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

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Comments 8901 to 8950:

  1. SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth

    Phillip Chantreau

    Please consider this thought experiment:

    The only easily observed gravitational effect of the Moon is the regular ebb and flow of the ocean tides. If the commonly held belief that the Moon acts directly on the water itself, why don't we observe the water vapour of the clouds being influenced by the Moon?

  2. SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth

    Alan , the regular readers of this website often encounter "unorthodox" ideas (to put it politely).

    The readers must then decide whether such ideas come under the category of Troll or Crackpot (of course, those categories are not mutually exclusive).

    You are now suggesting that [peace, O Archimedes!] the atmospheric H2O is treated very differently from the non-H2O portion of the atmosphere, regarding its susceptibility to the gravitic connection with the Moon.  And I dare not ask about the Solar tides  ;-)

  3. It's a 1500 year cycle

    Philippe Chantreau 

    Thank you for the link. The last two lines of the paper, as you've quoted, are the most relevant to my thought experiment.

    Rahmstorf didn't consider combining the 'problem with gravity' with the 'problem of fitting a lunar cause'. There's some wonderful YouTube explanations of The Problem With Gravity. If the fundamentals of how we think gravity works is wrong, then it's possible to assign the Moon as the cause of the 1,470 year cycle. 

  4. Philippe Chantreau at 15:36 PM on 9 November 2019
    It's a 1500 year cycle

    The DOI link above doesn't seem to work. Paper is accessible here:

    https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003GL017115

  5. Philippe Chantreau at 11:36 AM on 9 November 2019
    SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth

     

    Alan Lowey at 10,your post suggests that the combined gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun could pull the lithosphere but not the ocean on top of it. That makes no sense. There is plenty of info here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide 

    No mention whatsoever of the lithosphere pushing the oceans anywhere.

    The lithospere does move but that is not what makes the oceans move, they both move due to the same causes.

  6. Philippe Chantreau at 11:29 AM on 9 November 2019
    It's a 1500 year cycle

    The "obvious choice of a lunar origin" is discussed by Rahmstorf himself in the paper that you mentioned without referencing it, and apparently did not read because it does not support your hypothesis at all. From the conclusion section:

    "The closest cycle known so far is a lunar cycle of 1,800 years [De Rop, 1971], which cannot be reconciled with the 1,470‐year pacing found in the Greenland data. The origin of this regular pacing thus remains a mystery."

    Copied from: Rahmstorf (2003). Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock. Geophysical research Letters, 30 (10).

    https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL017115|

    The Rahmstorf (2003) paper and others that I linked earlier explore why the weak forcing associated with this cycle fails to produce D.O. events in the Holocene. The climate effects are entirely owed to ocean circulation, especially salinity changes. There is other litterature suggesting that the cycle is still present but has not produced any noticeable climate effect since the last DO event. I am not impressed with how much you have explored the subject. This stuff is not hard to find.

  7. It's a 1500 year cycle

    Your term "sloganeering" and deleting of my posts, not just ruling them through, is against the very foundations of science-based intellectualism, namely, natural philosophy.

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] Moderation complaints deleted.

  8. It's a 1500 year cycle

    Stefan Rahmstorf, the originator of the 1,470 year cycle, noticed that the data was like 'clockwork', indicating an orbital origin. The obvious choice of a lunar origin was derided by his contemporaries, although none of them had the foresight to envisage new physics to fit the data.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You are certainly welcome to your own opinions, but this venue is science-based and to be taken seriously here you will need to up your game and start providing citations to the peer-reviewed published evidence that you feel supports your contentions.  Otherwise it will be assumed that you are simply making things up, AKA, sloganeering.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit off-topic posts or make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
     
    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

    Sloganeering snipped.

  9. Modelling the permafrost carbon feedback

    It's too bad this important work has not gotten any more commentary. I am using the MacDougall et al work as a starting point to estimate atmospheric CO2 and temperatures for public presentations and for my climate science students.

    The new CMIP6 models are have half their models above ECS=5C, and the work of Friedrich et al  2016 also shows interglacials have ECS=4.9C. And, a nice review paper by von der Heydt in 2016 also shows convincingly that researchers see that ECS is higher in hotter background climates. This all spells a very bad situation of ECS=5C should be our base case and 3C a tail-on-the-optimistic side now. With 2.3% of permafrost carbon emerging as methane and a ~doubling of GWP that results, then the CO2e that then ends up on the MacDougall plots go up to 800 ppm by 2300, and more if the new radiative forcings calculated for methane (better short wavelength calcs) are to be accepted. This all suggests that even if we shut off all human emissions in 2050, we still cook ourselves at over 8C, sooner rather than later in the next two centuries. An 8C world is not survivable except for a minority of today's population, and most of today's other species too. GeoEngineering on a massive scale seems absolutely required, regardless of the moral hazard. Is there something more hopeful that I'm missing??

