Recent Comments

Prev  1758  1759  1760  1761  1762  1763  1764  1765  1766  1767  1768  1769  1770  1771  1772  1773  Next

Comments 88251 to 88300:

88251. RW1 at 00:01 AM on 18 April 2011
       An Even Cloudier Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
       Dessler seems to be claiming that clouds are trapping more energy as the surface warms. He writes on page 3 of his paper: "Because I have defined downward flux as positive, the positive slope here means that, as the surface warms, clouds trap additional energy; in other words, the cloud feedback here is positive." Is he claiming that clouds are changing in a way that results in them trapping more surface energy? If yes, how has he rectified this with all the data (i.e. how has he shown that the additional energy the clouds trap is greater than the additional energy they reflect away)???
88252. Glenn Tamblyn at 00:00 AM on 18 April 2011
       Last day to vote for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
       Reminds me of an old Footrot Flast cartoon (for those who don't know it, it tells you more than you could ever want know about rural New Zealand, centered on a sheep dog called simply Dog) Dog is watching a pig give birth to a litter of piglets, all very excited about it as he counts them out. "One....Two....Uhm....LOTS AND LOTS" Get those votes in People!
88253. Alec Cowan at 23:56 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       @RW1 9of17 comments to this post, so far. You are likely to get soon a DNFTT banner in your comments and I'd like to explain why is that. T - "If I throw this stone into the water it'll float" P - "No, it'll sink, stone's density is higher that water's" T - No, it'll clearly sink. Don't you see the weight of the stone is less than the weight of the water, you, idiot? M - DNFTT You might think that the trolling part is "you, idiot", but that is clearly just something said on the heat of the debate and doesn't affect the intellectual content of it, so it's easily dismissed. The trolling part is simply the underlying lie about the world of Physics: the twisted pricipia that things float if they amount a lesser weight. The "no" and the "you, idiot" part just reinforces the idea that the troll has made his/her mind -nobody cares about how or why- and he/she's simply "trolling around". I suppose that many fellows who think that there's a "global warming hoax" of some kind, sort of they come to websites like this "to get our voices heard about that outrageous subject", and that they experience comforting feelings if they overflow threads and the comment sections and then get a trolling banner just for "hitting the nerve" and as a result of "the nuisance their witty remarks provoke". Please, don't fool yourself with such naïvités. You're in an academical site and you have the ethical obligation of being diligent in detecting or correcting any wrong product of you animus. It also happens that the fact that you detect the gruesome mistake in the 'floating' example doesn't mean you are not gruesomely mistaken just because you cannot detect it. The principle for (legally) capable people that states "nobody can argue his own slowness and clumsiness to justify an error" comes from that obligation of diligence. In sites like this it translates in a diligent revision of your knowledge matrix once it has being pointed at you gruesome conceptual mistakes. The worst thing it could happen is that you learn something.
88254. Gilles at 23:49 PM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       DM :"So here is a directly falsifiable test: Follow A1F1, if temperatures in 2100 are lower than they are now," yes but the scenario is in itself not steerable - so what you propose is mainly a counterfactual test . Can't you propose a test valid for any scenario, and if possible, soon enough ? if you can't , it means that all AGW "theory" is still in a state of hypothesis ...
88255. Adam at 23:41 PM on 17 April 2011
       It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
       He also provided the data, which showed the warming rates were the same. You can clearly see it below Phil Jones' statement.
88256. Adam at 23:40 PM on 17 April 2011
       It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940
       PPS: logicman he is saying that the difference between the rates of warming for the three periods of warming are not statistically significantly different from each other i.e. the rate of warming was the same for each one. Saying the rates were statistically significantly different would have confirmed what was said in this post, but he did not say that. He simply admitted there is no statistical difference between the three periods of warming. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to show in your comment logicman.
       Moderator Response: [DB] "i.e. the rate of warming was the same for each one." Making this leap is where your logic fractures. [Dikran Marsupial] In this context, the test of statistical significance basically implies only that we can't rule out the possibility that the rates are the same, not that they actually are the same. Tests of statistical significance are conceptually rather subtle, and widely misunderstood, even amongst scientists and even statisticians!
88257. Ken Lambert at 23:15 PM on 17 April 2011
       A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
       Tom Crtis #73 Did you divide your 1.51E21 Joules by 32 years (1979-2011) to get the annual extra energy absorbed in Joules/year to compare with Dr Trenberth's number of 1E20 Joules/year? If you do that, you get 0.49E20 Joules/year - very conservative but in the ballpark?
88258. Ken Lambert at 23:06 PM on 17 April 2011
       The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
       Alec Cowan #128 Suggest you read through the contributions of BP and KL and others from this thread, rather than my repeating complex arguments: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-cherry-pickers-cooling-oceans.html Note particularly the issue of a 'gold standard' of tethered buoys all over the planet as a comparison for Argo. The issue is that Argo coverage is far better than XBT or prior methods and as full deployment has proceeded and problems rectified, the heat content increase has flattened, zeroed or (in the top 700m) cooled. viz. the Knox & Douglas paper referenced earlier.
88259. les at 23:03 PM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       18 - batsvensson regarding "extended snow cover will increase the heat flux out from the earth surface and cause global temperature to decrease" The onus is on you to show or find papers which show that this follows. To me, it's not obvious. Calculating the impact on "heat flux" - I guess, how much more or less energy is radiated / reflected - due to extra snow fall in the north needs some work. I know where I live (about 64°32'N) where it's snow covered almost 5 months a year, extra snow fall won't make much difference. On the one hand the ground is already mostly white; I'd guess the snow keeps the ground warm (white doesn't radiate as much as black). On the other hand, it's dark, the snow reflects very little sunlight - there is very little sun light to reflect! That's during the winter - at the 'margins'... will there be extra days of snow cover or fewer? etc. All has to be calculated. Other parts of the world would differ to here. Will there be substantial snow cover where there was none? Or longer snow cover? Will that reduce the rate of cooling? Or reflect more sunlight? You have to be able to estimate how much extra snow and the impact of that, if any. maybe someone's done some estimates, may you'd like to give it a try! ... certainly you cannot jump from "there will be more snow falling in the north" to "there'll be an ice-age"! Looking forward to seeing the fruits of your research.
