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Comments 87301 to 87350:

87301. Albatross at 05:25 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       Pbjamm @10, To this day Lindzen disputes the amount of warming, and makes every effort to downplay the amount of warming and/or caste doubt on the values. For example, when he testified to Congress recently he stated that part of the warming trends because the thermometers are more sensitive to warm perturbations than they are cold ones. The one part I might take issue with in this article is that Lindzen stated a warming of +0.1 with an uncertainty (unsubstantiated) of +/- 0.3 C. Even so, allowing for a warming at the upper end of his range (+0.4 C) by 1988/1989 (not 1981) still does not improve his situation much. The inconsistencies and inadequacy of Lindzen's statements are quite striking. The recent words of wisdom by Dr. Emanuel come to mind (yet again!): "[B]eware those who deride predictive science in its entirety, for they are also making a prediction: that we have nothing to worry about. And above all, do not shoot the messenger, for this is the coward’s way out of openly and honestly confronting the problem."
87302. Philippe Chantreau at 05:21 AM on 29 April 2011
       Cosmic ray contribution to global warming negligible
       "At issue is the fact that so many other particles can form CCNs that the question was whether or not the additional (GCR generated) ones were significant" That is indeed a big question. Oceanic air, although less rich in CCN than that over land, gets a lot of ions from sea spray, and these tend to be in already big clusters. Useable size for CCN is about 30nm diameter. The particles created by GCRs are about 0.5. This covers some of the processes necessary for CRs to have any effect at all. As you will see, it is rather convoluted. It is far from obvious whether or not it can be a factor at all in either weather or climate. Furthermore, it has been shown already that CCN size is a more important factor than chemistry.
87303. Stephen Baines at 05:15 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       david b "... gas exchange analysis of photosynthesis cannot be trusted as it depends on stomatal "openess" to accurately measure the exchange of CO2 and water vapor from the leaf mesophyll and the atmosphere." Gas exchange is certainly problematic if you are studying the short term consequences of water availability on photosynthetic processes. How the the trade off- between CO2 and water economies balance at a physiological level in a world of changing CO2 and climate is a really interesting topic to me. But, I think Bob and I were talking about the influence of a persistent change in local water availability on overall plant growth/biomass/productivity, which is the endpoint of most interest in discussion of the net effect of CO2 and climate change. We don't really need FACE experiments to know water availability makes a difference in regard to vegetative biomass or productivity. The results of large long term natural experiments are there for us to look at right now. I see you answered already...sounds like we're on the same page.
87304. dana1981 at 05:07 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       pbjamm - either Lindzen thought that 1880 was much hotter than it actually was, or that 1989 was much colder than it actually was. Either way he was wrong, and this point doesn't change the slope of his graph, or the fact that it's 90% lower than reality.
87305. david b at 04:49 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       @ Sphaerica - OK, I see what you're getting at. It's a delicate balance between water loss and CO2 aquisition. Nate McDowell et al did an excellent job reviewing drought related mortality in the context of climate change (but not CO2 increases). You'll notice that one of the major hypothesis of (long term) drought mortality is from carbon starvation due to stomatal closure. In this case it is a combination of water and CO2 limiting growth (ultimately resulting in mortality). On a shorter time span drought mortality (most often occurring in herbaceous, non-perennial plants) is due to all out interruptions of cellular processes, transport of nutrients and assimilates and overheating in the leaves leading to a denaturation of enzymes. In this case CO2 levels have zero impact on prolonging plant life. The opposite would be true as well, in well watered situations with limiting CO2, the plant will die (just not as rapidly). It would really require a case-by-case basis to estimate CO2 vs. water status threshold, but the balance and trade-offs between the two would, again, make it difficult to tease apart what the actual cause of mortality would be. Sorry for the +/- non-answer.
87306. Berényi Péter at 04:47 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 effect is saturated
       #158 e at 03:49 AM on 29 April, 2011 Since you are not comparing equivalent data Since you have not read the paper I was talking about
87307. pbjamm at 04:43 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       dana1981 "The bottom line is that Lindzen claimed the planet only warmed 0.1°C between 1880 and 1989" That is not at all how I read the statements from the article: Nor, he said, was the temperature data collected in a very systematic and uniform way prior to 1880, so comparisons often begin with temperatures around 1880. "The trouble is that the earlier data suggest that one is starting at what probably was an anomalous minimum near 1880. The entire record would more likely be saying that the rise is 0.1 degree plus or minus 0.3 degree." ==== He is (incorrectly) saying that 1880 was abnormally cold and therefor a poor starting point. I don't think he is disputing the temperature in 1981.