  10. Philippe Chantreau at 08:24 AM on 9 November 2019
    It's a 1500 year cycle

    A.L "1,470 year lunar induced climate cycle."The chief hypotheses on D.O. events and Bond events involve long term ocean currents and deep mixing events, or fresh water injections, not the moon. Whereas I found a wealth of papers involving oceanic processes, I could not find one mentioning a lunar component.

    https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3437.1

    https://authors.library.caltech.edu/16947/1/Eisenman2009p6441Paleoceanography.pdf

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379117310351

     

     

  11. SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth

    Alao Liwry

    Are you suggesting that the floor of the ocean flexes several feet every day?  How come no one else has noticed this movement?  Please provide a citation for this astonishung claim.

  12. SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth

    I can't stand sloppy unscientific sentences such as "The sun and moon pull on the oceans" as described in the beginning of this topic. They do NOT! It's their gravitational interaction across the entire body of Mother Earth which changes the shape of the planet. It's this bulge which flexes the lithosphere. The bulge of the ocean floor pushes the ocean from beneath to create our daily tides. The person who wrote the intro doesn't understand the very basic nature of how our tides work.

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You are certainly welcome to your own opinions, but this venue is science-based and to be taken seriously here you will need to up your game and start providing citations to the peer-reviewed published evidence that you feel supports your contentions.  Otherwise it will be assumed that you are simply making things up, AKA, sloganeering.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit off-topic posts or make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
     
    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

  13. It's a 1500 year cycle

    I see on the SkS team that Klaus Flemlose of Denmark has a keen interest in storm surges, sea level and the tides. I'd love to hear his probability on my assertation that the tidal bulge of the Earth is increasing at a faster rate in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere. It could be relatively easily tested using satellite technology imo.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You are off-topic for the subject of this post.  Many threads here deal with SLR (use the Search function to find one more appropriate).

  14. It's a 1500 year cycle

    Alan Lowey @31 ,

    With all due respect Alan, your views on the science of climate are seriously out of touch with the mainstream science of the past 200 years.

    The 1000+ year cyclic lunar control of climate; your intuitive & mind-bogglingly vast over-assessment of the relatively minuscule energies involved in tidal sloshing of oceans; your darkly mysterious allusions to "gravity and New Physics" . . . all point to a major problem you have, which you seem unaware of.

    Please educate yourself on the mainstream science.  Please consider the possibility that the thousands of expert scientists (working over many decades) may know something that you do not know.

    However, if you feel that Urania, the Muse of astronomy and science, has uniquely gifted you with new scientific revelations . . . then you are welcome to present the evidence [repeat: evidence ] in the appropriate threads here at SkS.  Probably not this thread.

    Possibly you have failed to notice it ~ but there have been several "contrarian" scientific challenges to mainstream climate science, and published in mainstream journals, too . . . but each and every such challenge has eventually fallen flat on its face, because it clashed with the evidence.

    <"Perhaps you need a new thread for people like me?">   Well, in a manner of speaking, there is such a new section, but it was found necessary to host it on its own separate website.  You will find it under the title: WattsUpWithThat.   WUWT is keen to publicize any and all ideas which run counter to the established evidence-based science, despite those ideas clashing with each other.  The disadvantage of it, is that you will find yourself rubbing shoulders with a mutually-argumentative bunch of commenters, half of whom are in complete denial of basic physics (especially the physics of CO2 and other "greenhouse" gasses) . . . and most of the other half suffer from anger issues & extremist political views (as well).  Still, you might find yourself enjoying such a website, if you don't mind its Bizarro tendencies.

  15. It's a 1500 year cycle

    The second paragraph at the top of this topic should be amended because it is a false statement. I'm a strong believer in the AGW climate emergency but also believe in the 1,470 year lunar induced climate cycle but via new physics. This view IS scientific in principle. I studied Simulation Modelling at MSc level at Brunel.

    The third paragraph is dismissive of the significance of hemisperical heat distribution. The extremes of rapid climate change recorded in ice age data should be of deep concern to modern day climate change. The see-saw effect doesn't have a well defined mechanism in standard climate modeling. A new physics lunar model can explain this with increasing tidal energy being greater in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern. I have a background in Astronomy and obtained my BSc degree from the University attended by Sir Patrick Moore.

    Perhaps you need a new section for people like me?

  16. Ynyslas, western Wales – a place made by climate change

    I worked at the Ynyslas Visitor Centre in the last few weeks of the season in 2018 after someone handed in their notice - I was parachuted in at the sharp end of managing a shop, visitors, accounts and so on, but we were let out every day to patrol the site. That was great.  It wasn't a bad office at all!

