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Stephen Baines at 08:06 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
@ finglestrumpet I don't see any mechanism that would be relevant really, given Lindzen has such a willing audience outside of academia. He has already lost his credibility on this issue in the academic community. What difference does it make? In the professions, there are regulatory bodies that can enforce bans. IN sports there are associations that oversee participation. There are no certification procedures for working scientists - although some societies are moving in this direction for certain activities. There no bodies with such absolute control in science. There are sanctions against clear misdeeds like falsification or plagiarism that can be imposed by the university and funding agencies. Societies or acdemies can revoke membership. In this case, Lindzen can be said the be stating his opinion. He can always claim to be ill-informed or to disagree with other research for arcane reasons that are hard to evaluate. Coming up will hard and fast rules to counteract such arguments would endanger the cherished goal of academic freedom that is so important for free exchange of ideas. You would be opening the gate to political pressure on scientists from all fronts. The one route of enforcement that might work is in the case of testimony to congress. Perjury and lying to congress rules are rarely enforced, as I understand it. Both parties like to engage in political theater. Such rules wouldn't apply to his origninal testimony either since the issue was still up in the air then - Lindzen just ended up on the wrong side of the debate. Later testimony that reiterated positions that were clearly known to him to be incorrect, however, might be subject to sanction. It would be steep hill to climb though... -
Steve Bloom at 07:44 AM on 22 April 2011What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
Gracias, Daniel! -
Albatross at 07:27 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
DSL @39, Well, well. This is what you get when you follow the link at WUWT, "This graphic was originally produced for the Environmental Atlas of the newspaper Le Monde diplomatique. We have decided to withdraw the product and accompanying text. It follows some media reports suggesting the findings presented were those of UNEP and the UN which they are not. We hope this clarifies the situation." However, why the heck were they featuring the graphic on their site in the first place then? Somebody at UNEP has some explaining to do. -
scaddenp at 07:26 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Harry, in the past there weren't so many people. Second, large migrations of people from one place to another already occupied by people haven't been that pleasant for one party or other. -
scaddenp at 07:23 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
"I appreciate the challenge, but just don't have the time to research it" Its not about research really - it about what is acceptable to a particular ideological position. We need solutions to limit CO2 and they need to be solutions that the economic right will support. -
Albatross at 07:21 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Harry @37, They may be correct, but you are assuming that there is no work in progress to apply similar finger printing techniques that found an AGW signal in the 2003 European heatwave. Also, you seem to be dismissing (or at least ignoring) Trenberth's critique of the Dole et al. paper. Good science takes time, give the scientists some time to look at this case properly. I expect that some more papers will be appearing in the literature sometime this year or early next year. Harry @36, I see that you have been doing the rounds reading the gossip on the internet--while you may find the errant prediction regarding the numbers of climate refugees amusing (the prediction it seems was made by environmental scientist Norman Myers), I assure you that those being directly affecting with the increasing frequency of extreme events vehemently disagree. I will be quite honest, these kind of predictions make me uneasy-- it is far to easy for contrarians and those in denial about AGW to cite these misguided calculations as evidence that AGW is exaggerated or to label people concerned about AGW as "alarmist". With that said, I do not believe that prediction was cited in WGII or AR4. Let me guess, you are typing your posts from somewhere in the developed world and not the flood affected region of Pakistan. Easy to make glib and smug comments from the comfort of one's cosy, dry and secure home with plenty of food-- unfortunately, that is not the reality facing those affected by extreme events, extreme events that are increasing as the planet warms. Go here, and click on "6 Billion Others". Casveat-- anecdotal evidence I know, but their experiences are consistent with what the science and observations are finding, not to mention Munich Re. Also, "Among dozens of climate facts and figures, the report shows that the number of people in Latin America and the Caribbean affected by extreme temperatures, forest fires, droughts, storms and floods grew from 5 million in the 1970s to more than 40 million from 2000 to 2009. Overall, adverse weather conditions have cost the region more than US$40 billion in the last ten years. For Mexico the estimated annual cost of dealing with the effects of climate change will be 6.22% of current