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Bob Lacatena at 00:44 AM on 6 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
111, Gilles,...there is no obvious self-sustained acceleration through positive feedbacks
And who ever said there was? You're creating a strawmen. obvious? self-sustained? acceleration? through positive feedbacks? Why the need to qualify things into such a bizarrely worded and so heavily qualified box? Why does it need to be obvious? Why does it need to be self-sustained (as opposed to caused by, and then contributing to, GHG induced global warming in a global, not regional, feedback loop)? Why does it need to be accelerating (it is, as clearly evidenced by the 30 year trend, but that's not the point)? Why is it only relevant if it is occurring through direct positive feedbacks (as opposed to CO2 alone, or through indirect feedbacks, that contribute to the overall rise in global temperature)? If you want to say "there is no obvious self-sustained acceleration through positive feedbacks" go right ahead. But taken individually: Summer Arctic ice extent is obviously decreasing. The trend is accelerating. The cause is CO2 induced global warming. One effect is an increased positive feedback due to decreased albedo over a large area of ocean during a time of year when insolation in that region is very high. So while your carefully constructed and obfuscating statement may be arguable, the component facts are not. When considered intelligently, rather than in a confused and confusing jumble of misrepresentations, the situation is nothing short of alarming. -
Tom Curtis at 00:32 AM on 6 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Ken Lambert @103, thank you. I did in fact make an error in my spreadsheet, and thanks to your prompting I have corrected it. The correct values are: Additional energy absorbed due to melted sea ice in the Northern Summer: 6.2*10^21 Joules Tonnes of Ice melted if all that energy was used to melt ice: 1.8 * 10^13 tonnes Area of 3 meters thick ice melted if all the energy was used to melt ice: 6.7 x 10^6 km^2 Percentage of surviving ice cap melted if it was all applied to melt ice: 90% I believe these figures are more than sufficiently large enough to rebut any "its to small an effect to matter" style arguments. I have been through the figures again, and I do not think I have made any further errors. Indeed, I am making conservative assumptions in ignoring additional energy captured in the spring and autumn; and by neglecting the large portion of the ice that lies below 74 degrees latitude and which therefore would have a higher insolation (which would more than counterbalance the ice melt above that latitude). I have also treated the additional melt back over the 30 years as being 2 degrees latitude, whereas from the chart it is closer to 3. So, all in all, I am out by a factor of approx 2. I have searched through the only paper of Trenberth's published in August 2009 that I know of. It does not contain, that I can find, any figure for additional energy absorbed due to ice melt. Nor, indeed, would such a figure be relevant to the paper, so far as I can tell. It does mention that, annually, approximately 1*10^13 Joules of energy is consumed melting ice. That means the additional energy gained through melting of sea ice compared to the ice extents 30 years ago is approx 600 million times more than is needed to drive additional melting of ice that occurs each year (on average). So, until you can produce an exact quote from Trenberth, including a citation that quotes the title of the paper, I am going to conclude that the "discreprancy" is simply a consequence of your mistaking different figures as representing the same estimate. Specifically, I will assume that you have mistaken an estimate of total additional energy absorbed (what I calculated) for the net additional amount of energy absorbed, ie, the total additional amount absorbed minus the total additional increase in outgoing energy. Finally, as a reality check, according to Trenberth and Fasullo, "Changes in the flow of energy through the Earth's climate systems", 3.85 * 10^24 Joules flows through the Earth's system each year. The additional net energy absorbed due to water vapour and ice albedo feebacks is 3*10^22 joules. The net energy absorbed each year amounts to 1.5*10^22 joules. (Figures from the introduction to the article. Figures originally give as Petawatts, but converted to Joules by multiplying by (60*60*24*365.25). These figures are very hard to reconcile with your claims about Trenberth's results. -
Alexandre at 00:19 AM on 6 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
Nearly an all-republican list... -
Gilles at 00:13 AM on 6 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
105, 108 : again I wasn't arguing that the decrease has stopped. I was arguing that I couldn't see any evidence for a significative positive feedback. I know there are natural variability, weather, atmospheric patterns, call them like you want. I just say there is no obvious self-sustained acceleration through positive feedbacks. -
Gilles at 00:09 AM on 6 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
#101Since the "pronounced minimum" in 2007 the extents in 2008, 2009, and 2010 were all higher... yet multi-year ice and total ice volume continued to decline." well that's not what i'm seeing here
the 2007 minimum is logically followed by a minimum in 1-year old ice the year after, and by a minimum of 2-years old ice two years after ...there is no sign of non-linear feedback increasing the slope after these minima.
