report by Minschwaner and Dessler noted an RH decrease, whereas studies by Soden et al in 2005 and Gettlesman et al in 2007 reported a maintenance of MT RH – the issue is not settled. To the extent that the water vapor increases in the MT have not kept pace with temperature increases, the potential for MT warming is diminished. This is extremely important in climate, yet still up in the air per se. There are just a lot of important things that have not been ironed out yet.
85780. Eric (skeptic) at 12:05 PM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       FWIW, I practiced with "numbers" on the mac which I installed today. I took the MtC emissions for each year since 1751 from this table: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2007.ems and used a starting amount of 597,000 MtC. I added the amount from the table at that link each year and subtracted the amount : (E3-597000)*EXP(-1*$I$2) where $I$2 is my lambda and E3 is that year's MtC. I picked a target year of 2008 and 818,000 MtC. I achieved the target with lambda of 4.25 which is a fairly steep decay. Finally, I'd like to convert that to a half life number (in years) but I'm not sure how.
85781. Rob Honeycutt at 12:03 PM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       ...And not just a minor contradictory evidence. In some cases wildly contradictory evidence. I mean, Lindzen is not just claiming low sensitivity, he's claiming sensitivity lower than any other research... without providing any solid research or evidence for the claim!
85782. Rob Honeycutt at 11:59 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Camburn... Neither is a complete idiot but one of them is blatantly obfuscating the science. How can anyone claim to believe that climate sensitivity is low (as low as Lindzen claims) when all the other research on that issue turns up directly contradictory evidence?
85783. drrocket at 11:57 AM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       Stephen Baines, 5/14/11, 01:09 AM CO2 residence time How do you know that 'Anthropogenic' (notice how they use quotation marks) fluxes simply refer to the change in rates that has occurred because pCO2 in the atmosphere has increased and land use changes have occurred. Do you have a citation from IPCC or an IPCC reference? You seem to put a lot of stock in the fact that IPCC put anthropogenic in quotation marks for Figure 7.3. It also wrote "'natural' fluxes". What does that lead you to conclude? In another context, IPCC said, Collins et al. (2002) calculated indirect GWPs for 10 NMVOCs with a global three-dimensional Lagrangian chemistry-transport model. Impacts on tropospheric ozone, CH4 (through changes in OH) and CO2 have been considered, using either an ‘anthropogenic’ emission distribution or a ‘natural’ emission distribution depending on the main sources for each gas. AR4, ¶2.10.3.3 Non-methane Volatile Organic Compounds, p. 214. Here IPCC appears to employ quotation marks because the data are synthetic, drawn from calculated emission distributions. This is a likely reason for offsetting the same words in the caption to Figure 7.3. Between the TAR and AR4, IPCC uses the word anthropogenic 1,799 times (including indices, references, tables of contents), but only in these two instances is it offset quotation marks. Without using quotation marks, IPCC says, About 80% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions during the 1990s resulted from fossil fuel burning, with about 20% from land use change (primarily deforestation) (Table 7.1). Almost 45% of combined anthropogenic CO2 emissions (fossil fuel plus land use) have remained in the atmosphere. AR4, ¶7.3.1.2 Perturbations of the Natural Carbon Cycle from Human Activities, pp. 514-15. In case you might want to start relying on numbers, the first sentence supports the land use change of 1.6 GtC/yr out of a total ACO2 of 8 GtC/yr per Figure 7.3. Note that 45% of ACO2 has remained in the atmosphere. Why the restriction to ACO2? The chart has (8-4.6)/8 = 40% remaining in the atmosphere. Maybe the quotation marks account for the discrepancy. Meanwhile the chart has 0/191.2 = 0% of "'natural' flux" remaining in the atmosphere. You claim to the contrary, When pCO2 increased over preindustrial, there was an increase in net CO2 flux into the ocean. … There is nothing special about anthropogenic carbon. The IPCC graph does not imply in anyway that there is. Why didn't that increase in pCO2 affect both ACO2 and nCO2 since the dawn of the industrial era? Regardless of your rationale, that IPCC treats the flux of nCO2 quite differently than it does ACO2 is inescapable.
85784. Camburn at 11:25 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       DB: Yes, we are in a sunspot cycle, But as far as a deep solar minimum?......not even close. Yes, if you look only at sunspots. However, there is a lottttt more going on in the sun than just spots. 2010 was only close to a warm year using GISS data. Other data sources are not nearly as close. The decade of 2001-2010 was warm, but on a climatic basis was certainly not out of the ordinary. Some folks who post here see things as black and white. The actual science is not nearly as black and white if you read papers with an open mind. I guess I don't like the tone concerning Lindzen, just as I would not like the tone concerning Hansen if the same were done to him. Both have made errors, but neither one is a climate idiot.
       Response:

       [DB] "Yes, we are in a sunspot cycle,  But as far as a deep solar minimum?......not even close."

       Sunspots show this:

       

       "Yes, if you look only at sunspots.  However, there is a lottttt more going on in the sun than just spots."

       Uh-huh; how about TSI vs temperature:

       

       "2010 was only close to a warm year using GISS data.  Other data sources are not nearly as close."

       Per the UK Met Office:

       With a mean temperature of 14.50 °C, 2010 becomes the second warmest year on record, after 1998. The record is maintained by the Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit at UEA.

       Earlier this month, in the US, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center announced that the past year is either warmest or equal-warmest on their respective records.

       So HADCru, GISS and NASA say you're wrong.

       

       "The decade of 2001-2010 was warm, but on a climatic basis was certainly not out of the ordinary."

       Over the ten years from 2001 to 2010, global temperatures have averaged 0.46°C above the 1961-1990 average, and are the highest ever recorded for a 10-year period since the beginning of instrumental climate records.

       And per Phil Jones:

       Speaking about the figures, Professor Phil Jones, Director of Research at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia said: "The warmest 10 years in all three datasets are the same and have all occurred since 1998. The last 10 years 2001-2010 were warmer than the previous 10 years (1991-2000) by 0.2 °C."

       "The actual science is not nearly as black and white if you read papers with an open mind."

       Ignoring the crass insinuations you make, and the equally crass responses that spring to mind unbidden, having an open mind doesn't mean letting your brain fall out.  The true skeptic challenges his own ideologies and presumptions before challenging others'.

85785. Camburn at 10:37 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       One thing is pointedly clear. The realiability of the underlying data concering the h20 vapor is in need of improvement. All the papers cited verify this. You can pick and choose which paper you want to consider credible as to their determination. But you can not argue that the results have such large error bars that a credible value is achieved. Lindzen has very valid points, based on how he interprets the data. Just as others have very valid points as to how they interpret the data. We have had a flat to declining temp trend since 2001. OHC since 2003 has been dropping. The sun was in a very very strong maxima for the past 40 years, setting records that can be measured. It appears to have peaked in that cycle in the early 2000's. The climatic response of OHC and surface temp show this. The critical issue of AGW will be solved in the next 10-15 years. Either the hypothosis will prevail, or re-examination of it will have to be done.
       Response:

       [DB] "We have had a flat to declining temp trend since 2001."

       Umm, you're forgetting that the "Aughts" were the warmest decade on record, with 2010 leading the way as the warmest year on record.  Despite a quiescent sun (deep solar minimum).  That is indeed perfectly clear.