87308. Bob Lacatena at 04:31 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       48, david b, I was thinking of a more general approach... less in tying precipitation changes to specific biological mechanisms (like photosynthesis), and more along the lines of "it doesn't really matter how good increased CO₂ might be for a plant if it dies due to lack of water."
87309. Mark-US at 04:28 AM on 29 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       Awesome work FYI recently someone offered a reason for denial that isn't on your list. This is closely related to the (false) claims that the sun is burning hotter. Instead, we're closer to the sun before. The reasoning went like this: The sun is slowly going nova, and as it does it is slowly turning into a red giant, and that means the sun is expanding, but since the earths orbit is the same, the result is that the sun's surface is now closer to the earth.
       Moderator Response: [DB] Nice Poe.
87310. dana1981 at 04:24 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
       Ken L - you're equating two totally different concepts.
87311. david b at 04:23 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       @ Stephen Baines and Sphaerica Your requests offer a uniquely difficult task to accomplish unfortunately. Most drought studies that involve determinations of photosynthetic responses tend to be unfavorable in a peer reviewed context. For plants there is either enough water or it is limiting. In water limiting conditions most plants close their stomata (completely or almost completely) to limit water loss. The unfortunate side effect of this is that gas exchange analysis of photosynthesis cannot be trusted as it depends on stomatal "openess" to accurately measure the exchange of CO2 and water vapor from the leaf mesophyll and the atmosphere. Long story short - it is very difficult (if not impossible) to tease apart the decrease in actual photosynthesis from instrument error in relation to reduced stomatal conductance in response to drought. More holistic measurements may be taken in drought studies of CO2 enriched plants (biomass, grain yield etc.) but these fail to truly capture the mechanism affecting differences in plant growth and resource allocation that gas exchange captures so well. Chlorophyll fluorometry offers promise in quantifying photosynthesis with out relying on gas exchange, but thus far the responses measured by fluorometers deal more with the efficiency and productivity of photosystem II than with the photosynthetic apparatus as a whole.
87312. e at 03:49 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 effect is saturated
       Berényi, You are comparing against the wrong Harries graph. The comparable graph showing measured brightness difference is item b in Fig 1., not item c. You will notice it is similar to the other graphs you have provided. Here is the full figure: And caption: "a, Observed IRIS and IMG clear sky brightness temperature spectra for the central Pacific (10° N–10° S, 130° W–180° W). b, Top, observed difference spectrum taken from a; middle, simulated central Pacific difference spectrum, displaced by -5 K; bottom, observed difference spectrum for 'near-global' case (60° N–60° S), displaced by –10 K. c, Component of simulated spectrum due to trace-gas changes only. 'Brightness temperature' on the ordinate indicates equivalent blackbody brightness temperature." Since you are not comparing equivalent data, your analysis and conclusions are moot.
87313. Jim Powell at 03:32 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       I appreciate getting credit for pointing out the 1989 interview with Lindzen, but in the interest of full disclosure I must report that I discovered that interview in Hansen's "Storms of My Grandchildren," Appendix 1, "Key Differences with Contrarians." In it, Hansen points out other errors that Lindzen has made in addition to those dana1981 describes above. If there is one thing that points out the difference between science and anti-science, it is that even though Lindzen has been consistently wrong for at least 20 years, his stature among deniers has risen.