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JMurphy at 23:49 PM on 5 April 2011It's cooling
We seem to have a new so-called skeptic argument : "Don't trust any of those elitist scientists and their modern, new-fangled, hoity-toity instruments and measurements - nature knows the truth and we will trust them to reveal their secret knowledge to those who we want to believe can understand what they are trying to say to us. Until anyone can actually speak to nature and interpret it, we can never be disproved and can believe what our internet gurus and blog scientists tell us !" -
otter17 at 23:45 PM on 5 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
Wow, John Christy looks to be the first place contrarian at the hearings, most quotes featured on Skeptical Science. If I were a climate scientist who worked on the IPCC or the hockey stick, I would be steaming mad at all the sweeping accusations of misconduct and bias in a US congressional hearing. Why can't these folks directly address the scientists that they disagree with or show evidence of an error via a peer reviewed paper? This type of mudslinging isn't done to identify errors in other scientific disciplines, right? In my field of engineering, the peer review process for some IEEE societies gets a bit heated, but I have never heard of anybody being anything but civil. -
JMurphy at 23:33 PM on 5 April 201110 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
RickyPockett, you would do well to read the following, which answer all the beliefs you seem to hold - starting with the main link from the article you are posting in (which you seem not to have read) : State of the Climate Newcomers Start Here The Big Picture Evidence for global warming Is there a Scientific Consensus on Global Warming ? Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature CO2 – An Insignificant Trace Gas? The economic impacts of carbon pricing -
Bob Lacatena at 23:27 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
104, Ken,Is it more or less than the Arctic?
This is the crux of your problem. The question is not whether the energy absorbed is large relative to anything other than what has always happened in the past thousands of years. The point is not whether it is large compared to the tropics, or the south pole, or to a light bulb. The point is that it's happening when it has never happened before... and it is going to happen every year! Every year the earth is going to absorb that much more energy that it never absorbed before, and which should be reflected back into space. And contrary to your efforts to treat the amount as inconsequential, it is not. Your argument is equivalent to claiming that the earth will never get as hot as the surface of the sun, so therefore global warming is negligible and not a problem. -
adelady at 23:23 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Gilles, I really hadn't grasped the source of your confusions on this. Just as warming does not mean that each succesive year must be warmer than all previous years, so declining ice does not mean that every year must be a new record minimaum. In fact, the ice is showing something we don't see in the global temperature. If you look back at that 'tale of the tape' graph above, you'll notice that several years and for decades before that the year to year variation in anomalies was quite small. However, the last 5 years show much greater year to year variation in anomalies. I suspect this reflects the much steeper decline in multi-year ice - which has tended to maintain the ice around it. Now that it's nearly gone, the year by year ice freeze and melt is showing much more variation. -
Bob Lacatena at 23:21 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
93, Gilles,How would I explain that ice is currently growing again despite the relatively low maximum?
If you watch the animation, you can see the ice "growing" at an alarming rate, on the order of hundreds of miles in days. I don't believe it's remotely possible that ice in the open ocean is freezing that fast. So what else could be happening? The ice further north is melting, breaking up, and drifting south. So the increase in ice extent (i.e. the area of ocean over which floating ice is detected) is expanding because of the ice melting further north, and drifting south. Ice extent at this time of year is virtually meaningless because of this effect. From the original post above:Sea ice extent in February and March tends to be quite variable, because ice near the edge is thin and often quite dispersed. The thin ice is highly sensitive to weather, moving or melting quickly in response to changing winds and temperatures, and it often oscillates near the maximum extent for several days or weeks, as it has done this year. Source: NSIDC report March 23, 2011
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Bob Lacatena at 23:14 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
104, Ken,Of course it does, because no matter what anyone says, you conflate and distort and throw out reems of words, and declare yourself correct. This works for you, because you are in denial. But it convinces no one. -
Dikran Marsupial at 22:31 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Giles@93 How would I explain that ice is currently growing again despite the relatively low maximum? Easy, it is called "weather", and small peaks and troughs in sea ice extent are evident in the plots for every year. How do you explain that the extent has stabilized after the 2007 minimum? Again, weather. "This is not supposed to happen in case of a positive feedback, things should only worsen!" Incorrect, positive feedbak only biases sea ice extent downwards, if it was strong enough that the extent was forced to decrease monotonically the ice cap would have been too unstable to exist in the first place. The comment about stabilisation after 2007 suggests a lack of appreciation of the statistical issues. You only need to look at the data to see that the annual variability in sea ice extent is rather larger than the trend, so any "stabilisation" is likely to be statistically insignificant. In statistics there is also a thing called "regression to the mean", which implies that if you get a record high or low in some quantity, it is inlikely there will be another record low/high soon after (because record lows are caused by a conjunction of influences all acting together and such coincidences are generally rare). Your post is making the same mistake as "no global warming since 1998", i.e. drawing conclusions from a period too short to get statistical significance and cherry picking a start date that happens to be a record extremum. -