88260. Bob Lacatena at 22:37 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       RW1, No. You misunderstand, and then cling to your misconceptions. You need to spend less time lecturing, and more time reading and studying, to figure out for yourself where your own mistakes are. End of "debate."
88261. JMurphy at 22:36 PM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       batsvensson, I haven't a clue where you get the "personal attacks" belief from, but if that is what you see, it isn't what I intended. Is English your first language ? If not, perhaps that is where the difficulty is. Anyway, no personal attacks intended. But, with regard to your original question : Did any one propose, say, 10 years ago that snowing will increase when the climate warms up? I think you should have seen by now that the answer is 'Yes'. Yes ?
88262. johnd at 22:36 PM on 17 April 2011
       CO2 is plant food
       Villabolo, making an argument that CO2 is merely plant food is understating the fact. Carbon is a fundamental building block for all life forms, plants being about 45% carbon, whilst animals including humans are less than 20%. Interestingly, by comparison the carbon content of coal ranges from about 30% in low rank coals such as lignite to 45% to 85% for the most used form of bituminous coal, up to to 98% in anthracite. However what I am interested in is the statement "Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat." Are you able to quantify both the reduced nutritional quality along with any associated increased yields as determined by the better performing varieties that have been tested in open field trials under enriched CO2 conditions?
88263. Gilles at 21:33 PM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       OK but am I allowed to answer villabolo's points or not ?
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] As long as you stick to comparison of climate yes; if it relates to whether the change will be bad for mankind, respond to them on "its not bad", where they would be more appropriate. Please also pay attention to the comment I left on Villalobo's post.
88264. Dikran Marsupial at 20:25 PM on 17 April 2011
       It's not bad
       Gilles@113 First, as was pointed out on the previous thread, correlation does not imply causation. A more likely explanation for rising population and rising temperatures is that they both share a common cause, namely increasing economic growth through exploitation of fossil fuels. Economic growth leads to better nutrition and healthcare, which supports a larger population. Fossil fuel use leads to carbon dioxide emissions that you have said you are prepared to accept leads to warmer temperatures (how much we can leave for the climate sensitivity thread - not to be discussed further here). Of course an increase in population leads to greater fossil fuel use, greater carbon dioxide emissions and hence higher temperatures. So if anything the causal arrow goes from population growth as the cause to temperature increase as the consequence, rather than the other way around. As to your particular question, see the work of Malthus. Populations grow until they reach the limits of what the environment can support. Agriculture, improving health care, fossil fuels have all led to increased population and prosperity. That doesn't however mean that increase continues indefinitely. If climate change leads to a disruption in agriculture (for instance), then the Malthusian limit gets pushed back and we end up with at least part of the world population subject to famine. It seems to me to be quite likely that the world population is close to or at the Malthusian limit already, which is why climate change is likely to be a big problem. In short, temperature rise is no great problem for human population growth provided (i) it is not too rapid for easy adaption and (ii) the population is not close to its Malthusian limit already (that is the point where the correlation is likely to reverse). As to what we do about it, personally I would say we can't do anything quickly about population levels (doesn't fit in with my idea of ethics anyway!), so the obvious thing to to is to try and prevent the Malthusian limit on population being brought down by climate change by limiting our fossil fuel use in order to prevent great hardship (mostly in the third world). Of course that won't be pleasant for any of us, but it is better than the alternative.
88265. batsvensson at 19:59 PM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       JMurphy wrotes: "Secondly, you shouldn't rely on outdated ideas, especially since the site I linked to continues" Does this imply that you reject the idea that an extended snow cover will increase the heat flux out from the earth surface and cause global temperature to decrease or have I missed something here?
88266. batsvensson at 19:46 PM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       "But you seem to have ignored the UCSUSA link..." etc... You asked me what lead me to such understanding with out this I answer you assuming nothing. However you seams to have taken my answers as an opportunity to followed up with personal attacks on me. I would suggest you try keep to the subject instead and not discuss my person or knowledge base.
88267. batsvensson at 19:37 PM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       JMuphy, clearly your understanding of what constitutes a prediction is fundamentally different from mine but I see no point in discussing that issue any further here. My understanding is that global warming is attributed as cause for the recent increased snowfall. Assuming this understanding being correct, is there any other possible cause for this and if so what reason do we have to exclude those explanations as causes for the increased snowfall?
       Moderator Response: [DB] Where I live (in the northern snow belts of the Great Lakes of North America) snowfall totals have been down significantly for the last several years. So increases are not necessarily global or even regional.
88268. Dikran Marsupial at 19:15 PM on 17 April 2011
       Climate sensitivity is low
       Gilles wrote: "I am completely ready to admit that CO2 contributes to warm the atmosphere , on very simple arguments of radiative transfer. My only questions are quantitative." This is the best place to have such questions answered; I am sure there are plenty of knowledgeable posters here who would be happy to answer them for you.
