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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 87701 to 87750:

  1. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    From the same interview, (I am still shaking my head, 20 years of the same misinformation), he concluds with this: ""It seems to me," said Professor Lindzen, "that if science doesn't have integrity, it isn't of much use to people."" On that account I fully agree with Lindzen, unfortunately for him, that assessment has been demonstrated repeatedly to apply to him and his fellow contrarians and 'skeptics'. Dana did you know about the talk that Jimbo linked us to?
  2. Clouds provide negative feedback
    @Berényi Péter #88 @Sphaerica #92 Please, Sphaerica, don't reply to that master of word tricks, as he/she has and wield the ability to induce mistakes departing of his/her owns. @Berényi Péter #88
    Something does not add up here.
    Yes, your knowledge on the subject: You are simply playing with planetary albedo, cloud albedo and the part of planetary albedo that is provided by clouds. To explain it in a way a child of 10 could understand (change of voice) you are saying that every and all of the beams that the sun uses to give light and to warm the earth must find a cloud in their way, but all of us know that there are aplenty days the sun shines and there is no cloud in sight, isn't it truth, kids? -Yay! (back to normal voice)
    Solution?
    Thinking it better before posting with links to literature. This was just one more of "yours", like your magical UV-A beams, your dwelling in exclusively polar regions and a lot of quackery that you have been adding to a lot of posts in this site in recent days and that you don't even bother to reply, once spotted. I ask now the moderators what is the style or applicable rules to use with all this cases, that is, to deal with people that uses the disinformation technique that can be compared with a person constantly going to the woods and coming back bringing in his arms any sort of sticks and lumber, in order to put all that rubbish on different places of the tracks in an effort to derail the passing convoys, claiming in the seldom case of achieving such goal that the act is evidence of the nonexistence of a railroad system and that, in the worst scenario, a stick is better technology than a locomotive. What can we do? Tell me, please.
  3. Dikran Marsupial at 02:06 AM on 22 April 2011
    CO2 was higher in the past
    trunkmonkey@36 We are not in an interglacial within an overall "snowball" period. In a snowball period glaciation extends so far towards the tropics that albedo feedback means that the glaciation doesn't stop and continues to the equator and stays there (untill forcings change by 40ish W/m^2!). That hasn't happened for seveal hundreds of millions of years. If you mean the "tipping point" where glaciation would not happen at all, that is not the same "tipping point" at which a global glaciation (the whole of the Earth under ice) can no longer ocurr. The second of those "tipping points" as I said above is below 0ppmv already due to solar brightening.
  4. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    Jimbo @2, That is quite the find! SOme nuggests from Lindzen's talk in late 1989: "I personally feel that the likelihood over the next century of greenhouse warming reaching magnitudes comparable to natural variability seems small,..." Well, it is now known that the recent warming has easily surpassed any warming that can be expected from natural variability. "Urbanization also creates problems in interpreting the temperature record, he said. There is the problem of making corrections for the greater inherent warming over cities--in moving weather stations from a city to an outlying airport, for example. Lindzen has also been shown to be wrong on that front here, and here. ""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." This paleo reconstruction from Ljungqvist clearly shows that assertion to be false, the minimum occurred around 1700, not near 1880. [Source] Lindzen also seems to be floating the myth about the climate rebounding from the LIA, well that too has been refuted. And those demonstrably false claims and predictions came from the first third of his talk! I am once again reminded the sage words of an esteemed climate scienetist Dr. Kerry Emanuel: "... [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."
  5. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    And RealClimate reviewed James Hansen's 1988 testimony in 2007; http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/
  6. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    I think I may have found James Hansen's 1988 testimony; http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Environment/documents/2008/06/23/ClimateChangeHearing1988.pdf
  7. Muller Misinformation #3: Al Gore and polar bears
    'Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the ‘‘ultimate’’ survival control factor?' By M.G. Dyck, W. Soon, R.K. Baydack, D.R. Legates, S. Baliunas, T.F. Ball, L.O. Hancock Bearing in mind the presence of so many of the usual suspects among the authors, who show little or no expertise in the field, it may not be surprising that there are strong reasons to believe that this paper wasn't peer reviewed and was part funded by Koch industries. BTW, it has also been criticised for not being as objective as it should be. Abstract of Reply to response to Dyck et al. (2007) on polar bears and climate change in western Hudson Bay by Stirling et al. (2008)
  8. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    Jimbo - nice link. It's funny, just about everything Lindzen said in that 1989 talk has turned out to be wrong. Hard to believe people still listen to him with that history of errors. In your quote he claims the planet hasn't warmed. Here is the relevant quote for this post:
    "He said that the models showing that warming will occur with increasing CO2 predict after-the-fact (post-predict) that since the 19th century we should have seen between about one and two degrees of warming."