CBDunkerson at 22:28 PM on 5 April 2011Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
Ann, to extend your conceit even further there are two other 'possible' alternatives... either live with the disease while treating the symptoms (i.e. allow global warming to happen and attempt to mitigate the impacts) or hope that a theoretical new cure may eventually become viable (i.e. geo-engineering). That said, mitigation would cost vastly more/be vastly less effective than prevention and any geo-engineering effort would be going in blind with a radical and untested new field of science that might well do more harm than good. Also, h pierce... remove the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity and we could continue all other current fossil fuel uses (including automobiles) without raising atmospheric CO2 levels any further. Of course, we'd then run out of gasoline in short order... so we might as well convert the cars over too. Which leaves us lots of coal, petroleum, and natural gas for all the other things (such as those you note) that they are critical for... which we would no longer be able to do if we burned them all up for energy generation. Ergo, it seems fairly clear that even without global warming we have reached the point where we >must< convert away from using fossil fuels for nearly all forms of energy generation. -
johnd at 22:13 PM on 5 April 201110 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
RickyPockett at 15:47 PM, I think the effects of deforestation is something that is yet to be fully understood and thus has not been properly quantified and accounted for in the global climate system. Deforestation is not of recent advent, but began in earnest with the large scale building of wooden boats. Obviously this began the rapid reduction of timbered areas in coastal areas and along waterways. Knowledge that has been accumulated shows that the difference between forested and non-forested land on how far precipitation penetrates inland can be many thousands of kilometres, with the forested areas acting as a "pump" driving moisture inland that otherwise would quickly runoff back into the oceans, but this idea has only really began to be seriously considered over the past 5 years. This effect on the water recycling system plays into the atmospheric circulation, affecting wind circulation and cloud distribution patterns and thus the areas of differential heating. -
Ken Lambert at 22:12 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Sphaerica #90 "I stopped responding because you're in clear denial and therefore not open minded in any way, so there is no point to continuing this. Briefly, the simple answer to your geometry question is that we're not talking only about the exact spot of the north pole, but rather the entire area affected by ice. I did err in the 66˚ -- the angle of incidence in the area in question is probably between 30˚ and 38˚, but that still gives open water an albedo that is substantially more than "negligible", so your argument is still moot." I am not in enough denial to get my numbers wrong though, am I Sphaerica?? The angle of incidence is not a probability - it is a geometric fact determined by the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the orbital plane about the sun. As the Arctic circle rotates once every 24 hours in the northern summer - half of the surface bounded by it will see the sun at an incidence angle of between 23.4 degrees and 0 degrees for 12 hours (night), and half will see it at between 23.4 and 46.8 degrees for 12 hours (day). The average angle will be that at the pole - 23.4 degrees. The open water albedo will be that for an incidence angle of 23.4 degrees - which is a lot higher than at 66 degrees (the equator) which is as low as 2% over calm water. My point remains - this all applies to the Arctic - 4.4% of the Earth's surface at an incidence angle of 23.4 degrees in the middle of summer with a combination of ice/snow and open water albedo. You should tell me what is the heat absorbing capacity of 4.4% of the Earth's surface area in the mid-Atlantic at the Tropic of Cancer over the northern summer with no ice and open water albedo at much higher incidence angles. Is it more or less than the Arctic? If it absorbs more heat (probably a lot more heat) - why are we all so excited by the Arctic instead of a 4.4% patch of the Earth in the mid-Atlantic? -
Ann at 22:00 PM on 5 April 2011Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
@28 pierce Say you have a serious illness and the doctor says there are 2 medicins available: one makes your hair fall out, temporarily causes stomac pains and is incredibly expensive. The other medicin is cheap and has no side effects – only it doesn’t work, it has no effect on your disease. What good does it do to discuss “second level arguments” in this case ? If you have 2 alternatives that actually work, you can look at further advantages/disadvantages of the 2 options, and decide for the best option. If there is only one real solution, you go for that solution, and accept all the disadvantages connected to it. The arguments you give are second level arguments. We can start discussing them from the moment you present an alternative approach that actually works. Climate change mitigation is going to be painful (although this strongly depends on the policies our governments will implement, and on the resourcefulness of our science and technology), but it is the only medicin around. -