88269. villabolo at 19:00 PM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       @42 Moderator: "Moderator Response: [DB] Your spirit is appreciated, but your energy is better served someplace where productive results are achievable. Unfortunately, this is not one of those. DNFTT" Please Moderator; I promise to stop the feeding frenzy. From now on I beg you to bind and gag me whenever he posts! **************************************************** @43 Gilles: One last time through this Gish Gilles Gallop and then I'll stop beating these dead horses: Now i'm rather stupefied by the number of false and unsubstantiated statements I can read in your answers - it's unfortunately a little bit lengthy to answer all, so please forgive me if I forget some. "the obvious prospect of severely escalating problems in the future." : well obvious if you believe in them, and if you're formatted by the impressive number of dire predictions that are made everywhere - but actually there is no "obvious" fact about an imminent catastrophe. recent example drawn from a competitor site http://asiancorrespondent.com/52189/what-happened-to-the-climate-refugees/ maybe we'll soon have here a post on this subject ? "Obvious" is based on deductive reasoning based on a wide assortment of facts that you seem to be ignorant on. "You are concentrating on a natural event that is sporadic in a given time period versus human distorted 'natural' events which are increasing on a year by year level." ... which human distorted natural events are increasing on a year to year level ? well , they're probably "human distorted" but not quite in the same sense ... (As I let out a loud sigh). The escalation in temperatures during the last several decades; increase in rain intensity...Deja vu, am I repeating myself? Never mind Gilles. "Besides, you have not responded to the issue of Arctic Ice cap shrink and its effects in the near future. " I have some difficulties to imagine why the Arctic ice cap shrinking has caused any harm in the millions of people living around me ... didn't we talk about the disappearance of 99 % of the human population ? do you mean that 99% will commit suicide because of polar bears or what ? Why not throw another biscuit in your direction? 1. Light reflecting Arctic ice cap is shrinking and thinning, exposing heat absorbing water. 2. More heat generated by albedo flip = greater water evaporation intensifying amount of rain and strength of storms which are fueled by the extra heat. 3. Crop and infrastructure damage throughout the Northern Hemisphere due to intense rains and changes in weather patterns. 4. This Arctic Sea exposure thus adding to the already present intensiication in rain and snow due to the temperature increase of other oceans. 5. Temperature increase in an ice free summer Arctic Sea leading to (More deja vu) increase in regional warmth. 6. Which includes Siberia, whose permafrost is melting and releasing Methane (You do know that Methane is a Greehouse gas-don't you?). 7. The increase in Siberia's heat thus amplifies the permafrost melt and methanogen microbial metabolism leading to an escalation in the rate of increase in the release of Methane. I think that's called a positive feedback loop. You may now brush off all of the above. "Compare the Pliocene's arid ecology in North America and please tell me; do you want a bumper crop of corn in Kansas or would you prefer a bumper crop of cactus?" My issue that it was not relevant to equate = level of CO2 = climate, several millions years ago, so why should I answer an irrelevant question ? Yawn! Feeding time over.
       Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Please can we moderate the tone back to "impersonal scientific discussion" (I know there is an element of "pot meet kettle" there, for which I apologise).
88270. Gilles at 18:49 PM on 17 April 2011
       It's not bad
       so as it is the right place, I post here my question : since the average population, GDP, improvement of standard of living, etc... growth has been positively correlated to temperature up to now, it must be that some other factor (whatever it is) must have been stronger, so that all drawbacks have been offset in a way or another. My question is simple : does our knowledge allow to make a definite prediction of when the correlation will be the opposite ?
88271. Gilles at 17:18 PM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       44 : Marcus : please substantiate your personal attacks, at least. I never stated that population could grow only through FF, and if you say the opposite, show me where. Now YOU said "China has had a much bigger growth rate than the Western Hemisphere-dating back to the middle ages." And I asked you : "what was the average growth rate of China between, say , 1000 and 1800, following you ?" can you at least answer that ? "As someone who works in the Agricultural Science sector, I can assure you that ongoing temperature rises *will* continue to have an ongoing negative impact on crop outputs." And as someone who works in the Agricultural Science sector, are you stating that the price and the availability of FF has no influence on the crop outputs and the price of food ? The problem we're facing now is just demographic expansion - actually we've escaped Malthus' dire prediction for some centuries thanks to the discovery of new territories and the use of FF (yes), but we meet the problem again - and it was unescapable because exponential growth meets always a limit. That's all, and that's enough - warming has nothing to do with that, it can make the problem worse at some places, but it is very far from being the main problem. The main problem is simply overpopulation, and even if we suppressed totally FF, we'd have to face it anyway. Do not mix up the issues.
       Moderator Response: [muoncounter] This is not a thread about historic population growth. Further off-topic diversions will be deleted.
88272. Marcus at 17:04 PM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       "But I did never stated that population could only grow thanks to FF" Yes you have, on more than one occasion-you only ever claim that's not the case when people finally blow your claims clear out of the water. The graph you provide doesn't exactly help your case-given that the population growth really got going during the 16th century & onwards. Also, I never said China's growth rate was huge in the middle ages-just signficantly larger than that of Europe during the same period. China's population growth rate post 1970's *is* lower than what it was previously-I can't help the fact that you refuse to accept that fact. My other points, which you can't even be bothered to address, merely highlight how weak your entire case is. "what I stated that I saw no sign, nowhere, that a growing temperature produced a decrease in the population" As someone who works in the Agricultural Science sector, I can assure you that ongoing temperature rises *will* continue to have an ongoing negative impact on crop outputs. Technological fixes can alleviate this to some degree, but only at a much increased price for staple goods. Now if you think a world of increased crop failures & more expensive foodstuffs is good for a world which is already failing to feed its entire population, then you're simply much, much more deluded than I ever thought.
88273. Gilles at 16:48 PM on 17 April 2011
       How I lived through a carbon tax and survived to tell the tale
       " I never said ... that there is a significant risk that we can't switch away from FF." You never said there is, or you never said there isn't ?