  17. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    That the climate changed naturally before the impacts of humans became the dominant forcing of climate is uncontentious.

    That the impacts of human activities are now the dominant forcing of climate is equally uncontentious, from a scientific basis.

    Scientists have evaluated all natural forcings and factors capable of driving the Earth's climate to change, including the slow, long-term changes in the Earth’s movement around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles or orbital forcings), and it is only when the anthropogenic forcing is included that the observed and ongoing warming since 1750 can be explained.

    Natural vs Anthropogenic Climate Forcings, per the NCA4, Volume 2, in 2018:

    Forcings

    Scientists have also quantified the warming caused by human activities since preindustrial times and compared that to natural temperature forcings.

    Changes in the sun's output falling on the Earth from 1750-2011 are about 0.05 Watts/meter squared.

    By comparison, human activities from 1750-2011 warm the Earth by about 2.83 Watts/meter squared (AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, section 8.3.2, p. 676).

    What this means is that the warming driven by the GHGs coming from the human burning of fossil fuels since 1750 is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.

    Forcings

    In the early 20th century human activities caused about one-third of the observed warming and most of the rest was due to low volcanic activity. Since about 1950 it's all humans and their activities.

    https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0555.1
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.522

    Further, the detection of the human fingerprint in the observed tropospheric warming caused by the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases like CO2 has reached 6-sigma levels of accuracy.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0424-x

    There have been many, many scientific studies over the past 175 years examining the properties of greenhouse gases, the radiative physics of carbon dioxide and the role it plays in the Earth’s atmosphere. One of the most comprehensive, recent and openly-accessible is the US 4th National Climate Assessment (Volume 1, released in 2017 and Volume 2, released in 2018). You can download the whole thing or by chapter:

    https://science2017.globalchange.gov/
    https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/

    https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
    https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/downloads/

    FAQ’s:
    https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/appendix-5/#section-1

    In short, human activities (primarily via the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed the globe, which in turn are impacting the Earth’s climate.

  18. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    "If an average intelligence person can't get a straight factual answer from the smart people, why should I change my mind?"

    It is much easier to give a straight answer if we have a straight question, not one that is loaded with misunderstanding and misconceptions.

    Denying that world is warming in face of the obvious evidence is extremely odd, but people do it, requiring incredibly convolted leaps of reasoning.

    However, the attribution of global warming to particular cause is a complex process and require somewhat more study because climate and radiative physics are not exactly high school level topics.

  19. Philippe Chantreau at 09:12 AM on 8 November 2019
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    mzimbal7, what "massive cold air mass" are you refering to?

    The Arctic fall started quite a while ago and had time to produce cold air, which can then travel to a variety of places. How cold that air is compared to seasonal averages is another story.

    The Danish Meteorological institute has sea surface temperatures, with animations:

    http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.uk.php

    They also have mean temperatures north of 80 degrees lattitude, with archives:

    http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

    The anomaly (departure from mean) is available here:

    http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n_anomaly.uk.php

    They also have a lot of information on Greenland.

     

    NSIDC also keeps records on a variety of data on the Arctic.

    NOAA has a lot of data readily available, updates, analyses, etc, here is an example:

    https://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2018/ArtMID/7878/ArticleID/783/Surface-Air-Temperature

     

  20. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    You might like to go to the thread here, read the article and tell us (on that thread) which statements you disagree with and why, preferrably references papers or data to back you position.

  21. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    I didnt assume - I pointed out that studies show that politics is the best predictor. It may not apply to you.

    "Most of your info says the Arctic caps have melted." Point me to one place on this site where it says the arctic cap has melted. I believe that this is a strawman argument. No reasonable discussion can be had if you choose to misrepresent what is stated. The arctic caps are definitely melting. At lowest, they dropped to around 4m km2 this year, but temperatures are above freezing in high arctic for only about 50-60 days of year. The influx of warm sea water and ice transport are major factors in continuing ice lose.

    Temperatures in high arctic are now more than 20C below zero so hardly surprizing it is cold. For information on what it is like in arctic in terms of temperature, seaice etc. I highly recommend the charts on https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/. For why you might be getting more polar air excursions to where you live, try https://skepticalscience.com/jetstream-guide.html

  22. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    I would assume that if GW was so obvious and true - a simple common sense answer would be given. If an average intelligence person can't get a straight factual answer from the smart people, why should I change my mind? Just because someone says, "hey some experts say so, just believe them doesn't work for me" What if a president said "If you like your doctor you can keep him" - Why would I automatically trust him. Smart, powerful people can lie too. Proof is in the pudding. BTW - I'm a Libertarian. Nuetral minded. That is why I want facts, not experts opinions that contradict facts, common sense, and laws of nature.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Again, politics are off-topic and contrary to this site's Comments Policy.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