87314. Berényi Péter at 03:31 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 effect is saturated
       #155 KR at 08:44 AM on 28 April, 2011 - Most importantly; Anderson's spectra are not corrected for global warming, to the equivalent black body temperatures. You are right. However, I would use a different wording: Anderson's spectra are not adjusted until they confess. The reason I am saying that is because Harries at al. do not simply correct for equivalent black body temperatures, they perform a vastly more sophisticated transformation. Unfortunately there is no open access copy of Harries 2001 online, so I will use a conference abstract by the same authors which discusses their adjustments at some length. 11th Conference on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography Session 2, Climatology and Long-Term Satellite Studies (Continued) Monday, 15 October 2001, 4:00 PM-5:00 PM 2.2 Changes in the Earth's resolved outgoing longwave radiation field as seen from the IRIS and IMG instruments (Invited Presentation) Helen E. Brindley, P. J. Sagoo, R. J. Bantges & J. E. Harries First of all let's compare their raw difference spectrum with the one given in Anderson 2004. The match is reasonably good considering Anderson processed many more spectra, attained finer spectral resolution, smaller error bars and also covers a larger area. And Brindley et al. show even less decrease in brightness temperature in the CO₂ wing (at the left edge) than Anderson et al. do. Practically none at all, while both analyses show increase in the window and decrease in the methane band (the curve is above or below zero, respectively). So. How does Fig. 1. Harries 2001 come about? It is the difference between the spectrum above and a theoretical spectrum where radiative effects of changes in water vapor distribution along with sea surface and atmospheric temperatures are taken into account, but GHG concentrations (other than H₂O, and only for radiance calculation purposes) are kept constant. Therefore their finding is not "direct experimental evidence" in any reasonable sense of the word. It can't be better than their theoretically derived spectrum used for adjustment. I quote the full passage dealing with this theoretical derivation from the extended abstract, because it is essential. "3. SIMULATION METHODOLOGY Pentad mean global temperatures and specific humidity fields representative of two twenty-seven month intervals centred on the operational periods of the two instruments, running from April 1969 to June 1971, and April 1996 to June 1998 were generated using the HadleyCentre Atmospheric Model version 3 (HADAM3). HADAM3 comprises the atmospheric portion of the Hadley Centre Coupled Climate Model, with 19 levels in the vertical, and a horizontal resolution of 2.5° latitude x 3.75° longitude. The model was forced by observed sea surface temperatures taken from the Global Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature (GISST) data set, and also included the effects of changes in trace gases, and a parameterisation of volcanic and solar forcing over the period considered. In order to quantify the impact of model uncertainties, four realizations of the atmospheric state were provided. Using the model geophysical fields along with representative values of trace gas concentrations for each period, radiance spectra were calculated for each grid point and month at 1 cm^-1 resolution over the wavenumber range 600-1400 cm^-1 by the MODTRAN3.7 radiative transfer code. These 1 cm^-1 radiances were then degraded to 2.8 cm^-1 resolution using the IRIS instrument function and converted to the equivalent BT". The take home message is they have used various data sources for their theoretical calculations, but neither atmospheric temperatures nor specific humidity fields were measured, they were derived by running HADAM3 (four times). They do not verify if HADAM3 is correct or not, they assume it. See: "Assuming that HADAM3 correctly captures etc., etc." It means their result is neither measured nor verified. It is assumed. Have a careful look at Fig. 3 (a) in Brindley 2001 please. This is the theoretical spectrum to be subtracted from the measured one to arrive at Fig. 1. Harries 2001. You will notice H₂O forcing is the decisive factor. Influence "SST only" (measured) is neutral, "T only" (not measured) overfills the CO₂ notch in measured spectrum, while "H₂ only" (not measured) is an exaggerated mirror image of it, if subtracted, re-creates the notch. Therefore what you see in Fig. 1. Harries 2001 is the result of HADAM3 computations and has only extremely weak relation to IRIS or IMG data. As we do not have actual specific humidity measurements along the entire air column over the East Pacific for the IRIS period and there is no way to go back in time and recover it, their result is utterly unverifiable. When I was young, inherently unverifiable propositions used to belong to other realms of the human endeavor, not science.
       Moderator Response: [DB] This goes no farther without links to proof of malfeasance. No more insinuations, no more implications. Further remarks not complying with the Comments Policy will be simply deleted.
87315. Stephen Baines at 03:26 AM on 29 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       John Thanks again! A great resource. After looking through the debate KL was recently involved with (A Flanner in the works of Ice and Snow), I can't say I agree about his complaint. That thread is a good example of how patient members can be addressing concerns, and how moderating allows such a debate to stay focused on evidence... @ pbjamm #4 I read Foucault's pendulum and it made me a paranoid wreck for two weeks!!! The addictive nature of motivated pattern seeking is something that deserves more neurological and behavioral research.
87316. pbjamm at 03:21 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       dana1981, I am not sure this is an accurate representation of Lindzen's position. It seems to me from the quote that he is arguing that 1880 was an "anomalous minimum" so if it had been closer to the norm the difference between 1880 and 1981 would have been quite small, 0.1C. The Hadley data you link to indicates that he was incorrect about that but I think it a bit unfair to create the graph that shows him to be completely wrong about the average temperature in 1981, a value he surely knew.
       Response:

       [dana1981] I disagree.  Lindzen disputed the accuracy of GISTEMP, and was wrong about 1880 being anomalously cold.  The bottom line is that Lindzen claimed the planet only warmed 0.1°C between 1880 and 1989.  That's precisely how I depicted his comments.

87317. Jeff T at 03:08 AM on 29 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       John, Thanks to you and the many contributors who make Skeptical Science such a great resource.