88274. Gilles at 16:40 PM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       I'm sorry for english, "meanwhile" wasn't the appropriate word :) so why did the world cool after Pliocene ? Now i'm rather stupefied by the number of false and unsubstantiated statements I can read in your answers - it's unfortunately a little bit lengthy to answer all, so please forgive me if I forget some. "the obvious prospect of severely escalating problems in the future." : well obvious if you believe in them, and if you're formatted by the impressive number of dire predictions that are made everywhere - but actually there is no "obvious" fact about an imminent catastrophe. recent example drawn from a competitor site http://asiancorrespondent.com/52189/what-happened-to-the-climate-refugees/ maybe we'll soon have here a post on this subject ? "You are concentrating on a natural event that is sporadic in a given time period versus human distorted 'natural' events which are increasing on a year by year level." ... which human distorted natural events are increasing on a year to year level ? well , they're probably "human distorted" but not quite in the same sense ... "Besides, you have not responded to the issue of Arctic Ice cap shrink and its effects in the near future. " I have some difficulties to imagine why the Arctic ice cap shrinking has caused any harm in the millions of people living around me ... didn't we talk about the disappearance of 99 % of the human population ? do you mean that 99% will commit suicide because of polar bears or what ? "Compare the Pliocene's arid ecology in North America and please tell me; do you want a bumper crop of corn in Kansas or would you prefer a bumper crop of cactus?" My issue that it was not relevant to equate = level of CO2 = climate, several millions years ago, so why should I answer an irrelevant question ? Marcus " you only care that the world consumes more of your precious fossil fuels," As my point is precisely that it won't , I have some difficulties to understand why you say that. " China has had a much bigger growth rate than the Western Hemisphere-dating back to the middle ages." Really ? what was the average growth rate of China between, say , 1000 and 1800, following you ? Hint : the average growth rate of A(t) in the [t0,t1] interval is ln[A(t1)/A(t0)]/(t1-t0). "ts also funny that China's growth rate, over the last 30 years, has been less than any time during at least the last 500 years-" do you realize what an exponential growth really means ? the current rate is around 1%, giving a doubling time of 70 years. 500 years of 1% growth rate makes 2^(500/70) = 141 , so now we learn that China had less than 10 millions inhabitants in 1500 ? actually here is the real growth of population (http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1950_population.htm) very far from your figures ) and nearly flat during the Middle Age. The growth started just before the industrial revolution, indeed, but it is remarkable that it exhibits some "hockey stick" shape correlated .. positively with temperature ! But I did never stated that population could only grow thanks to FF, although I think they're quite a part of it (it is not necessary to have much FF - it's enough to avoid famines through agricultural productivity): what I stated that I saw no sign, nowhere, that a growing temperature produced a decrease in the population. Can you stick on this assertion ?
88275. RSVP at 16:34 PM on 17 April 2011
       Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
       Not sure if anyone has used this analogy yet. Global warming as obesity. When a person is overweight, there are usually many causes, but they all reduce to the net ratio of calorie intake over calories burned greater than unity. And while this idea is fairly simple, it's not always clear why doing all the right things doesnt result in a desired weight loss. For one thing, there are time delays associated with metabolic processes that introduce lag. Things take time. In the same way, to say that radiative heat will simply increase to offset the effects of waste heat is not recognizing inherent lag. You cant just fixate on the SB formula and think it is going to solve all your problems. Picture a nuclear power plant next to a river. If I were to accept the arguments being proposed here against waste heat, I would have to believe that as soon as the water comes out of the plant it will cooled to the same temperature above the plant. Everyone knows this is not the case. So I would ask how far downstream must one go for the heat to magically disappear, making me "horribly, horribly" wrong?
88276. Marcus at 15:53 PM on 17 April 2011
       David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold
       Nick, what you've also got to remember is that if we manage to cut global CO2 emissions back to 1990 levels, then there's also the possibility that new & existing carbon sinks might be able to take up some of the excess CO2 already in the atmosphere. This will be even more likely, of course, if we can cut our CO2 emissions back to pre-1950 levels. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but one can always hope.
88277. BillyJoe at 15:52 PM on 17 April 2011
       Muller Misinformation #3: Al Gore and polar bears
       Taking legal action to silence the misinformation supplied by climate denialists would be seen as a conspiratorial attempt to silence the whistle-blower.
88278. Marcus at 15:38 PM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       Wow Gilles, you're an even bigger piece of work than I thought you were-& that's really saying something. Here you've been, telling us over scores of postings, how you believe consumption of fossil fuels is necessary to save the lives of people in the developing world-yet clearly you don't give two hoots about human life, you only care that the world consumes more of your precious fossil fuels, & damn the consequences. Also, like any good denialist, you believe that repeating the same myths will somehow make them true-like your false FF consumption correlates with population growth meme. Well guess what? It was wrong before, & its still wrong now. China has had a much bigger growth rate than the Western Hemisphere-dating back to the middle ages. Was that because they had coal-fired power stations the European World wasn't aware of? No, its because they had much better medicine, education & sanitation than the Europeans. Its also funny that China's growth rate, over the last 30 years, has been less than any time during at least the last 500 years-yet their fossil fuel consumption in the last 30 years has been at its highest during that same time-frame. Kind of knocks your ill-founded "correlation" fantasy on the head, doesn't it? Similarly, population growth rates in the West actually started to climb significantly around the end of the 18th/start of the 19th century. Again, improvements in health care, sanitation & income distribution seem to be the most likely causes. Also, according to what I've seen, yearly growth rates have fallen from around 2% per year in 1970 down to around 1.2% per year in 2010-not exactly great evidence for your "correlation" myth, is it Gilles? Last of all, in recent history some of the biggest population growths have occurred in Countries like Thailand, The Philippines, Brazil & Mexico-in spite of the fact that their fossil fuel consumption remain far lower than those of the less populous, so-called "advanced" economies of Western Europe & North America. Again, not great "evidence" for your "correlation" myth. It seems you understand historical correlations about as well as you understand the drivers of climate change & release & take-up of greenhouse gases. That is to say-you don't understand them *at all*, & should probably go & educate yourself before you embarrass yourself even further.