  23. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    Why would you assume politics are forming my opinion?  My is formed by common sense and the laws of science.  You talk relatives term "colder in the Arctic than here in U.S.".  I know what temp water freezes at.  Most of your info says the Arctic caps have melted.  So I would at least assume the air mass would be 32 degrees or higher.  Should actually be much higher if its so far above normal up there over this past summer and fall.  I won't do what most GW do, that is to just take it by faith.  Most GW people take it by faith "by what some scientist say".  The facts and common sense don't line up in their favor, so they must do this.  I think an assumption you make is correct.  Most Liberal minded people automatically accept the view of GW.  Fits the agenda of the left.  Again, please explain Thermodynamics and how something at least 32 degrees can cause a massive Cold Air mass to set up, expecially so early in the season.  The exact opposite shouls occur logically.  HOT doesn't produce COLD.    

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Please refrain from making political statements, per this site's Comments Policy.

  24. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    Being very "warm" in the Arctic, means it is much warmer than the long term average. In some cases, annual average is 3-4C above normal. (If that doesnt sound much, that is like the temperature difference between New York and Memphis). However, while -6C is definitely warmer than -9C, it is still freaking cold. Anything coming out of the Arctic is much colder than air below it. Perhaps it would be better if you told us what informs your opinion that "there is no man made Global Warming"?

    Studies show that political beliefs are best predictor of peoples attitudes on climate change which is mind-boggling if you think about it. Facts dont matter? However, from experience here, if accepting the science around climate change is offensive to your political and tribal values, then no facts or studies are going to change your mind. If you want to embrace critical thinking instead motivated reasoning, think what information/developments would cause you to change your mind. Please dont insist on something that science says is impossible (like temperature rising uniformly with CO2 concentration). It seems that for most people however, opinions are formed by "my tribe doesnt go for that" followed by uncritically swallowing misinformation to helps them justify that claim. Fortunately, science doesnt work like that.

  25. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    Did all that.  Hopefully someone can give a simple factual response.  I know if I turn on my stove burner and let it run for 10 minutes on high, then turn it off, and tell you to put your hand on it immediately and tell you its cold 2 seconds after.  You won't do it.  See, laws of scince apply.  Thermodynamics.  

     

  26. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    I am just a average intelligence guy but am a voter and being such I would like to know why I should change my view that "there is no man made Global Warming".  I need facts and process on how its possible - not "we said so" or need need to "believe by faith".  I think if something is warming - like the seas and land it makes things around them warmer - NOT MUCH COLDER.  Explain to me how 2 extemely cold Polar Vortexes, back to back can set up so early in the season.  Since they are coming out of the Arctic region, and Ive been tol how hot it is up there this summer and fall, how can it drop down cold air into the U.S.  I was excited when I heard we were getting these dropping down as I thought we would warm up from all that warm air up there.  How can something hot make it REALLY COLD?  

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Welcome to Skeptical Science.  As a first step, read the Newcomers, Start Here page.  Then read The Big Picture page.  Then, if you still have questions, use the Search function in the Upper Left portion of each page to find the most appropriate thread (read the thread first to ensure your questions are not already answered in it or in the comments section underneath).  Thousands of threads exist here.

  27. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!

  28. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    The 'contact form' link didn't work for me to inform Skeptical Science of an important research article in Nov4th edition of Nature Astronomy which states that the Universe is now considered to be a hypersphere as opposed to being flat. This is very relevant to climate science because new physics could prevail from this important new finding. New physics equals new theories on gravity which is extremely relevant to human scale tidal effects. 

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] If you feel that such an article merits the consideration of others here then the onus is on you to provide a link citation and a synopsis of why you feel it's relevant to the conversation and worthy of the time of others here.

  29. It's a 1500 year cycle

    Thank you for the response Eclectic.

    I don't agree with your statement "Tidal energy (lithosphere and oceans) dissipated into heat..", I'm talking about the energy required to move an ocean of water is greater than the energy of the sun's irradiance. Simple kinetic energy that moves an entire ocean is orders of magnitude greater than the sun's heat we receive. Surely?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Part of what makes this site a treasure for most is the reliance upon using credible evidence to support one's claims.  For credibility, you will have to do that.  Citations to the primary literature work best, either via direct link to the URL or by providing the DOI of the published research and the name of the source article you feel supports your contentions.

  30. Kuidaskassikaeb at 01:44 AM on 8 November 2019
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44, 2019

    I try to talk about global warming with people, but I tend to scream and throw things.  I don't think I change very many minds.

     

    One problem is that mainstream media doesn't cover it, and the deniers are full of shallow false information.

  31. It's a 1500 year cycle

    Alan Lowey @28 ,

    the sun's energy absorbed by the Earth is approx 1.1x10^17 watts (based on TSI times 71% absorption times Earth-cross-sectional area).