87318. DSL at 03:06 AM on 29 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       Ditto #4. Thanks, John, mods, et al. who patiently work through the problems and who, I might add, admit when they're wrong or haven't looked deep enough or just aren't sure. I wonder how much some understandings have changed over time through the mechanism of this site--especially among the regulars (from all sides). Certainly I have a much, much clearer understanding of the basic mechanics and complexity of the atmosphere. When I first started lurking around the global warming issue, I understood the greenhouse effect literally: CO2 was a cap. Ugh.
87319. dana1981 at 02:58 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       Tsumetai - sure, it's just a very rough adjustment to show that a model with 3°C sensitivity would have fit the data pretty well.
87320. Tsumetai at 02:50 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       

       So by scaling down from 4.2 to 3°C, I'm showing what the model output would have looked like had that been its sensitivity.

       Well. Approximately, perhaps. Sensitivity tells you how high you'll end up, but it doesn't fix the shape of the path you take to get there. To scale down, you need to assume that global mean temperatures are at every stage a linear function of sensitivity, which probably isn't true in general. It may be sufficiently close to the truth to get in the ballpark. But Hansen's original projections are already in the ballpark. I'm not convinced there's any real benefit to going further than that. In this instance, it gives a nice result, but it's not clear that the agreement between your adjusted curve and the observed temperatures is actually meaningful.
87321. MattJ at 02:37 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       The article ends with the mildly provocative, "...one can only wonder what they must think about the massive underestimate of this warming based on Lindzen's 1989 comments." Well, I don't wonder, because I am very confident of the answer. The answer is that they and Lindzen are really hoping we just don't notice how massive the underestimate is. Unfortunately, they know that in the diffuse public debate, this massive underestimate will be challenged by far too few.
87322. Stephen Baines at 02:28 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       Yes, of course, I get it. Those are the IPCC predictions based on the model runs...you didn't calculate them based on the sensitivity on your own. Sorry...Need more coffee...
       Response:

       [dana1981]Well, they're Hansen et al.'s projections based on their model (this is pre-IPCC), but yes, you got the idea

87323. pbjamm at 02:25 AM on 29 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       Reading through the comments section of the Guardian article is painful. The amount of anger and vitriol combined with the complete lack of anything resembling evidence makes me despair. It reminds me why I gravitated to this site a few years ago. Thank you John and everyone else who does the hard work here. SkS is a great resource for people who want to learn about Climate Science and AGW rather than denigrate it. If I want conspiracies I will re-read The Illuminatus Trilogy or Foucault's Pendulum.
87324. dana1981 at 02:23 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       Stephen #2 - yes, 3°C is the equilibrium sensitivity, but remember, we're just showing the model output at any given time. So by scaling down from 4.2 to 3°C, I'm showing what the model output would have looked like had that been its sensitivity. The transient sensitivity is already incorporated into Hansen's model.
87325. Stephen Baines at 02:18 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       Dawei, Very excellent to see all this info on a very hot topic. It cuts through a lot of the oversimplifications. There are a lot of scientists trying to get some sense of what the real net impact will be on plant productivity at the ecosystem scale, given all the higher order impacts on plant interactions, herbivory rates and nutrient cycles. It's a tough nut to crack, which is why no real consensus has yet emerged beyond the obvious physiological responses to CO2. I also would like to second Sphaerica's request to put the effects in context with effects of water availability as a controlling factor. Terrestrial ecosystem productivity varies almost 2 orders of magnitude among regions of the earth because of variation in precipitation. We're talking increases of 50% or less in real world production related to CO2.