GDP net present value by 2100 . Such costs will intensify budget constraints across Latin America and the Caribbean and may complicate attempts to reduce poverty and to meet the Millennium Development Goals." [Source] Predicting the number of people that are affected by AGW and that will be affected by AGW is incredibly tough, and that prediction by Myers was clearly very wrong, but that doesn't mean every forecast related to AGW is now wrong, nor does it mean that no-one will be negatively or that no-one has been negatively affected by AGW-- besides, this is still quite early days in our stupid experiment. What is your prediction Harry-- how many people do you think will die or have died or negatively affected as a result of AGW? How many refugees do you expect there will be come 2050? Even if, in the end, only say 1% of the current projection (i.e., 2 million) are affected, that is 2 million too many in my opinion. We have been warned, we know that we are a major contributing factor to this unraveling disaster that is playing out in slow motion. -
Steve Bloom at 07:12 AM on 22 April 2011What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
Note to mods: Please notice that Gilles did in fact mostly succeed in his goal of wrecking this thread. More to the point, you helped him do it via your tolerance and catering (by responding extensively to his absurdities). There's much of interest about Pliocene climate that might have gotten discussed otherwise. I'm all in favor of free speech, but when the proverbial theater is on fire, shouts of "What smoke? If there is any smoke, you haven't proven it's from in here, that it's necessarily a result of fire, or that your hypothesized smoke and fire would be harmful!" (lather, rinse, repeat) are not only wholly counter-productive but boring. Put another way, this is a learning site, and people can't learn much in threads like this. My advice: Put Gilles in moderation and rigorously delete anything OT or trollish.Moderator Response: [DB] OK. -
DSL at 06:48 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Harry, I can't find that figure of 50 million. Can you provide a link? I found where UNEP identified 25 million already on the move, but I can't find a prediction of 50 million refugees by 2010. -
muoncounter at 06:35 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
michael s #35: "It is too early to have scientific evidence for the Texas fires," The drought monitor is a good clue that something unusual is taking place: D4 = 'Exceptional'
-- full size source
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SNRatio at 06:08 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
The question to Lindzen, as to any expert, is "Exactly how much will you allow yourself to be wrong, and still be an expert?" Then make a neutral, peer-reviewed assessment of his statements/predictions, e.g. the mentioned 1989 version, and let him comment on it. As for the transient sensitivity, I think it is important to be careful about precise estimates of expected temperatures in a situation with considerable radiation imbalance. The temperature increase we experience now, about 0.15-0.17 deg/decade, is related mainly to the current CO2 level, and very little to the current increase. Even if we froze the level now, we should expect the temperature rise to decrease only slowly at first, with the temperature converging to something we could interpret as representing the transient climate sensitivity (TCS). Afterwards, in a "virtually constant temperature" situation we would, in the course of a few centuries, approach the temperature representing ECS. In a far-from-equilibrium situation, the "expected value right now", may not be very well defined. From the increase observed so far, I strongly suspect the TCS to be above 2 deg C, but that does not necessarily imply the ECS is >3. Of course, Lindzen should be pressed to state exactly what temperature observations would refute his claim of ca 1 deg sensitivity. Of course, he may do this conditionally, he just have to state the conditions as clearly, and they, too, must be easily testable. If he won't, his claim is a specualtion, not a testable hypothesis. -
adrian smits at 05:49 AM on 22 April 2011More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
Why do you guys talk about weather eg euro heat wave as if its climate change? If that's true then the current temperature of the planet based on the UAH temperature record has not increased at all for the last 30 years.what I'm talking about is way closer to what the climate is than a local heat wave in europe.Moderator Response: [mc] See the extreme weather thread for discussion of heat waves. -
funglestrumpet at 05:44 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