  9. A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
    Charlies @25, "Hansen also made the same exact claim for the 2010 heat wave in Moscow, the 2003 heat wave in Europe, and the all-time record high temperatures reached in many Asian nations in 2010. There is peer reviewed literature that says otherwise for at least two of these events." Re the peer-reviewed science, you are probably referring to Dole et al. (2011), and that paper speaks specifically to the Russian heat wave, and does not speak to the record high temperatures experienced in Pakistan of May 2010, nor the extreme heat observed elsewhere over central and eastern Asia during the boreal summer. Sophisticated finger printing techniques have found a link between AGW and the European heat wave of 2003, but to my knowledge they have not yet been applied to the Russian heat wave. Peer-review continues after publication, and Trenberth has been highly critical of the Dole et al. paper, and I expect that we can see a reply in the literature relatively soon, good science takes time. Either way, you are way, way too quick to dismiss the experience, insight and knowledge of an esteemed scientist like Hansen. And I'll leave you with this to ponder-- would the Russian heat wave have been as bad had it not been for the underlying anthropogenic warming trend? The answer to that is very likely no.
  10. michael sweet at 01:28 AM on 22 April 2011
    Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    Didn't Lindzen testify in front of congress with James Hansen in 1988? Can we review his predictions from that testimony and compare them to the observed changes (and also compare to Hansen). Do you have a link where that testimony can be found?
  11. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    Lindzen has been making this argument since 1989, at least. He said in an interview that year with MIT Tech Talk, Lindzen critical of global warming prediction "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." Lindzen concluded, "The greenhouse effect does not seem to be as significant as suggested." The interview ended: "It seems to me," said Professor Lindzen, "that if science doesn't have integrity, it isn't of much use to people."
  12. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    @Berényi Péter #152 You can do much better than that. Instead of saying "they won the game after the public roared in their support" or "stock market felt today after a journey of profit-taking" or any other kind of mouthful where a description replaces a causation, why don't you list the exact parts of those resources that according to you are related to Trenberth's mail. Otherwise it looks even less than an induced inference, just a concoction.
  13. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    RyanStarr, if graphs can be self interpreting, interpret this one for me: The chart has correct labels and axis, so (according to you) you should require no more information (such as, for example, that in the caption) to interpret it. Your failure to interpret should be treated as a de facto refutation of your claims.
  14. CO2 was higher in the past
    We are currently in an interglacial interlude within an overall "snowball" period. We are at a bit less than 400ppm. My sense is that someone thought once we pass 500ppm we would exit the snowball regime altogether. I doubt this is exactly right but it is at least reasonable. To say that the same tipping point in the Ordovician was 3000ppm is extraordinary. Eccentricity is good for a couple watts as well.
  15. Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
    When you poke a large industry with a stick like this, it is expected to see a strong reaction. I would think that they would like to delay every precedent. This is an important moment.
  16. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    new c#51. I've seen it, but it's 50+ pages of reasonably heavy going. (Though I would have said the production, rather than the use, of aerosols.) I won't pretend to understand the whole thing even when I'm done with it. But I do need to read it through a couple of times just to get the general ideas straight. (Then I'll have to decide whether I follow up any references to get the full flavour of any interesting details.)
  17. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    @Berényi Péter #154 Your words in some way echoed in my mind a recent debate in my city in which some argued that people by the act of becoming police troopers and personnel they had in many ways curbed their rights to life. It is very sad that you find if fits in this venue your attitude of "I don't support any crime but since we are at it I'll take advantage of the fruit of the crime" together with a false argumentation about what rights have any person, because what you'd voluntarily do sets the frame of what people should be forced to do. And I must say that all what you do in this site boils to pretty much the same, and that has nothing to do with your right to be an absolute ... human, but with your constant fail to perceive nobody notices the way you operate and what motivates you.