Ken Lambert at 21:38 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
"Tom Curtis #86 at 00:41 AM on 5 April, 2011 Just to put Ken Lambert's line of argument into perspective, the additional 0.01% of the Earth's surface that is exposed ocean rather than ice in the Arctic due to warming over the last 30 years absorbs an additional 1.34 * 10^22 Joules of energy each summer. That in turn is enough to melt 4 * 10^13 tonnes of ice, or 14 million square kilometers of sea ice with an average depth of 3 meters. That is nearly three times the extent of sea ice at the minimum in 2007, and more than two times the extent at the minimum of 2011. Tom Curtis - your Arctic heat absorption numbers are wrong by two orders of magnitude. ie. 149 times. Dr Trenberth's (Aug09 paper)estimate of Sea ice loss for the period 2004-08 is 0.9E20 Joules/year. Your number of 1.34E22 Joules/summer is equal to 134E20 Joules/summer. Presumably there is no heat absorbed in winter so your summer number equals per year. So we compare Dr Trenberth's 0.9 with your 134. Your figure is 149 times Dr Trenberth's. The heat energy gained by the *whole planet* is (again Dr Trenberth's figure of) 145E20 Joules/year which equates to 0.9W/sq.m of warming imbalance at TOA. I quoted an Arctic sea ice figure of 1.0E20 Joules/year being 1/145th of the total global energy imbalance in an earlier post. This was from Table 1 of Dr Trenberth's Aug09 paper "Tracking Earth's global energy". The 0.9 number was rounded to 1.0 for the table. I suggest you familiarize yourself with it, and adjust your numbers downward by two orders of magnitude. -
CBDunkerson at 21:19 PM on 5 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
chriscanaris, given that Judith Curry is working on the 'BEST' project with Muller, and has a similar history of making provably false statements herself, I'm not sanguine about her 'nuanced' response. That said; Curry, Muller, Spencer, and a few others fall into a category of scientists who have staked out an ideologically contrary position and displayed clear bias in defending it. Yes, they are a step above true denialists like Singer in that when faced with overwhelming proof that they are incorrect they still have enough integrity to say so... but the fact remains that they're spreading outright misinformation. The two Muller statements quoted in the article above are clearly / provably false... and that makes him part of the problem. Until he starts checking 'skeptic' talking points, with the same rigor that has gone into the BEST study, before repeating them he is prostituting his scientific credentials in favor of a political agenda. Muller and Curry are finding out the truth behind the old adage, 'you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas'. -
Peter Hogarth at 21:19 PM on 5 April 2011Soot and global warming
Chris S at 18:51 PM on 4 April, 2011 The Lamarque 2010 paper linked in "here" (comment 21 above) describes a new global historical (back to 1850) gridded anthropogenic and biomass burning aerosol emissions dataset (Bond is co-author) and Bond 2011 also offers a more updated geographical breakdown, including the significant contribution from Europe (see section 4.5 on the Arctic). This paper also contains a wealth of other information and references. -
les at 21:03 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
101 CBDunkerson "No one could be that absurd." Although I find that much of what you write has great insight and respects empirical results; this last remark clearly contradicts the evidence. -
CBDunkerson at 21:03 PM on 5 April 201110 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
RickyPocket: "I still doubt the cause as to whether 'Global Warming' is the result of; Solar influences." As this 'possibility' is overwhelmingly disproven by evidence supplied in the, It's the Sun, argument response at the very top of the 'skeptic' arguments list it is clear that you have not bothered to read up on the science or this site at all. Thus I would hope that the moderators remove your copy/pasted manifesto (and this reply) as pure spam. It contains nothing more than a laundry list of the usual provably false 'skeptic' claims already addressed on this site. -
CBDunkerson at 20:55 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Gilles: "And finally I'd like to stress that the decrease of multi-years old ice is just the logical consequence of a pronounced minimum some years ago - it proves nothing more. If the minimum stabilizes, the multi year ice should also stabilize or recover." Since the "pronounced minimum" in 2007 the extents in 2008, 2009, and 2010 were all higher... yet multi-year ice and total ice volume continued to decline. Your postulate is thus disproven by already observed reality. Indeed, everything you have said in your last several comments on this thread is so terribly ridiculous as to make it difficult to credit that you could actually believe it. You are seriously arguing for Arctic sea ice recovery on the basis of a one week anomaly? No one could be that absurd. -
Gilles at 20:00 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
adelady, I know there is a trend + variability. I'm saying that there is no clear indication of positive feedbacks since large excursions below the trend are not followed by an exponential decrease, going and faster and faster, but are generally followed by a return to the trend. The trend itself is measured only with the accurate satellite measurements, which weren't available before - so as I said it is very difficult to give a precise estimate of the natural noise. Unless you know perfectly the amplitude of spontaneous variability at this particular frequency (30 yrs)-1 , you can't say if it is significative or not. Just a remark : the decrease has accelerated at the very time when global temperatures seemed to stabilize , or at least did not accelerate. So it's not obvious at all that both are correlated. Another remark is that there is much less variation in extent around mid-May - so actually the variations of minimal extent are due to the last weeks just before the minimum - it is not obvious at all that this is linked with any "memory" of previous years. And finally I'd like to stress that the decrease of multi-years old ice is just the logical consequence of a pronounced minimum some years ago - it proves nothing more. If the minimum stabilizes, the multi year ice should also stabilize or recover. -