I am not a scientist, but I do have scientific leanings. It seems to me that I keep reading reports of scientists regurgitating previously debunked opinions/theories. This site even has special sections for the likes of Lindzen, Moncton, Christy etc. so prevalent is the practice. Surely the scientific community needs to develop some mechanism that can impose sanctions on any of their number when they can be shown to have deliberately misrepresented scientific evidence in the way described herein. The medical profession can strike people off when someone behaves in a way that falls below the required standards. Even sports people can be charged with bringing their game/sport into disrepute and the sanctions can be severe. I find it difficult to believe that a similar mechanism cannot be devised within the science profession for someone who behaves in the way Lindzen is said to have in this post. Failing that, he and those like him will continue to impress politicians all around the world with their disinformation and give those with their own agenda a credibility for their position or opinion that is ill deserved. The general public stands no chance and the scientific community must bear at least some of the responsibility. Rebuttal on a site like this, excellent as it is, doesn't have the sanction that a formal disciplinary hearing would be able to impose. It is not as though the bodies that could perform the regulatory function are not already in place, such as The Royal Society in the U.K. -
Harry Seaward at 05:35 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Sweete @ 35 In reference to the Russian heat wave, from the American Geophysical Union (3-9-11). Link here. "While a contribution to the heat wave from climate change could not be entirely ruled out, if it was present, it played a much smaller role than naturally occurring meteorological processes in explaining this heat wave's intensity. -
Harry Seaward at 05:24 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. That obviously did not happen. Not even close. So, now the date is pushed out to 2050 and the number of refugees increased to 200 million. Amusing to say the least. -
michael sweet at 05:15 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
I find it interesting that Harry claims that floods 6,000 years ago during a different climate era are relevant to the discussion. In recorded human history going back over 1,000 years there is no record of any floods that compare with the Pakistan floods last year. Likewise there are no records of similar Russian heat waves for 1,000 years. You can handwave off 1 in 1000 year events as long as you like but eventually it becomes a trend. It is too early to have scientific evidence for the Texas fires, they are currently occuring, but the newspaper article I linked states they are "unprecedented". If you want to challenge that description you need to provide a link to evidence, otherwise you are just hand waving. -
dana1981 at 05:10 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
michael #11 - interesting proposal. We'll see what we can do. -
michael sweet at 05:05 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
I would like to see a comparison of Hansen 1988 and Lindzen 1989. That would show the difference between the scientific and skeptic predictions. -
muoncounter at 04:46 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Harry#32: No one denies that there were floods in the past; no one denies that climate has changed before now. What we must deal with is the question of whether there are systematic changes in the frequency and intensity of these events. As pointed out here, there was something out of the ordinary about the 2010 Indus valley flooding. Perhaps the extreme weather thread is a better place for the discussion of what has become known as 'attribution' (although 'retribution' may be appropriate). As usual, there are experts working these problems. -
CBDunkerson at 04:36 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
For purposes of the original argument it also doesn't matter whether these various extreme weather events were 'caused' by global warming or not. The actual statement was that there would be "environmental" refugees. We can quibble over whether these were climate change events, but certainly not over whether they were environmental (as opposed to political for instance) events. -
Harry Seaward at 04:35 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Muon @ 31 I did not dismiss anything. I simply asked for the data and the proof of a direct connection. Also, it is very interesting that the first article you linked to stated the following: "During a warm period ending about 6,000 years ago, the Indus was a monster river, more powerful and more prone to flooding than today. Then, 4,000 years ago, as the climate cooled, a large part of it simply dried up. Deserts appeared whether mighty torrents once flowed." So, the climate changed before just as it's doing now. I'm certain humans (and other animals) had to move in the past, and will have to move in the future. -
muoncounter at 03:45 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Harry#29: "You can't point to an extreme event and just make the claim" Nor can you necessarily dismiss the increasing probability for extreme precipitation events as due to warming simply by saying 'no, its not". Some data for anomalous conditions in the 2010 Indus floods here and in general here. Interesting that the list of dismissives: 'you can't claim heat waves of 2003 or 2010' weren't made worse by warming, then 'flooding isn't made more frequent', 'Arctic isn't melting faster', keeps getting longer. -
logicman at 03:32 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Lindzen will be quoted as an 'expert' in the media for as long as the media can make money out of a 'controversy' which the media itself has helped to create. -
Harry Seaward at 03:17 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
scaddenp@16 I appreciate the challenge, but just don't have the time to research it. -