  18. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    144 RyanStar - no, didn't think so. Personally, I'd go further than Tom/141: Graphs are part of a narrative explaining analysis and results. They should be read in the context of what is being explained and not by them selves... labels are only relative to that explanation. Basically graphs are there to give the reader an impression of what the data or analysis is like - but graphs are neither data nor analysis, in and of themselves. There is a broad propensity to use graphs in PowerPoint, news articles, blogs etc. Often, though not always, by folks trying to appear scientific for, worse, who are being sciency - and this, IMHO, gives folks who don't actually do science the impression that the graphs are all that's involved in an analysis. The result, as we see, is that when one person interprets a graph one way and someone else interprets is another - all there is to fall back on is "bad labeling" or such.
  19. Muller Misinformation #4: Time to Act
    In case everyone thinks I did not respond to their posts, Let me just say that I have reponded but that my post was censored as probably this one will be. The irony.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Participating in this forum is a privilege, not a right. Compliance with the Comments Policy is not optional. Thus, non-compliance is then self-censorship. Complaining about moderation adds nothing to the dialogue, forces moderation and thus also amounts to self-censorship.
  20. Berényi Péter at 23:39 PM on 21 April 2011
    The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    #153 Sphaerica at 22:50 PM on 21 April, 2011 Being an employee of the government does not turn one into a state-and-people-owned slave-robot It is politics, so it will probably get deleted along with your comment, but anyway. I am a great fan of freedom & privacy. However, I do have two separate email addresses, one for business and one for private matters. I'd be certainly upset if someone published my private emails or used it in any other improper manner (including government interference with no lawful court order). On the other hand I'd happily show my business mails to anyone provided the company I am working for is not worried about trade secrets. I know no private company that would encourage employees to do their own business during office hours using their company email address. Does it make employees company-owned slave-robots? I do not think so. Why should it be otherwise with state employees? Just because in a sense "owners" of this particular business happen to be taxpayers? Mind you, all government money rightfully belongs to taxpayers, not bureaucrats employed by elected officials. They are responsible to the general public for their conduct and get adequate compensation for it, based on a free job contract. In a free society there is no law that would coerce you to become a government employee, so if this burden is too much, you can do something else.
  21. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    Les @ 140. I'm not a teacher but if I were and thought it necessary I would advise my students to provide correct labeling on any charts they create. In most cases that wouldn't be necessary as it would be a natural assumption.
  22. Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
    Tom @ 141, no you're wrong Tom, many, many charts are self interpreting. In fact any chart with correct labels and axis will be self interpreting. You label the chart and the reader knows what's on the chart. Ipso facto. Jones applied Mike's "nature trick" to create new spliced versions of existing series. So the data shown is his data, his new spliced versions of the old series, and yet he labels them as though they are the old versions. He mislabeled them hence a reader is mislead. Again, very simple, your convolutions don't change any of that.
  23. Clouds provide negative feedback
    RW1 Sphaerica - "Again, you are ignoring wavelengths," RW1 - "I don't see how. A watt is watt, regardless of whether it's SW or LW." What!?! You feel that somehow the wavelength dependent behavior of clouds is irrelevant? I hate to put this so strongly, but you've just skipped one of the most important points about cloud feedback. Abandon all science here! You have also made an unsupported statement that scientists stating minimal cloud feedback depend on high uncertainties, while those stating strongly negative don't. Please present some citations on that, as that does not match anything I have seen in the literature. I would also encourage you to look at (and perhaps post upon) the How sensitive is our climate thread - the 3C figure for doubling CO2 is strongly supported, with a distribution tail much larger on the high side. Sensitivity cannot be much lower given historic and paleo data (which incorporate all feedbacks including clouds), but it could be considerably higher, and personally I don't consider depending on the low sensitivity to be a good bet. Really, RW1, you're pushing an idea not supported by the data - it's really sounding like wishful thinking.
  24. Zebras? In Greenland? Really?
    Of course there is no direct measurement of basal melt, however given the flotation relationship. If you know the change in surface elevation of a point over time that is on top of floating ice, and you know the surface melt rate, than any other change in surface height has to come from bottom melt, for areas with low velocity during a specific melt season.
  25. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    BP,
    I do not think "private email" is a proper characterization of correspondence...