    Tidal energy (lithosphere and oceans) dissipated into heat, is calculated (Na & Lee, 2014 ) as approx 3.5x10^12 watts.  So roughly the same as world total electrical generated power.  And roughly a third of the heat generated by the radioactivity of the Earth's core.  And roughly 1/30,000 th  of the solar radiational heat absorbed by the earth's surface.

    The core heat rising to the surface is so tiny (for climate calculations) that it is usually ignored.  And the ocean tide heating effect is even smaller than the core heat loss.

    I do not understand how you can say: "tides dissipating heat ... is much greater than solar radiance combined with AGW."  You seem to have gotten that back to front.  Or were you meaning a comparison with that fraction of extra heating produced through the greenhouse action of human-caused CO2/methane/etcetera?  Yet even there, your "tidal" heat is at least a couple of orders of magnitude too small.

  32. It's the sun

    As a person concerned about the climatic issue I am trying to understand all the arguments, however this graphic baffles me. Going to the physical foundations of the graph, the temperature is an indicator of the accumulated heat, while solar irradiation is a flow, and by therefore, a contribution of heat. So I don't see any point in looking for a correlation between the two variables (it would be like comparing speed with position). I think that the correlation between temperature variation and irradiation would be more interesting, and that is when these variables not only do not move in opposite directions but do so in parallel.

  33. It's a 1500 year cycle

    I'm NOT a climate change denier NOR an AGW denier but wish to express the logical conclusion that BOTH the 1470-year cycle AND man-made greenhouse gas emissions could be the drivers of modern era warming. I take Prof Brian Cox's point of view : The Issue With Climate Change, South China Morning Post, 23rd May 2019. He talks about the framework of science being our best understanding of how the world works. The quantitative amount of energy from gravity via the coriolis effect and via the Moon's gravitational interaction across the entire planet's body giving rise to the enormous power of ocean tides dissipating heat from the equator to the higher latitudes, is much greater than solar radiance combined with AGW. Why are these two driving forces of our climate not quantively compared? Why is gravity missing from the Global Warming Debate? 

    I'd be surprised if there's a single scientist in the IPCC that actually knows the ocean tides move due to the flexing of the Earth's lithosphere. The oceans move due to being pushed from the ocean floor. Nobody is measuring the mid-ocean to see whether deep ocean tidal mixing is making it cooler, for example. 

     

    People like Prof Brian Cox should also inform the public that gravity itself is under scrutiny within the physics community and that it's possible for new physics to have a major bearing on future climate modeling.

  34. It's the sun

    socialfox - estimates of climate sensitivity seek to answer what would the change of temperature for a given effective increase in radiation at TOA. Changes in GHG concentration, albedo are back-calculated to an effective change in TOA radiation. ie. As if the incoming solar radiation was changing. The direct contribution to radiative flux from a change in GHG is a known quantity (~4W/m2 for a doubling, which falls out the Radiative Transfer Equations and has been empirically verified in various ways). It is not something deduced from the temperature response, but resultant feedbacks (water vapour, albedo, cloud cover) that contribute to actual change in temperature are not well known and hence the wide range of estimates for climate sensitivity. Climate sensitivity is estimated from a variety of methods including paleoclimate and models.

    Note that models do not assume a climate sensitivity - it is an emergent property from the model so I dont see the circularity.

  35. It's the sun

    Hi! As mathematician I can't help but wonder about one thing. In advanced section, you compute the possible range of solar contribution to global warming. To do that you use previously computed values for temperature increase for doubling CO_2 (through senstitivity etc). Basically, to compute solar contribution you use computed CO_2 contribution. So the logic goes: if CO_2 contribution is computed correctly, than solar contribution right now is not big enough to explain the current global warming. What I see here is circular logic.

    I would imagine, you want your argument to go something like this: suppose CO_2 contribution is low, then solar contribution is low (in particular, it may not fit the data we have for before 1950s).

    Please correct me if I understood what is going on wrong.

  36. In 1982, Exxon accurately predicted global warming

    Grant777 - as soon as students are equipped to do so, then they should be looking the primary source (peer-reviewed scientific papers), not what article or editorials skew for political purposes. Applies to most science reporting on media (ie much of it is junk). If you do not have the scientific background to follow the science, then students (and politicians) should be guided by the scientitic consensus, especially when it is strong. The consensus is not always right but it is the only rational basis for decision making.  A scientific concensus will only altered by peer-reviewed scientific papers that present a better model, not by political hacks fighting for a tribally-based position, nor misinformation from vested groups.  Climate science is fortunate to have an expert panel (IPCC) presenting reviews of the published science every view years. There is an entire chapter on evaluation of models which makes better reading than uninformed comment or delibrate misinformation.