h pierce at 19:29 PM on 5 April 2011Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
Marcus at 13 Boats, planes, freight trucks and trains, heavy machinery used in agriculture, construction, forestry and minning, emergency and military vehicles, cars and light trucks with spirit and muscle (i.e., V-8's) personal rec vehicles (e.g., ATV's) and so forth will always use hydrocarbons fuels because these fuels have high energy density. The fossil fuel industry will be unaffected by any so-called climate change mitigation. They will pass any costs to the consummer. BTW tell me how to smelt economically iron ore without the use of coke. Or mine diamonds and gold without the use of mega gobs of diesel. -
adelady at 18:57 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Gilles@96 Go back to the OP and have a look at "the tale of the tape" (just below the Kara Sea pic). It really is necessary to go to CT so you can look at the full width display. And at http://img215.imageshack.us/f/ctarcticareato150111.png/ here's a graph I asked a friend to prepare based on 'tale of the tape' to clarify the apparent trend in the anomaly graph as presented. As for the apparent uptick during the last week! That's just like weather, heatwaves, rainfall, whatever in a particular location. You're clearly not an ice-watcher, otherwise you'd know that there's a lot of excitement from time to time about possibilities of double or triple apparent minima/ maxima. (if anyone wants to properly link that imageshack thing, go ahead. My clumsy and clueless approach led to me invoking the three strikes - out! rule.) -
h pierce at 18:44 PM on 5 April 2011Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
Probably due to shipping costs. Qz is far away from cities where books are printed. -
Gilles at 18:18 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
"Back on topic: I'll go with Tamino with a predicted minimum sea ice extent approximately equal to that in 2008." I'll predict that you will be approximately right. -
Gilles at 18:16 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
#95 But it takes unmitigated gall to interpret "x is a positive feedback" as "x is a positive feedback and is the only influence on events" the only meaningful question is that if this positive feedback has a significative impact on the curve, or not. If yes : where do you see it ? -
Gilles at 18:11 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
I am just talking of the last week increase, that appears just at the end of the curve of sea ice area. There is no clear sign of feedbacks amplifying the variation, in my sense. Now concerning the interpretation of the decrease, I'd like to point out something important : it is generally impossible to interpret a variation over a period T if you don't have many similar periods of comparable lengths to compare with. A curve such the above graph for september extent looks very like the curve of the temperature during an afternoon or during the six last months of one year. However nobody would worry about them, because we know that these variations are "normal" in the sense that they belong to a periodic pattern , that we can easily detect on a many years basis. But without a much larger period of observations, it is impossible to know if this periodicity exists (or at least the amplitude of random fluctuations around the average ) . So the above graph can only be interpreted if you have an idea of the natural variance of the signal BEFORE the measurement, so that you can express the variation as a signal to noise ratio. So : what is the natural noise of this curve before the beginning of measurements, at this time scale ? so we have accurate measurements of it ? -
Gilles at 18:00 PM on 5 April 2011CO2 limits will make little difference
the whole post is just mixing up three different notions * reduction of energy intensity * reduction of annual rate of global emissions * reduction of total emission integrated over the century. so in the example of Nash equilibrium, one should first careful define which of the previous "reduction" it addresses. In my opinion, the constant failure of international discussions about "reduction" is simply due to the fact that this is never well defined. -
Tom Curtis at 17:58 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Gilles @93, it takes a very creative imagination to see this graph as "stabilization":
It takes an even more creative imagination to see the slight uptick in sea ice extent over the last week as being the start of a recovering trend, rather than just a minor fluctuation like the seven similar upticks that preceded it.
But it takes unmitigated gall to interpret "x is a positive feedback" as "x is a positive feedback and is the only influence on events" so that you can conclude that "the effects of x should result in a monotonic trend". Especially when the positive feedback is dependent on the strength of insolation, which is currently about a third of the summer peak.
The question you should really ask yourself is how stupid to you think climate scientists are? Do you really think they would make a prediction of a monotonic trend when any glance at a graph shows the trend to not be monotonic? They are clearly not that stupid, so your attempt to interpret their views as though that was the prediction is either shere folly, or unmitigated mendaciousness.