    Personally, I'm very, very glad that my society values personal privacy more than you do, and I do not think that one checks personal privacy at the door merely by working in a position that receives funding from the government. Being an employee of the government does not turn one into a state-and-people-owned slave-robot. To me, the real travesty here is that some people will quickly abandon rights and freedoms (such as privacy) just to latch onto some pitiful and evil effort to fracture the public's trust in climate scientists.
  26. Clouds provide negative feedback
    RW1, Let me summarize my understanding of your logic. 1. Your personal calculations about clouds, based purely on Trenberth's "Global Energy Flows" diagram, "suggest that in aggregate the net effect of clouds is to cool rather than warm." (you haven't actually made this case, but it's your main premise). 2. The scientists behind the models admit that the cloud feedbacks are uncertain, vary between models, and provide an important positive feedback (no need to exaggerate this further... leave it at "important"). 3. Your assumption is that since you've "proven" that clouds cool rather than warm, a positive feedback is impossible (despite your lack of understanding of the physics behind how the clouds work on atmospheric temperatures, how they form, and how their formation will be affected by rising temperatures, and the fact that not all clouds are created equal). 4. Completely eliminating all positive feedback from clouds reduces estimated sensitivity from 3.1 to 1.9. 5. You think the reduction is so great that 1.9 isn't a problem -- it's not a dangerously high amount of warming. 6. You discount the fact that the lapse rate feedback might not be as great as estimated, or that CO2 and albedo feedbacks might be greater or kick in sooner than estimated, or that anthropogenic CO2 additions could actually increase with human population growth and expanding industrialization. 7. You discount the fact that other studies point to a climate sensitivity of 3+, which imply that that the cloud feedback estimates are either correct, or that any error is offset by underestimations of other positive feedbacks (or over-estimation of the lapse rate negative feedback). 8. You discount the fact that we've already seen the climate warm by 0.8˚C this century without a noticeable negative cloud feedback, i.e. that the climate is obviously sensitive enough to swing 0.8˚C in a mere 100 years (0.6˚C of that in only the last 30 years) despite your proposed fast acting negative cloud feedback.
  27. Berényi Péter at 22:24 PM on 21 April 2011
    The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    I'm terribly sorry for the misinformation. A closer examination reveals that Dr. Schneider has in fact forwarded his student's mail at 10:32 UTC on 12 October 2009 (and not at 22:32 UTC). Otherwise Dr. Trenberth could not reply at 14:57:37 UTC on the same day. BTW someone (conceivably among the recipients) has forwarded the mail to Paul Hudson as well. We do not know which comments were included in that version. Trenberth's message probably not, because Hudson published a few points on his blog at 13:52 UTC, possibly triggered by the incoming mail. However, that mail may have included Michael Mann's comment at 13:00:44 UTC, because both that comment and Hudson's reply refers to Richard Black.
  28. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    @Berényi Péter #149 Thank you for being so throughly and pretty transparent on the subject. Regarding the second part, we have the actual on-topic in the link to Trenberth's statement -one click ahead from the last link your provided- and his "It is amazing to see this particular quote lambasted so often.". The rest is only linked by your racconto of the supposed chronology, what takes us back again to the question, are the e-mails real? haven't them being doctored or snipped to suit specific advocacies? It is the kind of situation people says "only God knows". If the hacker stepped out and passed a polygraphy, and forensics experts swore they didn't find evidence of doctoring or any change of content, I would start to believe they are real -not that the planet is in a trend of cooling and there's a conspiracy to hide it-. This takes us to the next point: Regarding the first part, I read your words a few minutes after reading this article (in Spanish) in the newspaper. It can be summarized as an appeal court setting that violation of emails are a federal crime and emails are completely equivalent to a epistolary letter, not only in a general quality of them being "private" but specifically protected by the constitution as being "inviolable" what is much more. That is in my country but the countries where the communication took place are not much different about what is legal. The hacker has the constitutional right to not self-incriminate and Trenberth et al had at least the constitutional right to privacy, if not inviolability of any epistorar communication. This bring us at you cloning in #149 the "climategate mistique" of, in your own words, «I do not think "private email" is a proper characterization of correspondence between government employees (or scholars working on government grants) during office hours using their work email addresses,...». A lot can be commented about: if the person hasn't that right, the company or the agency has the right (the "mistique" followed it with "the agencies refuse to show it because they are part of the conspiracy"); what about the parts of messages quoted in other messages coming from private individuals; what if one employee using his own account plot with another employee to burn Mona Lisa, have the agency to pay a milliard dollars to the Louvre because it was "agency time"? This can be going on for ages, but basically the arguments about why the e-mails are not private are like those of ambulance chasing lawyers, the kind of argument with the arguer being immediately benefited by the new rules his argument creates, that is a 30% of Mona Lisa's compensatory damages.