87326. Tom Curtis at 02:13 AM on 29 April 2011
       A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
       Ken Lambert @133 and 136 wants to make rhetorical play of of my errors in calculation. Apparently it is his "... sound calculation which points out the trail of basic errors in Tom's elongated journey." I'm afraid he gives himself rather too much credit. He gives himself to much credit because, where I have been able to, I have consistently tracked down any errors or inaccurate assumptions of my own without his dubious assistance. More to the point, he gives himself too much credit because his own trail of errors is longer and larger than my own. The main difference between us being only that I correct my own errors. He persists in his. In fact, my calculations contains far more "errors" than he will admit to. To start with, my calculations consistently underestimate the altitude of the sun during the arctic summer. They consistently overestimate the absorption of light in the atmosphere, so much so that for 9 hours over every day my calculations treat the surface as being in complete darkness even though the sun is in the sky. My calculations consistently ignore the effects of waviness on albedo with waves much reducing water albedo for light coming from low above the horizon. My calculations ignore three months of the year in which the arctic sun provides enough heat to melt the ice. This list by no means exhausts my "errors" of this nature. But all these errors have one thing in common - they are errors in Lambert's favour. It turns out that no error is too large for Lambert to object to if it is an error in his favour, just as, apparently, no error is too small for him to object to if it goes against him. His comments about my "correction" of his calculation @66 are typical of this. I made seven corrections to his calculation, but here as in the rest of this thread he has chosen to ignore all six that show he has underestimated heat gain in the arctic. As always, only those changes that work in favour of his argument are ever allowed acknowledgement by Lambert. Nor are Lambert's mistakes limited to ignoring relevant factors that refute his argument. He has persistently tried to treat one seasons additional incoming flux as though it was thirty year additional incoming flux. That is a 130 fold error. What is more, it has the advantage of over my supposed 149 fold error of not being fictitious. More recently he took the average sea ice loss and divided it by two to find an "average" before halving again just because (so far as I can tell) he felt like it. That error is only a factor of four, but it has absolutely no warrant beyond Lambert's wishful thinking. All this is beside the point, however, other than to expose the blatant hypocrisy of Lambert's rant. Let's get down to substance. The essence of Lambert's claims are two points: 1) It is impossible that change in forcing in the Arctic should be more than a fraction of 4.4% of total forcing because the Arctic represents just 4.4% of the total Earth's surface; and 2) The total forcing in the Arctic closely approximates to an annual energy gain of 18*10^20 Joules, that being the additional energy gain in terms of melting arctic sea ice as calculated by Trenberth. The second point needs no further rebuttal. I have already pointed out six additional factors relevant to arctic heat gain at the first link in this post. As always, Lambert has simply ignored those alternatives without argument. The first point, forms the only topical part of Lambert's post. As a general principle it is obviously faulty. Plainly the net increased forcing due to decreased sea ice in the arctic is greater than that at the equator for the simple reason that there has never in human times, been sea ice at the equator to melt. Lambert, purports, however, to show that Flanner's calculated change in forcing due to lost Arctic sea ice only represents 3.45% of the total change in forcing. That total change as determined by Trenberth, Lambert's gold standard for this discussion is 0.9 W/m^2, or about 1.448*10^22 Joules each year. Flanner calculates a NH forcing of 6.2 W/m^2 per degree K for both sea ice and snow albedo effects. Of that, just under half, or about 3 W m^-2 K^-1 is due to sea ice. This needs to be halved to turn it into a global figure, and then adjusted for the temperature rise. Taking the temperature increase as being 0.38 degrees K, a conservative estimate, the globally averaged forcing due in reduced arctic sea ice is 0.3*0.5*0.38 = 0.057 W/m^2, or 9.17*10^20 Joules per annum. That represents 6.33% of total forcing from the Arctic. To double check, 0.57/0.9 = 0.0633 = 6.33% I am sorry to say that Lambert got his faulty value from my 131, where I calculated the value in error. Typical of Lambert, his ability to fact check vanished as soon as he had a result that appeared to suite his argument.
87327. Stephen Baines at 01:59 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       Thanks dana! It's clear Lindzen's sensitivity is way too low to explain current warming. Of course, if all goes to form, we will hear the circular argument that, since Lindzen has to be right, the fact that the temps don't agree with his predictions indicates that we must be missing some low frequency intrinsic variablitity, or that there is a conspiracy among those collating the temp data...and on and on... Luckily there are places to go right here to show how little evidence for such factors there are... A question though, isn't the 3C/2xCO2 a measure of the climate sensitivity at equilibrium (minus long term C cycle/ice albedo feedbacks)? Did you downweight the IPCC projections for the transient non-equilibrium sensitivity? If not, that temp increase actually suggests a sensitivity higher than 3C/2xCO2, no?
87328. Phil at 01:52 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       HR @30 My point @11 was more that world agriculture will suffer other bad consequences from Climate Change, such as increasing desertification, fires (e.g. Russia 2010) and flash floods (e.g. Pakistan 2010) which need to be balanced against any crop yield gain.
87329. ScaredAmoeba at 01:19 AM on 29 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       John, Many thanks for a superb site. Of course for those dyed-in-the-wool deniers who stuff their fingers in their ears and shout 'I'm not listening', one is wasting one's time. But for everyone else, there's always a chance that education can make the difference. Absolutely brilliant.
87330. arch stanton at 01:16 AM on 29 April 2011
       Cosmic ray contribution to global warming negligible
       MC @44, Thanks for the link. Taking lessons from Horatio Algeranon?
87331. Alexandre at 00:56 AM on 29 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
       It was a good idea to put this together. Thanks, Dana.