  37. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44, 2019

    Per Williimam, so in a way the various interests behind Trump's putting his thumb on the scale are choosing to die off like dinosaurs, stubbornly sticking with a doomed ecosystem? 

    The trouble is we have so little time available. I suppose the retro-energy industry understands this. Any delay means they have a little more space to monetize in an increasing frenzy while the going is still good. To a paranoid mind this would help to explain active attempts to degrade efficiency standards; maximize consumption while it's still possible. 

    We can probably count on the race backward ending up crashing prices on fossil fuels as producers act in their own interest in a panic even as demand levels off or slumps, meaning that for investors not wedded to combustion there may be better places to put money. 

  38. CO2 was higher in the past

    I want to subsequently deliver a source that confirms what i said with: "Snow will not accumulate ice sheets on the sea"  and therefore is crucial to my theory:

    fuBerlinContinentaldrift

    To not falsify anything with my own translation, i google translated this middle part:

    "Ice ages seem to occur only when there is a larger land mass at least at one geographic pole. Snow has to lie on the continents and not fall into the water, so that a snowpack can form in relatively high latitudes and ice can form over time. Once this is the case, positive ice-albedo feedback occurs due to the high positive albedo values of snow and ice, and further cooling occurs."

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  As land-based ice sheets grow (due to snowfall gains in their expanded accumulation zones), sea levels fall.  Land-based ice flows towards the continental edges and extends out over the ocean in the form of ice shelves.  Where sea ice forms next to the ice shelves, snow accumulates, both on the ice sheets, the ice shelves and on sea ice.  This point of argumentation is not germane to the topic of this post.  Please stay on-topic.

    Note that a website by itself is not considered part of the primary literature, especially if it does not belong to a primary producer of research information, such as NOAA, NASA or the like.

  39. A brief guide to the impacts of climate change on food production

    There are a number of climate change food problems that are understated in the above.  The first is that all plants and domestic animals have an optimal air temperature range and conditions warmer or colder where they don't thrive, struggle, or die.  Chickens for example don't lay eggs if it is too hot and cattle need more water.  Common food plants typically prefer temperatures in the 60s, 70s, sometimes 80s F and typically don't grow, struggle or die much above 90F.  Nitrogen in plants and in soil experiences additional problems above 95F with pollen failing in the 90's and most proteins and plant hormones in the low 100s.  Few food plants do anything above 105.  By my count, 61% of 38 common supermarket veggies stop growing above 75F and 44% of 54 less common ones. 83% stop growing below 90F, 60%of less common ones below 90F. 60% of common grains do also as do 50% of 6 vegetable oil plants.  So the problem isn't just that  a farmer's fruit or vegetable mix must change as things warm.  It is also that nothing much grows when it gets too hot.

  40. In 1982, Exxon accurately predicted global warming

    MsGteacher,

    I believe it's important for students to see how both sides of politics to skew data in their favorable conclusions. I love how you want them to think in a socratic oriented way. "Reading between the lines" is an important characteristic to develop at their age. It's easy assume in modern times that our civilization has all the answers. This new generation is exposed to many characteristics of instant gratifications - technology that provides instant feedback at a touch of a figure, etc... Its easy for young minds to see a problem and instantly want solutions to said problem. But what if we don't have all the answers? It is evident from previous climate models that durastic overestimates of environmental destruction took place, but getting them to think critically to why that was the case, would be a great take away. Why were the predictions in "The Inconvienant Truth" so far off from what we see approaching year 2020?

    The basic knowledge of a high school student can easily look into the science of the molecule CO2, the positive feedback loops within the carbon cycle, and so on to result in a cynical veiw of Anthropogenic influences of Global Warming; although there are many things left out of standard text books. In pyschology, its learned that people in general feed on a negative situation 2x greater than a positive one. So thinking into the individuals studying climate change - an extremely complex system, one could see how derived parameters within a climate model might favor positive feedback loop characteristics over unknown or unpredictable negative feedback loops that would counterreact human influences over time. 

    Why were previous climate models overestimated? Precisely from human induced illogical assumptions in future outlook. What parameters did they miss to make them so durastically wrong?

    Possibly increases to carbon sinks?  https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth

    Creating an environment more favorable to organisms like Diatom? https://sciencing.com/diatom-ecosystem-5157.html

    Also, solutions to "aid" our influences on our climate should be socratically reviewed. It'd be a good exercise with your students to do the same study I did for a college presentation on whether EV's are as eco-friendly as their advertisements want you to believe. You can go to Tesla or other Ev's sites and find their car's Voltage/mile ratings, while taking your state's annual energy CO2 emissions / voltage produced from EIA.gov and compare it with some of the best hybrid model ICE cars. You'll find for states like West Virginia, driving a Tesla or any EV for that matter produces more CO2 than even a car getting 30 mpg. And that CO2 is all being released in one area at the power plant - easily escapable to the atmosphere instead of while driving an internal combustion engine in nature etc where CO2 sinks could readily soak it in. Also I discovered these inaccuracies without taking into account the amount of power lost in resistors over time when transferring electricity a great distance.