       Moderator Response: [DB] Your spirit is appreciated, but your energy is better served someplace where productive results are achievable. Unfortunately, this is not one of those. DNFTT.
88279. RSVP at 15:36 PM on 17 April 2011
       Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
       and what import does the radiation between molecules have if all they do is exchange energy between themselves? Here we have 100% cancellation of anything remotely resembling a cooling mechanism, as the only thing that matters is the net vector from the surface skyward.
88280. RW1 at 15:12 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       Dessler 2010 seems to be claiming that clouds are trapping more energy as the surface warms. He writes on page 3 of his paper: "Because I have defined downward flux as positive, the positive slope here means that, as the surface warms, clouds trap additional energy; in other words, the cloud feedback here is positive." Is he claiming that clouds are changing in a way that results in them trapping more surface energy? If yes, how has he rectified this with all the data (i.e. how has he shown that the additional energy the clouds trap is greater than the additional energy they reflect away)???
       Moderator Response: [Muoncounter] There is an existing thread for Dessler's paper; check to see if your question was already addressed.
88281. Tom Curtis at 15:06 PM on 17 April 2011
       A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
       Ken Lambert @68, in reviewing my calculations I noticed I did not adjust the atmospheric absorption for my error regarding angles in 54. Rather than pursue that line of calculations, I have recalculated the increase in incoming energy over the arctic summer due to the change in ice area between the early 1980's and the late 2010's. I have proceeded as follows: 1) For each half hour of the 21/5/2011, I calculated the minimum solar altituded at 75 degrees North and 0 degrees East using azimuth and altitude calculator to which you have previously linked. I then compared those values to a selection of values calculated for 20/7/2011 to ensure those of 21/5/2011 are smaller (they are). As previously discussed, these dates are chosen because they lie thirty days on either side of the summer solstice. Thus, for sixty days of the summer, the altitude will be higher than these values, and for the remaining 30 days, not much lower. Taking these values, therefore, represents a conservative estimate of the mean summer values. Having determined the minimum altitude for each half hour, I then rounded down to the nearest whole degree. 2) For each half hour, and using the result of (1), I then calculated the albedo of sea water for water incident at that angle using the Fresnel equations, the effective path length through the atmosphere as a multiple of the height of the atmosphere, and the effective surface area over which light striking one meter squared perpendicular to the light would spread on the surface (in square meters). The later two are calculated using the formula =1/(SIN(RADIANS(D55))), where the radians function converts degrees to radians, and the sin function gives the sine of an angle expressed in radians. 3) Using values for cloud albedo and atmospheric absorption taken from Trenberth's chart (in 54 above), I then calculated incident radiation at the surface in watts/m^2 for each half hour of the day using the formula: I = S * (1-C) * (1-(L*A)/area where I equals the incident radiance, S equals the TSI, C equals the cloud albedo, L equals the path length of the light where the height of the atmosphere = 1, A equals the mean atmospheric absorption , and area equals the area over which light that passes through one square meter perpendicular to the light path at the top of the atmosphere will pass. Where this formula returned a negative value, I used 0. To ensure the value was conservative, I used the TSI at aphelion, which is 1321 W/m^2 {{=IF((($D$52*(1-$G$52)*((1-($I$52*F55))/G55)))<0;0;(($D$52*(1-$G$52)*((1-($I$52*F55))/G55))))}} 3a)As a check against whether this constitutes a conservative estimate, I calculated the mean incident radiation over a day using the above method, which was 127 w/m^2. For comparison the following map shows the annual average surface solar energy including the effects of clouds and atmospheric absorption: As you can see, the average over the whole year including six months of darkness, is nearly 100 w/m^2, so my estimate for the summer months of 127 W/m^2 is certainly conservative. 4) From the half hourly values obtained in (3), I calculated the additional energy absorbed by ocean surface exposed by melting sea ice as the difference between the albedo (0.9) of the sea ice and the albedo of the ocean given the angle of incidence, multiplied by the effective surface radiation (as calculated in 3). Taking the mean of that value, the average additional power absorbed by the ocean is 97 W/m^2. 5) Using that value, I calculate the total additional energy absorbed as 7.57 x 10^8 Joules per meter squared over a notional 90 day summer, or 1.51 x 10^21 Joules over the whole 2 million square km of additional ice cap melted over the period 1979-2011. This is a reduction from my 1.7*10^21 estimate in 56, but is now (at last) error free so far as I can determine, and still a very conservative estimate. So conservative, in fact, that it assumes zero insolation for 9.5 hours of the day in the arctic summer. But it is still a sufficiently large figure to show that you are significantly underestimating the forcing effect of arctic melt back, and that there is no basis from considerations of incoming energy to think Flanner is incorrect about overall forcing.
88282. RW1 at 14:19 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       Sorry, but I'm not interested in a semantics debate regarding the definition 'skeptic'. ['...the system's response to GHG forcing will be much greater than it is to solar forcing...'] "This is untrue. You are the only person on the planet to have arrived at this conclusion, because your underlying model (understanding) is flawed." I don't see how this is untrue. I make no claim that it's an impossibility, but it is true that the AGW theory claims the next 3.7 W/m^2 incident on the surface will be amplified by the system nearly 3 times a much as the original 239 W/m^2 incident on the surface from the Sun. If, as the AGW theory claims, an additional 3.7 W/m^2 at the surface is to become 16.6 W/m^2 mostly through positive feedback, quantify specifically how the feedback causes this much change while it doesn't for the original 98+% (239 W/m^2) from the Sun. "But that model -- the rules and assumptions you are following -- are flawed." Explain why.
88283. Bob Lacatena at 13:37 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       12, RW1,