  29. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    51. I linked to a video of a talk around the new paper and more on RC where you can find a link to the paper here...
  30. What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
    Dr. Hansen has a new paper out discussing the use of Aerosols, and how they seem to be reflecting a good deal of the light and warming- thus far. Anybody have more to add regarding this?
  31. Clouds provide negative feedback
    88, BP,
    Trenberth's 79 W/m2 implies an average cloud albedo smaller than 0.39.
    He took his numbers primarily (not completely) from the ERBE and CERES satellites, so they are unlikely to be wrong. I'd suggest that of that 341, since 78 is absorbed by the atmosphere, only 263 is available to be reflected (although this is a gross estimate, since it's more complex than that). If one assumes a cloud cover of .66 then 174 of that 263 is subject to cloud cover. 79 reflected from 174 gives .45, which is well within the ranges given by Hansen 1998 -- even at the upper end.
  32. Clouds provide negative feedback
    82, RW1,
    ...so the 79 W/m^2 reflected back out is SW radiation.
    But you appear later to use this result to compute reflectivity for LW radiation from the ground up. Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but as I've said repeatedly... sorting through your swarm of calculations is a nightmare.
  33. Clouds provide negative feedback
    82, RW1,
    I don't see how. A watt is watt, regardless of whether it's SW or LW.
    !?!?!?!?!????? If you don't get this, you have a huge, huge hole in your understanding. You need to know this. It's critical to everything. As I have said repeatedly, you have a lot of studying to do. One can't even discuss this with you if you don't know why that statement demonstrates a horrible lack of understanding of the system.
    I'm well aware of all these things.
    But you choose to simply ignore them, and focus on the behavior of clouds on a sunny day, as if that is the only way that they operate.
    ...they do suggest that in aggregate the net effect of clouds is to cool rather than warm...
    You say this, but you have not actually demonstrated it, both because your numbers are unclear, and they contain at least one critical flaw (SW vs. LW distinction), and probably many others.
    But you are correct in that the issue is more complicated than this, which is why it has to be carefully weighed will all the other evidence.
    And yet twice you have ignored my demonstration of the long list of other evidence which points to climate sensitivity being at lease 3˚C, and therefore supports the contention that the models have the cloud feedback right, or at least that the net effect of all feedbacks points to 3˚C, even if the cloud feedback is lower than expected (or negative!).
  34. Clouds provide negative feedback
    82, RW1,
    And you're accuse me of exaggerating things.
    But my hyperbole is intended to poke fun at your hypoerbole. You've arbitrarily focused on the cloud feedback as uncertain, which is true, but it's not that uncertain, and very, very few people are arguing that it will be negative. The negative lapse rate feedback is also uncertain. What if that turns out to be wrong? The pace and extent of positive CO2 feedbacks are uncertain. What if they're faster, and greater? The pace of future anthropogenic CO2 generation is also uncertain, and with people like you trying to influence the debate, it's unlikely to go down, but very likely to go up. The rate of Arctic ice melt is exceeding predictions and increasing that positive feedback. There are lots of uncertainties. Picking just one from the bunch, and then exaggerating the chance that the error is in the direction that you'd like it to be, is not logical, especially when the aggregate of all uncertainties has more chance of being net positive than negative.
    ...a significant area of uncertainty...
    Exaggeration, in particular in the wrong direction... it is uncertain both ways, and unlikely to deviate so far from expectations as to make a that large of a difference. I would point out that your cherished 1.9˚C sensitivity, the lowest you claim one could reasonably get, is still dangerously high.
    ...on a critical examination of the evidence, data and logic - much of which I've presented here...
    To me you've completely failed to present your case, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and think that the failing lies only in your presentation and not your numbers, because as I've already said, trying to sort through your steps is like trying to read a Chinese assembly manual for a nuclear reactor, translated by a Swede into Slavic using a base 9 number system. I hate to suggest it, but perhaps if you went through the numbers again, but in less of a jumble, one could sort out what you are doing, and where you are going. It is almost impossible to see where you have made inappropriate assumptions (such as assuming the cloud reflectivity for SW radiation is the same as for LW radiation) with the way you've written it up. When you introduce a new number, be clear about where you've gotten it. When you come up with a result, be clear about what it represents. Most importantly, when you come up with something that somehow supports your assertions, point it out. Before you even start, state what you are trying to derive. I still cannot figure out which numbers support your position, or how and why, and which ones are just intermediate steps.