Harry Seaward at 03:12 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Sweet @ 17 You can't point to an extreme event and just make the claim that it was caused by AGW. Where is your data and your proof? The closest I could come to finding any scientific information on this are articles where various scientists said AGW "may" have caused the flooding. From "Indus Basin River System - Flooding and Flood Mitigation" by H. Rehman and A. Kamal, 1995 "The river system is mainly snow-fed but during monsoons carries major floods. The floods are a regular phenomenon with losses running into millions. Fatalities due to flooding are also common." Found here. The Indus River floods every year because of the monsoon, and has done so since before man kept records, and will continue to do so long after man is gone. If you still firmly believe that AGW contributed to this event in 2010, please show your data. -
dana1981 at 02:38 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming
Albatross - no, this is the first I've seen the Lindzen '89 talk. We'll have to incorporate it into some future Lindzen Illusions. -
Charlie A at 02:28 AM on 22 April 2011A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change
Albatross -- thanks for the link on the Russian heatwave. There are conflicting opinions on the European heatwave of 2003. The proximate cause was an anticyclone blocking pattern that stalled over western Europe. This dramatically decreased precipitation. Also implicated were the more active than normal West African monsoon. Michael Sweet could point to hundreds of extreme weather events and claim AGW is the cause. The same region as the Texas wildfires was the source of the largest group of climate refugees I know of in the USA. The "Okies" (from Oklahoma / West Texas / Texas Panhandle region) of the great dust bowl of the 1930's. Australia has also seen massive climate changes. The drought of late '90s through '01 was truly a record breaking drought that caused immense hardship. I have no peer reviewed literature that says the cause of the Federation Drought was not anthropogenic. -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:24 AM on 22 April 2011CO2 was higher in the past
Try another "back of the envelope" calculation. According to Wikipedia (yes, I know ;o), the difference in solar forcing between a glacial and an interglacial is about 7W/m^2. The pre-industrial CO2 concentration was about C0 = 280ppmV. The radiative forcing for CO2 is given by DeltaF = 5.35*ln(C/C0) which implies that C = exp(DeltaF/5.35 + log(C0)) so substituting the figures, we get C = exp(7/5.35 + 5.6384) = 1000ppmv (ish) That calculation ignores any feedback etc, so if it was within a factor of two of the real answer from a climatologist (who unlike me knows what they are talking about ;o), I would be pleasantly surprised. A value of 500ppmv sounds plausible to me. -
Albatross at 02:12 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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? -
Alec Cowan at 02:08 AM on 22 April 2011Clouds 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 #88Something 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. -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:06 AM on 22 April 2011CO2 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. -
Albatross at 02:06 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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." -
Pete Wirfs at 02:02 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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/ -
Pete Wirfs at 01:56 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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 -
ScaredAmoeba at 01:53 AM on 22 April 2011Muller 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) -
dana1981 at 01:51 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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."
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Albatross at 01:40 AM on 22 April 2011A 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. -
michael sweet at 01:28 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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? -
Jim Powell at 01:26 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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." -
Alec Cowan at 01:25 AM on 22 April 2011The 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. -
Tom Curtis at 00:50 AM on 22 April 2011Muller 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.
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trunkmonkey at 00:39 AM on 22 April 2011CO2 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. -
Alexandre at 00:37 AM on 22 April 2011Lindzen 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. -
adelady at 00:16 AM on 22 April 2011What 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.) -
Alec Cowan at 00:02 AM on 22 April 2011The 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. -
les at 23:59 PM on 21 April 2011Muller 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. -
BillyJoe at 23:47 PM on 21 April 2011Muller 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. -
Berényi Péter at 23:39 PM on 21 April 2011The 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. -
RyanStarr at 23:37 PM on 21 April 2011Muller 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. -
RyanStarr at 23:26 PM on 21 April 2011Muller 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. -
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.
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