       I don't have a model.

       Of course you do. Everything in science is a model. You have a mathematical model (a set of rules and assumptions) that you've used to derive your proposed answer from the data. But that model -- the rules and assumptions you are following -- are flawed.

       ...the system's response to GHG forcing will be much greater than it is to solar forcing...

       This is untrue. You are the only person on the planet to have arrived at this conclusion, because your underlying model (understanding) is flawed.

       ...my purpose here is to present contradictory evidence and logic that disputes the theory. That's what I'm doing.

       No, what you're doing is confusing people with your own personal creation of faux-math-science.

       I have not seen, in my estimation, these relatively simplistic things explained by the pro-AGW advocates.

       No one can explain to you why 2 plus A does not equal monkeys, because it's not even a mathematical equation. Similarly, your insistence that some theory must explain your 1075 W/m² number will never happen.

       I'm a staunch skeptic of AGW

       That's an oxymoron. No one can be a "staunch" skeptic. Being skeptical means questioning what you are first shown until it is satisfactorily proven, not questioning it endlessly with no hope of acceptance or understanding, because you staunchly refuse to be anything but eternally skeptical.
       Moderator Response: [Muoncounter] We've been down this painful road before. Please do not encourage another go round. The other player in the drama is known as co2isnotevil, which should tell you all you need to know about his viewpoint.
88284. Tom Curtis at 13:32 PM on 17 April 2011
       A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice
       DB @ KL, thanks for your good wishes.
88285. Bibliovermis at 13:26 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       RW1, That word doesn't mean what you think it means. A skeptic ~is~ interested in being helped. You have described something else.
88286. dana1981 at 13:11 PM on 17 April 2011
       David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold
       Nick - the number Evans gives is reasonable for the temp change avoided at equilibrium compared to business as usual. It's just small because the Aussie population is small compared to the global population.
88287. RW1 at 13:05 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       Sphaerica (RE: 11), "FYI... These are rhetorical questions. I don't really want to know." OK, then I won't answer. "Your entire model is invalid." I don't have a model. All of my numbers and calculations are from measured or generally accepted data. ['...why doesn't it take 1075 W/m^2 at the surface to allow the 239 W/m^2 from the Sun to leave the system...'] "You will never get an answer to this question because it is non-sensical." I'll probably never get an answer because this is a significant whole in the AGW theory that no one seems to be able to explain (that the system's response to GHG forcing will be much greater than it is to solar forcing). "I don't think that I can help you." I appreciate that you seem to be interested in helping me, but I'm not really interested in being helped per say. I'm a staunch skeptic of AGW, so my purpose here is to present contradictory evidence and logic that disputes the theory. That's what I'm doing. "There's a guy over at Nova's loony-bin site who does stuff like you're doing. If you're trying to learn by listening to him, you're only to wind up being get very, very confused." I'm not sure exactly who you are referring to, but I learn and have learned from listening to a multitude of sources - both for and against AGW. I don't care if it's from the Easter Bunny or Einstein - if I can understand it and not find fault in the evidence, reasoning and logic behind it, I accept until it's been adequately challenged or discredited. I have not seen, in my estimation, these relatively simplistic things explained by the pro-AGW advocates.
       Moderator Response: [DB] Please, everyone, RW1 has amply demonstrated over many threads and in comments almost beyond number that he's not interested in learning anything here (by his own admission), but only in putting his own brand of logic and and calculus on display. Thank you all for the good faith efforts, but DNFTT. Thanks!
88288. Bob Lacatena at 12:20 PM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       10, RW1,

       So, 239 W/m^2 incident on the surface becomes 396 W/m^2 from 157 W/m^2 of 'back radiation' from the atmosphere (239 + 157 = 396).

       Where do you get 157 of "back radiation"? Why do you treat the energy absorbed by the atmosphere as absorbed by the surface? Why and how do you use Stefan-Boltzman to compute the component 16.6 W/m²? FYI... These are rhetorical questions. I don't really want to know. Your entire model is invalid. You need to study more, and completely rethink things. There is no 1.6 amplification factor needed to allow an additional 3.7 W/m² to leave the system. I still have no idea where you got your 16.6, or what you think it means.