Back on topic: I'll go with Tamino with a predicted minimum sea ice extent approximately equal to that in 2008.
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adelady at 17:16 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Gilles, This is the up to date graph on CT of sea ice *area*. Take a very good, close look at the last 4 months. Then look at the 2 years as a whole. Not once does the line representing the last 2 years so much as touch the 79-08 baseline. The current anomaly is over 900000sqkm below the baseline. If you see growth there, won't you tell me how. -
shoyemore at 16:52 PM on 5 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
Richard Muller must be surprised to find that the deniers are treating him ... well, like a climate scientist. I thought Judith Curry had a aggrieved "Et tu, Anthony?" air about her blog. One can only wonder how Muller got himself into the position of taking denialism seriously. Andy Revkin has another take here: Revkin on Congressional Hearings -
Gilles at 16:25 PM on 5 April 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
if there is a clear feedback from insolation, how do you explain that ice is currently growing again despite the relatively low maximum? and how do you explain that the extent has stabilized after the 2007 minimum? this is not supposed to happen in case of a positive feedback, things should only worsen ! -
RickyPockett at 15:47 PM on 5 April 201110 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
Its interesting how the debate is running around in circles do to climate change AKA Global warming. Here is an artical I wrote yesterday about the situation 'Carbon Tax' and the hole in the Universe Introduction Firstly I wish to state my ground on 'Global Warming' so as to avoid being labelled as 'another sceptic' who only serves my own self interests. I still doubt the cause as to whether 'Global Warming' is the result of; Solar influences. Natural climatic fluctuations. Human's influence on the environment. That being said, I feel that regardless of the cause, we, as a global population can not risk "sitting on our hands" and doing nothing on the premise that we may or may not be to blame for the recent rises in global temperatures. If we are not to blame, changing our wasteful attitudes & practises will not (in my opinion) be a negative step (beyond the obvious economic ramifications) and can only take us toward a more sustainable future for generations to come. If we are to blame, acting now will hopefully reverse some of the damage that we have already done and ultimately, give future generations a planet that can be habitable for many millennia to come. Human influence on the environment Since the industrialisation of modern society, humans have taken full advantage of the planets natural resources and have utilised them to our advantage. Whether it be for food, economic, technological or social gains, we have grown lax in our appreciation of the limited bounty our planet has to offer. We have only to look at Easter Island in the south-east Pacific to see the consequences (in this particular case - deforestation) of plundering limited natural resources until they are gone completely. With so many different influences that humans have had on the planet, we should be asking two questions, "What -of the many- influences caused by man has led us to a point where we are affecting the climate of our planet?" and "What can we do/change in our activities/lives that will reverse the damage already done?". As both questions are interwoven to each other it should be as simple as finding what major influences humans have made to our planet in the last 200 years. Did I say "simple"? It appears that is far from the truth as the scientific community is still debating as to whether humans are responsible - let alone the cause - for our planets change in climatic conditions. As I have stated above, this paper is not going into the debate as to whether humans are, or are not responsible for 'climate change'. I am assuming that "we are" for the reasons given in the introduction. So I will re-word the question. "What has mankind changed on the face of this planet more than anything else"? Surprisingly enough, there is a simple answer to what would seem like a question that could have many credible responses. We have removed roughly two-thirds of our planets forests and replaced them with either farms, residences or industry. In some cases all three can be found within a few kilometres from each other. In some countries, we have as little as one-twentieth of the original rain-forests left. According to forecasts, we may be only have 10% of our natural forests left by the year 2030C.E. So what has this got to do with the proposed 'Carbon tax' that the Australian government is proposing to liberate our troubled climatic woes? Everything and nothing! Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen rather dramatically in the last 50 years. To quote some statistics, Carbon Dioxide has increased from roughly 300ppm (parts per million) to 390ppm. As I'm sure that any of you who do click on that link, will immediately notice that Carbon Dioxide is still a trace element. It is about as likely to influence climatic warming as turning on an air-conditioner in summer. So, is our current issue of global warming caused by over consumption of power and an industrialised society bent on consuming fossil fuels? Unfortunately, I fear the answer is no. It is more likely that deforestation is the real culprit in this debate. As much as I would like to think that we are taking a step in the right direction and that 'Carbon tax' will ultimately benefit our planet & all of its inhabitants. There seems little proof that imposing a tax for the purposes of reducing emissions will do anything but put more money in to government coffers. What can we do to reduce/eliminate the threat to our environment caused by "Global Warming"? The short answer does not