87332. Ian Forrester at 00:51 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       I'm afraid that HR's fantasy about making 500 different rubisco activases is just that, utter fantasy. The answers to the following questions will show this to be true: Firstly, HR, do you know the primary and secondary structure for, say, wheat rubisco activase? Do you know what part of the 3D structure is causing a low denaturing temperature? Do you know what amino acids need to be replaced and what the replacements will be? Secondly, can you give one positive example where this "protein engineering" has ever been shown to actually work? There were lots of people trying this on much simpler proteins 30 or so years ago. If you cannot positively answer these questions then you are in the "science fiction arena" and not real science.
87333. Ian Forrester at 00:41 AM on 29 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       Johnd, if you had read the paper I cited you would see that you are wrong:

       Unfortunately, results from chamber-based experiments suggest that the CO2-induced reduction in protein may not easily be overcome by additional N supply since this may simply result in additional biomass and yield production

87334. arch stanton at 00:33 AM on 29 April 2011
       Cosmic ray contribution to global warming negligible
       Phillipe, I’m not so sure about that. Do you have a source? As I understood - the small size is compensated by the state of ionization. At issue is the fact that so many other particles can form CCNs that the question was whether or not the additional (GCR generated) ones were significant. I see that my link in #40 (above) is (a) broken and (b) behind a paywall. For anyone with access to Nature the corrected link is this one.
87335. DSL at 00:17 AM on 29 April 2011
       A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
       I'd say "yes" if they are forced to re-locate. They would have to be. They live in a climate that favors the formation of tornadoes. In the same way, people who have been forced away from New Orleans by hurricane destruction are also climate refugees. Perhaps, in the interest of arguing more directly, you mean "are they climate change refugees?"
87336. Ken Lambert at 23:51 PM on 28 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       John Cook I have not had a chance to email you privately, but you should read the last two pages and conclusion of the "A Flanner in the works for Snow & Ice" thread to see the lengths some of your your regular AGW enthusiasts will go to defeat a consistent skeptical argument. Here is my final comment: To SKS Moderators, Tom Curtis, Sphaerica, Adelady et al. What was the result of this thread? My posts #132, #136 are left uncontested by Tom Curtis, Sphaerica, The Yooper -after a parade of name calling, accusations of nonsense, fool, gibberish, unprincipled, ridiculous et al..and from Sphaerica "I will not engage with anyone who demonstrates a blatant and total lack of integrity." - all directed at me. No apologies from the SKS pin-up boys - just a deafening silence. You need to get this site back to the standard it was when I joined over a year ago.
       Moderator Response: [DB] All comments off-topic and/or in non-compliance with the Comments Policy receive moderation - on both sides. Do not blame an inability to logically and scientifically defend a position when you were shown to be in error on intransigence in complying with a mandatory policy.
87337. John Bruno at 23:37 PM on 28 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       Humanity Rules, the one thing your endless comments prove about human ingenuity is the astounding ability of climate change deniers to miss the point, ignore the evidence, and generally dash off along a new path of avoidance whenever an inconvenient truth is encountered.
87338. adelady at 23:37 PM on 28 April 2011
       A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
       Harry. Deaths count as casualties, not as refugees. Homelessness might be a precipitating event which makes people become refugees. But they're not really 'refugees' until they're on the move to new areas. I'm not really certain how people who are "internally displaced" for any reason, war/ famine/ persecution/ climate, get moved onto the refugee category.
87339. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:36 PM on 28 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       @Chris S Idso aim is to present these papers that deny the devastating impacts of increasing GHG in the atmosphere - so that these papers do not ignore - for the general conclusion. I have the same aim - including on this blog. Consider - as before changing the ratio of C3 plants to C4? Is as fast as today? Let's look at Figure 3C (C4 %) in Comparison of multiple proxy records of Holocene environments in Midwestern USA, Baker et al. 1998,. As you can see past the changes were often very large and fast, and long-term - where is the "famous" balance? @Marcus The current "mechanisms" of photosynthesis exist hundreds of millions of years. C4 grasses arose as a reaction to the unusual - in the history of life on Earth - a decrease in the concentration of CO2 - just a 3? million years ago ... Being (in my country) at an scientific conference on pests - warming - I heard that you get from us (as a result of global warming), The Western Corn Rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera ... I have a question - that the yields and profitability of maize production is higher in my country, or where there is a Western Corn Rootworm ? ... otherwise - whether the warming will not compensate the cost increase protection against pests - maize? I recommend the conclusion in Leakey 2009: “The effect of elevated [CO2] on C4 crops has received a disproportionate lack of attention compared to the effects of other elements of climate change on C3 and C4 plants. Consequently, adequate data are not available to reliably estimate the extent to which amelioration of drought stress at elevated [CO2] will improve yields over the range of C4 crop growing conditions and genotypes.” We should also remember that the increase in CO2 usually: - increases the number of leaves and flowers, - promotes the regeneration of plants propagated “in vitro”, - In some cases can reduce the costs associated with the light made ...