    Is it just a coincidence that...
    Is it also it yet another coincidence that...
    And what is this supposed to be implying?
  35. The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    @Ken #147 Yeah, Ken! We get it. No need for #148. You are not replying to my #145 as you put there. Regarding #146, change your attitude of trying to bring everything to a King Arthur's set and do either these thing: Please yourself in NOAA's site and Argo. Use the search features in this site to find the many posts and arguments where (total) ocean heat content is dealt. You'll find a lot of figures there. Once selected the proper place, start there a debate about "figures" and invite me to provide there. You don't even need to say it because I'd found it in the recent comments section. Be aware that by doing so you'd loose [erratum in next comment: "lose"] the shield that provides you here the fact of being off-topic so many would reply your comments there, not just me. And that's the crux regarding the tale of comments here (and the second "thing"): It looks like you still don't realize the topic of this post and its comment section: The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on "the lack of warming" which relates to what Trenberth's said and doesn't relate to each instance that can be labeled as a "the lack of warming" and that you can pull out of the hat, no matter it is verbatim, fully figure dependent or whatever. You may say that the planet's atmosphere, hydrosphere and 5 outer metres of the lithosphere have lost some 1022Joules of heat from February 2010 to August 2010, and I'll happily agree that you are lastly being reasonable, but would you be on-topic. I'm afraid not. There's no clearer way to state that you haven't got the topic yet than reading my #146 (The paragraph starting with "So it takes us back to what "the travesty" in Trenberth's meaning might really be...") and reading your reply in #147 calling it all "...don't have any facts to argue and are engaged on a rambling randon walk through the topic". That speaks volumes. Read my next reply to another participant who is much more on-topic.
  36. michael sweet at 20:33 PM on 21 April 2011
    A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
    Are the people who have lost their homes in the unprecedented Texas wildfires also climate refugees? These types of fires were predicted long ago by climate scientists who have warned about the American west drying out due to climate change. There is no proof yet , but that does not mean that the cause is not AGW. Charlie: Provide a link to your peer reviewed assessements. Since it takes about a year for work to be peer reviewed I am interested in your sources for events that only happened 9 months ago. James Hansen has a long record of being right.
  37. Berényi Péter at 20:12 PM on 21 April 2011
    Clouds provide negative feedback
    #86 RW1 at 14:29 PM on 21 April, 2011 Trenberth is showing 79 W/m^2 of incoming solar energy is reflected off of clouds back out to space Something does not add up here. Global cloud fraction is more than 0.6 while average incoming shortwave radiation is 341 W/m2. Trenberth's 79 W/m2 implies an average cloud albedo smaller than 0.39. On the other hand it seems to be more than 0.42 (Han 1998, Table 1. pp. 1525). Solution?