exist. Much of the deforestation on our planet is caused by a need to create farms to feed the masses. The long answer involves careful legislation and western countries investing in our third-world brothers. It is pointless telling an Afghani farmer that he/she should reduce half his crop by planting trees that will produce no income whatsoever. It just isn't going to happen! However if we were able to educate that same Afghani farmer into producing crops that offer a more productive yield and can ultimately, introduce practises that help maintain the soil quality, such as planting trees in key parts of their fields. We may be able to begin a change that sees humankind turn the tide on deforestation and ultimately, combat "Global Warming". In conclusion Whether or not man is to blame for the change in our climatic conditions that are causing "Global Warming", I strongly urge that regardless of cause, it would be a folly to do nothing. Though to implement a 'Carbon tax' would be just as great a folly as it serves only political interests. It does absolutely nothing but segregate the population into "those for" versus "those against" and gives those who truly wish to make our planet a better place, a false sense of security. Opposing a 'Carbon tax' is not turning your back on our once pristine planet as many proponents for the tax would have us believe. I think that it does the opposite, it questions the motives of our politicians and brings forward the need for real solutions that won't just band-aid the problem but defeat it at its source. Remember that we are gambling our only habitat. To make the wrong move and focus our energies in the wrong direction could easily wipe out humankind altogether. We need to fix the problem and not just slap a tax on it and think that industry will find a solution for it. So the next time you are asked whether you support a 'Carbon tax'. Be confident that you can point out that the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has changed by less than 0.01%, but our planets forests are already less than 33% of what they were 200 years ago and that by 2030C.E. it is projected that there will only be 10% of them left. Do not blindly oppose 'Carbon tax' as you will only get labelled as someone who doesn't care for the environment or our children's future. Instead start the conversation on how we can increase the worlds forests, you may be surprised at your ability to turn a negative situation into a situation where we can all offer our thoughts on potential solutions to the 'Global Warming' crisis. I am sure that there are many strategies that can be used to re-populate the forests of our planet but, I fear I am ill equipped to suggest what would be considered sound legislation in regard to re-forestation. The Original document can be found at http://rickypockett.blogspot.com/ -
Tom Curtis at 12:36 PM on 5 April 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJRyan @932: First, anybody who has read anything that I have written knows I am not given to knee jerk responses from my writing style alone, even if they do not understand the content. The fact that you are so completely wrong does not make a post which points that out a knee jerk response. Perhaps it is time you reconsidered your arrogance which believes, on this topic, that you alone have the truth, and the world's physicists from Arrhenius on have been barking up the wrong tree. A little humility is the first step to wisdom, so it is about time you learnt some. Second, my equations (1xx) are not equivalent to yours. That is because the Earth absorbs most of its energy in as visible light, but emits most of it as IR light. I would of course be delighted for you to prove me wrong. Don't just cite Kirchoff. Apply his proof to the actual situation on Earth and prove that his results have the consequences you claim. To do so remember that you must use all of the following sinks and sources: i) The Sun; ii) The Earth's surface; iii) The Earth's atmosphere; and iv) Space. For greater realism, you must also include clouds. For greater realism still you must split the atmosphere into about 30 odd layers, treating each as a separate sink/source, and treating clouds in each layer distinctly; but we won't expect that from you (though it is what we expect, and more, from climate scientists). I note that nobody understands a law of physics unless they can use the proof of the law to set up an appropriate model to model any situation in which it applies. So if you cannot make the argument called for above, it is because you do not know what you are talking about when you cite Kirchoff. Of course, if you do set up an argument as called for above, you will find that either your model contains obvious, and obviously relevant disanalogies with real life; or that it simply confirms the theories of the physicists. I am also not interested in any other argument from you because, quite frankly, I am tired of your bullshit and obfustication. For your help in setting up the model, the SW absorptivity of the surface is, on average 0.875, although if you exclude clouds for simplicity, you may want to treat it as 0.7. Third, you certainly did quote mine Professor Jin-Yi Yu's lecture slides. The thing about lecture slides is that they are never self explanatory. They are designed to be accompanied by a lecture which explains the slides, and without that lecture you are always missing crucial information, including, in this case, the definition of the symbols. lecture notes are much better, but not ideal because they are often too compressed. Text books are best of all, but rather hard to directly link to. However, despite the deficiency of lecture slides, even the slides you quote contain enough information to prove you wrong. Specifically on the slide titled "Greenhouse Effect"(about page 15), we have the following two formulas: a) Ta = Te = 255K b) Ts = (2^0.25)*Ta = 303 K Clearly the effective temperature (Te) does not equal the surface temperature (Ts) as you require for your version of equation 3 to be correct. Note that your comment about black body surfaces is irrelevant. The effective temperature is the temperature of a theoretical black body the would radiate the same power as is actually radiated from the the top of the atmosphere. It does not imply that the TOA has that temperature, or that all the OLR at the TOA is radiated from a surface at that point. It is no wonder you are so confused if you do not even understand basic terms of the science. Fourth, nothing else in your post is worth responding to IMO. This is because of your tantrum. I am not going to dignify your "shouted" comments and those bracketed by them with anymore response than to note that it is irrational to treat a tantrum thrower as both a tantrum thrower and a rational disputant at the same time. If you want to debate, be polite. -