85786. Albatross at 09:45 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       CW @71, "And it shows that all the temperature data set indicate a trend lower than the 1.8 C per century rate that IPCC identifies as the best estimate for the "Low Scenario"." As you have been informed, you are not comparing apples to apples. Also, continuing to repeat a falsehood doesn't make it true. If you are going to insist on citing the IPCC or attributing stuff to them, then please link directly to where they made that statement, or quote them verbatim, with a link to the relevant section or chapter of AR4. But again, apples to apples please, see Dana's embedded graphic at #59. Regardless, you cannot escape the fact the devastating graphic and observations by Hansen shown at #58. Lindzen is the clear outlier.
85787. WheelsOC at 09:44 AM on 14 May 2011
       Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
       This graphic reminds me of a way I've been trying to put the "controversy" into context for a while. I usually point at the imbalanced media coverage and say that to really represent the split, they'd have to gather about 34 climate scientists into one room for a discussion, and out of those 34 only one would be unconvinced of anthropogenic climate change. Wouldn't make for much of a debate, would it? Unfortunately it wouldn't make for a "fair and balanced" segment, just an accurate and informative one. I've also used the same numbers for a "what if you were diagnosed with cancer..." scenario.
85788. Rob Honeycutt at 09:43 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       CW... Again, please view the trends I plotted at 68.
85789. Rob Honeycutt at 09:41 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       CW @ 71... "It shows that GISS is the high outlier." I think you need to revisit the definition of "outlier." In statistics that would be a point that lies "very much" higher or lower than other point. Each of these data sets are well within reasonable range of each other.
85790. ClimateWatcher at 09:30 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       64. That's fine - lets throw out the Hi and Low and average the remaining.
85791. ClimateWatcher at 09:25 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       65. See chart in 61.
85792. drrocket at 09:25 AM on 14 May 2011
       CO2 has a short residence time
       Stephen Baines, 5/13/11, 12:30 PM, You wrote, pointlessly, The fact that the atmosphere is not now in equilibrium has no bearing on this debate. That is a red herring. You quote me as if I had introduced something irrelevant. I agree, it IS a red hearing, which is exactly why I have no use for it, and why I responded to Dikran Marsupial's vacant charge that I confused residence time with adjustment time. Then you write, The residence time also has almost no bearing on how quickly the CO2 added to the atmosphere will be absorbed by the biosphere. IPCC provides the following formula: Turnover time (T) (also called global atmospheric lifetime) is the ratio of the mass M of a reservoir (e.g., a gaseous compound in the atmosphere) and the total rate of removal S from the reservoir: T = M / S. For each removal process, separate turnover times can be defined. In soil carbon biology, this is referred to as Mean Residence Time. AR4, Glossary, p. 948. (The remark about being Mean Residence Time in soil carbon biology is a litigator's half-truth, intended to give the impression that T is not the Mean Residence Time in all applicable fields.) You might recognize the formula as saying S = dM/dt and dM/dt = M/T. The solution is the exponential, so the reservoir mass, M = M_0*exp(-t/T). This is also the impulse response of the reservoir. So if you put in a slug, M, of ACO2 at t = 0, it will decay according to that formula. Now if you continuously input ACO2, the reservoir will accumulate ACO2 according to the convolution of the input function with the impulse response. The difference between the input function and the amount retained in the atmosphere is your amount that will be absorbed by the biosphere. The residence time, T, has everything to do with the amount absorbed by the biosphere. IPCC shows its estimate of the increase in ACO2 emissions in AR4, Figure 2.3, p. 138. Between 1981 and 2002, it increased at a best fit rate of 1.55%/yr. If we extrapolate that back to 1750, the start of the industrial era. the emissions were 0.15 GtC/yr in 1750, increasing to 10.98 GtC/yr in 2030, and the total emissions over that period is 705 GtC. The amount accumulated in the atmosphere asymptotically approaches 594 GtC (84.3% of the total) for a residence time of 350 years, 247 GtC (35.0%) for a residence time of 35 years, and 36.0 GtC (5.1%) for a residence time of 3.5 years. The last figure, which is the result from IPCC's formula and data, sans leaf water, but it doesn't put enough CO2 into the atmosphere. By never relying on the formula, IPCC gains a handle on ACO2 emissions. It can rationalize the residence time to put just enough CO2 in the atmosphere to match the bulge at MLO. Of course, IPCC doesn't actually rely on equations here. It just declares the bulge to be ACO2. This phony claim by IPCC gives its supporters fits. They stand on their heads to redefine terms or introduce new ones, and safe to say, never with citations. ACO2 does not accumulate in the atmosphere, and there isn't enough present to make AGW work. Pity. CO2 residence time is essential to systems science, and a misunderstood play thing for AGW climatologists. P.S. Re. your post on 5/14/11, 01:09 AM. You are correct enough that "there is nothing special about anthropogenic carbon." But that is my argument. Repeating it doesn't help your position. You need to bring that fact to the attention of IPCC and AGW believers. It is IPCC, not I, that treats nCO2 and ACO2 to substantially different physics. And I've given you all the proof.