    It makes it evident to me that people like jumping to a solution without vetting it properly. Really, it comes down to using peoples' fear in a topic like AGW for government subsities in one's new business venture. Its a good eye opener to the world. I hope this might help.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  Off-topic and sloganeering snipped.  "Models are unreliable" is best discussed on this thread.  A discussion of the merits and flaws surrounding "Inconvenient Truth" is best done here.

  41. CO2 was higher in the past

    @MA Rodger

    (1a) "To present a value for CO2 forcing without providing evidential support is not axiomatic,
    either in the sense of it being self-evident or (probably in the sense you intend) unquestioningly-evident.
    The evidence can be presented should you so wish and, uncontroversially beyond-question, it is correct.

    You yourself present @92 an unsupported evaluation of CO2 forcing, providing a maximum value which appears novel and controversial in the extreme.
    You fail to present any evidential support which in the circumstance is turning this discussion into a pantomime.
    Perhaps you could correct the untenable postion you create for yourself by providing that missing evidence."

    (1a) The evidence that i imagine you would provide, will all result in the question: What is missing? This is manifested in the fact that you will get no exact value for CO2 sensitivity, despite known elemental spectral laws regarding infrared absorption. In other words: We are still estimating with 1,5°C - 4,5°C per doubling (?).

    The theory that CO2 reaches a "saturation" already, is just the most likely aproach to me. However the forcings of HHE/LPC could be even that strong
    that they shrink down all other factors making them neglectable, not "needing" any other explanation to temperature.

    The major evidence i can deliver here is the fact that the so called saturation for each GHG is one of the known unkwons and that there are countless debates
    on this issue, underlining how unsolved this whole matter is.

     

    "(1b) Your confused statements regarding HHE/LPC appear to contrdict the geographical situation as commonly understood,
    in that the "Land mass" Gondwawa sits static over the "Polar Circle" throughtout this period.
    You need to consider how it is your LPC appears then disappears within this period when the contition you say causes LPC remains unchanging?"

    (1b)  I see no contradiction, in my former post i gave you the 2 links with the continental distribution, matching my theory.(Ordovizium, Silur)

    I see what you are getting at though wih Schwanck slide 11: The pictures with the "paleo glacial reconstruction". They use a static continental distribution here. It is more likely that the continents were merging towards the hirnation. In a larger perspective the continents definetly move  towards the pole, documented by the ordovician with the silurian as a whole. The ice needs to build up and the Boda event interrupted the glaciation process by reducing ice albedo.

     

    "(2) Your cut-&-paste from the Schwark & Bauersachs slides appears particularly inept as support for your assertion "in fact it doubts CO2 as a driver."
    If you, for instance, examine Slide 11 you will see your assertion is fundamentally contradicted."

    What is contradicted here? Slide 11 shows the Boda event and its CO2 emissions, the CO2 does not matter to me, regarding temperature, the factors that matter are albedo reducing ashes and dust.

    If you are refering to this sentence on page 11: "atmospheric emission of large amounts of CO2 and subsequent climate warming, and.."

    Then i can only tell you that Schwarck et.al are using the neglectable CO2 sensitivity axiomata here. The reason why the Katian doubts ´CO2 as a driver´ is because it marks, with all other epoches preceeding the LPC event, the time where CO2 fails to work as assumed. Where should it show its significant forcing if not here?

     

    "(3) Here you really do dip into uncomprehensibility. Do note that the Schwark & Bauersachs slides do not ever say CO2
    dropped to present atmospheric levels 400-odd million years ago.
    The statement you misread from Slide 23 says purely that CO2 varied "between 8-16 x PAL and near PAL."
    The value 1500ppm can be taken from their Slide 11."

    (3) Well, it does not matter to me, if you want it can be 1500ppm, i would not consider that close to PAL though. PAL would just makes sense to me since the ordovician

    is compareable to all other LPC events.

    Near Pal makes sense to me because it would reach common glacial CO2 levels. I have not enough knowledge of solubility.

    Near Pal is enough for me to support the theory when it comes to: All equilibrium events and the transitions inbetween happen in the same fashion, despite varying CO levels.

    "(4) If it is not land at the polar circle that creates your LPC condition; if it is ice-covered land,
    you do then reqire to explain the forcing that allows the growth/shrinkage of that ice.
    And in doing so, your theory now lacking the tectonic element, do consider that you are now describing a climate feedback not a climate forcing."