muoncounter at 12:02 PM on 5 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
Paul Krugman's 4 April column is also relevant here. -
muoncounter at 11:58 AM on 5 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
Nicely done! Links to the page ought to go everywhere, especially to Reps like Ed Markey (former chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, before the November putsch) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (independent firebrand from Vermont). -
chris1204 at 11:52 AM on 5 April 2011Climate myths at the U.S. House Hearing on climate change
Interestingly, Judith Curry just now happened to give a much more nuanced dissection of Richard Muller's position and evidence at these hearings. Dividing the world into "true believers" and "deniers" is fraught with limitations, impedes communication, and ultimately risks generating coherent responses to the challenges of climate change. -
citizenschallenge at 10:57 AM on 5 April 2011Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
I just noticed my tip of the hat to Scruffy Dan, is missing from the above. http://mind.ofdan.ca/?p=1157 -
citizenschallenge at 10:37 AM on 5 April 2011Christy Crock #1: 1970s Cooling
For a more detailed look at the Global Cooling myth check out this detailed study. http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf THE MYTH OF THE 1970S GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley, and John Fleck’s "A review of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979 shows the myth to be false. The myth’s basis lies in a selective misreading of the texts both by some members of the media at the time and by some observers today. In fact, emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then." "But perhaps more important than demonstrating that the global cooling myth is wrong, this review shows the remarkable way in which the individual threads of climate science of the time, each group of researchers pursuing their own set of questions, was quickly woven into the integrated tapestry that created the basis for climate science as we know it today." 2. RECOGNITION OF A PROBLEM: THE POTENTIAL FOR WARMING. 3. THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE RECORDS: A COOLING TREND? 4. ICE AGE UNDERSTANDING 5. CARBON DIOXIDE 6. AEROSOLS 7. MEDIA COVERAGE 8. SURVEY OF THE PEER-REVIEWED LITERATURE "The survey identified only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations." "Interestingly, only two of the articles would, according to the current state of climate science, be considered wrong in the sense of getting the wrong sign of the response to the forcing they considered. They are one cooling paper (Bryson and Dittberner, 1976) and one warming paper (Idso and Brazel, 1977) and both were immediately challenged (Woronko 1977, Herman et al. 1978)." "As climate science and the models progressed over time, the findings of the rest of the articles were refined and improved, sometimes significantly, but not reversed. " -
calyptorhynchus at 09:16 AM on 5 April 2011Upcoming book: Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook
Just a side note, another demonstration of why many Australians buy their books from overseas instead of locally. Why should a book cost $10 more in Australia than anywhere else in the world? -
SEAN O at 09:03 AM on 5 April 2011There is no consensus
I like the way Carl Sagan summed it up: "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -
Riccardo at 08:49 AM on 5 April 2011There is no consensus
e doh! Thank you. I think I'm going to use it often ;) -
JMurphy at 08:19 AM on 5 April 2011There is no consensus
That's a good one, e. And, having read your link, I was distracted by another link there : the Chewbacca Defense. I think we have seen that over on the 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory thread, including the related Chewbacca Dilemma, as shown by those trying to explain the facts to those who don't seem to be able to understand them ! -
There is no consensus
Riccardo, There's actually a name for this tactic, it's called the Galileo gambit. -
Rob Honeycutt at 07:53 AM on 5 April 2011There is no consensus
Neo... Your post begs the question, where are you trying to keep informed on climate change issues? -
Riccardo at 07:35 AM on 5 April 2011There is no consensus
Actually Galileo is more cited than known. I'd invite to study history a bit more in depth before making any analogy. Should we consider this as a modified version of the famous Godwin's law? -
JMurphy at 07:27 AM on 5 April 2011There is no consensus
Neo Anderson wrote : "As a person who tries to keep informed about the Climate Change issue..." Unfortunately, everything you typed after those words shows that you have failed in keeping yourself informed, except in as much as you seem to have 'informed' yourself via the medium of websites of denial, misinformation and disinformation. However, it is never too late to start, so try these links : Newcomers Start Here The Big Picture List of Skeptic Arguments
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