87340. adelady at 23:30 PM on 28 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       That'll only work, Ken, if the snow hangs around long enough to reflect any worthwhile input from the sun. A lot more snow/albedo at a time when there's very little radiation from the sun makes little to no difference. If we could find a way to make it stay on through spring and summer, then we'd be talking!
87341. Harry Seaward at 23:30 PM on 28 April 2011
       A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
       This is seriously not a trolling question. Are the people in the American South (194 dead and many more homeless)from the storms that rolled through in late April considered climate refugees?
87342. adelady at 23:26 PM on 28 April 2011
       How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website
       That's an interesting point about the sun "argument". I did notice a couple of people mentioning the sun in an entirely different way. I just hadn't put it together - that no-one seems to be saying "It's the sun - so there!" any more.
       Response: We do keep track of how often climate myths appear (although if more people used the SkS Firefox Add-on, this data would be more comprehensive, hint, hint). I should dig into the data, see how often the sun myth has appeared in recent years. Then do a correlation check with traffic to the sun rebuttal webpage. Hmm, maybe we can quantify this... :-)
87343. Ken Lambert at 23:26 PM on 28 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       Hey Sphaerica, Just think of the INCREASE in albedo for all that record area of snow white snow covering the NH areas for a few extra weeks. Could lead to an unnatural cooling.
87344. johnd at 23:02 PM on 28 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       Marcus at 16:46 PM, regarding your point (1), and the requirement to consume more in order to maintain protein input. I have no argument with that, it is a well established fact, however what you are continually missing in the bigger picture is that the extra grain needed to be consumed to make up for the lower protein is less than the total extra amount of grain produced, thus leaving a surplus. I have continually pointed this out, that despite the lower protein levels, the increased yield means that more total protein is produced per hectare, thus each hectare is able to supply the protein requirements of more people. Surely that is what is important in the big picture. Regarding your point (4), you seem to intimate that root-pathogens, insect pests and other diseases are going to emerge as new problems, when in fact they will not be new, but are existing problems that are continually having to be overcome. What the FACE trials have not been able to replicate so far, as far as I know, are the strategies that are implemented in commercial operations as a matter of course in order to break the cycles of the problems that concern you. The utilisation of break crops, crop rotation etc. Only once the FACE trials have been running long enough utilising such techniques will anyone be able to say whether or not the pest and disease status is going to be any worse than what it is now. Of course the safe position is always to be a pessimist, because surely at some point, even if things don't turn out as bad as predicted, it can always be claimed that they are still worse than what they otherwise could have been.
87345. Bob Lacatena at 22:45 PM on 28 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food? If only it were so simple
       Dawei, Excellent post. One modification that I would suggest is to add a section (like those on temperature and ozone) on precipitation. All of the information provided is important to understand, and I think helps to indirectly address the main flaw behind "CO₂ is plant food" as a statement, which is to say that it grossly oversimplifies the problem, trying to reduce something complex and interactive to the level of a parent's explanation to a child of the awkward question of where babies come from ("the stork brings them"). I also think that precipitation changes are the big bullet in the climate change gun. Certainly, they are the most difficult to predict, but it will not take much in the way of the wrong amounts of rain at the wrong times to obviate any possible benefits from raised CO₂ levels and to greatly reduce crop production. The state of the Amazon after the 2005 and 2010 droughts will seemingly soon become a prime example of this. My (personal, uneducated) guess is that one more major drought in the next 3-5 years will have huge ramifications; it's like the largest and most disheartening (unintentional) FACE trial ever performed by man. BTW, Climate Wizard is a useful site for researching projected changes in temperature and precipitation by region under different scenarios.
87346. CBDunkerson at 22:36 PM on 28 April 2011
       Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
       Hey, if it is "too early to say" that we should have seen more warming... and yet Lindzen already DID say that we should have seen more warming... then Argus clearly disagrees with Lindzen. Good on you chap. See, 'skeptics' don't always back each other no matter what nonsense one is putting out.
87347. CBDunkerson at 22:32 PM on 28 April 2011
       Wakening the Kraken
       Arctic, from the greek 'arktikos', meaning 'North' or literally, 'of the bear'... a reference to the constellation Ursa Major which is visible in the northern sky. Ergo, since it will still be in the far North I suspect it will still be called the 'Arctic Ocean'. As to the likelihood of massive methane release. Still hard to say. However, it isn't just the clathrates we have to worry about. There is plenty of methane trapped in 'permafrost'... and there's some stuff which is definitely going to need a new name. 'Not so perma frost'? 'Formerly perma frost'? 'Expermafrost'?