  38. alan_marshall at 19:22 PM on 21 April 2011
    CO2 Reductions Will Not Cool the Planet? We Know
    Here is the text of the email I sent to Tony Abbot after the parliamentary display of his ignorance: Flannery Misrepresented To: Hon. Tony Abbot MP In parliament yesterday, you were quick to stoke the anger of your constituency by using the following remarks by Dr. Tim Flannery: If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow, the average temperature of the planet’s not going to drop for several hundred years, perhaps over 1000 years. You responded to his remarks by saying: So this is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry …. …. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years. Climate change is an issue which will profoundly affect the world in which your children and grandchildren will live. As leader of the alternative government, you have a responsibility to have at least a layman’s understanding of the science. Regrettably you do not. Otherwise you would have understood what Dr. Flannery was saying. Let me interpret for you. We have already experienced 0.8 degrees C of warming. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a long time. If the world cut all emissions tomorrow, that CO2 would continue to warm the Earth until the atmosphere and ocean achieve thermal equilibrium. That is the extra 0.7 degrees C of warming that scientists say is “in the pipeline”. So even if all emissions were cut tomorrow, we are still committed to total warming of 1.5 degrees C, and the world would remain warm for centuries until the excess CO2 was absorbed. That was Dr. Flannery’s point. What is the outcome if we follow your lead and to do next to nothing because it “won’t make a scrap of difference”? If we keep emitting CO2, we will keep adding to the ultimate level of warming. The emission reductions pledged at Copenhagen, including Australia’s inadequate response, are not sufficient to hold total warming below 2 degrees C. The projected rise is more like 3.5 to 4 degrees C by the end of the century. Dr. Flannery was making a simple observation that the situation is bad and is not getting better any time soon. Please note that he did not suggest the situation won’t get any worse. If the world keeps emitting CO2 at near current levels, as you propose to do, it will get worse. I suggest you read the copy of Dr. Flannery’s book, “The Weather Makers”, that I sent you for Christmas 2009. If you make the effort to read reputable science, you won’t make the mistake of misunderstanding Dr. Flannery again. Regards, Alan Marshall www.climatechangeanswers.org
  39. Berényi Péter at 18:58 PM on 21 April 2011
    The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
    #145 Alec Cowan at 23:34 PM on 20 April, 2011 So which one is The Email? As it is not allowed to publish "other peoples stolen private emails" at this site, that question will not be discussed here. I do not think "private email" is a proper characterization of correspondence between government employees (or scholars working on government grants) during office hours using their work email addresses, but ( -Snip- ) Anyway, the thread including Trenberth's travesty was started by Narasimha D. Rao, PhD Candidate at Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER), Stanford University, student of the late prof. Stephen H. Schneider, who denounced Paul Hudson, BBCs reporter on climate change to his mentor on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 18:25:53 UTC in an email for publishing the article titled What happened to global warming? at the BBC site on Friday, 9 October 2009 15:22 UTC. Prof. Schneider elected to forward the message on Monday, 12 October 2009 at 22:32 UTC (14:32 local time) to the Team, encouraging them to "straighten this out" in an op-ed response. What follows is the discussion of this question by various Team members including Distinguished Senior Scientist Dr. Kevin Trenberth. That's the context.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Moderation complaints snipped.
  40. Clouds provide negative feedback
    RW1 - it empirical support for models having feedback about right. They do the calculation properly.
  41. Dikran Marsupial at 17:44 PM on 21 April 2011
    CO2 was higher in the past
    Even with 0ppmv CO2 now the sun is bright enough that a snowball Earth is all but impossible, so the direct comparison wouldn't be valid. The direct comparison would only be valid if we were at the global glaciation threshold now. 500ppmv is clearly not the threshold for global glaciation now, if it were, we would be under a glacier! The drop in TSI of 4% is about 54 W/m^2, three doublings of CO2 would be about 12 W/m^2, so that presumably means that for a global glaciation to happen now, the sun would have to dim by about 42W/m^2 or about 3%. To put that into context, the variation of the 11 year solar cycle is about 2W/m^2 and the difference between glacial and interglacial conditions is apparently about 7W/m^2.
  42. Announcing Shaping Tomorrow's World
    John, your energy, commitment and good ideas never cease to amaze me. Well done.
  43. CO2 was higher in the past
    How is it that 4% less TSI in the Ordovician due to a younger sun results in a sixfold increase (500ppm now 3000ppm then) in the supposed CO2 tipping point for glaciation?
  44. CO2 Reductions Will Not Cool the Planet? We Know
    Wow cloa513, yet another totally unsupported little rant from you. You care to back up even *one* of your claims with papers from *reliable* sources? ( -snip- ).
    Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped.
  45. CO2 Reductions Will Not Cool the Planet? We Know
    Only if you believe the IPCC models- 5 times wrong- the approach has got to be totally wrong take the physics first thought of add more unproven physics positive feedback effects. Sure human introduced CO2 has a small warming effect but the reductions will have an unmeasureable small effect. Moderator- your cosmic radiation is totally wrong cosmic varies on the solar 11 year cycle. You can't average solar radiation over its cycle you don't average any other factor over 11 years The effect of the sun and cosmic rays adds an enormous basic model effect so CO2 mainly accounts for the tiny change we've had so far and that will slowly increase (logarythmically)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Discussion of the "CO2 Effect is Weak" belongs on that thread, "It's the Sun" and "It's Cosmic Rays" all belong on their appropriate threads, not here. Really, all of this has been looked into at length; you just have to use the Search function and do a bit of reading to find out for yourself.