85793. ClimateWatcher at 09:24 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       61. This graph is pretty good. It shows that GISS is the high outlier. And it shows that all the temperature data set indicate a trend lower than the 1.8 C per century rate that IPCC identifies as the best estimate for the "Low Scenario". The only addition would be to add the MSU Middle Troposphere which indicate warming trends less than even the 1.1 C per century that IPCC indicates as the lowest possible.
85794. Albatross at 08:56 AM on 14 May 2011
       Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
       Thanks for the laugh Rob :) OK, not that Albatross...!
85795. Rob Honeycutt at 08:53 AM on 14 May 2011
       Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
       Ah yes. Albatross.... One of my favs! ;-)
85796. chris at 08:45 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       CW @ 62: the problem with "the warming is in the pipeline" is that were this the case, one might expect an accelerating temperature increase. One "might", but one would be quite wrong. Two reasons: 1. The temperature response to an instantaneous forcing resulting from (say) a slug of enhanced CO2 looks somewhat like a hyperbolic rise towards a maximum (or more strictly, a superposition of several "hyperbolic" rises with characteristic relaxation times). Any "warming in the pipeline" would manifest as a decelerating temperature increase under these circumstances. Of course, the anthropogenic greenhouse forcing is being continually supplemented by continual emissions, and so the temperature response (averaged over rather longer periods than you would likely prefer to consider) is approximately linear. 2. "Warming in the pipeline" is dominated by the slower response elements of the climate system (especially heat uptake into the ocean). These accrue over a long period and so again their contribution will be apparent as a slowly increasing temperature contribution with a decelerating trend. Of course, this is much better assessed using a rather more quantitative modelling as illustrated, for example, the figure in Albatross's post @ 66. Note that the existence of "warming in the pipeline" is not in doubt. It's a fundamental property of the response to enhanced radiative forcing from whatever source, and only requires that we're observing the system at a period that is shortish on the timescale of the relevant response times of the climate system.
85797. Albatross at 08:33 AM on 14 May 2011
       Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
       Rob, I was making a poor joke...you know, me 'Albatross' suggesting 'gliding' :) I guess even winch launches require burning FFs. Thank goodness I'm an Albatross.... Anyhow.....back to business.
85798. Albatross at 08:33 AM on 14 May 2011
       Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
       Well, this is interesting. "I’ve read somewhere that about 5% of physicists have serious doubt that we really landed on the Moon. In both cases, science has moved on because the evidence is overwhelming. There was not a magic moment when it occurred, it is different with each person, but without doubt, it has." From the American Geophysical Union site. "Skeptics" really ought to actually read the first few lines of John's post about his dad to understand why the 97-98% figure is important.
85799. Albatross at 08:26 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       CW @59, "This rate, we should observe, is not necessarily abnormal, given that a similar period of warming occurred from 1910 through 1945" Another red herring, not to mention a well used disingenuous argument designed to confuse lay people. Not surprisingly this red herring has been addressed here at SkS. Keep trotting out the myths and we'll keep refuting them. Really, engaing in this behaviour only further harms the already tarnished reputation of the 'skeptics'. And it is not helping Lindzen's already weak case either.
85800. Rob Honeycutt at 08:25 AM on 14 May 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo
       Here are all the trends plotted. Again, pretty much same basic picture. Heck, pick the one you like best. It's going to be difficult to change and fundamental conclusions about the science based on which data set you use.

Prev  1708  1709  1710  1711  1712  1713  1714  1715  1716  1717  1718  1719  1720  1721  1722  1723  Next