    The factor that you are missing here is indeed a fundamental one. It is the fact that snow will not accumulate ice sheets on the sea.
    The double proof for this is the arctic sea, with Greenland within the polar circle.

    In fact with your misunderstanding here it makes me wonder if continental drift as a time dependet factor is included in the prognostications and not only be representd by the, in itself correctly implemented, ice albedo.

    In other words:Fundamently excluding a long term factor of warming.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] The topic of this post is the skeptic claim that "CO2 was higher in the past" (which says nothing about why CO2 levels are high today).  It is not about climate sensitivity or CO2 levels being saturated.  Further, you really need to start citing credible sources appearing in the peer-reviewed literature to support your claims.  This is not optional.

    Simply making things up based on your lack of understanding of the topic means that you pre-concede the scientific portion of the discussion and tacitly admit that you are just venturing your opinions on a topic that you demonstrably lack understanding of and that you have not read the threads on the topics on question.

    Off-topic and sloganeering again snipped.  Those wishing to respond to those snipped points, please do so at a more appropriate thread and link back here.

  42. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44, 2019

    It looks reasonably likely that the USA will meet her climate commitments despite trump.  Economics is the kicker.  It appears that it is now less expensive to build and operate a wind turbine or solar panels than to operate existing coal fired power stations.  Add to this that as you build turbine after turbine or install solar panels they immediately go into operation.  No wait until the whole plant is finished.  And many states are going it alone.  Trump is a temporary blip in a process that is inevitable now.  We might just stop the ship before it hits the iceburg. 

  43. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Ritchieb,

    Your description is similar to my understanding of the greenhouse effect.  

  44. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    I am on a steep learning curve about global warming and would appreciate some responses to my question regarding the impact of water vapor.

    There is a view among many analysts that global warming is a top-down phenomenon.  The heat loss to the universe is determined by the spectrum of infrared at the top of the troposphere.  The temperature at Earth's surface is then determined by the convection and radiation heat transfer needed to establish an adiabatic lapse rate.

    This may seem counterintuitive; like the tail wagging the dog.  But it makes sense to me.  The analogy I make is the way power is often controlled in a nuclear electric plant.  Rather than withdrawing control rods to increase power and thereby produce more steam; what actually is done is to demand more steam, which lowers reactor temperature and produces more power.  The tail wags the dog.

    What this top-down perspective does is reduce our view of the importance of water vapor, because there is much less vapor at the top of the troposphere.  This is illustrated by figure 2.5 on page 23 of Houghton. "Global Warming, the complete briefing."  There is also a good diiscussion at BarrettBellamyClimate. com, "Emissions to Space."

    I would appreciate feedback on my interpretation of this phenomenon.  Thanks in advance.  --RichieB

  45. CSLDF: Here’s How Science Has Suffered During the First 1,000 Days of Trump

    William @4, yes many in America are science deniers, but those that want to do science will still do science, so it probably doesn't matter, and everyone benefits even in their science denialism. This is of course a huge double standard. 

    The problem is when the government itself turns into a science denier and stops funding science or vilifies science so much nobody wants it as a career, and this is where the Trump Administration is heading in all its profound idiocy.

  46. Climate Science Denial Explained

    Has the following skeptical blog resourse been added to the misinforming list?
    https://realclimatescience.com/

  47. Ynyslas, western Wales – a place made by climate change

    Had an all-too-brief tour of the forest conducted by John, on an all-round brilliant day concluded by a visit with John's super social circle, in an exceptionally nice pub garden. A great memory. :-) 

    (too much ale and not enough clock made for a interesting double-step march to the train station)

    It's easy to see why somebody would stick like glue to that bit of the world. 

  48. CSLDF: Here’s How Science Has Suffered During the First 1,000 Days of Trump

    It's odd.  America is the leader in many fields of technology and science and yet has a large portion of it's population and a significant proportion of it's politicians who are science deniers.  I wonder how long her pre-eminent position can last under such conditions. 

  49. CO2 lags temperature

    Szponiasty , your comment sounds a bit jumbled.  Perhaps it has been distorted and sabotaged by cosmic conspiracists?  :D

    Try again, but more clearly!!  (And perhaps you are in the wrong thread?)

  50. CO2 lags temperature

    So basically you are admitting, that there is influence on earth by the cosmos after all? "Several factors have affected past climate change, including solar variability, volcanic activity and changes in the composition of the atmosphere." yet you have on the "conspiracy theories" meter on the left most of them proven even by you facts? :D

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You are off-topic.  Cosmic Rays, The SunVolcanoes and Trace Gas, etc all have their own threads here examining what the actual science has to say about each.  The Search function will find hundreds more. 

    Regulars here have many years of experience and education in these topics, so you will need to read every thread and the comments on them before commenting.

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