  46. Clouds provide negative feedback
    Sphaerica (RE: 81) "Reflectivity for things like clouds are dependent on the wavelength, so right there most of your calculations appear to be invalid" Trenberth is showing 79 W/m^2 of incoming solar energy is reflected off of clouds back out to space. The energy coming in from the Sun is SW radiation, so the 79 W/m^2 reflected back out is SW radiation. "(I say appear, because quite honestly, you present them in such a confused jumble, pulling in numbers willy nilly without clear attribution, that it's given me a headache trying to sort out what you did, and eventually I gave up... I don't have the time to sort through it if you don't have the time to present it with more clarity)" What part isn't clear? The ISCCP data says clouds cover 66.7% of the surface on average. I rounded this up to 0.67. There is 341 W/m^2 from the Sun incident on the Earth, so 67% of that is 228 W/m^2 incident on clouds, 79 W/m^2 of which is reflected away for a net reflectance of 35% or 0.35 (79 is 35% of 228) per m^2 of cloud cover. I then used the same method for the clear sky and subtracted the difference of the weighted averages for the net of 51 W/m^2 (after my slight error correction later in the thread in post 45).
  47. Clouds provide negative feedback
    scaddenp (RE: 83) "How long will you wait with warming trucking along consistent with a climate sensitivity of 3 not 2, before you would be prepared to say just maybe the models are calculating feedback the correct way? 10 years, 30, 60?" Well, I don't agree that the warming we've seen so far is consistent with a sensitivity of 3 C, but that's an issue for another thread. I don't want to delve into that here.
  48. Clouds provide negative feedback
    Sphaerica (RE: 81), "For the life of me, I can't figure out what the point is to all of your calculations. I can mostly follow them, but they're such a convoluted morass of numbers that I can't figure out what the final, meaningful result is supposed to be." The numbers are showing that in the aggregate, additional clouds reflect more energy back out to space than they trap or block from the surface. That for each additional m^2 of cloud cover, there is loss of about 10-12 W/m^2. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. "Again, you are ignoring wavelengths," I don't see how. A watt is watt, regardless of whether it's SW or LW. "as well as temperatures and seasons. Cloudy days in winter are warmer than summer, because of the radiation from the clouds. And as I've already explained, there are different types of clouds, with varying reflectivity. Clouds at night warm the surface while having no cooling effect whatsoever. High clouds made of ice reflect almost nothing, but trap IR." I'm well aware of all these things. The data is globally averaged, so all of these effects (differences between night and day, types of clouds etc.) are accounted for in the numbers. "Finally, all of this is beside the point. No one has ever said that clouds can only warm, or can't reflect inbound radiation. This has all been taken into account, so your efforts to put complex numbers on it looks to me like a very well dressed strawman. What happens going forward depends on what sorts of clouds form more or less in a warmed climate. The question is, will warming generate more low clouds which reflect more than they absorb, or more high clouds which absorb and barely reflect? Your numbers do nothing to address this." Not by themselves - no, but they do suggest that in aggregate the net effect of clouds is to cool rather than warm, which is much more consistent with negative feedback, especially given the albedo hasn't decreased (or has even slightly increased). But you are correct in that the issue is more complicated than this, which is why it has to be carefully weighed will all the other evidence. This is also why understanding the role clouds play in maintaining the energy balance is so important to understanding cloud behavior and ultimately whether or not they primarily act to amplify or attenuate warming.
  49. Clouds provide negative feedback
    How long will you wait with warming trucking along consistent with a climate sensitivity of 3 not 2, before you would be prepared to say just maybe the models are calculating feedback the correct way? 10 years, 30, 60?
  50. A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
    Michael Sweet #17 says "James Hansen says that the floods in Pakistan would "almost certainly not" have occured if not for AGW." In the link you provided to a file on columbia.edu that appears to be from a Jim Hansen e-mail newsletter, Hansen also made the same exact claim for the 2010 heat wave in Moscow, the 2003 heat wave in Europe, and the all-time record high temperatures reached in many Asian nations in 2010. There is peer reviewed literature that says otherwise for at least two of these events. Hansen is first and foremost an activist, and only secondarily a scientist. You linked to one of his work products as an activist.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Correction: Hansen is primarily a scientist, but one who's research has pushed him reluctantly into activism.

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