       ...why doesn't it take 1075 W/m^2 at the surface to allow the 239 W/m^2 from the Sun to leave the system...

       You will never get an answer to this question because it is non-sensical. You need to look at things more carefully, probably abandon your current assumptions and perspective, and try to see if you can understand it properly. I suggest starting completely from scratch. I don't think that I can help you. You need an open mind, serious study time with books, and to let go of whatever it is you think that you know. There's a guy over at Nova's loony-bin site who does stuff like you're doing. If you're trying to learn by listening to him, you're only to wind up being get very, very confused.
88289. WSteven at 12:00 PM on 17 April 2011
       Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
       @Mike @Dan Moutal I speak mainly out of frustration as a concerned Canadian. I'm well aware that there are Conservatives/Tories who are trying to make effective environmental change. It's just this "feet-dragging" you mention Dan that gets me. But it is worse than merely "feet dragging", the Harper government is actively promoting Canadian coal and oil in a time when scientists are telling us that we need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. The Harper government is also planning expand development of the Tar Sands. I know that they've done some things, but the Conservative Party of Canada still have a long ways to go. I've written a letter to my local MP to remind him that I consider the issue of GHGs to be very important to me this coming election. I hope other Canadians are doing something similar, or better.
88290. JMurphy at 10:47 AM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       Gilles wrote : "34 : climate has never cooled after Pliocene ?" Oh, is that what you meant ? You are not very clear sometimes and I would suggest that is most of your problem, unfortunately. Your English is good but not as good as you think.
88291. Dan Moutal at 10:46 AM on 17 April 2011
       Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
       @WSteven "I'm sure the Conservative Party of Canada is pretty much the same." Thankfully no. Although many in the Conservative base here in Canada are absolutely in denial, the Conservative party does officially accept climate change. They even stated after climategate that leaked emails are no basis to change their position on the matter. Not bad for a party who just a few years ago was talking about 'so-called greenhouse gases' That is the good news. The bad news is that Canada has been obstructionist on the world stage and has the lowest aspirational GHG targets of any industrialized country. And to make matter worse the official government position is to do nothing until the US does something.
88292. JMurphy at 10:39 AM on 17 April 2011
       Video on why record-breaking snow doesn't mean global warming has stopped
       batsvensson, firstly you should read more than the title and first line of anything, if you want to find out more information - such as the following paragraph from that link : “Recent increases in the water temperature of the Great Lakes are consistent with global warming,” said Burnett. “Such increases widen the gap between water temperature and air temperature – the ideal condition for snowfall.” I.E. increased temperature leads to increased snowfall. Secondly, you shouldn't rely on outdated ideas, especially since the site I linked to continues : It was no more nor less convincing than anyone else's ideas. At a time when scientists could not explain the observed general circulation of the atmosphere, not even the trade winds, theories about climate change could be little more than an amusement. I.E. things have moved on a bit since then. But you seem to have ignored the UCSUSA link...
88293. adelady at 10:11 AM on 17 April 2011
       Last day to vote for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
       So when do we get the results? Not that I'm anxious or anything.
       Response: Not that I'm anxious either but this is what the webpage now says: "The voting period has now closed. We will be announcing the results soon." You can sign up to be notified of the winner.
88294. Steve Metzler at 09:34 AM on 17 April 2011
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       Interesting. I have a lot of respect for Hansen, but having recently finished reading Storms of My Grandchildren... well, I felt he lost the plot a bit with that tacky sci-fi piece at the end where he postulates that Earth will go the way of the runaway greenhouse effect. My money is on a less dramatic but equally ignominious fate for mankind: a doubling of CO2 ca. 2050 causing our major crop producing areas to become severely drought constrained just as the world population is approaching the 9 billion mark. War, greed, and human nature will do the rest.
88295. Nick Palmer at 09:33 AM on 17 April 2011
       David Evans' Understanding of the Climate Goes Cold
       Lassesson #15 Dana1981 #16 Re: "Even if we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide [...] it would be cooler in 2050 by about 0.015 degrees." Whether he was talking about Australian emissions (which he was) or global emissions, the figure seems wrong. If we stabilise at 390ppm tomorrow, we've still got 30 years warming in the pipeline (takes us to 2041). We're not going to lose 30 years worth of radiative forcing overnight and go back to today's temperatures (minus a little bit) in only 9 years are we? - what about the longer term feedbacks which would be coming into play by then anyway? As I pointed out before, this seems to be a new denier meme popping up all over the place. It basically goes: - there's virtually no point in making a huge effort now because it will have almost no effect. The meme purports "no effect" to mean global temperature being the same or less in 2050. It sneakily ignores that if we do nothing or not much, global temperatures will be up and rising fast in 2050. It looks to me like one of the more outrageous pieces of grossly twisted thinking from the denialist propaganda factory. I liked Spaerica's comment at #7 It's sort of like telling a cancer patient "why bother with chemotherapy, it will only shrink your tumors by 5%" when without chemotherapy the tumors will grow so fast that the patient will be dead within a week. although I think we need a different metaphor for public use.
88296. bill4344 at 09:22 AM on 17 April 2011
       Debunking Economic Myths from the Climate Hearing