87348. Bob Lacatena at 22:24 PM on 28 April 2011
       Models are unreliable
       trunkmonkey, I just read your series of posts, starting with 339. They contain a fair number of gross misunderstandings about the physics of climate as well as how models are constructed and what they do. First, your surprise that temperature drops 6˚C in the first year if all CO₂ is removed is understandable, but in the wrong direction. I'm shocked that it only drops 6˚C, but then, that speaks to the incredible heat capacity of the massive volume of water in the Earth's oceans (which keeps the temperature up, despite the loss of CO₂). Second, you seem to have this feeling that models are somehow based on parametrization and statistics, and that the ongoing work on those models does not completely dwarf what was done in prior decades. My suggestion is that there is a lot of information out there on both of these subjects. Certainly, much of it is incorrect and as such leads to unnecessary confusion. I would be very, very careful about choosing your source of information. Go with things written by scientists and professors, and avoid bloggers (and engineers) of all flavors. But the answers to all of your questions and doubts are out there. I'd gladly answer them for you, except that a proper treatment of either subject would fill pages and pages of comments, and still come up short. One very well written starting point which use less math and a more narrative approach, and so is more palatable to most, is Spencer Weart's A Discovery of Global Warming. It is highly recommended to all. Please, please, please go find the answers to your questions, not by immediately looking for the answers, but instead by first building the foundation knowledge that will help you to appreciate the answers when you get there. From Jurassic Park, spoken by the "chaotician" Malcom (played by Jeff Goldblum):

       The problem with scientific power you've used is it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don't take the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had, you patented it, packages it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and now you want to sell it.

       Take the time to build the foundation. Great leaps made to skip deep chasms lead to wrong conclusions.
87349. CBDunkerson at 22:18 PM on 28 April 2011
       Models are unreliable
       trunkmoney wrote: "First they tell me that Co2 is only 20% of the greenhouse effect, and then they tell me that when they take this 20% out of the box GAT drops six degrees in the first year." Earth's Effective Temperature = ~255 K Earth's Actual Surface Temperature = ~288 K 288 - 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect 33 * 20% = 6.6 K greenhouse warming from CO2 That said, the '20%' figure for CO2 contribution to the greenhouse effect is somewhat arbitrary and probably not how they got to the 'six degrees' figure you cite. The absorption spectra of the various greenhouse gases (GHGs) overlap. If we take the percentage of greenhouse warming which CO2 would cause if it were the only GHG over the total warming it comes out to about 26%. However, if we consider only the portion of greenhouse warming which CO2 causes that would not also be caused by other GHGs then it drops to about 9%. Thus, that 'six degrees in the first year' is more likely 33 K * 9% = 2.97 K immediate cooling plus a similar amount from immediate water vapor feedback effects and a bit more from the start of ice albedo feedback changes. As scaddenp noted, climate models are based on observed measurements. For instance, satellite readings of atmospheric temperature and water vapor content over time have been used to calibrate water vapor feedback. Greenhouse forcings of various gases have been calculated from their absorption spectra. Albedo differences of snow, ice, land, and ocean have all been measured. Et cetera. When you can then plug all these values and equations into a climate model and get results which closely follow the measured temperature trend since 1880... AND paleoclimate reconstructions... AND climate on other planets, it becomes somewhat difficult to claim that the model is not robust. There may be (indeed, certainly ARE) many details missing, but either the broad strokes are all included, everything is matching due to implausibly remote coincidence, or the modellers are committing massive scientific fraud... with (in many cases) open code and data.
87350. les at 22:18 PM on 28 April 2011
       Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
       155 mod/DB:- My point about teaching was simply, although I admit obliquely - to point out that there's a lot of "they should do this..." and "scientists should do that..." and a range of dictums pronounced on best-practice etc. which are, on the one hand, not the absolutes people (and particularly non-science practitioners) think they are. Teachers give simple rules - which are, in practice, only rules-of-thumb. Context and common practice need to be taken note of; and deviation from those 'rules' isn't a sign of incompetence or, worse, malfeasance! In general, what's taught in class to budding scientists is what should be done in a lab book. This is really important as lab-book results are the base line of evidence - which can even have legal consequences. In this example, a graph is a review article isn't the same as one in a detailed results paper, isn't the same as one in a lab-book, or one on a power-point etc. One size-rule does not fit all.

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