       I still have yet to receive a reply to the following question from any (allegedly) conservative 'skeptic' - 'What is the conservative position on conducting a radical experiment with the one atmosphere we possess?' Real conservatives aren't the problem. It's militant reactionaries we're contending with.
88297. villabolo at 09:13 AM on 17 April 2011
       What was it like the last time CO2 levels were this high?
       @ Gilles: "as is rather usual in climate discussion, it seems that you would like to live in a world without any problem? without heat wave, crop failures, without poverty, without deaths, without bad trolls on your favorite web site ... I can understand it, but isn't it a little bit ... childish ?" Gilles; I really don't care about the 'trollism'. What I do mind is your seeming lack of understanding of basic AGW points. It is not an issue of whether you agree with those points but rather that you either don't acknowledge them and carry the conversation from there, or that you are actually ignorant of them. That puts us in the exasperating position of having "to spoon feed" you, as Chris G said. As far as living in a world without any problems, the issue is not the usual problems that have been happening in the past but the obvious prospect of severely escalating problems in the future. We're talking about billions of people. Last time we lost 1/4 of our population, throughout Eurasia, it was due to a few rats, and their fleas, per person. Think of how easy it would have been to prevent that. Isn't it childish to engage in magical thinking and wish a thunderstorm away? "One can always do a list of everything that went wrong these last years : what does it prove ? what's the use of all these cherry-picked events ? and what went worse was not that - it was mainly..earthquakes, you know." As far as cherry picking is concerned, Gilles, that is when you take facts out of the context of the big picture in order to give a distorted view of things. On the other hand, highlighting is what you do when you have presented the big picture first and then focus on a fact in context of that picture. One can rarely give the big picture on this subject, in conversations like this. That is due to the enormity of the issues. Yet, you are supposed to know what those issues are in detail if you come to this forum to discuss them. As far as your statement that earthquakes killed more people in the past few years that is both irrelevant and it also qualifies as cherry picking. You are concentrating on a natural event that is sporadic in a given time period versus human distorted 'natural' events which are increasing on a year by year level. Besides, you have not responded to the issue of Arctic Ice cap shrink and its effects in the near future. However that is definitely off topic and should be dealt with elsewhere. So I will briefly steer this wayward thread back into its original course. Compare the Pliocene's arid ecology in North America and please tell me; do you want a bumper crop of corn in Kansas or would you prefer a bumper crop of cactus? Expect that to happen with our business as usual policy within the lifetimes of our grandchildren.
88298. Alec Cowan at 08:42 AM on 17 April 2011
       The e-mail 'scandal' travesty in misquoting Trenberth on
       @Ken #127 [Thanks DB for letting me know] Do your own calculation on an incremental basis for that 0.9w/m². This is a reality check for common people, not the substitution of lines of research. You'll get some value along 0.25 to 0.3°C -what is like telling that a grown human is 1 to 2 meters high, bad for being a witness in a trial but good information for an Andromedan-. You can do another reality check by supposing that those, say, 0.3°C will be obtained once and only the 0-100m layer in the oceans has warmed 0.3°C. Suppose a linear process, forget the ice melting, the lands, the atmosphere and 97% of all the ocean, and even suppose that such imbalance will only disappear once the temperature has raise 0.3°C. How many years do you need? 0.03-0.3-3-30-300-3000? Repeat the calculation considering all the oceans. How many years do you need. Start to sensitize the calculation, including continents warming quicker than oceans, more clouds modifying albedo and a lot "details" that are still major contributors to the real situation. What do you obtain? About the programs you need to be payed to download and use for free, here I'm showing some images I got from there (low taste colouring is courtesy of the programming team): My home is 'about' the letter A. One of the problems I proposed is taking those three images for the same month and making a rough estimate of the variation in heat content from one year to the next considering the profile to be the constant from 38 to 42° of latitude (there are more than 2 x 10¹⁶ tons of water in that slice). Try yourself and you will be surprised by the results. [The problem of moving downwards the temperature profile goes along with this problem and both have a lot to do with the 'travesty', a legitimate concern expressed by Trenberth and many many more]
88299. RW1 at 08:40 AM on 17 April 2011
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       Sphaerica (RE: 9) " It takes +16.6 W/m^2 at the surface for a 3 temperature rise. Where are you taking this from?" From the Stefan-Boltzman law. At a temperature of 288K, the surface emits about 390 W/m^2. At a temperature of 291K (+3C), the surface emits 406.6 W/m^2 (+16.6 W/m^2). "Again, where are you getting this math from? Do you have a source, or is it your own inference? [In simple energy balance terms, it takes about 390 W/m^2 at the surface to allow 239 W/m^2 to leave the system...] No. This is a gross oversimplification of the problem, and will lead to errors. It is also flat out incorrect. Notice that the energy entering the system from outside is only 184 W/m2, and only 161 W/m2 of that is absorbed." The total energy entering the surface is 239 W/m^2. Trenberth has 161 W/m^2 coming in directly from the Sun. The remaining 78 W/m^2 from the Sun he designates as absorbed by the atmosphere and brings it to the surface as 'back radiation'. Only it's not really 'back radiation' but 'forward radiation' that last originated from the Sun (as opposed to 'back radiation' as being energy that last originated from the surface). So, 239 W/m^2 incident on the surface becomes 396 W/m^2 from 157 W/m^2 of 'back radiation' from the atmosphere (239 + 157 = 396).
88300. David Horton at 08:19 AM on 17 April 2011
       Muller Misinformation #3: Al Gore and polar bears
       The obvious question for Muller is "How could a melting, thinning, reducing Arctic Ice Cap NOT have a deleterious effect on Polar Bear populations?"

Prev  1758  1759  1760  1761  1762  1763  1764  1765  1766  1767  1768  1769  1770  1771  1772  1773  Next